(BTW….if you get reading & think, “this is crazy, she’s just picking on a company that’s helping us all to live, you should know that SIX European countries have banned Monsanto GMO corn. SIX. Yet our govt still lets us eat it here. You gotta wonder about priorities.)
“So the facts are as follows: We eat corn and corn derivatives that have been genetically modified, which has been banned for being unsafe in other countries — the FDA has not done independent testing on the health effects of at least three types of corn that we are eating, and have instead taken Monsanto’s word for the fact that they are safe. Monsanto resisted releasing their data to independent researchers — environmental groups had to sue to get it. Once it was released and analyzed by one group of scientists, they wrote a dense study in a non-peer reviewed journal and found statistically significant amounts of organ failure in the rats in Monsanto’s own study. Consumers often have no way of knowing clearly if they are eating genetically modified food.”
What a wonderful time we live in. I swear, humans are the total opposite of the hive mind. The more of them get together, the stupider they become. Give us a big, fecund globe & we breed like flies, gnawing thru everything in our path like a cloud of schizophrenic locusts. Then we use technology to squash predators, weather, & sickness, so nature can no longer level our numbers. Finally, when we need a way to feed all those people, we twank the genes of corn at the genetic level, a new achievement for the science of humans, & the result is – die anyway of toxins our bodies never evolved to handle.
I can hear nature now…she’s laughing a silky, knowing, sardonic snicker.
The other day I was having a conversation with someone about conspiracy theories, & how the problem is, there is a continuum, & on that line, some conspiracies are totally believable & very likely to be true, others are just crazy, but there’s this vast area in the middle that could be true. Many humans in power seem to be motivated by ego, greed, avarice. We are all so jaded because every day, we hear of yet more instances in which some person or persons goes after what they want no matter who it hurts. The wall street & banking crash would be an easy example here. Knowing that people can be utterly callous & malevolently apathetic pigs, how can you look at any nefarious plan & call it too extreme to be considered?
This Monsanto organ failure from corn thing is a classic example of the disconnect we’ve all somehow worked into our realities. If I invited you over for dinner & fed you something that was a little bit poisoned, how would you respond? Would you call the cops? Would you go on facebook & everywhere & tell people I’m insane & not to eat my food? Would you get treated & send me a medical bill? Or would you say, eh, what are you gonna do…can that really be true?….she wouldn’t do that…sure I’m a little tired but I feel mostly fine….
The idea that a seed company with worldwide reach could create a food-like substance designed to turn maximum possible profits while keeping people just fed enough is too huge to grasp. It’s unreal. You think, how could that happen? Surely if that were true the government would step in. Here’s a thought – I think they already have. Let’s think about it. The problem is, as with so many of our current ills, everything is so intertwined. If you get rid of GMO corn, crop yields will go way down, which means less high fructose corn syrup & feed for industrial meat lots. That’s certainly healthier, but then how will the cash poor lower classes get their calories? Right now they get most of them thru corn syrup. And how will the farmers get by if they grow less corn? They only make it now because of govt subsidies. The govt, out govt (they tell us) knows full well that corn syrup causes health problems. Yet instead of sitting on Monsanto – this GMO corn organ failure thing is only one of their many sins – the govt gives farmers subsidies to grow the stuff! Then they all go to washington & dick around about how to fix the health care crisis. This is so broke, I don’t even know where to start to fix it.
I eat meat, not a lot but some. This latest news has made me realize that all, not just most, of the meat I eat from now on will need to be organically grown. The why? Industrially raised livestock are fed corn. Hm. Do you think that’s GMO corn? You betcha. And as we’ve learned from eating big fish, toxins get concentrated as you go up the food chain. I don’t really want a concentrated load of Monsanto goodness when I eat a hamburger.
Here’s a good article about avoiding GMO food. And here’s a page where you can get a non-GMO shopping guide. Remember that even organic food can include GMO ingredients. It only has to be 95% organic to get the label. So check for 100% organic or quiz the company.
Recently, as I was driving my son to school, we discussed the schedule for the rest of the week & he mentioned their music class would be having a sing-along that day. “You don’t like those much, do you?” I asked. “No.” “Yeah, the songs are so weird!” I said. Then he said, “I can’t imagine what would drive someone to write songs so stupid!” I laughed, OH, how I laughed. My boy for sure. Well, it’s true what he says.
