A few things

Thing One. Today, SCOTUS refused to hear an appeal of the Army's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay soldiers. That sucks, though perhaps a different phrase would be a more appropriate condemnation. More disturbing, though, is that the government filed briefs in support of the policy.

That would be the Government as in the Obama Administration. As in my President who promised me he'd drop this ridiculous policy. Why is Obama dragging his feet on this? Why wasn't this a no-brainer rubber-stamp kind of action to satisfy the liberal masses?

I'm not expecting Obama to do anything about gay civil unions right now. Why should he? The states are, one by one, taking care of this for him at the moment. But, in a United States where gays can marry legally, the notion that they must adhere to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy is ludicrous. Come on, Obama.

Thing Two: this op-ed piece. Someone who knows a heck of a lot more about higher public education than I ever will thinks that the path to improving same includes actions like high pressure tactics to curb truancy, and advertising like crazy to encourage public college enrollment.

I read this piece through several times. And I cannot grasp the logic in the argument that spending beaucoup bucks to encourage college enrollment is going to improve the quality of higher education. Having more people attend college won't make the education they receive there any better.

And encouraging truants to mend their errant ways is a fine idea. But, again, having more children attend and graduate from high school will not in any way improve the quality of higher education they could receive in college. Could it be that the author is confusing the notion that the winner of the advertising wars is usually the best product available?

Perhaps we should encourage public post-secondary institutions to focus on improving the education students receive in the institutions, rather than simply trying to persuade people to attend. Maybe we should send the author back for a remedial logic course, too.

Last thing. Stanley Fish's blog has an interesting discussion today of Obama's allegedly changing use of personal pronouns. I haven't paid enough attention to render an opinion on whether he's right or not. I do know that the dichotomy between Obama's avoidance of "I" and Hillary Clinton's consistent use of same during the campaign was persuasive rhetoric on its face.

I'll have to think more about what kind of pronoun use I expect from my President. :-)

Liz

worship and attention

A friend sent me this speech, highlighting the following passage:

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."

Go read it; it's short. I read it. I liked it. A bunch. In some passages of big blaring prose, Wallace gave us a sliver of what unattended life is (hell on earth) and what the attempt to give attention to life can be (somewhere between better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and heaven.)

He attempts to divorce the discussion from religion or morals or dogma, though for the life of me I can't figure out why. I admit to complete ignorance of his writing which, upon remediation, will probably fix that. But, like most of life, its strands cannot so neatly be separated out or excluded by such labels.

My buddhist sensibilities (or go with desert monastic thought, if it suits you) heard Wallace's words as a logical follow up to "Regard all dharmas as dreams"; all of life and thought is fleeting, a bubble in the wind. All is meant to be seen completely, touched gently, and released, so we are ready to attend to the next moment and the next.

Of course, all these words of attending to now and thinking beyond myself led me to, um, lose myself in my head, examining and thinking instead of being right here right now. When my brain starts to think that it's thinking, reveling in both my words and others, overheating is inevitable. I move from rummaging in my brain for words to ransacking books. I knew that there were complimentary pieces, words that I'd read and tried to store up, that will match up with Wallace's words like parts of a jigsaw puzzle.

I started remembering Scott Russell Sanders and his sense of rootedness in place as part of a spirit-filled life. Reread a bit of Kathleen Norris' meditation on daily chores as potential joyful worship in "The Quotidian Mysteries."

I couldn't quite find the passage I was seeking in one of Pema Chodron's books on buddhism and compassion. Somehow, I ended up in a Barbara Brown Taylor book, reading "(b)e kind, wrote Philo of Alexandria," for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."

And so, an hour later, I found myself at the kitchen table, the table hidden under books and my head buried in words. Don't get me wrong. Books are good. Words are good. Thinking is good. For me, though, they are a sure path to the very unconscious living of which Wallace speaks. Lost in my words, I start to think my thoughts are important, something to worship. But they're not.

