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So I was at the grocery store a little while ago, and when I came out, my car refused to start. It won’t even try to turn over — just makes little clicking noises. And this is a 2007 Saturn Vue, still under warranty. My husband had to leave school to come get me. Later today I have to get it towed hell and gone out to the dealership on the other side of the world.
Just before I went to the store, I cast my vote for Obama in the Indiana primary. Now my car is dead.
Tuesday I’ll be voting in the Indiana Democratic primary, and I’m thoroughly excited that my vote will actually count for something this time around. For a little while, the race was running neck and neck, but for the last few days Real Clear Politics has Clinton’s lead increasing; today she’s in front by an average of almost 6%. At the same time, Obama’s lead in North Carolina keeps shrinking: today it’s averaging 7%.
I assume that these shifts are due in large part to the knee-capping operation undertaken last week by the Rev. Jeremiah “Throw Barack Under the Bus” Wright. They make me nervous, because they seem to herald a continuation of the race for the nomination. I’d been among those fervently hoping that a strong show in Indiana and a blow-out in North Carolina would seal things up for Obama.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month.
With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives.
Sure, there’s that fact that making such an attempt “would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate.” But when my husband and I were on a walk during this beautiful spring evening, I realized that I have no doubt at all that if such a shift occurred, perhaps following unexpectedly strong Clinton showings in the next several primaries, Hillary and Co. would absolutely undertake their “nuclear option” to force through a convention decision on her behalf. I think they’d do whatever it took to get her the candidacy.
And here’s the next thought that came to me, very unexpectedly, on my walk: if Clinton and her people pull this kind of stunt, I won’t vote for her in the general election.
My husband’s immediate response to my saying so was, “But any Democrat is better than McCain.” I agree with him. But if she does this, then she’ll demonstrate something I’ve thought all along, and which has influenced my decision to vote for Obama: when it comes right down to it, I believe that Clinton’s campaign is 100% All About Her. If she shows that she’s willing to do anything and everything to get the nomination, including stomp all over the process and ignore the wishes of Democratic voters, then she’ll show me that she’s no better a person than the worst Republican. I won’t vote for someone like that.
It’s the first glimmer I’ve had into understanding why people vote for Ralph Nader; they see such fundamental flaws in the candidates of the two major parties that they refuse to vote for either of them. I hope that Clinton won’t cause me — and, potentially, a lot of other people — to leave the President box empty on my ballot in November.
Update
This morning, the Huffington Post says the Clinton campaign is absolutely planning to push for seating of the Florida and Michigan delegates at the May 31 meeting of the Rules and Bylaws committee. One response:
Political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said: “Wow. The nuclear option will yield nuclear winter for the Democratic Party.”
Unbelievable. Clinton apparently has no concern for what this action will do to her party and the country.
Whatever else you have planned this evening or this weekend, drop it and go see Iron Man. Now. Yeah, I know, if you live near me there’s that little thing called the Kentucky Derby going on tomorrow; but guess what? This movie is way better than watching a horse race, no matter how big a deal it is.
Robert Downey, Jr. is amazing. So is the entire cast. The humor; the suits; the special effects; you name it. I like it as much as Batman Begins, and that’s saying something.
Oh, yeah — stay through the credits.
Maybe I’ll ditch my Derby guests and go to another matinee tomorrow…
Tim has written an excellent, thought-provoking essay about the FLDS sect and their indoctrination of woman and children into the belief that it’s OK for a middle-aged man to “marry” and have sex with multiple underage “wives.” He points out that many religions offer their own indoctrinations of one sort or another, and he points out that in many Christian churches, very young children are encouraged to get up and proclaim their own personal relationship with Jesus. He ends his essay as follows:
Perhaps the members of the FLDS Church are afraid that if the girls were older, that they might choose to not marry 49 year-old men. Perhaps they might not choose to engage in that kind of lifestyle at all. Perhaps they would choose to think for themselves, instead of just falling mindlessly into behaviors that are so easily encouraged when a child is so young.
Perhaps Christians (like myself) are guilty of the same thing with spiritual issues.
I had no idea that children made “professions of faith” at age 5 or 7. But here’s the thing: kids that age also make “professions of faith” in Santa Claus. They’re raised in an environment where the adults around them tell tales of a big guy in a red suit who arrives by night with a sleigh full of toys; and sure enough, on Christmas morning, the toys are there. So of course they believe in Santa: the proof is under the tree, plus their parents told them this was The Truth. They’ll continue to believe until reason and common sense (or friends in the know) convince them otherwise.