I’ve been to my share of school concerts &, yes, the songs are very stupid. I can’t really describe the genre, except that it is too involved with historical or political or nutritional storytelling to show proper respect to the power of rhyme. Also, & maybe this is just this specific teacher, but there is a LOT in the way of hand motions. If they sing about a wave, they have to move their hands in a wave. If they sing about a bunny, they have to hop. If the bunny eats a carrot, they have to all lean to the same side at the same time, hold up one hand, & pantomime eating a carrot. All things in moderation is not applied here. Given the attention span of your average grade school kid combined with the mathematical reality that the more kids there are who are supposed to do the same thing at one time, the less likely they are to achieve it, plus the sketchy singing skills of most kids these age even when they’re not having to remember to hop, results in a full 2 hours of rather spastic twitchings & flailings reminiscent of drunken hula dancers. It’s distressing to watch.
I still recall, far too vividly, Reid’s first school concert. The cafeteria was overfull, & we ended up standing by the wall about 2/3 of the way back, just under a speaker. Yes, a speaker. The kindergartners trooped up on stage, giggling & being shy. And they began to sing. Hypothetically. Their mouths were moving. Know what I heard? I heard a professional children’s choir, accompanied by several well-played instruments. A. Professional. Children’s. Choir. At high volume.
Call me old fashioned but I would have walked away from that school greatly more satisfied if I’d seen various breathy waifs bleating off key to some ineptly played piano music. They’re kids. With the rare exception of some young prodigies, we’re not there expecting to hear actual good singing. That is not the point. The point is to give the kids some stage time & make them feel their efforts are worth something. If I were a kid who had to spend 3 periods a week learning lame songs, then get up onstage & have my squawky but willing childish voice drowned out by a recording of kids who spend their spare time ironing their audition suits for the new production of Little Orphan Annie, I’d leave there pretty dammed demoralized. Even a little kid can ask, what’s the point? And adults can not only ask what the point is, they can go home & write about it to other parents & to the school.
My son’s school markets itself as “arts rich.” That’s lovely & I like the sound if it. The problem is I’m not sure how impressed I really am with the art portion. I know in one grade, won’t say which one here, another parent witnessed a teacher lining up all the portrait drawings & adding perspective & other small nuances. Gee, no wonder our kids’ drawings were so impressive on open house night! Reid, now a 4th grader, was eligible to start the band this year. I nixed it. He has taken a few fiddle lessons on his own & practices randomly. The 5th grade class I saw perform 2 years ago played a violin piece. It had 3 notes. THREE. This after 2 solid years of study. Reid can play 2 scales well, & he learned that in about a month. That would be 15 notes. I know it must be hard to teach violin to kids, but I don’t see how 2 years of showing up to learn 3 notes is ever going to inspire one of those “they gave me a chance when all I had was my crippled mom, half a dog, & slept in a dumpster & now I’m the young Yo-yo Ma” stories.
I’ll tell you something – overall, I have a really hard time judging how good my son’s school is. The problem is my perspective doesn’t allow that level of nuance. There was just one school where I grew up. We had the pedophile lesbian grade school gym teacher, the minister/guidance counselor, the 3rd grade teacher who made us sing hymns each morning yet beat kids in class, the cliché home-ec teacher married to the shop teacher. On the bus & the playground, you were on your own. Our bus driver was a 300 lb. male farmer version of Helen Keller in worn jeans, a Red Man cap, & a crewcut. His awareness, such as it was, was forward. Utterly. Once you passed his impassive wide back in stretched & faded cotton, you entered Lord of the Flies wrapped in Bluebird yellow. In my son’s classroom, they have magic markers in all the colors of the rainbow. I mean…they must have at least 10 colors in there! And they’re allowed to have water bottles at their desks!!! My god. Once I found out they heated the building in winter, I was sold. So when I fall into conversation with another parent & they ask how I like Adams, I say, I’m not as pleased as I’d like to be, but it’s hard for me to say. I don’t have anything to compare it to.
I will say, now that we’re in the 5th year at this school, I do feel absolutely justified griping about the music program. Because Adams is supposed to an arts rich school. If would be different if they were positioning themselves as a math school, but music is of the arts, yet I don’t see them doing it at all well. Do you know, at the last concert, the teacher went on about how someone had made a donation, allowing them to add another instrument to their studies. And then each kid picked up a tube which they whacked against the other hand to make a tone. In a pattern, you see, with the rest of the notes. And I’m thinking, if they’re going to call this an instrument, why not just collect empty bottles, fill them with varying amounts of water, & make a jug band? Same thing. Each kid would have 1 or 2 notes, & heck, you can get all the materials from your neighbors’ garbage cans on recycling night. Take that, pathetic school budget!
