“Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.”

- Edmund Wilson

Is Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" a know-nothing polemic ... or ahem, an inconvenient truth? I imagine the movie's debut will stir up quite a lot of response from differing viewpoints, or it may just sink beneath a wave of apathy. Either way, our family is going to see it tonight while we can.



The trailer above certainly poses some interesting questions; among them Stein's observation that every area of our society tolerates freedom of speech (even, or especially, if bizarre — such as the theory that life was "sown" by alien visitors) except when it comes to Intelligent Design, and nowhere is this more vigorously persecuted than in academia (I guess I'd at least question Stein's view that free speech is tolerated in academia given the events at the University of St. Thomas in the last year).

Watching this movie should be an interesting counter-point to a show I happened to come across the other day on the History channel: Life After People. The show speculates on what the earth would be like if all humans suddenly disappeared, using CGI technology to illustrate conditions 30 to 10,000 years after "we're gone." The show was interesting, if somewhat snicker-inducing at how seriously it was taking itself. I found myself following along as each millenia rolled by, revealing what a wonderful place this could be. Somewhere around 1,000 to 2,000 years into the "future" I started to wonder if — with all this abundant life — the show would forecast the evolution of another human race.

In fact, the show did, toward the end, ask the question if whether tool-using primates would evolve into humans, capable of not only looking at the starry night sky but also viewing it with wonder and imagination. The conclusion offered, however, was that, though certain primates may become somewhat more advanced, it was extremely unlikely they would become humans. Soooo...I wonder how the producers of the show figure that humans ever showed up in the first place?

Maybe they could have asked Ben Stein....

UPDATE:
Rich Karlgaard posts his thoughts and encourages comments on a similar theme in his blog today.

Both the blogs and the MSM have been featuring Obama's estimation of why just plain folks seem to not be warming to him in Pennsylvania:

"So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

[Image HT to Gino, via The Lumberjack, who really knows how to get his whacks in.]

While the blogs tend to feature the entire quote, the MSM (or the apologists offering commentary in the MSM) tend to focus on the "bitterness" part of the statement while ignoring the rest of Obama's ignorant statement. I say "ignorant" here not in terms of "stupid" but according to the "lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified" meaning of the word. Essentially, Obama's statement is an ill-informed assumption on his part, based on his experience or world-view. I say it's ignorant because I was reminded of a Pew Research Center study that I blogged about back in 2005 after reading about it on Craig Westover's blog. My post read, in part:

The study suggests that the old political party stereotypes of rich and poor, educated and less-educated no longer hold up as the two major parties now have similar demographics in terms of the distribution in these categories. The primary difference is now along the lines of attitude. From the Washington Post article:

The most striking differences between lower-income Republicans and lower-income Democrats come in their perceptions of the power of the individual. Both Pro-Government Conservatives and Disadvantaged Democrats include a substantial number of people who consider themselves to be struggling financially. Overwhelming majorities in both groups say they often cannot make ends meet.

But where they part company is in their overall sense of optimism, with the Republican group expressing much greater faith in personal empowerment. Three-fourths of the Pro-Government Conservatives agreed that people can get ahead by working hard, and four-fifths agreed that everyone has the power to succeed. Just 14 percent of Disadvantaged Democrats agreed with the first statement, and only 44 percent agreed with the second.

Meanwhile, this faith in one's ability to overcome may be rooted in a greater faith:

For all their similarities on income and education, Enterprisers on the right and Liberals on the left diverge on religious habits and cultural attitudes. For example, almost half of Enterprisers attend religious services at least weekly, while just a fifth of Liberals go to religious services that often. A fifth of Liberals are classified in the Pew study as secular - defined as atheists, agnostics or those who say they have no religious affiliation - compared with about one in 20 of the Enterprisers.

So, the way I put this together is that even though they are about the same in terms of income and education, the group with the more positive view of the future is the one that puts its faith in God and in themselves. The group with the most pessimistic outlook puts its faith in the government.

Which group do you figure already knows who its Savior is, and which one is most likely to turn, in their bitterness and hopelessness, to the next one that happens to come along?

Nevertheless, Obama has proven himself to be nothing if not resilient and adaptable. I expect that once he leaves the high-falutin' San Francisco fund-raising circuit and returns to campaign in Pennsylvania his next quote will be, "Git 'er done!"

Back in January Mitch Berg had a post likening the abortion issue to a ribbon in the middle of a tug-of-war rope, with each side trying to move the ribbon (i.e. public opinion) closer to it's position. Mitch thought he was seeing signs that public opinion has pulled more to the right of late. That naturally triggered a comment string that centered around the role of faith in one's view and of legislating belief. Surprisingly, it actually turned out to be one of the most civil debates I've seen on his site, and one I was proud to have participated in.

I've thought about that discussion several times since then, and while the topic at that time was abortion, I've realized that my comments then pretty well encapsulated my thinking on many issues and, unintentionally, provided an explanation for one of the reasons for why I blog, limited as my contribution may be.

I've extracted the main portion of my comment from that day (addressing another commenter, not Mitch) and posted it here to help me remember, on nights like these when I'm really tired, why I keep doing this.

... I merely want to address your view that the abortion issue is an issue of faith. It is a matter of faith, but not necessarily “faith” as in being Catholic, Evangelical or Humanist, but in terms of “belief.” The underlying point I took from Mitch’s post is that what people “believe” about human life appears to be changing, and ultimately what a society believes is reflected in its laws (for good or ill). Inevitably some beliefs are going to be in the minority. Thank goodness the vast majority today believes it’s wrong to hang people from trees, though a few still say it’s okay to threaten to do so, while even fewer would be willing to do it. (At what point prosecution should enter into that example is a topic for another day).

It’s not a process of legislating faith (or belief), but of faith/belief affecting legislation. The fact that some will disagree or be offended by the result is not reason in and of itself to not act on the greater will. Thus the ribbon, as Mitch says, is moved. That does not mean, however, that the minority doesn’t have the right to protest, or to work continually to change the beliefs of the majority, even to the point of risk and sacrifice (since risk and sacrifice are what differentiates belief from emotion). Though I may be in a minority on a number of issues (or because I’m in the minority on a number of issues), I thank God (not goodness) that we live in a society where these beliefs can still be contested.

There was a classic Saturday Night Live sketch where Chevy Chase was interviewing Richard Pryor for a job (transcript here, blurry video here). The last step was for Pryor to take a word association test where he'd say the first word that came to his mind after Chase read a word from a list. The test is innocent enough at first, but soon the words — initially ambiguous — start to take on racial overtones: "black" = "white", "tar baby" = "ofay", "jungle bunny" = "cracker" as each man gets a little angrier and more confrontational. Ultimately Chase drops the "n" word, not even looking at his list, and Pryor responds menacingly with "Dead Honky." This was way back in the 70s when SNL was a startling new phenomenon, pushing the edge of satire and taste. To dare to use the "n" word in a humorous context to satirize the volatility of the race issue and the absurdity of the language was to also push the nuance envelope. The skit confronted the words rather than running from them and drew them out into the light so their bulbous ugliness could be punctured and deflated by the sharp needle. It was ground-breaking, it was liberating, it was as if it were prophesying a new day where we could at last talk.

That glimmer of hope appears long gone. I doubt that skit could run today. In fact, many of the links I originally found to the video now have messages about "video removed for content violation." Whether it was for language or copyright violations I don't know, but it makes me wonder. Yesterday's satire is now reality, as any racially-tinged language provokes instant word association-type reflex responses of reaction unfettered by reason. "Racism" has become such a loaded word that no one can pick it up without getting a hernia. It even occurred to me after I posted the Tom Lehrer video earlier that some might watch that and fail to see the irony and would instead react with, "That's mean" or something worse, missing the satire completely. No emails like that yet, fortunately.

Ultimately, racism can't be changed by talking about it, but by living without it. I know, that sounds impossible, especially since I concur with what Mitch Berg had to say earlier his week:

I’m going to start out with a very broad statement: “Isms” are part of the human condition. All people are conditioned to favor people who are like them, and to suspect people who are different from them, whether tangibly (skin color, language, accent, smell, dress) or subtly (class, education, geography). Many white people get uneasy around many black people, sure, but that’s an easy one. Middle-class white people get uneasy around mullet-headed bikers; New Yorkers sneer down their noses at Arklahoma accents; light-skinned blacks disdain darker blacks (or so said Spike Lee); farmers roll their eyes at people in suits and ties and clipped city accents and manners.

