M.A.W.B. Squad

Ain't Got Time to.........

Blog.

Isn't it fun to be able to harass Minnesotans with Jessie-speak whenever it strikes your fancy, (she says from her spot safely in cheesehead land)?

I know there's all sorts of interesting stuff going on in the world; London's taking bombers down right and left, US clerics got together and condemned terrorism, (because London is different somehow, I guess), six party talks are back on track, Hugh and Our House spiffied up, and let's not forget Chad's diaper reports.

Sadly, the world will have to struggle along without my two cents on these monumental moments in history.........at least until next week sometime.

Don't forget, Patriot Picnic tomorrow.

Tomorrow!
I love ya'!
I love ya'!
Tomorrow!
You're always a day away!

Update:  Apparently, I don't have time to spell properly either. Sheesh!  Fixed up some junk.

Questioning My Sanity

Today my dog found the rotting carcus of a baby bird, and promptly flopped on his back and did his best to smear miniature avian gut parts all over his fur. I don't understand the appeal.  I've never driven down a road, saw a dead deer on the shoulder and thought, "Boy, would I just love to pull over and go turn a few somersaults inside that doe's ribcage."  Stupid dog.

More annoying that washing decaying flesh from dog fur, however, is answering a million questions from your kids on a long car trip.  Today we headed into the cities and in the hour and a half it took to get to our destination, I fielded the most innane queries on a wide range of topics.

Mom, what is that?

A boom crane

Mom, what if you were a boom crane?

I guess I'd be parked on the side of 494 waiting to do my part to build a bridge.

Mom, what if you were a bridge?

I'd be helping cars and pedestrians cross a busy highway.

Mom, what if you were a highway?

Ad nauseam.  When they got off the "what if you were" meme, they started firing off completely random questions.  Can we talk about brains now?  Are we there yet? How old is Grandpa? Why is that building shiny? Do we have alligators in Minnesota? Is that blood or pizza sauce on my shoe?

I appreciate their curiosity and I encourage it most of the time.  But today I couldn't take any more.  Not without Tylenol and a Diet Coke.  So I said, "Boys!  I need some quiet.  I don't want anyone to talk for the next twelve minutes.  If I hear another question, there will be dire repercussions."

The Senator couldn't help himself.  "But Mom, what's dire mean?"

I almost pulled off the highway.  If there had been a dead raccoon on the shoulder of the road, I would have made The Senator get out and roll in it.

The Christian Paradox

Bill McKibben penned this piece for Harper's Magazine:

Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor.

Sigh.  There are plenty of problems with the church, for example only half of Prostestant pastors have a biblical worldview.  But, let's move on.

In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each provide fifteen cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And it’s not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to twenty-one cents. It’s also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose—childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool—we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin.

This is just wrong.  I don't know where he got his statistics, or how he parsed them, but the Giving USA Foundation estimated charitable giving in the USA in 2004 at $248.52 billion dollars.  Please note, that doesn't include government aid.  The CIA World Factbook estimates the population of America at 295,734,134, which would calculate to $840.34 per man, woman, and child in this country - a huge discrepancy from 21 cents a day, ($76.65 annually), including foreign aid, wouldn't you say?

His next line makes his motives a little suspect:

The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; it’s that the overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention.

As everyone already knows?  Not only do I not know that America is cheap when it comes to giving, I've just proven him wrong, What kind of assumptions did Mr. McKibben start this article with?  He goes on to the murder rate, prison populations, capital punishment, and divorce. 

While I agree that our nation has problems and the church has problems, this particular commentary has as much to do with his own political philosophy as it does with Christianity.

Smoking Police

A New Jersey Assemblyman has sponsored legislation to make it illegal to smoke in your car while driving.  More than likely it won't pass, but idiotic measures like this are often a sign of things to come.

First they came for the smokers.......

NY Post: Profiling's Key

Somebody finally says what needs to be said.  This totally random search PC crap is going to get us killed.  It requires registration, (subliminal message: Bugmenot), but it's worth it.  Yishai Ha'etzni in the NY Post:

The American system's "blindness" cuts off the most important weapon in the war against terrorism: Human capability, judgment and perception. Now that the United States faces a higher threat, it cannot afford to neglect those tools.

Using sociological data as well as constantly updated intelligence information, trained security personnel know who is most likely to be perpetuating an attack, as well as how to identify suspicious individuals through behavior. (Again, it is important to note that ethnicity is only one factor among many used to identify potential terrorists.) Removing intelligence and statistical probability as tools would render this model far less effective.

The idea that we should use random methods to be "fair" is like asking someone investigating a murder to ignore that most murderers know their victims.  It's just not logical.  It's long past time that we face that fact and use all the tools at hand to stop the terrorists.

CAFTA for Jo

The Washington Post is on board:

THE HOUSE is getting ready to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a deal that would bind the five nations of Central America plus the Dominican Republic to the U.S. economy. From a commercial standpoint, it's curious that most Democrats in the House resist the agreement: 80 percent of Central American exports already enter the United States without tariffs, so the main effect of the deal will be to open the region to U.S. products. But the political argument for CAFTA is at least as compelling. While the United States has been focusing on terrorism, a new challenge has been brewing in its own hemisphere. House members should consider this challenge before voting to slam the door on Central America's pro-American leaders.

Chad's a Dad! - New Parenting Advice

So, Chad the Elder, hatched a long term plan for M.O.B. domination with news of the birth of son, Nathaniel, on Saturday.  Congratulations!  It seems an opportune time for us veterans of parenting to hand out unsolicited advice, because you can bet someone did it to us first.  Payback!