I don’t have any bright ideas here. I suspect that when I go to these concerts, I’m not seeing the full range of kids. I bet that a fair number of kids get more focused training in the form of private lessons. That’s the case with Reid. So the cream has already been skimmed off, leaving the kids who don’t have the time/talent/attention/discipline/opportunity to do more than whack a tube. But shouldn’t our schools be giving truly worthwhile experiences to all the kids?
He just wanted to do what every out-of-touch, selfish, lusty billionaire possessed of the overfed goose liver pate version of an ego has done for all of human history – boink quantities of beautiful women while gallivanting all over the world to his various disgustingly ostentatious & heavily guarded mansions. But now we know that sex with him can be wild & crazy, we hear stories that he is a tightwad to rival Hetty Green, asking restaurants to comp him his meals because he is…Tiger Woods. We have been alerted to his obscene earnings. This was never secret but no one had any particular interest. We now know about his kids, his parents, his early TV appearances, his life as a child golf prodigy, his beautiful wife, his many homes, what he drives, his investments. (Dubai. What a fool.) And just up are pix of the house his wife is buying on some island off the coast of Sweden. Am I the better for knowing these things? No. My life has no intersection whatsoever with Tiger Woods’. I think golf is surpassed in boringness only by picking fuzzballs off wool sweaters. And I don’t care a flick about Tiger Woods as a person. He is good looking enough but not my type so I’m not feeling crushy, he doesn’t seem to possess any irresistible charisma, he is not styling himself as a leader in any charity or cause I’ve heard of. He’s simply not on my radar. For all that, I now know so much about him. It’s not like I’m trying, he’s on every front page. There’s something wrong when, without trying, I know this much about a person who will never have any effect whatsoever on my life, & who I will never meet.
I feel sort of bad for him because he’s one of the new victims of this growing culture of zero privacy, & the thing about it is – why should we care? Does it make us lose respect for Tiger? Really? How much was respect of Tiger Woods really a part of any of our lives 2 weeks ago? Be honest – if you ran into him at the coffee shop tomorrow, you’d be just as fawning & oogling as anyone, I mean, if that’s your bent. You would act exactly as you would have a month ago before any of these demeaning antics were made public.
The irony, to me, is that nothing he’s done is new. FDR walked with leg braces because he had polio as a child. We know that now, but at the time, very few people had any idea. Why? Because the media all agreed it would be undignified to show him shuffling to the podium. Also it would weaken him in the eyes of his public. It just wasn’t done. By the time Reagan came along, we were seeing cross sections of his prostate on the evening news. And JFK! People at the time thought of him as a young man coming into his best years, blessed with a beautiful & demure wife, a large & supportive family, charming & well bred children, & deep American values. In fact he had tunnels going into the White House to so he could writhe with his mistresses without inconveniencing the gate guards.
I’m not interested in whether Tiger Woods has done right or wrong. He’s not a politician, not a dr, not in a position of public trust. He is living lavishly but not with my money. He’s been a pillar of restraint compared to some celebrities. Heck, Ghengas Khan was a wealthy & powerful man & he slept with quantities of women as his right. I read one study saying some 8% of men in a certain part of Asia share his genes. Tiger was unfaithful which is considered improper in our current times, but hasn’t our country always loosened this standard for celebrities? So why do we need to hear every little detail of this marital train wreck? His wealth & fame have made it so he probably can’t walk 2 steps without some fan or paparazzi hounding him. He’s probably done pretty much what most of us would to if we were convinced by a doting public that we were brilliant, & had enough money to indulge our pleasures. But for Tiger Woods, the walls came down at the confluence of 2 ideas, one a couple of decades old & one rather new – that if it can be found out, we have a right to hear about it; & that every bit of info, good & bad, might as well go out to the networked world ASAP.