Now I’ll use Christianity as an example, although I don’t mean to single it out. Take a small child who’s being raised in a Christian environment. The child’s parents tell them about the big guy in heaven and his son, and about all the wonders that befall those who Believe. It’s clear that having a “personal relationship with Jesus” is a Very Big Deal to the child’s family and friends. And sure enough, the child sees that when people get up in church on Sunday and talk about their relationship with Jesus, those folks get a lot of positive attention. The child knows that their parents expect them to announce their belief at some point. Maybe one of their friends has already made the trip to the altar and been subsequently showered with praise. So of course the child will do the same thing: all the evidence is that they’ll be rewarded for doing so, and their parents have told them that this is The Truth. They’ll continue to believe — how long? In some cases, forever. In other cases, until new people, new situations, or their own contemplation, convinces them to change their minds.
I go to a Unitarian Universalist church. We don’t have a specific creed or dogma; each member is free to determine their own spiritual path and individual belief structure. Our Sunday School classes teach the basics of all the major world religions, familiarizing our children with the history, major figures, and beliefs of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Humanism, and more. We stress to the kids that it will be up to them to determine what they believe.
But despite that broad education, the fact is that our kids also have a natural tendency to believe in the same things their parents do. My own children have grown up with a Humanist/Atheist mother and a Humanist father who has a vague sense of god as the life force that binds the world together. We’re very liberal Democrats. And surprise, surprise, our teenage kids have liberal beliefs about social issues, they’re Obama supporters, and my daughter is a professed Atheist.
My daughter is 16. I believe she’s mature enough to make a statement about her belief (or lack thereof). My son is 13; he’s still sorting out his thoughts, and I wouldn’t ask him to make a firm statement about where he stands on religion. I wouldn’t begin to ask a 5 or 7 year old for a real, permanent statement of their faith — just as they’ll say they believe in Santa, if you ask them about religion you’ll get a recitation of what they know their parents want to hear and whatever will get them the most positive attention.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Along similar lines, I expect this is why nationally, laws indicate that kids under 16 can’t legally consent to have sex; having raised a child to that age, I’ve definitely seen this age as a defining point in her growth and maturity. My almost-13 year old son is by no means anywhere close to being ready for the emotional or physical toll of a sexual relationship.
I consider it unconscionable for the FLDS sect to “marry” girls that age to men so much older; girls of 13 or 14 aren’t ready to give informed consent to sex with anyone, let alone a 40 or 50 year old man. I absolutely believe that those women and children go along with the program because domineering older men have embedded those thoughts in their heads from infancy on; and in their sequestered environment, they don’t know any other way. As Tim suggests, if the sect waited until the girls were mature enough to make their own choice, they would almost certainly resist the idea of a union with a vastly older partner they have no affection for.
If we all waited until our children were 16 before we mentioned our religious beliefs (or political stands, or any other strongly held opinions), then I think many people would be surprised and perhaps shocked at the outcome. If I presented the notion of Santa Claus to my daughter out of the blue today, she’d be very unlikely to believe. If a 16 year old who had never heard stories of any supernatural origin of the earth or been told of a supreme being were given an outline of Christianity’s fundamental tenets, including the 7-day creation, the virgin birth, the rising of the dead man, and so on, I think they’d be very unlikely to believe that, either.
But we all want our children to be like us, and to believe what we believe. I am a parent; thus I indoctrinate. The important difference between me (or my Christian friends) and people like those in the FLDS sect is that we’re trying to give our children positive, constructive beliefs that we think will help them lead good lives and be good people. The FLDS parents (and others in similar cults) are giving their children negative beliefs that encourage them to participate in harmful, destructive, even illegal behavior. As far as I’m concerned, their right to teach their children about their faith ends when child abuse begins.
Last Saturday, my daughter and her boyfriend (both age 16) attended the junior prom. If you’re interested, you can see a variety of pictures here. She had been building up to it for weeks.
A month ago, we drove two hours to Indianapolis to shop for her dress and shoes, so no one else would have the same ones. Over the course of the preceding week she applied assorted exfoliants, lotions, and oils to herself to make her legs, back, arms, and face smooth and clear. On Thursday, she got a pedicure so her feet were pretty, with coral nail polish. Friday night, she practiced her makeup.
Saturday morning, we went to get her hair done: an hour-long process during which her long-time stylist crafted a bun from a zillion individual pincurls and braids, using 78 bobby pins and 6 rubber bands in the process. (The preparation process for guys is somewhat less intense: rent tux in style and color of date’s choosing, pick up tux, put tux on.)
The result was worth all the time and effort:
They had a wonderful, wonderful time: they ate dinner with a group of friends, danced the night away, had a late-night snack at Steak & Shake, and then came back to our house, where they and 3 other friends put on casual clothes, took showers, and crashed about 3:00 a.m. (girls upstairs, boys downstairs). Sunday morning they slept in and then ate a vast quantity of warm cinnamon rolls. The rest of the day was spent in lazy relaxation (for the kids and for the mom who stayed up way past her usual bedtime to be sure they got home OK).
This weekend my daughter was as happy as I’ve ever seen her — which made me very, very happy, too. It was exactly the way the prom should be!
