no, not that john edwards.

back in 1971, things were looking grim on the american homefront. the vietnam war was still raging; citizens, particularly the young, were feeling restless and anxious about a world in which they believed was dangerous and in which they were essentially voiceless. remember, back then, you couldn’t vote until you were 21; and yet lots of 18 year olds were being shipped off to fight a war they thought was pointless.  jonathan edwards added his thoughts to the landscape via this wonderful protest song, sunshine.

recent events in egypt have made me think about this song anew. the people are speaking out against a government which they believe is not democratic. i believe that people have the right to determine their own government; i always thought that was what we were taught in school. you know, the whole american revolution thing, right? dropping tea into the harbor? making our own rules?  i mean, as the scholar jeff spicoli once explained:

and yet some on the right — those who champion folks like the modern-day tea party and who claim to love america more than you and i do — are demonizing the protesters.

beck seems to believe that the entire middle east is going to blow.  his inflammatory talk doesn’t give us any ideas as to how to make things better. and frankly, i think he’s played fast and loose with a lot of his so-called data. i find it confusing as well that he seems to not support people forming their own governments. are we happy when religious zealots form a government and rule a nation? no, we are not. but who are we, as america, to tell another nation who should run it and how it should be run? boy, we were so successful putting people into power (iran and egypt, i’m looking at you, among others too numerous to count) that i think we ought to rethink our strategy a bit here.

do i have the answers? of course not. i wish for peace every day; and i wish for people to be free the world over. and i will continue to monitor the events as they unfold.

but i can’t help but hear edwards refrain as i watch the news.

How much does it cost, I’ll buy it
The time is all we’ve lost, I’ll try it
But he can’t even run his own life
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine, Sunshine

sometimes, we all need to be mellow (and respect the stuff that’s yellow.)

the story goes that here, in the people’s republic of arlington, one of the full-day public elementary preschool programs has booted a three year old girl for having more than eight accidents in a month. i am actually quite familiar with this sort of situation; jools was three when he started at claremont’s sister school’s montessori program. and while he was potty trained by that point, something about the program discombobulated him. they didn’t nap. they were very structured. and, in short, he had accidents.  the teacher and the teacher’s aide were not happy about the situation, and neither were we. ultimately, we pulled him out of that program into a more day care-like situation, where he proceeded to have many dry days and never looked back.

while i feel badly for the little girl and her mom, i think a lot of their anger is rather misplaced.  here in arlington, elementary school-sponsored preschool is not universal. you get in via lottery (or sometimes via an older sibling preference) unless you are entering one of the income-based programs.  these programs are not daycare programs — these are classroom-based programs where the children essentially have a similar experience to their older compatriots. this is far more structured than what you might get at some fluffy preschool program. it’s a bargain, financially- speaking, if you can get in. and for some kids, it’s a great fit. they are both intellectually and physically ready for the experience.

for other kids, it’s a nightmare. their little bodies aren’t ready for the full-time pressure of monitoring when they have to go. sometimes, they get so engaged in an activity that it’s too late before they realize they needed a pit stop. there’s nothing wrong with that, of course — it’s developmentally quite appropriate for a lot of kids.

but one thing i have learned in my short but eventful career as a parent — sometimes, a class or a program may be fabulous, but it’s not a fabulous fit for MY child. for whatever reason, there have been situations which just didn’t work out for my kids. so BS and i dropped back, figured out plan B (or sometimes C), and punted. it wasn’t easy — sometimes, it caused challenges that upset our daily lives at work and at home. but we did what we had to do and we moved on.

arlington county public schools is pretty specific and up front about what they expect of children in the program: children must be potty trained. this is not daycare, people. this is a public school.  they tell you up front that they won’t be changing nappies, and they mean it. and while even older children occasionally have an oops! moment, these occurrences are not and should not be something that disrupts class with frequency or else it isn’t fair to the other kids who are completely ready for the experience.  no child should be shamed about his ability to control his body. but no child should be forced into a position where she’s facing embarrassment on a daily basis. if this sort of thing happens frequently, as a parent i would recognize that something is not right for my kid. and, recognizing that the school is not going to bend a whole lot on this matter, i would have moved my kid. period.

but blaming the school is not fair. i think in our society, we always look to point the finger at anyone but ourselves.  i would think it would be more useful to instead focus energies on finding a place that works best for the child and which welcomes her — all of her.

no, really. thank you.

sure, i picked the leitmotif of pet peeves this month. but that doesn’t conceal the fact that i am very, very grateful for a lot of things. i could list them for days and years. i’ll just list a few off the top of my pointed head.