We have reached a point of cultural TMI. For all 4 of you who haven’t heard yet, TMI stands for “too much information.” Usually it’s used in the context of too much intimate information, or intimate and gross. Like more details than you really need on some sex act gone wrong. People will exclaim, “TMI! I didn’t need to hear that!” And this is what we have in the case of Tiger Woods. The wonders of the Internet strain toward a nadir, & we, the distracted public, plug into incredible technology to ensure we go forth to our days with the vital knowledge that some golfer guy is well endowed. Job well done.
A timely fall recipe which meets three important requirements:
Efficiently preserves your leftover turkey.
Tastes delicious.
Helps you preserve food so you’ll have something to eat & barter with after the rapture.
We are experiencing the bounty that comes when each of your guests brings a potluck dish that serves at least 6 people, they each are just the one, so the math is….18 people x 6 servings = so many leftovers that we have stashed certain durable items near the back door, grouped right there around the door in the cold air, so we can just reach out & grab them without spending much time there in the cold ourselves. Some clever guests slipped away without taking their fair share of leftovers. That’s where a downstairs freezer comes in handy; they’ll be seeing those leftovers next time they come for dinner. That’s what they get for sliding out unnoticed.
And so I give you… turkey jerky! This is the first time I’ve dried cooked meat & I am so impressed by the result. Please let me share this simple but highly useful & satisfying recipe with you.
First you will need a food dehydrator. I recommend the Excalibur, the true queen of the food-drying world. I know your leftover turkey has been in the fridge for a couple of days now, so you’ll want to act fast. Overnight shipping will be steep, especially for something so bulky, but you’ll come out of it with a really great dehydrator.
Pull pieces of meat into strips about as wide as your finger. You want pieces, not hunks. Put them in a bowl & sprinkle with salt, brown sugar. Gosh, that looks dry, you’ll think. So squeeze a couple of limes of their precious bodily fluids. Mix it around with your hand. You should have added enough lime juice to create just the tiniest bit of juice in the bottom of the bowl that you can’t quite manage to work into the meat. Spread on one of your new dryer sheets & dry for about 6-8 hours. Do this in the daytime. You want to be able to check on the progress. Overnight is too long. Might I add that when I am clumping up the basement stairs with a tray of turkey jerky balanced on one hand, my dog Tippy stands at the top of the stairs with her front paws on the first stair down. This means her nose is well forward & ideally positioned to snuffle the tray, & also means that I must bribe my way past her. So. Excellent dog treats for whatever you will inevitably over-dry, despite my warnings. Snack on, put in lunchboxes, take camping, break up & add to soup. Enjoy! -Susan
The other day I posted the 1950s cautionary film for teens, Boys Beware, put out by the Inglewood CA school district. In it teen boys are advised on how to avoid catching the gay virus from older men (apparently it’s communicable by talking, as with a cold) & otherwise ruining their innocence. A quick browse on YouTube led me to the companion film, Girls Beware. I watched it as a lark, desperately hoping it would involve apple-cheeked home-ec students in poodle skirts being stalked by dyke babes sporting James Dean haircuts they’d given themselves with their square moms’ kitchen shears, but it went in another direction.
Each film tells the stories of 4 teens. 1 gets killed, 1 escapes after using common sense, 1 ends up getting under the stern thumb of the cops & their parents, & 1 boy story has a boy getting rescued by the cops, while 1 girl story has a girl also getting rescued, but after she’s raped as a result of her silly ways. Both films are aimed at mid-teens who by their nature tend to overestimate their own sophistication. Kids at these ages are grabbing at every possible opportunity for independent action with the non-discriminating snap of a dog being tossed chicken scraps. The filmmakers do their level best to nurture any doubts these kids might have about their own decision making abilities.
I’m appalled at the barely concealed messages about the roles of boys & girls. The lessons here are awful. Let me skip over the anti-gay slant for a minute here. The sexist slant makes me crazy.
The boys in the film are presented as sensible, good natured, naturally friendly, & above all – innocent. Even Mike, who is killed, (“later that night, he traded his life for a newspaper headline!”) was just getting a ride home from a stranger who’d played a little ball with him…I mean a little pick up on the court. Gosh, there’s no way to write that that’s not a pun, is there? He was offered a ride home, he took it. Is Mike’s judgment criticized? No! “The stranger’s friendliness dispelled any misgivings he might have had.” In other words, Mike did his best but it wasn’t enoubh to avert the finger of fate. Denny, hardworking young paper boy, also got into a stranger’s car, but he thought he was helping to catch a couple of bike thieves.