This is true across every culture on this planet.

In many of those cultures, that suspicion is codified in the language. In many languages, the word for “Human” varies, depending on how closely-related or situated the subject is to the speaker; for “humans” whose tribe is closer to that of the speaker, it’s a fairly benign or amiable term; the farther afield the subject, the less-benign and more derogatory the term will get.

To say “everyone’s a racist” is itself simplistic; it would be fairer and more accurate to say “we are all we-ists”; all of us, black or female or suburban or mentally ill or urban or atheist, are more comfortable around people who are like us. And every single one of us practices “profiling”, whether you’re a black couple “profiling” some agressive drunk rednecks, or a Xhosa turning on a Bantu in anger, or Molly Priesmeyer “profiling” white males, or even the stereotypical white middle-class guy sizing up…anyone else.

We separate ourselves in countless ways, not just by skin color. I was just back in my rural hometown the other day, a small community of about 3,000 people, almost all caucasian. I saw a list of the churches serving this small community. There were 13. Among that 13, there were seven varieties of Baptists. We all pretty much use the same Bible, know that we're called to join and knit in the Body of Christ, and yet even in a small community that would appear to have so much in common, we can't help but separate ourselves.

We are all "We-ists" by nature. As a Christian, however, I know that that our basic nature is essentially base and sinful. It is natural to identify with "our" group, to get beyond that we need to begin seeing ourselves as a member of wider and wider groups.

I fellowship regularly with, and minister occasionally to, a group of men overcoming addictions in their lives. The group is roughly 50/50 blacks and whites, and range in age from their 20s to their 60s. Some are from the south, some from the north, some are from the country and some have lived in the city all their lives. There are any number of reasons for individuals in this group to stand apart from other members and perhaps some do. Greater, however, is the overall sense of what we have in common, including our purpose. One of our preachers is a fiery black man who knows first hand what it means to beat up on someone, and to be beat down. If anyone could righteously spout the things that Rev. Jeremiah Wright says, it would be this man, yet he preaches that our enemy isn't some person or some group - our enemy is ourselves.

About 10 years ago part of this group went on a weekend fishing trip. One of the young black men who came along was just out of prison, and he didn't have a very favorable opinion of white folks. Early Saturday morning I went down to help out in the kitchen and found this man working by himself on the bacon and eggs. He was large and imposing, the size of an NFL linebacker. I asked him I could help him by turning the bacon.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "No."

I tried again. "How about I stir up the eggs then?"

"Nope. I got it." We could have been ice-fishing for the chill in that cabin.

"Oooh-kaay," I said, looking around and spying about a dozen loaves of bread on the counter, waiting to be toasted. "I think I'll just hang out over here with all this white bread."

It was very quiet, except for the sound of the bacon sizzling. "I am about to die," I thought to myself.

"HAWW!"

Ever since then we've been buds. My friend still comes often to the Saturday meetings, and I ran into him last week as the meeting was ending. The message had been about discipleship, and about whether you are a follower or an imitator of someone else. I hadn't seen him come in earlier so I gave him a big hug, which he returned. He then turned to introduce me to the man he had brought with him, who turned out to be his brother.

"This is John," he said as I shook the other man's hand. "He's somebody I've been trying to imitate."

I couldn't make out the look in his brother's eyes, because my own eyes suddenly got kind of misty.

Ben's post, Perpetuating Racism By Talking About It reminded me of a Tom Lehrer classic, of how much I love Lehrer's music — and how great it is that we have YouTube.

Lehrer, the predecessor to Mark Russell (though much funnier and not as smarmy as Russell), used to appear on national television in the 60s in a show called "That Was the Week That Was" (scroll down for details about the American version) where he would do a satirical song about something in the news that week. I had an album of his best from TW3 when I was in college that I soon had memorized, but I'd never seen a photo of the reclusive Mr. Lehrer until I saw this YouTube video. As funny as Lehrer was as a songwriter and vocalist, he is incomparable when you can actually see his facial expressions.

Now, ripped once again from the headlines, Tom Lehrer and "National Brotherhood Week" (the screen is black for several seconds at the beginning of the video):

Rich Karlgaard is among those pondering a return of the religious left:

Yet while secular politics are unwelcome in our church, I have noticed subtle shifts of late. The mood of the ministry and congregation is moving left. The music is moving toward a folk-rock sound of the 1960s and 1970s. Youth ministers wear berets and soul patches. The younger ministers don’t identify themselves as “Christians” but as “Jesus followers.” I would guess that most of them are Obama supporters, but I don’t ask.

To my thinking, "Christian" is ideally something that other people should call you because of what they see in you, rather than something you'd necessarily call yourself. "Follower of Christ" doesn't do much for me, since Jesus had a lot of people following him around during his ministry, perhaps just for the food. Personally, I like "Imitator of Christ" myself (more on that later).

America’s religious left seems to be mounting a comeback. I’m happy for this development, even though my own tilt is to the right.

The religious left has a distinguished past in American history. It led the abolition fight in the 19th century. It led the civil rights movement in the 20th century. Organizations like the Red Cross grew out of progressive Christianity.

Yes, and I think the basis of America's welfare program appealed to our country's Christian heritage and the well-meaning desire to do good and to help the poor. That welfare has had the un-Christian effect of destroying families and perpetuating multi-generational poverty also has to be acknowledged — something the religious left is loathe to do. It has also been, at best, ambivalent about abortion, and its infatuation and even outright embrace of communist and socialist totalitarianism from the Soviets to Castro, Ortega on through Chavez, and it's apparent commitment to replacing God with Government throughout U.S. policy is also disturbing. (That's not to say the Religious Right hasn't supported it's share of dictators and made its own alliances of convenience).

The strange disappearance of America’s religious left during the 1970s has been noted but not examined much. My own guess is that drugs, music, sex, New Age religions, body worship, tree worship, earth worship and so forth, siphoned off an entire generation of seekers who had previously found their mystic/activist fulfillment in the left hemisphere of Christianity.

Now one detects that many old hippies, and sons and daughters of hippies, are returning to progressive Christianity.

We’ll see how this plays out politically. If there must be a left, then let's cheer for a religious and not an atheistic left. However, I do think the trend benefits Democrats and is one reason why Democratic primary voter turnout has far excelled Republican voter turnout this year. The mainstream secular media, as usual, has utterly missed this story.

I think I agree with Karlgaard that if there's going to be a left let it be a religious left rather than an atheistic one. My caveat, and especially my prayer (for both the left and the right) is that the focus is on seeking and doing God's will, ideally by trying to be like Christ.

Earlier I mentioned being an "imitator" of Christ. Because we're all human (left and right), it is an easy step to try and move from "imitator" to "impersonator", wherein we try to rule by proclamation as if we, ourselves, were God. That's certainly long been a fear and a warning from the left side of the church aisle regarding the motivations of the right, while the left's own similar tendencies are ignored or attributed to "doing good" or "meaning well."

My belief is that any "theocracy", whether left or right, is fatally flawed by our own human imperfections and tendency to turn moves into movements; movements into monuments; and, ultimately, monuments into mausoleums. By all means, we should pursue faith in our lives and we should hope that our personal beliefs will be reflected in our public behavior individually and through policy. Our responsibilities to the poor (and the poor's responsibilities to God and others); to be stewards of the earth; to deal ethically and compassionately with others are all things that must be done and honored by individuals, not discharged to a collective or government to be taken care of while we blithely go our own selfish way. As I've written here before, if God asks me if I helped the poor (as if He doesn't already know) I don't think He's going to be impressed if I say, "Well, I paid my taxes." Being religiously left or right, highly taxed or not, doesn't lessen our responsibilities to do something on an individual basis, no matter how many marches, protests or church services we go to.

We often hear the phrase, "What would Jesus do?" as a guide to behavior. I suppose that's all right as far as it goes. A better statement might be, "What is Jesus doing?" and then trying to line up with that. If we believe Jesus is still at work around us, and not that He's gone off and left us to our own freedom-eroding devices, we can purpose to look for those things and and align ourselves accordingly. I urge those of the religious left, and my friends on the religious, to put our focus on glorifying God, not our own group or idealogy. If we can do that — though we may disagree from time to time — I think we'll be all right.