1) thank you, BC: for being an awesome daughter who somehow gets me in a way that no one else does. you forgive me when i probably deserve a tween shriek thrown at me. you are one of the two greatest gifts i have ever been given, and i never forget that.

2) thank you, jools: for being an incredible son who picks and chooses the strangest moments to change from a delightful little boy into a wizened old man and provide me with a perspective that i sorely need to hear and grasp. you are one of the two greatest gifts i have ever been given, and i don’t ever forget that.

3) thank you, BS: my eternal partner in crime, the statler to my waldorf. you put up with me no matter what. you like me in spite of me being me. you make me laugh. you are always my personal bulldog. and you’ve got the most beautiful eyes i have ever seen. i am so lucky that mark wintle dumped a beer on you and therefore brought you into my life for keeps.

4) thank you mom and dad and aunt barbara: you have always been in my corner, and you have taught me the power of unconditional love. i’ll never be able to tell you fully how much you mean to me, but somehow you always know what i mean when words fail me.

5) thank you to my brothers, who never treated me like a girl but who always treated me as someone who needed to learn to be as tough as nails. i learned so much from both of you; and while i know i continue to get on your nerves in a huge way, i do it because i love you. (you’re welcome.)

6) thanks to my mother-in-law, my dearly-missed father-in-law, and all my husband’s family for treating me like one of your own. i know i’m a little bit odd in comparison to you all, but you’ve always welcomed me with open arms from the word go.

7) thank you to my friends, who seem to like me still. i treasure you.

8 )  thank you to america for taking my great grandparents in. my family has always been fiercely proud of our nation.

9) thank you to the Beatles for making the best music ever.

and last for today, but not least:

10) thank you, gutenberg, for inventing the printing press. for i do so love to read.

happy thanksgiving, everyone!

somebody’s got to pay for all of this.

let me preface this by saying that this is not a debate as to whether or not you feel your taxes are too high. i, for one, have a few ideas as to how we could cut government spending, but that is another thread for another day.

this is, in fact, about those ignorant morons who try to completely get out of paying any federal taxes, whether G-d told them not to, whether they feel it’s unconstitutional (which says to me that they haven’t read the 16th amendment lately), or whether they’re just too fucking selfish to pay. i’m sorry, but if you live here, you have to do what the rest of us do. (well, most of us. big corporations manage to weasel out of paying taxes in myriad ways, which makes me also insane. but you, john q. public, don’t have an army of litigators at the ready to protect your supposed right to hide any earnings you’ve made.)

i know people think they have the right to not pay taxes, but i respectfully disagree. you like roads? you like clean water? you like junior getting an education? you like granny getting her social security check? you need to pony up, sir. otherwise, you can move. you can move to the UAE, but you might have to give up some of those rights you’ve learned to love.

in the meantime, i leave you with some creative ways of alleviating your tax burden.

1) don’t smoke cigarettes.

2) don’t drink alcohol (or conversely, start up a new hobby: home brew.)

3) don’t drive your car. bike, walk, or take public transport.

if i think up more, i’ll let you know. i’m open to your ideas, of course.

Recently, I was at elementary school, talking with our gym teacher about my son. I’ve noticed lately that the boy likes to stand on his head, flip around, and basically bounce. A lot. While team sports don’t seem to work well for him yet, some sort of physical activity would probably be beneficial for energetic little him, for me, and frankly, for the rest of the world. (You can thank me later.)