When I bushwhack my way out of my head, my thoughts, what I think of others' thoughts, I'm left with this: Every moment I can choose to pay attention, and to what I will pay attention. Attention is akin to worship. Where my treasure is, there is my heart also. And to what do I pay attention and treasure this evening? I am embarrassed to say and would rather hide in my words and books.

Maybe tomorrow I will make different choices.

Liz

Goodbye Girlfriends!

It's been a busy few weeks, so it takes a traumatic event to make me post. And this morning was full of trauma.

OK. Yes. I know. It's not cancer. Nobody lost a job. (Well, except Kathy and Judy.) But geez. Kathy and Judy have been holding down the fort at WGN 720 on your AM dial from 9a to noon for 20 years. I've been listening to them for most of that time--as soon as Carl is off the air, of course. :-)

The Girlfriends will be sorely missed. They surrounded me with adult conversation when I was home with two little munchkins. They made me laugh loud and long on many, many occasions. They made me cry a few times, too. What am I supposed to do at the end of next summer, when I send my girl off to college? There will be no "Letting Go" show for all of us parents to cry with on our rides home.

Being a long-time fan was a great education for me. Helped me understand why people approach us at concerts asking how our children are or if Carl's minding his diet after his heart attack. I didn't realize how connected I could feel to people I do not really know--nor how much I would miss them when they are no longer on the air.

Kathy and Judy's liberal political bent was, of course, nice to hear on an otherwise moderate to conservative station. But what I enjoyed most was the feeling that I had a few friends over every morning to talk over today's news and general life stuff. Goodbye Girlfriends.

And goodbye WGN radio. Putting Gary Meier on in the afternoons was bad. But canceling Kathy and Judy removes them from my pre-sets. I'll still hang with the Cubs and Pat and Ron. But if I want talk, I'll look elsewhere.

We all know where to go when we want music, yes? :-)

Liz

Frenchified musings

I'm always pleased and satisfied to read an explanation of my own behavior writ large in a headline. Apparently I'm fat and tired because I'm an American. Yet another study has made the astounding discovery that the French spend more time eating and sleeping than us, yet we are the wider for our short-shrifting of these two horizontal pleasure sites.

I've been pondering the differences between the French and myself, trying to account for my unseemly behavior. If I merely spoke French, perhaps that would help. I'd speak more slowly. Well, truly I would speak rarely, as my French is terrible and my accent is worse. And if I spoke less, maybe I would sleep more. If I slept more, perhaps my rested self would eat more slowly, thus taking in less food in more time.

But if I spoke French, then I'd have to BE French. Or at least pretend to be. And French women wear very insensible shoes, upon which they totter. I'm not good at tottering. Or teetering. Neither of which are similar to Twittering, which I also do not do. Perhaps I need to wear those insensible French shoes to the dinner table, as they would also encourage me to sit for a long period of time--seeing as how I can't stand up in them.

The French eye roll? That I can do. The shrug? I'm there. And, really, the sleep part would be awfully easy to take on. Yes, I'd do it, pull on my big girl panties and take those 9 hours of sleep as painful medicine. But when would I tackle my big life accomplishments, like the NYTimes Thursday puzzle or the Trib's Friday sudoku, or blog about important politic issues of our times, like studies that waste thousands of dollars telling us that which we already know? Which is more pleasurable, sleep or these things?

The hardest part would be the slow eating. For years and years, I've made family dinner time a priority, as a good rule-following mother should. Slapped those home-cooked meals down on the table at 5:30, gathered the family together for quality food, quality time, and quality conversations. Doesn't that sound conducive to slow eating? Harumph. Not so much.

Why? The boys argue with regularity about any possible topic, as fathers and young men are apt to do. The teenage girl reacts with predictable dramatic flair to the annoying male things that her father and brother are apt to do.