Back in the day, and I mean really back in the day when I had an Apple IIe computer and a computer game called Castle Wolfenstein. The game was on a 5" floppy disk and was essentially a puzzle maze where you were a WWII Allied prisoner trying to escape from the lowest dungeons of an old castle turned Nazi fortress. Graphically it was about as crude as it could be, and by crude I mean laughably simplistic by today's standards. It was a one-color, two-dimensional, third-person shooter where the game characters were essentially stick figures whose arms would only extend at 45 and 90 degree angles to shoot at other characters. To "kill" a Nazi guard you had to maneuver around the screen and try to plink him before he got you. If you succeeded, your victim fell over like a tree in the forest. Nevertheless it was hours of fun as you worked your way through various rooms, traps and puzzles while searching crates for keys, ammo, grenades and bullet proof vests.

A few years later I was using a company laptop and one day in a clearance bin I saw an updated version of "Wolfenstein" on a diskette advertising new, 3-D graphics. "Cool," I thought, and plunked down the $5, took the game home and loaded it up, finding myself in a full-color dungeon, armed with a Luger. I worked my way around a corner and a uniformed guard came rushing at me. I raised my gun and fired and — HIS HEAD EXPLODED! Blood, meat and brains went flying and I actually felt a little ill. In this case the graphics were, well, graphic and unbelievably "crude" but not in the same way as the first game. I later learned that the updated game was based on the "Doom" game engine — quite a leap forward from the tin-man stick figures of my old game. I decided it was too intense for me and turned it off, never to go back to it.

Even then, of course, the "new" graphics were still not as realistic as they are now; the game, after all, was on a little 3" diskette, running on a computer with a processor that would embarrass a calculator today. Today's games and game engines are highly advanced, technically, but some are still as base as they can be in their renderings of violence. I've changed, too, of course and I don't mind a little of the ultra-violence in a game as long as it's not too real. I've hacked and slashed my way through orcs, trolls, bug-bears, goblins and fire-breathing demon dogs without flinching (Baldur's Gate II) or sniped German storm-troopers (Brothers In Arms) while still looking forward to lunch, but while these games are well-rendered the "dead" aren't excessively gory and they thoughtfully disappear soon after falling. I've even played these with my youngest daughter, a sweet-natured girl who used to cry if someone fell off a horse in a TV show, but who now snickers if she gets the drop on a mummy and dispatches it with a spinning kick.

Perhaps this isn't the nicest daddy-daughter activity we can engage in, but I know that there are games out there that are much worse and that strive to outdo each other in replicating the most realistic dismemberments. These games typically have "M" for "Mature" ratings. These games do not come into my house. I was thinking of this today when I read the news story that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals had struck down (how violent!) a law banning selling "mature" or "adults only" video games.

Minnesota may not enforce a law restricting the sale or rental of "adults only" or "mature" video games to minors, according to an opinion issued Monday by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel said the court previously has held that violent video games are protected free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. For that reason, the law can only be upheld if it is proven "necessary to serve a compelling state interest and ... is narrowly tailored to achieve that end," the panel ruled.

As I read it I was also thinking about the day a few years ago when I went into the video arcade at Valley Fair and watched an expert player using both pistols on the big-screen "House of the Dead" game to mow down realistic, nearly life-sized zombies and monsters. He was fast and unhesitant. He was accurate and stylish, often using the turn-the-gun-sideways grip so popular in today's action movies. He was about eight years old. I wondered then if maybe something inside a young person doesn't get seared a bit from playing a game as graphic as that (or even an older person for that matter). Could you "play" enough so that the real thing wouldn't seem like that big of a deal?

About 15 years ago I was at a conference where we were all taken out to a dude ranch for the evening's entertainment. One of the things you could do was engage in a quick-draw contest with a friend. In this you each had an authentic style and weight double-action revolver in a leather holster. You actually faced each other from about six feet away and when the cowpoke "referee" gave the signal you'd draw, work the double-action, aim at your opponent and pull the trigger. Sensors determined who fired first, while the referee determined if your gun was pointed in an "effective" manner. My friend Nick and I faced off three times; each time he won. The ref looked at me and shook his head. "Dude," he said (it was a dude ranch, after all), "you're clearing leather and cocking the gun ahead of him every time, but you don't pull the trigger fast enough.

"Really?" I said. "I don't feel like I'm hesitating." We tried three more times, each time I focused on pulling the trigger with grim resolution. Three more times I died. I just couldn't overcome the split-second hesitation, even though I knew the gun was fake and the action wasn't for real. The ref just shook his head. "You're a cold-hearted bastard, Nick," I told my partner. He rather enjoyed that.

Somehow I don't think the little kid I saw playing the game at Valley Fair would hesitate. This is a good thing, perhaps, if you're under zombie attack for real but since that doesn't happen much when the legislature isn't in session I wonder if, all in all, it's not such a good thing. I also wonder at the bizarre reasoning of the 8th Circuit Court which based it's ruling in large part that graphic violence is protected as free speech and therefore can't be restricted, even by age. Which, in turn, makes me wonder if the Court will now repeal motion picture ratings and allow over-the-counter sales of pr0n magazines to 10-year-olds under the same logic.

I'd like to be just as sophisticated and blasé about the potential impact of the CG-enhanced violence in games available to kids and the TV shows and movies that are so accessible. The scientists, after all, assure us that there's a negligible effect. "Tosh," I'll think to myself, "the schools and parents are doing an excellent job of teaching manners, respect and impulse-control to today's young men. What's the worst that can happen?" And then I'll turn from the comics page to the local news section.

A young man upset about a girlfriend issue takes a rock in a sock to a knife fight and is killed by two other young men. Another man beats his friend to death with a baseball bat. A five-year-old boy takes a knife to school in order to threaten his gym teacher. A 15-year-old boy points a replica gun at police officers, who respond with real bullets. The last article appeared in the paper two days ago, the first three articles, along with the story about the court ruling, were all in today's paper. I'm sure it's all just coincidence.

Let's play two.

Update:

Then there's this: Five arrested with weapons outside St. Paul school. Three of the five are minors.

A politician caught cheating on his wife with a prostitute?
Ho-hum.

China abusing human rights only months before the Olympics?
Shocked, I'm shocked, I tell you (not).

Someone with the Hillary campaign caught saying something negative about Obama?
Yeah, never saw that coming.

An Obama staffer calls Hillary a "monster"?
Paging Captain Obvious.

A Minnesota DFL legislator's knee jerk reaction to a problem is to ban something?
Is the Pope Catholic?

But Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island gets caught with dope?
Ok, let me off here, this world is getting way too weird.

“We are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth... This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy.”
— Thomas Jefferson

I just spent a week away from my children. Curiously enough, I spent a surprising amount of this time thinking and talking about home education.

One afternoon I played golf with a fun couple who have two boys, aged 4 and 2, who are nicknamed "Search" and "Destroy." The mom had learned from my wife the evening before that we home educate and was interested in what was involved. I heard the usual questions from her about college admissions (colleges are now, in fact, actively recruiting home-schooled teens) and socialization (personally, I'm more concerned about socialism).

I told her that my children had always had a wide circle of friends their age, either cousins or kids from church or even the neighborhood, but also had had the experience of talking to and working closely with adults on a one-on-one basis. One of the results of this, in my opinion, is that my daughters have always been poised and comfortable whenever they speak with non-parental adults. They are respectful, but not awed or overcome with shyness or cupidity. In short, they act as if talking to other, older people is completely natural (imagine that!). Interestingly enough, the woman I was talking to and her husband spend a great deal of time (and earn a fair amount of money) trying to teach adults to regain or re-engage the child-like creativity and imagination they had had before years of education and "socialization" had beaten it out of them.

Two days later I was in the home of my wife's cousin Kay and her husband, Adrian. With us were, I think, 9 of their 11 kids, plus a few sons- and daughters-in-law (and a prospective daughter-in-law) and their own children. We were enthusiastically and effortlessly added to the dinner table where our presence scarcely created a ripple. I think that with this many kids and grandkids around on a regular basis, most of Kay's recipes start with "Take one whole cow..." One of the things you can't help but notice, besides the number, is how fresh-faced and attentive all the young folks are, even the ones that have married in. Kay home-educated all of her children, some of whom are currently pursuing college degrees.