In short, I’m wondering whether gymnastics might be a way to go for him.

I hearkened back to my own gym experience. We had entire units on tumbling, on the rings, on the pommel horse. While I never did grow up to be Nadia Comăneci (and yes, I know I am dating myself, you Mary Lou Rettons out there), I enjoyed gymnastics — the weightlessness, even for just that second, before flying over the horse (and often into one of my less intelligent classmates who didn’t move away from it fast enough.) Leaping ever so carefully on the balance beam. What I would give to be able to perform those flips I once did without living in fear that I’d require traction and anti-inflammatories!

So I asked our gym teacher: when will my son’s class get to do a unit on gymnastics? His reply?

Not in this school.

Apparently, the threat of litigation has backburnered this pursuit in our public school. I was told that when a teacher spots a student, he or she may have to actually touch the child; and since movement is involved, there is too much fear that a teacher might accidentally be in contact with a child in an improper manner. And even if that contact is purely accidental, the fear of getting sued, losing your job, and having your reputation sullied beyond all recognition outweighs the possibility of teaching a child to discover this ancient athletic pursuit.

Obviously, my sympathies are ever-present with any child who has fallen victim to a predatory adult; and there’s no question that persons in power who are abusive ought to be severely punished. However, this situation makes me think about where we are going as a society. When teachers cannot teach to children because of a fear that they may touch a child and that the child, in turn, may cry foul (whether true or not), what is lost? There’s a certain communication that comes with physicality; and while I don’t advocate that teachers go out of their way to lay hands on their pupils, this scenario tells me that litigiousness has won the day.  And how sad: for I remember fondly teachers patting me on the head, hugging me, and yes, spotting me in gymnastics. I know how I appreciated all of these gestures; and I mourn the fact that my children will likely have radically different educational experiences with their teachers. There will be little touching.

There is a beautifully sad story entitled Hands in Sherwood Anderson’s masterpiece Winesburg, Ohio that concerns a dedicated teacher named Wing Biddlebaum. Biddlebaum is estranged from society for decades because he has one “flaw”: he expresses himself with his hands. The story shares that in his younger years, Biddlebaum was a teacher who never touched any child inappropriately, but who caressed his students’ heads and shoulders in a supportive manner. Unfortunately, one day, a “half-witted boy” falsely alleged molestation, and Biddlebaum was driven from another town to Winesburg, where he lived alone on the outskirts, cut off because of his hands. He feared communicating with anyone ever again, all because of his fluttering, expressive hands.

Such a loss.

Originally posted on Smartly.

my friend and former colleague gene steuerle lost his wife in the plane that hit that pentagon. in response, he started an organization , which has since merged with americans for informed democracy, an organization that empowers young people in the United States to address global challenges such as poverty, disease, climate change, and conflict through awareness and action. AIDemocracy promotes just and sustainable solutions at the campus, community, and national level.

yes, i know. this from the girl who isn’t a country fan.

i always get a bit wistful this time of year. part of it, of course, stems from the recognition that it’s the end of summer and my kids are off to school again… and i am not. part of it is due to the fact that it is the end of the jewish year and the start of the new one (rosh hashanah, for my non-red-sea pedestrian pals.) and the big unavoidable part, as you can gather, is from the fact that september 11 is not far behind.

9/11 is forever burned into my psyche. remember, we had a plane hit the pentagon here in arlington, a plane carrying a friend’s wife and so many, many others. i have written before about the day; it’s something that will never fully evaporate from my consciousness.

but it’s a lot of screaming about what is being sited near that hallowed ground where thousands of lives were lost that has me so sad right now.  a lot of people in this nation are making a perilous leap of hate: they seem to think that the acts of a group of people should be blamed on all people of that religion. that a group of murderous zealots have managed to cause people to hate all muslims is sad. it’s wrong. and it’s unamerican. while i personally wonder whether building such a center so close to the site of the Twin Towers displays a certain insensitivity to some of the families of 9/11 victims, i believe that if they have followed the laws and have gone through the proper channels, the group is within their rights to do so.