• Time:  The clock nows speeds up by a factor of 10.  By the time they're teenagers, you will only be able to accomplish in a month what you used to accomplish in a day. (If you're lucky.)
• Potty Training:  I'm confident that if you think about it you'll realize that you don't know any adults that were never successfully potty trained.  (Those who have reverted to Depends don't count.  They had the concept at one point.)  So, don't let the parent peer pressure mill get you down.  That neighbor who claims hers were trained at 16 months?  Lying.
• Popularity:  You can be assured that you are doing your job well when your child proclaims that they hate you.  It's a true sign of parenting success.  When they writhe on the floor and moan that it's the worst day of their lives because they've suffered the consequences of their own behavior?  Just try not to smile in front of them.
• Disclosure:  You might want to rethink public disclosure like this.  There's no benefit to your child to know the complete truth about their parents youthful indiscretions until much, much later in life.
• Grandparents:  Speaking of lying, expect your parents to lie to you about your children.  Being on the front lines yourself, you will know the true terror that your child can bring to the table.  But, when you pick them up from Grandma and Grandpa's they will tell you that they were "perfect angels".  Also, if you still have a "room" in your parents house?  It's gone.  Everything your parents reserved for you will now go to the grandchild.  You are now a second class relative after the grandbaby.  (It's not that they want to hurt you.  It's some strange giddy gene that turns on when their children produce offspring.)
• Repeat After Me:  "Life is not fair.  Get used to it."  "Yes.  I will check up on you."  "What were you thinking?"  "Ask your mother."  All phrases you will become intimately familiar with.

I'll close with a conversation heard in my kitchen recently between the PiC and the Boy:

Boy:  I thought you were going to hold the door!
PiC:  Well. I thought my children were suposed to bring joy to my life?
Boy:  It's a common misconception.

Yes.  He has his father's sense of humor.  Actually, they are the essence of joy.  The closest thing on this earth to God's unconditional love.  Enjoy!

P.S.  Sears had a program called Kidvantage, where they will replace a piece of clothing in the same size if it wears out.  For now the wee one will grow too fast for it to be of use.  Later, say 1st and 2nd grade when boys spend copious amounts of time playing on their knees, it can pay off.  I could never keep the Boy in knees.

Office Guns

Stuck in  boring meeting?  A couple of Software Engineers from Norway have hit upon solution and decided to share it with the world: Office Guns.  Construct your own from common office supplies.  I foresee a litigation nightmare for employers. not to mention a huge increase in the Office Depot bill.  And please don't mention this to the Boy, OK?

It's a Blog, Blog, Blog, Blog World

Jeff of Have Coffee, Will Write asks here about international blogs that I read.  I don't get around to ANY blogs as much as I'd like these days, but here are some non-US blogs of note:

Flying Chair of Hong Kong:  Phil's been up and down, but he's still around!
Dan Washburn's Shanghai Diaries, from Shanghai of course
The Marmot's Hole from South Korea
Ruminations in Korea
Korea Life Blog - blogging now from Beijing
Iraq the Model
Peaktalk:  From Vancouver via Hong Kong and the Netherlands
No Pasran!: France exposed.
Can-Kor:  A weekly round up of stories out of North Korea. (Not exactly a blog.)

These can all be found in the links on my Brainstorming blog.  I stopped writing there when we formed the M.A.W.B. Squad, though there are days I think I might revive it for certain themes, (for instance, an evangelical blog.)  Fair warning.  I also haven't been updating links on Brainstorming, (though I've checked the list above and updated as necessary.)  You know how blogs come and go....

Other international blogs of note:

The Big Pharoah:  Out of Egypt
Israellycool also has the list of the winners of the 2004 Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards

I'd like to get more Hong Kong and China blogs on my list, so I'll probably peruse the Carnival of the Chinese Blogs and this list at Sinosplice.

My Future As A Clothes Horse

**It's very difficult to concentrate on writing when Dora the Explorer is playing in the background.  Please excuse grammatical errors and occasional curses and expletives.**

Yesterday I tested out a new indulgence: the personal shopper.  Those of you who have been reading for a while remember my wailing and moaning about trying to find some new clothes for my trip in June.  I hate shopping for clothes.  In recent years, I've become almost an exclusive catalog or on-line shopper.  This purchasing style doesn't lend itself to my bad habit of waiting until the last minute to find the skirt for the wedding, the suit for my parole hearing, the cocktail dress for a night out on the town, etc.  I needed help.

The Night Writer came through for me: his daughter is a mall diva who has done great things for a hard-to-fit younger sister and her mother, not to mention her own closet.  Would I be interested in using her talents to remedy by troubles?

OH YEAH, as the red pitcher of sweetened, cherry-flavored kid nectar would say.

So I hired a personal shopper.  I will call her Mall Diva (MD) unless she prefers another moniker.  And I can't believe how much fun shopping can be when you're with an experienced patron of the department stores.

When I look at twelve racks of miscellaneous clothes jammed tightly together with the banner "50% Off!" my eyes glaze over and the thought of trying to navigate through the quagmire of linen blends gives me a headache.  MD dives in with the enthusiasm of a hound chasing a fox through the thicket.  And she emerged with gem after gem.  All I had to do was stand there and give each piece the thumbs up or down and try on the approved list.

This is not to say that MD didn't have her work cut out for her.  I came out of a dressing room to model a tank top.  MD approved the color and we discussed what kind of bra would work best with the small straps, and then she very kindly suggested I go back in the dressing room and adjust the tank, as I had it on backwards.

We left the mall with two big bags.  My wardrobe is starting to look like it belongs to an adult.  Nothing I bought yesterday looks like it could be worn to the gym or advertises a tourist town seafood restaurant.

I can't wait to go back.  I may even let MD talk me into buying something pink.