Normally when I'm around a family gathering of this size the rising clamor will eventually start to get to me, raising my blood-pressure and level of discomfort. This night, however, though there was a steady hub-bub, I had nothing but a feeling of peace, though I'd scarcely met any of these people before that night. Several of the children cycled through our table talk as the evening rolled on, with every age having something to contribute to the conversation.

The next morning we met Adrian, Kay and their oldest son, David, at their favorite local restaurant for breakfast. One of the topics that came up was the recent California appellate court ruling requiring home-schooling parents to have a teaching certificate. More compelling was one judge's written opinion:

"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

The ruling sent shock waves throughout the estimated 166,000 home-educators in California as well as through the California legislature and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said, "Every California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts, and, if the courts don't protect parents' rights, then, as elected officials, we will." Interestingly enough, Schwarzenegger's signing of SB777 last year may be one of the things that have led many parents to abandon the public schools. Give the Governator credit though; he may not be great at logic but he definitely knows how to count votes and probably realizes that whatever other political beliefs a homeschooling family may have, telling them that they have no right to educate their own children trumps them all.

Personally, I'm not shocked. California has long been the most overtly hostile state toward home-educators (ironically it's own school system struggles to place a certified teacher in every classroom, yet would seek to mandate it in every home-school). Similarly, Education Minnesota has no love lost for home-educators and my hunch is that they wouldn't mind if their pet DFL pupils in the Minnesota legislature were to bring them a similar bill as if it were a bright, shiny apple.

Of course, it takes a real socialist mentality to proclaim that the State is the rightful owner of your children, as I've documented before regarding events in England and Germany. The Germans, in fact, are still embracing the 1937 law instituted by a certain mustachioed megalomaniac that mandates compulsory state school educations. Seventy years later they're still enforcing it by forceably taking kids from their homes to school in police cars or even removing children from their parents' homes and hiding them in psychiatric hospitals for evaluation.

Many home-school parents in California are having to consider possibly leaving the state. That's a drastic measure for sure, but one that has had to be taken by many German parents, as described by Sheila Lange in her blog, Trying to Homeschool in Germany, which details the personal struggles of her own family (now living in South Africa) and other home-school German families.

Of course, that's all happening very far away, in Germany or even California, right? Closer to home, former Nebraska state senator Peter Hoagland is on record as saying, "Fundamentalist parents have no right to indoctrinate their children in their beliefs. We are preparing their children for the year 2000 and life in a global one-world society and those children will not fit in."

Especially not if I can help it.

I wish...that every time I see someone with a Hispanic name in a crime report that I didn't automatically wonder if they were an illegal alien.

I wish...that every time I see a dominating performance by an athlete that I didn't wonder if he or she was on steroids.

I wish...that if I have to read a story about an athlete being arrested that it didn't always mention a strip club.

I wish...that when overpaid athletes complain about their contracts that they didn't claim they just want what's fair.

I wish...that every time Bill Clinton wags his finger that it didn't make me laugh.

I wish...that every time the Minnesota legislature is in session that I didn't think about moving to South Dakota.

Well that was an exciting Super Bowl yesterday though some might say it didn't measure up to other years. Similarly, I thought the Super Bowl commercials were pretty good overall, though some might say this was a down year. As for me, my standards may have been irreversibly lowered after last year; from now on any year that doesn't feature two guys kissing while eating a Snickers bar is at least in for an honorable mention. In fact, I thought this year had a number of solid entries that made it difficult to pick a single best commercial, so I broke them down by category: Those With Animals; Those With Celebrities; Those With Breasts; The Surreal; The Worst and an "Open" category for commercials that didn't easily fall into one of the other categories but made me smile.

Those With Animals
Cute animals are always a good start and are deserving of their own category even though these could easily fall into the "Surreal" niche. For example, the Fedex commercial with the big pigeons for the "heavy stuff". Ok, pigeons bigger than a bus get attention and the creators went just far enough with the gag with the scenes of chaos in the streets. Of course, Fedex isn't in competition with gargantuan carrier pigeons so the strong product benefit message gets kind of lost. I also liked the Sobe "Thrillicious" commercial with the lizards mimicking Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. Great animation, loaded with little extra bits of business like a mini-fart cloud, but the commercial seemed to suggest that drinking Sobe turns you into a zombie, albeit one with rhythm. Better was the Budweiser Rocky commercial where an aspiring Clydesdale misses the cut to be on the Bud team but is taken under the paw of a Dalmatian coach (personal trainer?) who puts him through grueling exercises and training, turning him into a ripped "Italian Stallion" (they did use the Rocky theme). Somehow, though, I couldn't help wondering if the horse was really on steroids, and if the Dalmatian gave him "the cream" or "the clear" since the Clydesdale's head was nearly as big as Barry Bonds'. That was enough to tip the balance in favor of my favorite animal commercial, the Bridgestone tires "scream" commercial where a squirrel chasing an acorn into the road appears about to meet his maker (or KingDavid), but for the superior handling of the tires. Instead of squealing rubber we heard and saw the animatronic screams of the squirrel, owls, deer, the woman passenger...I don't know, it just moved me.

Those With Celebrities
The only two celebrities I could remember off hand were Justin Timberlake for Pepsi and Will Ferrell for Bud Light. I don't remember too much about either commercial since my mind always tries to block these two guys out when I see them, but I do remember they both seemed to be about "sucking one."

Those With Breasts
I know, I know — it seems as if just about every commercial featured breasts in some way. The ones I selected, however, simply, um, stuck out. The first I'll mention in this category was the CareerBuilder one where the poor working woman drone is so demoralized by her evil boss that her heart leaps out of her chest and through her shirt like a scene from Alien. Ok, it's not really about breasts, but it struck me as a kind of "anti-breast" commentary on all the other commercials that fixate on womens' chests. Or maybe the copywriter just needs a new job. The Victoria's Secret commercial featured legs, breasts and music that I could actually hear because it also induced nearly absolute quiet in my living room filled with 20 people. A very awkward quiet. The best, or most over-the-top, breast commercial was the one with the chubby mechanic on a road call to jump start a woman's car. He puts one end of the cables on her battery, then opens his coverall and attaches the other ends of the cables to his nipples, cues the ginormous sound machine in his truck and with a swig of AMP accomplishes the mission. The best part, however, was the "Do Not Attempt" message that stayed at the bottom of the screen throughout. Ya think?

The Surreal
This is the largest category as it appears advertisers are going farther and farther out there to make their ads to stand out. Sometimes this can be rather dark and even vaguely disturbing, such as the CareerBuilder ad with the Jiminy Cricket-type character being eaten by a spider, the Cars.com ads for extreme "Plan B" car negotiating that suggest having a head-shrinking witch doctor or a hulking wrestler in a circle of fire are acceptable ways of doing business, or the Doritos ad that suggests you shouldn't tease or tempt a six-foot mouse. Bridgestone also appeared in this category when the driver of the car, on a dark, winding road, must suddenly steer around hazards such as a deer, Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons. You could feel the drama as the driver's hands tightened on the wheel as he fought with himself over the urge to run Simmons down. Similarly the E-trade ads with the talking baby/day-trader had a way of arresting your attention in a kind of creepy way. The first ad featured the baby spitting up at the end, which isn't a good idea when your audience is probably stuffing their faces. I was just about ready to write off the second one, where the baby talked about renting a clown with all the extra money he'd made with E-trade, when the kid looked at the clown then back to the audience and nearly took the words out of my mouth when he said, "I really underestimated the creepiness factor."

Then there's the silly-absurd ads like the ones from Bud Light that suggest their beer can give you powers like being able to breathe fire or fly. The one that nearly won this category in my household, however, was the Planter's cashews ad where the ugly woman with the unibrow nevertheless had all the men around her completely smitten — all because she used cashews as perfume. The winner, however, was the commercial for Tide with the poor guy at a job interview (perhaps he got it through CareerBuilder) who is undone and shouted down by a large talking stain on his shirt. This one seemed to get the most and loudest laughs from our group.