but the issue has moved beyond the community center. this situation has highlighted the fact that some americans are broadbrushing all mosques and muslim endeavors as somehow dangerous; and this not only does a great disservice to the millions of our fellow peaceful muslim-americans, but i fear that it also helps to motivate religious zealots with bad intent and justifies their actions.

and i fear all religious zealots.

so yes, today, i selected a country song. if i can keep my mind open about all sorts of things, then maybe others can, too. see, i believe in love: love of my family, love of my friends, love of my nation, love for the people of the world — even those who would hate me for my gender, my religion, my political beliefs… whatever reason.

i hope others believe in love, too.

every day, i drive through an area called seven corners. it’s a crazy confluence of roads, each sort of crashing wildly into the next. i have tried to count how many corners are actually there; but it takes too much concentration to simultaneously count and navigate through the area, so i’ve never actually figured out just how many corners there truly are in that intersection from hell.

this summer, there are two homeless men who work the streets here. an african-american man has the strip beside eastbound route 7; a caucasian man walks the strip on an access road that feeds into both 7 and ultimately route 50. both have signs that state that they are homeless vets. they have replaced the lady who walked this street last summer; i remember her vividly because not only did we give her money for her family, but BC insisted that we find help for this lady. (i called both social services and the nearest homeless shelter; of course neither could help her.  indeed, despite the fact that she was on that narrow strip of land day in and day out, they said that they could not locate the woman if they wanted to. it was a difficult lesson for BC; that agencies are not prepared to go looking for specific people, like lost pets, to bring in from the heat.)

i only drive on the access road the one man has claimed as his turf. this morning, i dug into my purse and gave the man some change; as i held it out, his rough hand gently scooped it out of mine. he blessed me; and i wished i knew more about how he ended up on this narrow plot of land in the early morning heat.

i often wonder about the stories behind each homeless person i encounter. there was a man i befriended 20 years ago who was on my walk from union station to my office. he had a teenager and was not happy about living on the streets and what that did to his relationship with his son. i would often give him some of my lunch, as i didn’t have much money to spare back then. as the months wore on, my friend started showing up with flour all over his pants and shirt. a local group was teaching him to work in a kitchen, and he was very excited about his baking classes. i cheered him on each day until one day, he was not in his usual spot. i never saw him again; and i always hope that somehow, he was able to take the skills he was learning and get back on a solid path to a life of  comfort and stability.

i fear this is not usually the case, though, with the people i see on the streets.

i have seen homeless people bathing in the fountain below the Capitol building, where only hours later, throngs of tourists will stick their hands and legs to cool off in the Washington heat.  i was once chased, along with a friend of mine, by a homeless man who snapped and went from friendly to threatening; he chased us all the way into the ladies room at union station until somehow, he was mercifully diverted. i often remind myself that homeless people are people like any others; most people are okay, but there will always be the liars, cheats, and people with serious problems in the world. these folks just have the added problem of no safety net to catch them and no place of their own in which to lay their heads at day’s end.

but i still wonder. i don’t know what i would do if i were in that situation. and as the economy fails, i suspect increasing numbers of people find themselves in this position.  friends who have come to visit DC often ask me whether there will be any of those people near their accommodations; they want to shield their kids, or they don’t want to be bothered by panhandling, which i certainly understand. but with the economy tanking, i wonder how many of those people will be coming to towns and villages which were formerly considered havens away from our big city distresses?

because in the end, couldn’t we all be those people?

oh, the subversive little song they taught us at school!

apparently, i am not the only one in the world who can only take so much of kate smith warbling G-d Bless America. legendary man of the people woody guthrie was absolutely annoyed by the never-ending airplay of this (admittedly classic) song and took matters in his own hands, writing this land is your land in 1940.  most grade school kids can recite the first verse in their sleep; i remember we had to learn a verse or two more in my day. there are, of course, two verses often omitted, thanks to some sort of printing mistake in 1945 (so THAT’S what they called it back then… i smell conspiracy!)