Further, the whole family is so comfortable in their knowledge of my love that they feel free to critique the previously mentioned quality food that I prepare. Well, I am not interested in their critiques. Not one bit. I make the food; you eat the food; you are grateful for the food or you cook it yourself.

None of these behaviors (including my own) seem to lend themselves to quiet family bonding moments. No one is hanging around the dinner table for hours at a time. Rather, I find that I react to these behaviors by eating as much food as I can as quickly as I can. This definitely doesn't fit into the French plan of eat little for a long time. I love my family but I do not want to sit at the table with them for a long time at this stage of our family life together. So shoot me.

Rather than resort to violence (against my family or self-inflicted), I've encouraged a whole new line of behaviors, including reading at the table, grazing, and studiously avoiding eye contact while eating, the better to bypass those pesky social interactions between family members. I find myself feeling more French every meal, as arguments, furious silence or ear plugging are replaced by blissful long moments of shared quiet over good reading material.

Pass the croissants, s'il te plait. :-)

Liz

H1N1/Heinie/Swine-y Flu

My obligatory swine flu post seasoned with a dollop of questionable logic.

Swine flu in River Forest? There are wild animals in Thatcher Woods, notable the ever-present carnivorous teenager. Coyotes have been sighted, as well as fox. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my, will probably be next. Is it any wonder that I am becoming convinced there are wild swine running loose in Thatcher Woods? Ergo, River Forest will be the epicenter of the Illinois flu outbreak.

Annie has swine flu? She was recently in Mexico. She even received a possible tainted tattoo there. She is now sick with a respiratory ailment which is triggering asthma problems. Ergo, Annie has swine flu.

Swine flu will kill us all? 1918 saw a horrible flu epidemic. It killed millions. The world is exactly the same as it was then. Ergo, swine flu will kill us all.

The swine flu scare is a crock? Swine flu was a crock in 1976. We had millions of vaccines and the only people who got sick were those who were vaccinated. Whenever we prepare for some big possible epidemical (new word) outbreak, nothing bad happens. Think bird flu. Ergo, the swine flu scare is a crock.

There are swine living in Oak Park and we are all at risk of swine flu--run!? True story: Jonathan looked out the back window today and yelled, "Mom, oh my gosh, there's a pig at the back gate!" Thinking that perhaps he was sleeping walking and talking, I meandered down the stairs to look. He was quite coherent, and insisted that an animal of porcine lineage just walked down our alley. "Hooves, mom, it had hooves."

A mad moment occurred while we threw around that possibility. Then Annie yelled down from her room (where Maggie dog had been barking like crazy at the unidentified possibly porcine beast), "Jonathan, it's a dog. It was black with fur!"

Oh. Never mind. As Annie wisely noted, "Aren't there village ordinances about having pigs as pets? Who would walk down the alley with a pig?"

Flu of any kind is not a good thing. It kills people, particularly the very young and very old and those with poor immune systems and chronic illnesses, So wash your hands, don't lick desks at school, and for crying out loud, don't leave the house if you have flu symptoms because you might give it to me.

Liz

Things I don't want to read about at breakfast

Well, one thing, actually. Headlines that nauseate me: "Family claims Chicago police officer beat autistic teenager." The story below the headline doesn't settle my stomach. Moderately autistic 16 year old was standing on the street, approached by police, then he walked away. Police (allegedly) chased him into a restaurant and bash him on the head while he yelled, "I'm a special boy!"

There may be all sorts of extenuating circumstances with which this story will be re-told in such a way that the police action seems--or is--excusable. As the parent of an autistic young man, whatever extenuating circumstances may exist do not make me feel a whit better.

One of the earliest things we taught Jonathan (our 21 year old son who is fairly high functioning) was if approached by police, he needed to immediately identify himself as autistic. People with autism don't like to make eye contact. They get nervous in new situations. Their behavior is often, um, odd. These are not social skill deficits that police willingly ignore, as they mimic what a person under suspicion might do.