"The Worst"
Where to begin? When you think of the amount of money that someone has to spend for a Super Bowl time slot, and then see the misbegotten effort the company puts forth, it strikes me as a bigger abuse of stockholder's/investors money than Enron. It's kind of like sending Travaris Jackson out as your Super Bowl quarterback. Among the worst this year was the Coke commercial featuring James McCarville and Bill Frist. McCarville's face outdoes any clown's in terms of creepiness factor, especially in High Def. Supposedly Coke won a bidding war for his services, topping the folks at Sobe who wanted to use him as one of their dancing lizards. Another flopper that went over with our crowd about as poorly as the announcement that we were out of chicken legs was the Parental Advisory ad with the drug dealer outside the quickie-mart complaining that he couldn't make a living any more because kids were getting all the high they needed from their parents' prescription drugs. Whatever. I kept expecting to see Jay and Silent Bob show up (once Bob got through over on the AMP commercial) to run the guy off their turf. Actually, what it made me want to do was run upstairs and hide the Lipitor — until I realized we don't have any Lipitor. Speaking of drugs, the ad using a magical hand to wave a Zantac over a bloated woman to make her look better was just plain weird and wrong. Besides, I thought making women look better was beer's job.

Another stunningly bad groaner was the Sisyphus ad for the Yukon Hybrid. Please, as if trying to sell people on the utility of a battery-powered half-ton SUV isn't akin to pushing a boulder up a mountain anyway. Another car commercial made it into this category was for Audi, which was too bad because I kind of had high hopes for it at the beginning as they set up the scene like the infamous horse-head in the bed scene from The Godfather. Ultimately, what a waste of a premise as the "execution" left the commercial completely flat, almost as if the creative team's heads had been cut off before the commercial was finished. Then there was the numbingly bad, even paralyzing, Gatorade commercial where a large dog drank loudly and messily from a water dish. That had a very high flinch factor as you kept wondering what it was about, and if you really even wanted to know. I remember feeling the same way watching Eraserhead 30 years ago, waiting for some pay-off or explanation. Then, and now, there wasn't any.

But to get to the worst, however, you've got to have Go Daddy and Sales Genie slugging it out for a nice, dark wet spot at the bottom of the barrel. It truly galls me that I'm stuck with Go Daddy for my domain name following last year's RegisterFly melt-down. There's no effort to promote the benefits of their product (whatever it is), no offer to meet a need (except perhaps the most puerile), no product comparison. The ads aren't even really saying "Look at me!" as they seem to be much more about looking at something else. At least the commercials inspire some emotion, even if it's negative. The Sales Genie ads, however, are truly a waste of time and brain cells as I believe the animation, colors and dialog actually kill brains cells. With genius like this behind the company you really have to wonder how it ever became successful enough to make enough money to buy a Super Bowl ad, let alone two. Any future year without a Go Daddy or Sales Genie ad will automatically qualify as a "good" year for Super Bowl advertising.

Finally, there were some ads I liked that didn't fit in any category other than they made me smile. The first ad, for Diet Pepsi Max almost fell into the "worst" category, however. First off, I can't stand Joe Buck, so seeing him almost ruined it right off the bat except that he happened to be nodding off, which is what I do when I see/hear him so that was kind of funny. There were some other great clips in the ad of people nodding off before being revived with the product and going into a take-off of the old Saturday Night Live Night At the Roxbury skit. The commercial flirted with danger again as this skit is one of the most annoying skits in SNL history. Just as it was really starting to get on my nerves, however, the commercial ended with a guy snapping "Stop it!" to a couple of bobbing bimbos.

I also really liked the Bud Light ad with the guys being roped into a wine and cheese party with their girlfriends. What I like about these types of ads, while they focus on the guys' obsession with beer, is that they at least portray the lads as being clever in the way they go about smuggling the beer into the party disguised as a block of cheese or a long baguette, or the way a TV is hidden in a box of Chablis. The clincher, though, was the pay-off line at the end where one the guys leaves the party "On a cheese run," ranking right up there in my mind with "And a chain saw!" from last year's Bud Light Super Bowl ad.

The warmest ad of the evening, however, was from Coke as it featured large cartoon character parade balloons of Underdog and Stewie from Family Guy breaking loose and competing with each other in slow balloon motion over an inflated bottle of Coke. It was funny, but especially satisfying when at the last moment a Charlie Brown balloon rose up out of nowhere to snag the prize. Yay! Charlie Brown finally wins!

By the way, if you missed any of these commercials, or want to see them again (even the bad ones) you can find a collection of all the ads from yesterday's game in one place here.

Driving home this evening I tuned in to Dan Barreiro's show on KFAN. The FAN is a sports station, but Barreiro's show is more general interest with a regular dose of politics. The political discussions usually aren't the tedious regurgitations of talking points because Dan, while reflexively liberal, also has a fine sense for where some of those sacred cows get turned into hamburger in the real world. The fact that he regularly gets blasted by liberal and conservative e-mailers for being too much of the other suggests a certain tolerable and precarious balance (though I usually tune to another station whenever Pat Kessler joins the show).

I don't know what they were talking about exactly before I got in the car tonight, but it had something to do with the media. Jim Walsh, an editor and Dan's former colleague at the Strib called in to bemoan how everybody today just likes to get their news from people who think the same as they do and no one appreciates truly unbiased reporting such as the Strib provides. (See - the Barriero show can be funny, too!). Actually, I think Walsh makes the mistake of believing most people really think like he thinks — an assumption fostered by the fact that for a number of years people didn't have any choice. Maybe "most", as in a majority, do think like he does, but there are plenty who don't and they have many viable alternatives. This goes a long way in explaining the decline in circulation and credibility of many mainstream newspapers.

I grant that most news reporters don't consciously set out to write a news story in a particular way (and many stories can and should be reported without a slant), but he also needs to acknowledge that an institutional bias creeps in in terms of what stories get reported and where they are displayed. To read the editorial pages (where opinion is the point) of the Strib over the years is to know exactly where the editorial board falls on the political spectrum; it is disingenuous on his part to think that those attitudes won't seep in to some extent on how the news is presented and the headlines presented.

I find it ironic that the mainstream media that once pandered to (if it wasn't outright leading) the "question authority-don't trust anyone over 30, especially the government" zeitgeist one generation ago now finds it's own credibility being questioned. I will agree with Walsh, however, that the discourse has become harsher now that there are opposing viewpoints. That's not necessarily a bad thing, even if it does become wearisome at times. The reaction, however, is at least as ill-considered as some of the rants from either side: political correctness and the concept that certain constituencies must not be offended has created "no-go" zones not unlike those in Britain where non-Muslims dare not venture. There are some discussions or issues that just can't be talked about safely, usually dealing with race or religion (or both).

The boundaries here are "defended" by the mutually assured destruction mentality of a previous Cold War where the ranks of the professionally offended stand ready to rain down fire at the lightest touch on the tripwire.

For example, another topic on the Barriero show this evening was the foofaraw (I prefer this to the over-used kerfuffle) over Kelly Tilghman's "lynching" remark about Tiger Woods. The latest twist on the story (aside from Tilghman's twisting in the wind) is Jim Brown being angry that Tiger Woods isn't angry. It's almost as if anything less than loosing Die Walküre at the slightest mis-step will somehow signal a weakening of our country's resolve to confront the injustices of racism.

To my thinking, Woods' response does just the opposite — it suggests that maybe our society has matured to the point that it can tell what a real offense is and can deal with inadvertent or ill-advised slips with calm and toleration. To me (admittedly unburdened by generations of persecution), Tilghman's comments to the effect that the only chance the younger players on the PGA Tour had to deal with Tiger's dominance was to "lynch him in a back alley," were a crude (in more ways than one) attempt at humor but without a racist intent. It was along the lines of her saying, perhaps, that they break his kneecaps, or perhaps have him fitted for concrete golf shoes. Perhaps knee-cappers and gangsters would have been offended by the reference but it wouldn't have resulted in Tilghman being suspended. I think Woods' mellow forgiveness of the clumsy remark shows not a lack of identification with the awful history endured by blacks but a self-possession and awareness that says, "I know what racism looks like, and believe me, that isn't it."

Should anyone ever (and most inadvisedly) express a hateful and ignorant attitude toward Woods' race or family I have no doubt that his response would be direct and withering — with no consideration of (and even less affect) on his shoe sales. Perceived slights are like Gatorade to him (just ask Rory Sabbatini or Stephen Ames); Lord knows what Tiger would do if someone really made him angry.

There's a tremendous, insightful and thought-provoking post over at Breath of the Beast. No excerpt here can quite do it justice, but I encourage you to take the time to walk along with the author as he tries to understand the cultural death-wish of moral relativism and the motivations of those who would defend or make excuses for a regime that would tear them to shreds if they were ever to personally fall into its clutches. It's not a rant but a thoughtful examination of how intelligent minds can become so deceived.