the first:

you stick it to the private property man, woody! that stanza has a grandchild:

and then, there’s this:

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This land was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I’d seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

wow. they never taught us those ones in school.

those latter lyrics about hungry people give me pause.  so many people today have lost their homes, their jobs, their standard of living. many more are in danger of doing so. i’d say that most americans historically looked at it as a sort of us or them situation; being poor was something other people did, and they did so because they were lazy. i’ve never felt that way, of course; but now, i think plenty of other people who are in that boat are realizing that it often has little to do with your motivation and a lot to do with economic realities.

for starters, you shouldn’t buy a home if you can’t afford to do so. programs that let unqualified home buyers go out and buy homes anyway were a gamble that eventually made everyone in this country a loser.  do i think these unqualified home buyers ought to be homeless? of course not. but i’m sure more unscrupulous people made some of the iffy-er economic entanglements too good to resist.  i remember when BS and i were looking to purchase our home. we had saved and tried to live within our means for a long time; and when some real estate agents dangled some absurdly dazzling numbers in front of our eyes regarding how much home we could afford, we dug in our heels and said no. we had done our own calculations, and we had a number with which we were comfortable. we knew we couldn’t go higher.

clearly, not everyone was able to do that.

and wall street clearly needs some better rules and even better enforcement of them. completely stealing from the other 98%:

Consumer Protection: Create an independent agency to protect consumers, not bankers. A strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency must be independent of Wall Street and other federal agencies, such as the Federal Reserve.

Rational Risks: Stop banks from taking excessive risks with your money.

National Economic Security: End “Too Big Too Fail” by setting limits on how big a bank can be, which will end our current system where the five largest banks control more than half of the nation’s deposits. You can help by supporting small, community banks at home

Disarm Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction: Stop Wall Street from taking advantage of families with defective products like subprime mortgages.

Market Transparency: Make banks disclose what they are betting our money on by making exchanges open and fully transparent, and by forcing big banks and credit card companies to offer clear terms consumers.

Accountability: End taxpayer bailouts and force banks to clean up their own mess.

i couldn’t have said it better myself. thanks, guys.

but it still gives me pause. where did our common sense go? if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is; so why did so many americans fall for so much of this smoke and mirrors game?

i wish woody guthrie were here to walk across this land today. i wonder what he’d think?

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

every year on memorial day, i think about the sacrifices men and women have made for our country. sure, i gripe a bit about other things, too, like the rolling thunder people who take over our area for the long weekend.  but i have several family members, living and now gone, who are veterans.  and i am proud of all of them, and i am proud of all the people, young and old, who have chosen to protect my rights.

and i get really tired nowadays about hearing the old crap that’s continually trotted out as supposed common knowledge: that because i disagree with the war in iraq that i somehow don’t care about service people.  it’s actually because i care about service people that i am disgusted with what has gone down as one of the worst military blunders, in my view, in american history. (and we have had our share of those, sadly. you don’t have to look far for them. vietnam, for starters… bay of pigs… i could keep going here…) first and foremost, these are our people — someone’s son, someone’s daughter, someone’s mom or dad, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin… these are people who have stepped up to the plate and who have pledged to protect our nation.

but what exactly are they protecting our nation from in iraq?

i can understand going after terrorists, and frankly, the mess that is afghanistan is partially due i think to our half-hearted attention to that part of the world. i agree there are times when our military stands strong in the face of horror; and that’s a part of the world where we should have been looking all along.

and now, it is all such a colossal mess.

i can’t believe it is yet another memorial day, and we are still in iraq. we still aren’t making a dent in afghanistan. pakistan is nuts. and we are no closer now to finding osama bin laden.

well, maybe there is a segment in this country that finds me unpatriotic. but it is because of the sacrifices and hard work of my immigrant grandparents, it is because of all that my parents have taught me, and it is all because of the world i want my children to inherit from my generation that i disagree with the military direction of this nation.  i disagree loudly. i disagree deeply. and i will disagree patriotically.

and you can bet that i know that i can thank a soldier for that.