Apt. 11D

Life is Cheap on the Last Day of August

I just spent three hours watching cable news. Flipping back and forth between CNN and FOX, I was awed by the destruction in LA and MS. Thousands are being transported to the Houston Astrodome. People walking out of the waters with nothing. Emerging from the dark waters and wandering behind news reporters with nowhere to go. The looting. The reports of dead bodies. Maybe 1 million without homes. I heard 26 billion yesterday, but today nobody is even putting a number on the cost of this damage.

The delay in getting relief was the biggest story tonight. Where is the cavalry? Three days later and people have no water. There are maybe 100,000 still trapped in attics and porches. There are looters walking down the French Quarter with AK47s and shopping carts of Nikes. Where is the National Guard? The delay in getting relief down there is unforgivable. Husband told me that Kos says that there is a racial element to all of this, but hubby thought that was ridiculous.

Why didn't people evacuate? Sure, many people are ornery and stupid. But many of those who stayed were poor. So poor that they had no cars or no gas. They had no relatives to visit out of state. Or they were too old to move.

Note to disaster experts -- If you are going to institute a mandatory evacuation, then you have to provide transportation and lodging for your residents elsewhere.

As I hogged most of the sofa, Steve sat at the other end watching TV with me. His biggest gripe was the public officials -- the mayor, the governor, legislators -- did not appear to be in the thick of it. Not like Rudy walking down Wall Street with ash on his shoulders. And the President's plane just flew over the mess and left without anyone getting their feet wet. Oh, that looks bad.

And why did the major network stations continue to air their regular shows? Why was the dancing reality show still on?

They are estimating that it's going to take months to put the South back together. Maybe years. What is the long term affect of this going to be on the war and the Bush presidency? The war which is going so badly lately. 950 women and children died today in Baghdad as a bridge collapsed. Life is cheap today.

UPDATe: Read this. Even conservatives are questioning Bush's less than hasty response.

UPDATE2: Kieran Healy brings us the race card and compares David Brooks and Jonah Goldberg.

Spreading Love

Learn about Copter Parents from Dan Drezner.

Links to help hurricane victims here.

Henry's book review on the Republican War on Science.

I decided to give APSA a miss this year, but now I'm getting envious of my colleagues and their panels.

The Truth About Redheads

Over the weekend, a reader e-mailed me to let me know about a new book, Roots of Desire, which discusses the common stereotypes of redheads.  The review was in Sunday's Times.

But beware: though red hair is alluring, it also carries a hint of devilry.

That dichotomy is explored engagingly by Roach, the NPR commentator, in ''The Roots of Desire,'' a book mixing history, science and self-discovery, though it's pegged to a somewhat exaggerated premise. ''That redheads are untrustworthy, fiery, unstable, hot-tempered, highly sexed, rare creatures is what passes for common knowledge today,'' writes Roach, a redhead herself. ''While we no longer burn them at the stake, we still carry potent, inflammatory beliefs about their power.''

After my water broke a week early with my second son, I waited for my doctor to show up at the hospital to do my c-section.  As I paced around to ease the contractions and to calm my nerves, another doctor  came over to talk.  I had thrown a my hissy fit a month or two before when I had to wait too long for my RH- shot, and I guess this impressed him that I was a typical redhead.  So, while I was in labor, he proceeded to tell me about every crazy thing that his former redheaded girl friend had done.  Um, sorry, I'm a little busy now.

So what's truth, dear redheaded blogger?  Do you fit the redhead myth? 

There's really only one response to such a question...

Need a Fix

Day One of a New Regime.

I have had to institute a new policy around here. No TV or computer until after 4:00.

Our previous policy was that the kids could play video games or TV when I felt that they needed a break or I needed to read e-mail or I had an important work phone call or I suddenly started getting a lot of hits on my blog. However, the TV and computer would be suddenly shut off whenever I started to envision a future for them that involved bongs in the basement and employment in the fastfood industry.

The old policy was admittedly vague, and the children never really got the hang of it. One minute they would be happily fighting over Computer Network and the Disney Channel, and the next, it was turned off. Or they would be each positioned in front of the two parental computers untill I emerged from the shower, when I would exit them out of their programs. They protested. The future of bongs and fries didn't bother them so much.

Not only was I dealing with tantrums, because they didn't understand the rules, but there was the constant pestering to putting things back on again. Ian, who is suddenly talking, would chant "Nickjrdotcom nickjrdotcom nickjrdotcom" and give a scream that went up to 11 when he was barred entry into the computer room. That would happen 20 times a day. Yeah, things had to change.