But don’t get the idea that getting into a stranger’s car is wrong! Jimmy is tired from baseball practice so hitches a ride home. The narrator, who identifies himself as a cop assigned to the juvenile squad, says hitchhiking is common & fun, everyone does it. There is a brief shot of a small town street with about 6 boys lined up, all hitching for a ride. A car stops for Jimmy, a car driven by a friendly older man. The film spends 5 of its 10 minutes on what could only be described as the courtship of Jimmy. After a few encounters, they are spending Saturdays fishing together, & going to putt putt golf; “Ralph took him many interesting places.” The striking thing here is I can’t imagine a 1950s girl being able to spend her Saturdays & afternoons away without the family asking where she is & who she is with. And really, all gayness aside, wouldn’t YOUR radar go off if a total stranger insisted on spending hours a week with you & showering you with gifts & money? Jimmy, lacking the native cunning of any comparable female or with even the sense of self-preservation god gave a squirrel, just doesn’t get it until it’s “too late”. The language gets vague here at about this point. All we hear is that Ralph expects things in return for his good treatment & we see them heading up outside stairs that lead to what looks like the 2nd floor of a motel. Or maybe Ralph has a bachelor apt. Anyway, Jimmy eventually tell his parents, Ralph is arrested, & Jimmy is released to his parents on probation. I don’t get that last part. I thought Jimmy was the victim. Unless the point is that if you let things go too far, you’ll be shamed & outed.
Girls Beware is a different book from the same library. Judy baby sits for a stranger & is found dead a week later. “Judy hadn’t done anything wrong but she was careless.” This is confusing, because being careless is doing something wrong because you’re just not thinking. Barbara, also babysitting, tells a knocking stranger to take his “my car broke down” woes next door then goes smugly back to her homework on the sofa. Sally & Elizabeth get hit on by 2 older guys at the movies, who offer them rides home. Sally is all for it but Elizabeth “decided it wouldn’t be right.” Sally, a petite blonde who looks like a child next to the 2 hulking guys, asks Elizabeth to lie, asking her to call her parents & say they’ll ride home with a friend’s parents. After the show, the boys reiterate their offer of a ride. Sally is single-minded & asks Elizabeth to call her parents with a different lie, that Elizabeth’s parents have taken her home. Later that night, Sally is found wandering near Lookout peak. “It is a night they’ll long remember. In fact, Sally may never be able to forget it.” The language is vague enough to create an unfocused fear in the sheltered kids that made up the 1950s audience, while more worldly viewers understand she was raped. Mary is flattered by the attention of a maladjusted loser who passes his time working at the malt shop because he can’t fit in with his own age group. He becomes more & more demanding. “Mary knew things were getting out of hand” but she doesn’t want to lose the guy or the prestige among her friends of having an older boyfriend. Soon she’s “in trouble” & has to go to her parents. She is removed from school & placed under the supervision of juvenile authorities, which is code for knocked up, no abortion, farmed out to a home till the kid is adopted out.
Look at the differences here. All the boys, dead or alive, were just being friendly, like Jimmy, or helpful, like Denny. Sally & Mary also become prey, but there is a strong suggestion they brought it on themselves. Mary gives in not only to the groping hands of what’s-his-name but also to the demands of her own ego. She likes having her friends see that she has an older boyfriend. Sally, too, enjoyed the movie intermission when all the other kids saw her with the 2 older guys. And Sally was easy. Jimmy had to be courted for weeks & plied with goodies & outings & then he didn’t want to hurt Ralph’s feelings as he had become fond of him; Sally is satisfied with an intermission snack & hour’s worth of flattering. She was eager to go out with the boys, willing to lie for it. Sally & Mary are impetuous creatures, they both fall into trouble because they want sex, popularity, excitement. Their film ends with a warning that kids who try to grow up too fast get into trouble. The boys, who are after all teens & are probably sporting erections 20 hours a day, are shown in a clean & sweet light, & their troubles come from being just normally friendly & decent. How can you fault that? Their film ends with a caution that they should not go off with an adult unless a parent or teacher says it’s ok.