It's a profound essay, and I get a strong sense that it isn't the only one of its kind to be found on Breath of the Beast.

HT: Techno-Chitlins

Via Kathy and Mitch and a couple of other places, here's the "Privilege Meme" that's going around, I suppose to help one comprehend how privileged you are. The idea is to bold face the statements below that apply to you. I'll do that, then I have some thoughts on the nature and definition of privilege at the end.

First of all, however, the original source of this meme is an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright. So acknowledged.

Father went to college

Father finished college

Mother went to college

Mother finished college
Not only that, but she eventually went on to get a Ph.D in Elementary Education and Administration.

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Ummm, no, but my little sister is a veterinarian, the second Dr. in the family.

Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Do comic books count?

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home

Were read children's books by a parent
Loved that Dr. Seuss Sleep Book.

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
You mean, other than "if you don't stop making that face it will freeze like that"?

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Hmmm. Is Ned Flanders a positive portrayal?

(Click here to continue reading the meme.)

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
I had some student loans, but there are a lot more costs to college than tuition.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Went to a private high school

Went to summer camp

Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Only to get through eighth grade algebra, though.

Family vacations involved staying at hotels
If we didn't have any cousins nearby.

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
Well, I worked for my dad for $1 (later $1.25) an hour from the time I was 12 until I was 16 (actually beyond) with the understanding that he would buy me a car when I was 16. Somehow or another I was under the impression that meant new car. Should have read the fine print.

There was original art in your house when you were a child
If you count the stuff we put on the refrigerator, that is.

Had a phone in your room before you turned 18

You and your family lived in a single family house

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home

You had your own room as a child
From the time I was 12, though it looked like maybe three people shared it.

Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Nope, but took them anyway and must have done alright. I also took the CLEP tests before my freshman year — and tested out of 30 hours of credits, essentially entering college as a sophomore.

Had your own TV in your room in High School

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16

Went on a cruise with your family

Went on more than one cruise with your family

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
I can't remember any. There were school field trips, though.

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family
Well, I didn't know the exact dollar amount, but I know my dad kept asking me if I thought he was supposed to heat the whole county.

(hide)

In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, "Lucky!"

In this day and age when I see the word "privilege" associated with something like this it is usually attached to a phrase such as "White Privilege" and an exercise aimed at myself or others accidentally born Caucasian. That seems to be the intent behind the original work that later became this meme, and the theme of certain writings you'll find on the Illinois State University website.

The point is to make us feel guilty about being born with certain advantages. To which my response would be, "What is your point?" I hope this wasn't the result of hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into a research study of the obvious. I mean, couldn't that money have been better spent on something like finding out why monkeys scream during sex? Perhaps a better response from me, though, would be "So what?" — as in "So what do you want me to do about it?"

Am I supposed to go around feeling meek and guilty for an accident of birth over which I had no control over? I mean, that was a decision made way above my pay-grade. Similarly, should I be upset over the injustice that Michael Jordan gets the privilege of being 6' 9" with mad skills, or that Sean Connery gets that voice? Or should I go to Japan and have people treat me differently, in overt or subtle ways, because I'm different? They probably would, and I'd probably be upset about it, but the only thing in my power to change about the situation is my attitude.

In the Fundamentals in Film class I do with the young men we have watched a number of movies that deal with racism, prejudice, injustice. Though they are ostensibly "privileged" young white men (actually, they're not all white), I tell them repeatedly that no matter who they are or where they are, there are always going to be people who will discriminate against them because of their age, the way they talk or think, what they believe, the way they look; there's usually going to be someone with some power and authority in their lives whose prejudices will impact them in some way. They can't help but be affected by it, but it's up to them just how much difference they're going to allow it to make in their lives.

Looking back through the statements in the meme above it occurs to me that this particular statements have more to do with class than race. That is, the statements seem to assume (the HR folks at my politically correct company refer to assumptions as "blind spots", btw) that "class" is determined by birth and environment. Those are undeniably large, but not determining, factors. Class in this country is one of the most fluid of the ways we classify ourselves or are classified by others. Decision-making and behavior can change this quite a bit.

Almost all of the circumstances above are the result of a decision made by a grandparent, parent or myself. Neither my father or anyone in his family went to college; my mother's father got himself through college through hard work, ingenuity, a love of learning and a desire to better himself. (It seems unpopular or unjust these days to want to better yourself. Instead, judging by the way people vote, it's far better to expect others to lower themselves to your standard.) The vision and aspiration was passed on, and my parents made college a priority for their children, at great cost and apparent sacrifice, though it hardly seemed like a sacrifice to them.

The "privilege" bequeathed to me and that helped me to succeed was not an accident or random fortune. It was bought and paid for in the way each generation was raised. It is the same "privilege" I'll fight for in order to pass on to my children. I was lucky to the extent that I was born into a family where someone had already started the tradition. Other people will get the honor and privilege of being the one to start the tradition themselves.

1. Don't tug on Superman's cape.

2. Don't spit into the wind.

3. Don't post pictures of yourself participating in illegal activities on Facebook.

The children are upset because Eden Prairie High School is disciplining them for breaking school rules about drinking by suspending several students from athletic teams or extra-curricular activities (presumably not drinking related). "Unfair!" they say as they stalk to their corners (or stage a walk-out).

For educational purposes, let's examine this logic. The students and their parents sign agreements not to drink alcohol while participating in school events (or presumably while eligible to participate), such as sports. The student breaks that pledge and the school finds out through photographic evidence. What part of basic cause and effect did you not learn in class? The school is enforcing its rules, and you should hope that the State of Minnesota doesn't try to enforce it's rules (called "laws", btw) as well since underage drinking is, like, you know, illegal.

And no, my darlings, this isn't a violation of privacy or free speech. First, if you put something in a public place or space, it's not private. Second, while your posting of it is speech, the punishment isn't because you posted, per se, but because the pictures were of you doing something that broke your word, the rules and the law.

This lesson is over. Now, get back to class because I don't think you can afford to miss many more.

Interesting article in the Strib yesterday about a U of M study that found that adolescent girls who eat more meals with their family are less likely to develop bad eating habits:

The survey of 2,000 Minnesota adolescents found that girls who have five or more meals a week with their families are one-third less likely to develop unhealthy eating habits. That could be anything from skipping meals to abusing diet pills to anorexia.

For reasons experts say are hard to explain, the same is not true of boys. The study by University of Minnesota researchers was published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

It is the latest in a growing body of evidence showing regular family meals seem to help adolescents avoid a wide variety of health risks, including obesity, drug use, smoking and suicidal thinking. Earlier U of M research has shown that's also true for adolescents who say they don't have the best relationships with their families, but who still eat with them regularly.

Our family eats supper together at least five or six times a week. I'm also the proud father of two slender daughters. Of course, they'll tell you the reason they are slender is because I keep eating their tater tots. Oh well, they'll thank me for it some day.

Having dinner together just seems normal to us. We've never had to make a point of doing it, it's just something we've always done. Maybe we've been lucky in that, while our lives are pretty busy, our activities don't tend to violate the dinner hour — or maybe we've just chosen not to take up activities that take us away from the dinner table. My girls haven't had the number of athletic pursuits that I had when I was living with my parents, which helps, but on the evenings when Tiger Lilly has Tae Kwan Do lessons we eat a little later, and on nights when the Mall Diva has band practice or some rehearsal we eat a little earlier.

A lot of the credit goes to my wife, who is super-organized and a good cook who likes a lot of variety and using fresh ingredients instead of processed foods. She typically goes through her recipes and selects meals for a week in advance and constructs her grocery shopping list accordingly. Her job allows her to get home around 4 p.m. and she's very efficient in putting the evening's pre-planned fare together. She's someone who prides herself on being able to eat just about anything (except beef stroganoff), but the rest of us all have certain lines we won't cross, which is a cross my wife must bear. We greatly appreciate her diligence, skill and creativity, however, and we've learned that if any of us does have a complaint we try to keep it small.