So, now we have a cut and dry policy around here. Do you see the clock? Does it look like it says four? No, it doesn't. So stop bothering me and go play outside.

The morning was rough, but I think we're getting the hang of it. The methadone helps.

If it's August, I must have poison sumac. I must have poison sumac so badly that I require a steroid shot in the butt along with strict warnings from the doctor to get myself to the hospital if my tongue starts swelling. I totally look like Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient.

So, why the hell am I compelled to blog? Because.

Trade Offs

Last week, I wrote a post that got a lot of attention. I was interested in a book that discussed the long term affects of divorce. The fact that divorce has long term affects on children did not seem that controversial or surprising to me. I was just curious to see what particular bits of information the researchers had pulled up on this topic.

Then the comments happened. I was very saddened to read about how many people's lives have been damaged by being in bad relationships or having parents with bad relationships.

I understand that many people were upset with the directions that the comments led -- people should stay in bad relationships for the sake of the kids. No one likes to use the "should" word.

But I think that it's fair to point out that some choices that are very good for the parent are bad for the kid. And some choices that are good for the kid are bad for the parent.

Others believe that everything about raising kids is beneficial for the parent. Kids make them better people. Harry has written some good things along those lines.

While I'm with Harry on some days, I've had a tough day. Ian had four accidents (after two weeks dry), Jonah's neighborhood buddies stepped on the wet paint on the porch, the cat escaped, and I've been going since 6am without a break. Good for them that I'm home, but I could have been in a pee-pee free environment where they called me professor and where I surfed on the computer and called it work. I don't feel like a better human being after my day of child rearing. I can't say that changing wet underwear over and over was fun.

Elizabeth and Sandra Tsing Loh (full article at this link) have read Unraveled : The True Story of a Woman Who Dared to Become a Different Kind of Mother where a mother justifies why she left her four kids to lead a life of a boheme artist. Elizabeth found it a bit insulting and disliked all the new agey lingo. Sandra empathizes because happy families seem to be so elusive these days with all the whining about work-family balance.

I'm far from an ideal mother. The kids drove me to pop open a bottle of wine at 5 today. I have no clue where to draw the line between their happiness and mine. Sometimes it feels like a tug of war. Their needs and mine. Other times, we're all having fun marching through the nature preserve together on a cool summer morning, and I'm sure as hell not complaining about missing out on grading midterms. It's just that the planets don't always align that neatly. Sometimes there's a tradeoff. Should the boheme mother leave her kids, run off to be an artist, and become self-actualized or does she stay in a traditional relationship changing diapers, because it is good for the kids?

It is a myth, you know, that whatever makes the parent happy, makes the kids happy.

Spreading Love

Bone crushing exhaustion is keeping me from writing something original. Instead, let me point you to good stuff elsewhere.

Belle writes about wussy-assed men who are no longer attracted to their wives after watching them give birth.

Charter schools receive much less money per pupil than public schools.

Sandra Tsing Loh writes about "an American mother who stopped her yammering and found a stunningly simple solution to the work-life balance problem: she left her family—her husband and three small children."

Andrew Sullivan rants on about SUVs and then a soccer mom writes in to inform him that SUVs are necessary because of car seat regulations. Duh! So, Sullivan wants to relax car seat regulations. Worry not about a few kids impaling themselves on gear shifts, because that will stop Islamic fanaticism pronto. Good plan, child-less guy!

Russell Arben Fox writes about his experiences down South.  (I'm about 20 pages away from reading his review of the Half Blood Prince.)

Rich People and Politics

The Gates Foundation was mentioned twice in the Times on Sunday. The foundation gives money to the Discovery Institute to support a regional transportation, but not the Discovery Institute's Intelligent Design stuff.  It also gives money to support education at the lower grades instead of at the high school level. 

I have no gripe with these pet programs of Gates. Supporting education at younger ages sounds like a good plan.  I have no idea what regional transportation is, but it doesn't sound offensive. 

No doubt that most foundations fund some really great programs, Intelligent Design stuff aside.  They pass on money to think tanks and activists to carry out their agenda.  They have been instrumental in the passage of all of sorts of policy or even in bypassing government altogether and setting up their own programs. 

Lots of policies, organization, and output.  By a small group of rich people. 

One of the articles mentioned the website, http://www.guidestar.org/, as a place to find information on where the foundations are blowing their money.