I heard earlier on NPR that one of the guidelines given to organizations that are caring for children taken from the polygamous sect in Utah is that they should, as much as possible, remove the color red from the environment. In addition, caregivers shouldn’t wear red clothes. Why? Because sect members associate the color with evil or Satan, and therefore the children might be frightened to see it in their surroundings.
As I listened, I looked at the walls of my kitchen / office alcove / dining area, which are — you guessed it — red. My gosh, I thought, those poor kids would be scared to death if they came in here.
I mentioned this to my daughter just now, when she got home from school, saying that the children would probably think they’d encounter Satan personally in this house with all the red walls. Maybe so, she said, “But you could tell them he only comes to visit on Wednesdays.”
My 7th-grade son has said that the last several nights at dinner time. When asked why, he just shrugs. Tonight it had happened enough times that I was worried, so we pushed the issue. Why aren’t you hungry? Don’t you feel well? When you went over to Grandma’s to watch TV, did you have a snack?
“Well, yeah.”
Aha.
What did you have?
“Umm, a pack of Oreos and two Pop Tarts. I took those over with me.”
A pack of Oreos, as in an entire sleeve of Oreos out of the package? How many is that?
“I don’t know, maybe 12.”
A pause.
“And I had two chocolate bars.”
Another pause.
“Oh, yeah, and two glasses of milk.”
Gosh, I wonder why he isn’t hungry.
—————
Later, as we were eating, he cheerfully began to recount the tales told by his Geography substitute, who used to be a Marine. How if you’re stationed in the Far East, and you go out and get really wasted, and you wake up the next morning feeling awful, you can drink something alcoholic that has some opium stirred into it, and sleep for about 6 hours, and you’ll wake up feeling fine.
And how opium can get made into heroin, and heroin addicts use a needle to shoot it into their arms like this. [Demonstration of shooting-up motion into a vein]
Ummm, yeah… Those don’t exactly sound like appropriate things for him to tell you. Did he say that he did those things?
“No. But he looks like he’s stuck in the 70s and was probably a hippie. You know, he had his hair like this. [Motion outlining the shape of a long pompadour] They were cool stories!”
(My husband to me, afterward: “Do you want to call, or should I?”)
“Oh, yeah, and Mr. W [his health teacher] was telling us how if you have a hole in your throat, and you take a shower, the water can get into it and you can drown!”
And so forth.
Dinner conversation with an adolescent is never dull.
Archie, our orange tabby cat, likes to be in our bedroom. But he keeps me awake, so we put him out at bedtime. In response, he occasionally spends part of the night banging as hard as he can with both paws on the closed door.
This morning, a little before 6:00 a.m., Doug and I both came awake at the same moment. “What was that?” he asked. “Archie?” I had a vague, sleepy memory of the door shaking loudly in its frame; the door was still vibrating, so I replied, “Mm hmmm,” and went back to sleep.
A little while later our daughter turned on the news and called out, “Mom, dad, did you know there was an earthquake this morning?!” Ahh — so it wasn’t the cat after all.
An earthquake! Too cool. At least, cool because it was enough to wake us up, but not enough to cause serious damage locally. It measured 5.2 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter off to our northwest. We’re subject to the rare tremor here thanks to the Louisville, KY area’s relative proximity to the New Madrid seismic zone.
By an interesting coincidence, today’s quake occurred on the 102nd anniversary of the huge San Francisco earthquake. Fortunately, Louisville does not lie in ruins.
I’ve experienced only one other earthquake in my life, which also woke me up: I was in college at Purdue, taking a nap in my apartment, when a similar low-level New Madrid quake struck. I remember being on my feet before I was fully awake, wondering what in the world that feeling was that had wakened me so strangely.
When you live in an area whose ground generally is solid and unmoving, the experience of an earthquake is … strange, to say the least. The earth is not supposed to move; it’s supposed to stay where it is and behave. Around here, when it decides to do otherwise, it’s an unusual, interesting, and yes, cool event.
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Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month.
Whatever else you have planned this evening or this weekend, drop it and go see Iron Man. Now. Yeah, I know, if you live near me there’s that little thing called the Kentucky Derby going on tomorrow; but guess what? This movie is way better than watching a horse race, no matter how big a deal it is.
I heard earlier on NPR that one of the guidelines given to organizations that are caring for children taken from the polygamous sect in Utah is that they should, as much as possible, remove the color red from the environment. In addition, caregivers shouldn’t wear red clothes. Why? Because sect members associate the color with evil or Satan, and therefore the children might be frightened to see it in their surroundings.
It’s official: our almost-13-year-old son is now taller than his dad.
An earthquake! Too cool. At least, cool because it was enough to wake us up, but not enough to cause serious damage locally. It measured 5.2 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter off to our northwest. We’re subject to the rare tremor here thanks to the Louisville, KY area’s relative proximity to the New Madrid seismic zone.