Once, for example, in the infamous "Not Quite Tuna Tapenade" incident, my wife tried out a new recipe — the afore-mentioned tuna dish. We said grace and then the girls and I all took our first bite while my wife busied herself with her napkin or some such. It was...different. The three of us kind of rolled the food around our mouths meditatively as my wife lifted her fork. She chewed. She blanched. "This is horrible!" she said. "Who wants to order pizza?" And there was much rejoicing.

Besides the good food, it's just plain fun to be together. My wife and I never were much for baby-talk with our kids so conversation has always been pretty natural and free-flowing, which may have contributed to the composure the girls have had, even from a young age, when talking to adults. Sometimes we have deep conversations, but most of the time it can get rather silly, especially since both girls have a knack for picking up whole blocks of dialog from movies or TV shows with one hearing, and a love for dropping these references or snippets into the conversation. For example:

I'll say, "Pass the meatballs."

Immediately the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly will, in unison, burst out with "Meatball, meatball, spaghetti underneath! Ravioli, ravioli, Great Barrier Reef!" from some SpongeBob episode. Technically there's also no singing at the table but getting through a meal with out an inspired chorus or two from them is kind of like dinner without dessert.

While the whole experience is rather routine to us we know, from the sometimes amazed reactions and comments we get from guests, that we have an unusual and blessed lifestyle. So many families are caught in the whirl of so many activities and so little time, and of lonely, fast-food dinners. As the study in the article suggests, though, frequent and regular meals together as a family has a measurable and beneficial effect. Some of the guests I mentioned earlier in this paragraph stayed with us because they were experiencing some crisis in their lives or in their families and our communal, convivial approach was startlingly foreign to them. Even more people have commented about a sense of peace they feel when they visit. I wonder if it's just coincidence?

Update:

Here's another study with similar findings: Family Dinner and Adolescent Overweight, from the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.

There have been some questions, since Ben and Faith (the Mall Diva) announced their courtship last week, as to what courtship is, and — if they've agreed to be married — how come they don't just say they are engaged? Actually, what they've agreed to is to look at the possibility of being married. Over the course of their courtship they should both come to know whether the possibility can be a reality. I want and expect both of them to post more about courtship and their experiences going forward, and I won't dig into what can be a complex topic here and now. I think this will be a more useful discussion if it comes from their perspective.

What I would like to do, however, is describe the process of friendship, wherein they both came to the place where courtship became a possibility.

As described last week, it was a little over a year ago when Ben expressed his hope and intention to one day be in a position to marry my daughter. At that time they had already known each other socially for about a year. They were not, however, at a level where a courtship could begin, which essentially was what Ben was asking for permission to do. Given the difference in their ages and circumstances, Faith's mother and I thought it best that they learn to be friends first - — to find out if they could realistically and truthfully put the other person's best interests ahead of their own. This model of friendship is found in the Bible, and was the basis of a post I first offered here back in 2005 (when maybe 20 people a day were stopping by). I'll repeat it below, with minor editing (many of the links originally included have since fallen away). At the time, though we had witnessed it in other people's lives, it was still mostly theory for us. We have now seen it take hold in "real life", to the point where we could see the evidence in their lives and give our blessing for the courtship stage to begin.

On being a friend

...This got me to thinking, however, about the far less titillating but every bit as devastating romantic tragedies that happen all around us. Even, dare I say, in our own lives. My wife and I have been very blessed and happy in our 17-year marriage, but we both experienced emotion-searing, even mind-altering damage in our single days (stories for another day, but don't count on it).

As we look to what may be ahead for our daughters, we've come to realize that the dating culture of serial monogamy and mini-divorces is not a good way to find a mate for life. And that's based on our experiences from 20 and 30 years ago in the more idealistic days of the sexual revolution. With our oldest being of "dating" age, my wife and I naturally want better for our daughters than what we subjected ourselves to when we were their age.

Back then, at least, the culture expected couples to adopt the appearance of having a relationship. Now even the minimal commitment to someone else needed to simply make a date is optional in today's hook-up culture among teens and older singles. Somewhere along the line "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am" went from being the height of selfishness to the point where merely throwing in the "thank you" passes for gentlemanliness. The glorification of sensation has ironically desensitized a significant part of a generation, and I can't even picture how much "enlightenment" is required to make this look like a good thing.

Even in evangelical circles the challenges are severe for parents with an eye to preparing their youth for healthy, happy marriages. The book "Best Friends for Life" by Michael and Judy Phillips includes several case studies of kids who grew up in "churched" families and dated other "churched" youth and eventually married - and then crashed and burned. Though each example had different characteristics, the common thing I saw in each was the parents really had no vision of what they wanted for their kids or what was acceptable - or if they did, they didn't communicate it. In many cases they gave in to the predominant dating model and were simply glad that their son or daughter was dating another Christian. As a result, the youngsters also fell into self-centered relationships in which they may have been physical, but they were far from intimate.

Is there another option? Well, I admit that the locking them in a tower until they're 30 plan has its strong points, but that doesn't do anything to prepare them for a strong marriage either. Our plan is the opposite of isolation, both the isolation of the tower where they are separated from others and the passion-induced isolation of being a couple where they separate themselves from others. We've encouraged our daughters to have a group of friends they can count on and do things with as a group. Boys can be a part of this group, and are even encouraged, but no pairing up. The idea is to determine who can be trusted to be a friend - and not who just wants to get friendly.

What are the standards for friendship? The Bible lists some good ones (New Living Translation):

• Friends are few (Prov. 18:24) - "There are 'friends' who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother." We know the traditional concept of what a brother is, but think about what a brother is to a woman. A brother is someone who will stand by you and stand up for you because he wants the best for you, not because of what you can do for him.



• A friend lays down his life (John 15:13)"And here is how to measure it--the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends." A friend puts your needs and well-being above his own.



• A friend loves unconditionally (Prov. 17:17) "A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need."



• A friend speaks the truth in love (Prov. 27:6)
  "Wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy." A friend will tell you what you need to hear, again because he wants what is best for you. Someone caught up in infatuation or what he thinks is love will keep quiet so as not to jeopardize the physical aspects of the relationship.



• A friend encourages you and is sensitive to your needs (Prov. 26:18, 19) "Just as damaging as a mad man shooting a lethal weapon is someone who lies to a friend and then says, 'I was only joking.'"
  

If true friendships can be established in a safe environment where the emotional stakes are not as high, then the ground is prepared for a possible courtship with an eye toward marriage. In a true courtship, both partners learn to trust the other with more and more of their innermost thoughts, wishes and emotions. This relationship is the key to a successful marriage. Most modern marriages fall short of genuine intimacy due to a distorted cultural image of romanticism that expects immediate intimacy. Too many want to jump right to the courtship stage simply because the other person is cute or a "hottie." This might make for lovely wedding photos (or great tabloid covers) but is not much of a foundation for a lovely marriage.

I may appear pretty smug and overconfident seeing as how our oldest is just entering this dynamic time, but the rules and expectations have been set down and discussed for several years prior to this, and we do have wonderful examples in the lives of other parents and young marrieds we know who have crossed these waters ahead of us.

Truthfully, I don't expect it to be easy, but right now the relationship my wife and I have with our children is still the most important in their lives aside from the relationship they are developing with God. And part of our responsibility in this relationship is to prepare them for a relationship with God and for a loving and godly relationship with their spouse - and ultimately their own children who they, in turn, must train. It won't be the easiest course, but given what else is out there, I know it is the safest.

There's no questioning the depth of feeling between Faith and Ben and the sincerity of their intentions. They will, however, face significant issues in the time that is before them. Difficult, even painful, decisions, must be made. Because of the foundation that has already been created, however, they are better prepared to shine.

I'm kind of in a rambling mood tonight, thinking random thoughts. Such as...

I handed a friend of mine a bottle of water the other day. "Ah, bottled water," he said with a smile. "The biggest scam next to carbon credits!"

"That's got to be a pretty big scam, then," I said, "compared to carbon credits."

"Yeah," he said, "we should go into business selling 'food credits' using the same principle. We'd make a killing."

"Sure," I replied, "especially at this time of the year with the holidays coming on. Here's how we'd pitch it: 'Feeling bad because you know you're going to overeat this Christmas? No problem! We've got thousands of people lined up in the third world who have agreed to fast while you pig out! Buy your food credits now in plenty of time for the holidays! They also make great stocking stuffers!'

"In fact," I said, "we could call the holiday version of food credits 'Stocking Stuffers' and package them in a festive box. Then we could get some guy who has a 2500 square foot walk-in freezer to be our spokesperson. We'd make a fortune and have a shot and picking up a prestigious award!"