The New Order

By far the most interesting article in Sunday's Times was this piece by Matt Bai. In it, he explains how Democratic brains got around the campaign finance laws, which put restrictions on individual donations to the parties, by setting up new organizations that weren't technically parties, but could collect unlimited amounts of money from donors.  The whole thing ended up collapsing, but Bai believes that this development is another sign that the party system is dissolving in America.  Read the whole thing.

His final paragraph was lovely:

In this way, ACT helped to usher us into the post-party world. We are now confronting a period in which the power and the innovation in American politics will reside not in some party headquarters on Capitol Hill but in a decentralized network of grass-roots groups, donors and Internet impresarios, all of whom seem to be increasingly entwined with one another. There's peril in this trend -- it would seem to favor millionaires over workers, and ideologues over pragmatists -- but it was probably inevitable. Everywhere else in American life, after all, we see evidence of what the Democratic speechwriter Andrei Cherny, in his 2000 book, ''The Next Deal,'' presciently identified as ''the Choice Generation.'' We surf hundreds of cable channels and endless Web sites, assemble customized computers with the click of a mouse and choose from every imaginable permutation of mortgage and credit card. Was it really reasonable, then, to expect the same top-down system that has governed American politics since the time of Martin Van Buren to somehow survive the revolution intact? In the end, ACT's contribution was to act as a bridge from the last political moment to the next, hastening the chaotic process of democratization -- even without the capital ''D'' that its founders would have preferred.

I think I should like to be an Internet impresario.

Mohonk

On Wednesday, I vacated my home and blog for a couple of days.  Children were deposited at their grandparents and a suitcase was over packed with bathing suits, pointy slingbacks, and a dinner jacket.   Then we drove off to Mohonk.

Mohonk House got its start at the turn of the century, when Captains of Industry and Self Made Men would come up from New York to enjoy a weekend of pampering and self-improvement.  They would take energizing swims in the glacier etched mountain lake and then embark on hour long hikes that would culminate on a cliff overlooking fields and farms.  After, there would be tea and a formal dinner waiting for them, as well as rocking chairs on an enormous porch where one could appreciate the sublime beauty of the natural surroundings and read the dailies that were brought into the lodge on the morning train. 

And that's just the way it still is.  No TVs in the rooms.  Morning to evening there are activities arranged to stimulate one's mind, body, and soul.  Amazing meals.  No blackberries or laptops in the lobby.  The occasional little sign reminds visitors of the proper foot gear ("No heels on the croquet lawn") or behavior ("litter lessens beauty").  There is a resident minster, because the founders of the lodge were devout Quakers. 

The first day there, Steve was recovering from a virus, so we took it easy.  We drank tea and read on the porch for several hours.  We walked around taking pictures of the woodwork and admiring the old photographs that line the hallways.  Carnegie and Taft and Rutherford B. Hayes, as well as forgotten naturalists, industrialists, and other great thinkers of the time.

As we dressed for the formal dinner, we settled into this historic throwback.  Steve's very into odd facial hair, so he thought it would be quite nice to be an industrialist with a handle barred mustache wading into the mountain lake in a full striped bathing suit.  I should prefer to be the ambitious girl working her way up the social ladder by manipulating men with old family names.  An Edith Warton sort of heroine. 

After dinner, we watched Casablanca on the lawn. 

And the next day, we hit the hiking trails with one very challenging scramble that made me scream like a little girl.  When faced with certain death, some people show great stoicism.  I babble.  Oh, God, Steve, I"m going to die.  I'm going to die.  My head is going to burst open like a ripe melon.  Like a melon that Letterman has thrown of the Ed Sullivan theater.  There's no way my foot is going to make it across that gap.  I'm too little.  That's a 60 feet drop, I tell you.  Death.  Now.

We stayed until I felt too guilty about my parents being stuck with my kids.  It was a fantastic trip that rearranged my priorities.  Hardly looked at the computer or TV in days.  But now I'm back.  With a yard of e-mails and four sticky notes of chores to deal with tomorrow.  I suspect that nice vacation feeling is going to dissipate soon. 

Now, I'm conspiring to see how we can afford to go again.  There's a kids stay free weekend coming in December.  Hmmm.

In the meantime, this week should have several politics-heavy posts.  Lots of stuff caught my eye in today's paper.  Good stuff on the parties, foundations, the Internet.  I've also been reading Joe Trippi's last book and Harry Potter, so I'm bursting with lots of half baked ideas that will surely arrive here in some sort of incoherent, typo-filled manner.  Lucky you.