The Victorians had a conflicting view of women: they were considered nearly ethereal, closer to heaven & fuller of pure impulses than men. As such, they were responsible for the making heaven at home, a place of shelter for the husband, a godly & peaceful home for the children. At the same time, women were viewed as beings just barely in control of their lust, greed, jealousy, & general harridan qualities. They needed the firm, wise hand of guidance as provided by husbands & fathers. Sally & Mary are inheritors of these attitudes. The films also say a lot about the freedom of girls versus boys. Sally has to lie to get a ride home, while Jimmy gets to spend his afternoons & weekends with Ralph & never is there the faintest suggestion that he’s covered his actions with a lie. From which we can infer his parents aren’t asking how he’s spending his time, since they’d surely freak out at his new friendship with old Ralph & all the gifts & such. Granted, Jimmy probably does have to report back promptly at night but you see my point.
It’s pretty much impossible for me to know what the takeaway would have been for kids back then. Their lives were so different. The message I hear is that gay men are killers. The message in the girl film puzzles me.
Posted by familyal on Nov 17, 2009 in 1950s, politics
I’ve got a couple of great vids today. First is a little film made sometime in the 1950s by the Inglewood Unified School District of Inglewood, CA. It’s 10 great miinutes of cleancut high school boys being hunted & killed by those deadly foes, older gay guys. As the film cautions us…
“One never knows when the homosexual is about. He may appear normal. And it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill.”
I am particularly taken with the breezy music, reminiscent of a Doris Day film in which she’s picking flowers in her yard on a sunny day, or arranging her hats. The Inglewood District also put out a film for girls, & I was extremely eager to see how they’d handle the threat of horny women who tend who are overly fond of pants & severe blouses, but again, the villians were men. More on that in another post. I’m probably already past the attention span of today’s readers.
And for your more current viewing pleasure I have Steven Colbert verbally skinning yet another annoying politician, this one voting against a bill that would let gay people deal with the bodies of their partners after one of them dies.
We REALLY need to have civil unions be something other than religious unions. It is archaic that these things remain the same on the books & in people’s minds.
Posted by familyal on Nov 13, 2009 in WWII, politics
My morning reading on Veteran’s Day included more than a few comments on facebook about the bravery of our troops & how they are preserving our freedoms, & oh, thank you, thank you, you wonderful men in uniform. Warm, fuzzy declarations of agape love stirred haphazardly together with hero worship do feel delightful. Such syrupy sentiments sound wonderful & their formulaic style makes them easy & fast to dash off. But I would suggest they display a distinct lack of critical thinking.
I’m sorry to tell you this Virginia but your government will lie to you. Don’t give out your trust with the indiscriminate enthusiasm of a 10-month-old Labrador retriever. War is utterly stupid. Humans make such a big thing of their fat brains; they are the only species with writing, the only ones with consciousness. And what do we do with it? Make weapons. Wow. I am convinced that if some alien race came to visit earth, they’d look around & say, “Good grief Zontor! Look at these strange hairless creatures. They are the worst virus we’ve ever seen! They kill each other, then go home & try to breed more! And they’ve nearly destroyed the planet. This is the most horrific genetic abnormality we’ve seen since Vagbar 12. Good thing we got here in time to eradicate them so the peaceful, non-humanoid beings can continue on. Perhaps, one day, conscious life will evolve here.”
After the bombs were dropped in Japan in WWII, films were made & pictures were taken. And then our caring govt did what it so often does with information – it hid it away for decades. It’s fine for comic books to have brave soldiers displaying a restrained, manly satisfaction after ackack-ing another nest of nips, but letting adult Americans see families, kids, old people, dying of radiation, showing them the utter destruction – can’t have that! People might actually start to protest war.You can see some of these films atGreg Mitchell’s blog.
You should know what you are so thankful for. You should see what war does. And you should put some hard, hard thinking into why you think this is worthwhile, & also you should ask the question, what freedoms is it that our wars are protecting? Is cheap crap from China really worth it? How about being limited to 3 oz of fluid when you go thru the airport? Do you enjoy it when your kid’s school grovels for money every week in the newsletter, while the Iraq war costs billions a month? Did you know that our govt won’t buy the best armor for soldiers over there? They made a deal with a company that makes low quality armor. And if a family saves up & buys the best armor & send it to their brother/son, & the guy gets injured, the army won’t pay benefits because he’s not wearing the govt issued armor. Even tho that’s what people get killed in. Does this make sense? “Freedom” isn’t the right word. We pay for it. In compromised schools, in deals with automakers & oil companies. CEOs of drug companies live in mansions that we pay for.