We went on to talk about other things, but my thoughts later returned to bottled water, a product I use on nearly a daily basis. Most days I bring a bottle from home to drink with my lunch, mainly because the bottles of pop I used to drink have started to be too sweet-tasting to me. I got in the habit of buying a bottle of Aquafina from the company cafeteria instead of Coke or Pepsi, picking up a packet of lemon juice from the condiment stand on the way out, and mixing that into the bottle. Then one day — file this under Things That Make You Go "Hmmmm" — I noticed that a 20-ounce bottle of Aquafina retails for $1.35 in our cafeteria. While it's cool and clear, there's not a lot of value added there to the basic ingredients. Meanwhile, the bottle of pop right next to it featuring water, syrup, sugar, that satisfying fizz and millions of dollars worth of brand-building advertising, goes for just $1.25.

Since then we've bought more generic waters from Cub or Sam's Club in bulk (about .40/bottle) and I pack one of those (and still snatch the pack of lemon juice).

I know, America is supposed to have the safest drinking water in the world, and buying bottled water is supposed to be bad for the environment, but I'm hooked. For one thing, the water from the taps or drinking fountain where I work has a hideous, metallic taste to it. Secondly, it's so darn convenient. It's easy to pack a bottle or three along on car trips or to outdoor activities. Besides, you never know when drought is going to break out.

I'm not snobbish about it. For example, I never cared for Perrier, and the carbonated or "sparkling" waters don't quench my thirst as well. Funky store brand water is generally fine, though I appreciate the consistent quality of Aquafina and I like to mix things up with an Aquafina Flavorsplash from time to time (grape - yum!) One brand I cannot abide, however, is Dasani, which tastes as if it was harvested from a puddle on an asphalt driveway after an August storm. I don't know what you can do to mess up the taste of water, but Dasani did it. I mean, it's probably not as bad as the water my wife drank while on our honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, but it tastes like it could be (and I saw what happened to her).

Overall, staying hydrated is a good thing. I remember football practices when I was a kid where the coaches wouldn't let us drink because we had to "toughen up". Things have changed a lot. I also used to be a cola-fiend, probably as a result of my deprived childhood. There were three of us kids, and soda pop was an uncommon treat (even though my Dad's business had vending machines and he could get the pop wholesale). My parents used to make the three of us share a 12 oz. can. I felt so grown-up when I started working and could drop my quarter in the machine and get a whole, blessed can all to myself! Later, the cans changed to 16 oz, and then 20 oz. bottles — bring it on! And then —Sweet Juices on the Half-Shell — 2-liter bottles! Oh, my, those single days when I could keep a 2-liter bottle in the refrigerator, reach in, twist the cap off and drink right out of the bottle before putting it back! Hah!

Sometimes, even now, when we have a 2-liter bottle in the fridge, I reach in, pull it out, twist annnnd ... look wistfully at the bottle before reaching for a glass (that sound you might have just heard was Tiger Lilly throwing up a little in her mouth at the picture that came into her head). For some reason, the Mall Diva never cared for pop, even though she's part of a generation that practically grew up with a Nuk stretched over a bottle of Mountain Dew. Myself, I used to get some real cola-cravings, but even those have diminished as the taste generally seems too hard and bubbly to me now.

Oh well, I've rambled enough, but I think it's only fitting to cement the ear-worm into your head that's probably been running through the back of your mind since you read the headline.

The Mall Diva's Christmas program, Eclectica, went off as scheduled last Sunday before a packed house that included my mother who flew in from Missouri. The show was great with the only flubs being the charming ones that somehow make a show a more personal experience for everyone. Oh, and a couple of young angels from the manger scene got stage fright and refused to go on, but I'm sure it was noticeable only to their parents and the cast.

Of course, it all reminded me of the many Christmas programs I had participated in as a child, especially since I had my mom sitting next to me. The first one I can remember (barely) was when I was three or four and it must have been at an Air Base where my father was stationed. As I recall there wasn't a stage as such, just something like a gymnasium floor with rows of seats in front of the performance area. I can remember sitting in a chair at the back of the "stage" while other acts performed before my group got to do our thing. I have no idea what our act was, but my parents caught my solo performance as I waited...casually picking my nose. Hearing about it often afterwards helped keep that in my memory banks.

My next solo was in kindergarten when our class of 12 performed "The Twelve Days of Christmas". I was "Five golden rings!" I also couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, which makes me think that perhaps my kindergarten teacher had some kind of twisted sense of humor. After all, she also assigned the kid with the lisp the part of "Seven swans a'swimming." It's safe to say we brought down the house.

But the one performance I've especially been thinking about the last few days came when I was in fourth, or perhaps fifth, grade, when my dad was out of the service and we were living in Indianapolis. It was at Harrison Hill Elementary, either in Mrs. Boaz's class in 1968 or Mrs. Zinn's in '69. The Viet Nam war was going on and I remember our teacher, whichever one it was, telling us that a local soldier had written a poem (he may have even been a former student of hers), and that it had been set to music and that a group of us boys were going to sing the new song in the program. Pretty cool beans for a bunch of boys at that time, especially for my best friend Trey and I, because it meant we could wear our toy army helmets and bring our guns (I was especially proud of my Thompson submachine gun replica). We practiced that song for several weeks, and I remember it was a pretty grim one. It didn't seem much like a Christmas song at all, but the teacher said that it was going to fit into the program.

This show was just going to be a passing reference as I recounted some other programs, but I remembered the opening lines of that song and started wondering who the author was and what ever had happened to him. With the power of Google I searched the opening line:

"Take a man and put him alone, put him 12,000 miles from home."


To my amazement, I found the poem on several websites, including that of a sometime commenter here, joatmoaf's I Love Jet Noise. None of them had an author name, but several included the citation that it was found in the pocket of a dead Marine in the Quang Tri Province, June of '69. Joatmoaf listed the whole poem, although updated for Iraq. The first verse was pretty much how I remembered it, though:

Take a man and put him alone,
Put him twelve thousand miles from home.

Empty his heart of all but blood,
Make him live in sweat and mud.
The rest of the poem doesn't register with me, though it does seem even grimmer than what I remembered. Definitely not Christmas program material. While I don't remember all the words of the song we sung, I know they weren't happy ones. I do remember what happened next. The emcee of the program was a sixth-grader, dressed as Santa Claus. He'd been a great and jolly Santa all evening, but this time he came out, as planned, and spoke to us "soldiers" kneeling on the stage. He said that once upon a time there had been a young family with a new baby that hadn't even been able to find a room in an inn and had had to give birth to their son in a stable. He said that even though things looked bad for them, they had had hope. When he finished his speech we exited backstage while an adult came up. As I led our small group down some steps I heard the adult say that the author of the poem was in the audience that night, and I heard a loud round of applause. I never did see or meet him. The show continued with Christmas carols about the newborn king.

Viewed through the fog of nearly 40 years, it almost seems like another world. Indeed, a world where kids could wear army gear and bring toy guns into the building, and where a Christmas program could mention the Savior and sing songs about His birth. It is also almost surreal that I could have been that close to the origins of what some might consider almost an urban legend in our internet age. The dead marine in Quang Tri might be apocryphal, but I remember what our teacher told us and I remember singing that song, and I remember the soldier being introduced, even if I never saw him.

I wish I had been able to shake his hand.

Among Christmas carols, I've always rather liked the "Carol of the Bells" song, either with words or as an instrumental. It's not an especially spiritual song, but it's catchy and pleasant in a way that "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" isn't (and whatever we've done to deserve this song, hasn't the statute of limitations expired by now?). I've noticed, however, how over-exposed "Carol of the Bells" is getting as it's been co-opted by TV commercials.

I've heard it many times with different commercials but can only remember three specifically: the two Garmin commercials, which I kind of like (love the "There's that moose again!" and "Got a unibrow" lines) and the Hyundai "Holi-duh" ad because it is so nauseatingly obnoxious that I made a point of remembering who the advertiser was so I could never buy their cars. I knew there were others, but I couldn't remember the products (a sign of bad advertising) so I Googled the subject so I could list them in a post I wanted to write.

It turns out, someone has beat me to it. Check out Christine's post over at The Motley Yule. She says just about everything I wanted to say and more.