Hence the need to educate both people with autism to identify themselves as such and to educate police about what autism might look like. The irony here is that the Chicago Police Department has been doing exactly this week, according to the Trib article. With the Easter Seals, they held an Autism Safety Awareness night , complete with 6 page training memo for all officers and index cards with tips on working with autistic people.

So the young man in question did what he was supposed to do: identified himself as special. The cops have been doing what they are supposed to do: educate the force about a community they serve. And still an autistic person receives a blow to the head needing 7 staples to close.

The family is considering a civil suit and wants the officers involved fired. I understand. I'd imagine that if the officers had pursued this young man, waited that split second necessary to discover what in the heck he meant by saying he was a "special boy", and not whacked him on the head, everyone would be happier right now.

I also understand that there isn't always a split second available. That decisions are sometimes made in a quarter second. And that those decisions can mean life or death for the officers involved. Officers make judgments and make mistakes; they are human.

Officers are enjoined to "Serve and Protect", though. That certainly entails a special obligation to protect those who are most in need of it--those with disabilities. Perhaps a split second of listening to this young man's family--who surrounded both him and the police while the officers were smacking him--yelling that he was a "special boy" with "special needs" might have been enough to change the scenario completely.

I don't want dead officers. I don't want autistic teenagers to have their heads bashed by police. I want to eat my breakfast in peace. Alas, I don't always get what I want.

Liz

The Librarian

Dawn Tideman, my favorite librarian, died last month. And I'm really feeling the loss.

As long as I've lived in Oak Park (23 years), I've been a regular patron of the Oak Park Public Library. When we lived on the south side of Oak Park, Jonathan and I took weekly walks to the Maze Branch. He loved the little house inside the children's section. I loved that it was small. I liked seeing the same faces each week. It was great to be able to see Jonathan in the little house and check out the new books area at the same time.

When we moved north to Ridgeland, we were all excited to note that we were a block away from Dole, the other branch library. There is nothing better than having a library in your neighborhood. Proximity makes it so easy to be a voracious reader. Bored? Go get a book. For free.

Over the years, I've gotten to know the librarians there. Dawn and I both enjoyed mysteries. We'd often discuss new authors, new books, beloved favorites. She helped me homeschool my boy. She knew my children by name. And she kept an eye out for Jonathan during his many visits, making me feel comfortable letting him visit alone.

Knowing the librarians by name--and having them know my name--is such a cozy thing. Oak Park may be a big village (50,000+) but it still feels darn small when you see people you know everywhere you go. Yeah, yeah. Cheers and all that. But my branch library is part of what makes Oak Park my home.

So I was very sad to hear that Dawn had passed away after a brief illness. The first time I visited Dole after learning, I was able to have a long conversation with my other favorite librarian, Robin. She told me the long version of the story. We consoled each other. It was reassuring.

It was not reassuring, however, to visit Dole the following week to find that I knew none of the librarians. I'd noticed recently that there were less familiar faces staff the place but had not put together what was going on. A letter to the editor in the Wednesday Journal last week clued me in. Apparently OPPL has a management policy that the entire library staff will rotate through all of the library's locations.

May I just say ick, ick and triple ick? I'm sure there must be some reason behind this policy. But it is such bad community relations that I'm astounded it came to pass. Hello? Don't you all (you library management types and you OPPL board types) know why we Oak Parkers have fought so hard to keep our branches open? We like the branch experience. We like little. We like cozy. We like the Cheers-like atmosphere where everybody knows your name.

Let me put this bluntly: having librarians with whom I have a relationship makes it far more likely that I will vote yes on any library funding bill. I know these people. I know what they do. I know how good they are at what they do. And I want them to keep doing what they do. So I will support them--and the library.

It's hard enough for a neighborhood like that surrounding the Dole Branch to absorb the loss of a long-time and well-loved librarian. Don't make me lose my connection to all of my Dole librarians.

Liz