Be a critical consumer. In all things. Do you need it. Is it worth it. And what is the truth.
I found a great blog yesterday. One I’ll actually read, because lordy, there are a LOT of blogs out there & I can spare only so many brain cells. It’s called Free Range Kids & you can see it by clicking here. The author is a professional writer – the lucky duck – & she started her blog after getting rather a lot of attention for the subway incident. You see, she let her 9 year old boy ride the subway alone in New York. Then she wrote about it. Need I say that she got some criticisms. Let me mention here that her child is raised in New York & rode the subways all the time with his parents. In the wake of the unexpected furor, she started up her blog to discuss the generally overprotective trend we’re seeing in child raising today.
They built their own clubhouse! This makes Reid nuts.
I had this in mind yesterday as Reid & his no-school-on-veteran’s-day play-date companion careened around the living room, piling up throw rugs, slapping discordant tones out of the piano, shrieking. “Why don’t you go up to the park?” I suggested. “Yeah! Let’s do that!” Reid shouted. “When will you be ready, mom?” “I looked down at the seam I was ironing, part of a sewing project I’ve been hoping to finish sometime in this century. “Just go on without me. I’ll come up in a few minutes.” The other boy made an amazed face & announced he’d never gone anywhere by himself. I stood there thinking about his age, 9. And about his sometimes out of control behavior. And Reid’s familiarity with the neighborhood & his good sense. And what I was doing when I was 9. I put my hand on the other child’s shoulder & described the walk, instructed them both to behave & cross the streets carefully, & sent them off.
The park I speak of is 3 blocks from our house. You walk up the hill, thru a residential neighborhood, & the road dead ends. There is a long set of stairs winding up the hill & at the top is a very sweet little park with a long slide, a bit of a climbing thing, & a tiny pocket of woods on a steep hill. I first let Reid go there by himself this summer. It kind of caught me off guard. He came running in one day & said the kids up the street were going & could he go too? It left me kind of breathy. His first time out without me! Aww… But it’s a safe enough thing. No major traffic at all.
Lenore Skenazy asks in her free range blog, if you don’t let your kids roam, why not? I’ve spent some interesting moments since then asking myself that. Hmm…I think part of it is that I am somewhat haunted for extremely vivid & graphic imaginings of things going wrong. Also, I can’t see this environment thru a kid’s eyes in my own memories. I grew up in the country. I can’t think what there is to do in a house-thick neighborhood. And a big part of it is that I can’t think what Reid would do to pass the time out there. Sure, he asks to hang out on the sidewalk, & I let him. He slaps at the bamboo with a stick, sometimes he looks at bugs or whittles. But there is no kid gang, there is no empty lot. It’s just house, house, house. All nice yards. No roaming dogs. What is there? A sidewalk. Yippy.
I read to Reid a lot & I have a nostalgic fondness for the world that was gone even when I was a kid as seen in The Moffats, & The Great Brain. In one Moffat story, the 6-year-old Rufus spends most of the day going back & forth to the library in quest of his own library card. This takes him several blocks from home on his scooter, barefoot. In another story, Mama has to go to NY for the day, so she stops by school & tell them to tell Rufus & Jane that they should get their own lunch, which sits heating on a coal stove. Jane is excited in one story when it’s her job to clean & fill the oil lamps. Can you imagine? Leaving kids alone in a house with a stove with a fire? With the house lit with oil lamps? A 6-year-old on his own for hours, across town, barefoot?
A hill, trees, a pond. Right out back?
I can’t imagine. That’s the problem. I would love to let Reid be more free-range, but it’s hard to say when that would happen. Reid has been reading Little Lulu reprints lately. He wants a treehouse. He wants a clubhouse. He laments that there aren’t more kids around. Actually there are kids on our block, 5 in his age range. But like most kids today, they’re all booked up. And when they aren’t doing math club or scouts or swimming, they’re inside watching tv or playing video games. There don’t seem to be any kid gangs anymore of the kind in Little Lulu. This nostalgia can also be seen in the works of Bill Watterson. His Calvin & Hobbes live in a house on a street of houses, with Suzy just down the block, much like our neighborhood. But Calvin’s house apparently adjoins a state park, or that’s my best guess on the frequent wanderings of Calvin & Hobbes into the uninhabited & fertile woods. Calvin’s mom deals with his childish nagging by tossing him outside. While I can certainly identify with her frazzled nerves, the only thing behind our house is the the cranky old man neighbor & his ineptly disciplined hedges.
I’m so often conflicted & frustrated by the over-protection of today’s kids. I want Reid to be safe, but I also want to let him find his own way in the world, I want him to test what I’ve taught him so he can understand why it makes sense, I want him to learn to trust his instincts. He needs to learn to be alert to his world instead of always depending on me. I mean, he should see when a car is coming, or it’s raining outside, I shouldn’t be the one to say every time, watch out, or take an umbrella. But it has become so difficult. Things have gotten really messed up when teaching your child to use their judgment opens you up to criticisms of bad parenting, when good parenting is partially defined as keeping your child under your wing at all times. We’re going to have to come back to some reasonable sense of balance.
By the way…I did wander up the hill yesterday after about 15 minutes. Both boys were absolutely fine. they made it there without getting squished or vandalizing anything, & they hadn’t been captured by insane, homicidal homeless hobos camping in the woods.
I am just back from 9-year-old son’s yearly physical. And I am displeased. Displeased! GAH!!! Hey! Here’s an idea for how to overhaul the medical system. How about we get to pay what we think it’s worth?
We go to Group Health in Seattle. I suppose it was a radical & wonderful thing when it started but I fear they have become mired in bureaucracy. “They’ve become a machine,” my husband says.
Got there & some woman (she may have been an assistant, she may have been a nurse. I never found out, since she never saw fit to tell me) came out & called Reid to come down the hall, go into a room, & take his shoes off. While she went thru the weight height list I kept waiting for her to introduce herself or MAKE EYE CONTACT, for god’s sake but apparently common courtesies & basic manners aren’t covered in our plan.
She said Reid’s right eye wasn’t seeing well & that I would want to make an appt with optometry. “He saw someone last week,” I said. “Isn’t that on the computer? I thought that was one advantage of being in the same system.” No response. Eventually we saw the doctor. He was nice enough. But what a cursory exam.
I’m thinking about how our understanding of how our bodies & minds work is expanding constantly. And one thing we’ve figured out is that there are MANY factors to health: what we eat, how much we eat, the quality of the air we breath, our daily stress level, how much we exercise, drugs or medicines we take, allergens around us, & that’s just a bit of the list. This would have been an ideal time to ask me about what I feed my child, & does he exercise, is he sleeping well & how much does he sleep, how much tv does he watch? But these things were not discussed. Does he eat a lot of sugar? Didn’t come up. Reid splits his time between my house & his dad’s house, which is surely a factor, but they don’t know about it because they didn’t ask the most basic questions about his living situation. And they made him undress & put on one of those lame robes, which by the way was an adult size so he couldn’t even tie it on reasonably. I expected the doctor to have him stand up & turn around so his skin & posture could be observed. I think this is quite reasonable. What if I’m practicing my tattooing on Reid? What if I’m abusing him by burning little patterns into his skin with match heads? If I were that kind of parent I would surely have threatened him not to mention anything. Or what if he has some kind of weird blot that is skin cancer only I’m too clueless to ask about it?
I don’t expect them to run a cat scan or bloodwork on a child that is to all appearances bright, alert, & healthy. But a few words on what’s currently considered a healthy diet, a quick glance with trained eyes at the skin & posture of a child…these things don’t require any flavor of test, any kind of special equipment, except, of course, an active mind & some semblance of professional interest.
We left with our little sheet of paper placing Reid in his percentiles. As if I care. His next visit is recommended in 3 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends every 2 years at this age, but I suppose that isn’t covered on our plan.
THAT’S my boy. Joy on his face, his grim reaper staff in his hand, striding past the funeral home. Ah, to be young.
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Today I want you to see the food pyramid from Dr. Weil’s site – click HERE. It’s interactive on his site. Red meat 2 times a week is something I know I wasn’t raised with. We now know that much of the original govt issued food pyramid was written by agribusiness. No one needs meat every day. A recent study finds (no surprise) that high fat diets make people feel mentally dull. Today & the next few days, think about what you’re eating & look at how you might could make some better choices.
And click HERE for a amazon.com for your fall Moon Pie needs. And I don’t use that ‘need’ word lightly.
THAT’S my boy. Joy on his face, his grim reaper staff in his hand, striding past the funeral home. Ah, to be young.
And I don’t use that ‘need’ word lightly.