Entry 262: South Carolina Vacation Part II

For part one, click here.

Friday, November 28
Other than a 30-minute, after-dinner constitutional around the lake, I don't go outside at all today.  It's Black Friday.  There is no better day to stay home.  I hate shopping with a normal crowd, let alone throngs of people beating each other with pots and pans and other hard objects from the home furnishings aisle to get that last $50 tablet (or at least that's how I assume things goes down).  But S's family is pretty into it, so I'm the only adult at the house for much of the day.  Part of it is that they're all into shopping; another part of it is that they're Indian, and I think there is some sort of ordinance in the Indian community that mandates that you must constantly be on the look out for deals at all times.  Deal talk is a large part of the conversation among S's family and their friends.  I know this is mainly a Jewish stereotype, but I've found that it applies to Indians as well -- it's versatilely racist.

One thing that S's family does that I find funny is they buy things for other people -- not like as a gift, but as a I-have-access-to-a-sale type of thing.  For instance, S's cousin's wife bought 10 comforters.  When I asked why, she said it's because they're only $10 a piece.  When I followed up by asking what she was going to do with them all, she said that some of them were for friends back home.  OK, not something I would do, but cool, I guess.  I can't imagine procuring blankets for my friends.  Honestly, I can't even imagine having a conversation about it.  How does that go down?  Do your friends say to you, "Hey if you see any cheap duvets, keep me in mind?"  Or do you see cheap duvets and just think of certain friends?

Anyway, because I'm the only one who doesn't like shopping, I spend much of the day as the de facto baby sitter.  I don't mind because I like playing with Lil' S and his two little cousins (second cousins, technically) A and Sh.  A is in, I'm gonna say, fourth grade or so, and Sh is around Kindergarten-age, so they are significantly older than Lil' S, but he does his best to keep up with them.  They're all really into being chased, so much of our time together is me chasing them, which I enjoy -- for the first 20 minutes or so at least.  After that I'm like, "Let's sit down and play this game called crossword puzzle.  Quick Lil' S, who's 'Broadway star Hagen'?"  Actually, A really likes playing Family Feud on the iPad, and Family Feud is my favorite game show (as long as it's being hosted by John O'Hurley and not Steve Harvey or that flanneled guy from Home Improvement), so that was a thankful respite from the little kid whirlwind.

One thing that can be really tiring is that A and Sh bicker constantly (what? siblings bickering?); they are always pushing each others buttons in ways they think are sneaky, but are, of course, completely obvious.  Also, Lil' S occasionally gets too excited and bites somebody (and often that somebody is me), or just goes berserk and starts throwing things and hitting people.  At one point, he hits A with some of those big block Legos -- not hard, but hard enough that I have to address it -- so I give him a timeout and tell him he has to be gentle.  And then I ask, "Do you know what gentle means?"  And he says yes, and then runs over to Sh and hugs her and says, "Saw-wee".  The execution is off, but at least he has the right idea.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not the only one who doesn't go shopping.  S's dad is home with me pretty much all day.  I forgot about him because he doesn't have the energy or patience to keep up with the young 'uns.  He spends most the time in his office playing that powers of two game on his iPad.  At one point the kids all go in there and after about three minutes he says, "C'mon!  Can't you give me some break!", which I find amusing because I've just been entertaining them all for the past hour.  But I get it.  He's old, he's already raised two kids, and he's worked hard to pay for everything around us.  I might be the same way when I'm that age ... but probably not.

Saturday, November 29
The big event for the day: breakfast at IHOP.  S's family doesn't go out to eat very often, so when they do, it can be an amusing experience.  Here are the highlights.

• S's cousin asks the waitress more questions about the menu than I asked our broker about our mortgage contract: "This 'Pick 2', that's two of what? ... Three flavored pancakes -- is that three pancakes each one of a different flavor? ... Is there egg in the roasted red pepper omelet sandwich? ... "
• S's mom orders an omelet with nothing in it but jalapeno peppers and then eats it with hot sauce.
• S clandestinely pays the bill and everybody gets mad at her when they find out.
• I notice under the table that S's cousin is wearing those individual toe shoes that I made fun of in a previous entry.  I hate it when I find out somebody I like or respect is doing something that I previously mocked.
• And my personal favorite: S's cousin's wife orders a single pancake -- not a single stack of pancakes, but a single, solitary pancake.  This cracks me up now just thinking about it -- very reminiscent of Chris Rock's famous scene in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka.
  

After breakfast, we do some more lazing around the house, and then I head back to Blacksburg to see E and F and Lil' E again before driving back to DC.

In Blacksburg, F is out of the hospital and in good spirits which is nice.  She stays home with Lil' E and let's E and I go out again for dinner and a beer.  Unfortunately, it's not Monday this time, it's the weekend, so we have to deal with the throngs of undergrads out about town.  We go to one place, but it's too crowded, so we go to a different place, which seems decent -- and is, at first.  We get a table that's in an enclave with another empty table.  It's essentially one long table with a foot gap in it.  I recognize that this is a risky proposition -- who knows who might sit down next to us? -- but it's the only open two-person table.

We then promptly lose the co-patron roulette.  Instead of getting a nice, quiet couple who keeps to themselves, we get a group of seven bros who all try to cram around a table that seats four, max.  And these aren't just your typical bros, these are some of the bro-iest bros who ever bro-ed -- just drunk, loud idiots (and I say this knowing full well that I've been the drunk, loud idiot before).  They are so loud that I literally can't hear E, even though he himself has a booming voice and his mouth is only 18 inches from my ears.  All I can hear is an obnoxious 21-year-old holding court on what makes a good IPA ("You can't be too IPA.  Most breweries try to be too IPA, and it ends up tasting like hoppy shit...").  We can't just leave either because we already ordered food, so we just have to make the best of it.  I wasn't planning on spending my evening among a bunch of college dudes toasting each other with lines like "fuck her right in the pussy" -- I actually just wanted to have a beer and some conversation with E -- but so it goes.

Back at E's, we watch a few episodes of this British sitcom Peep Show.  It's certainly no The Office, but it's pretty funny.  It's really weird, in a good way.

Sunday, November 30

We all wake up pretty early (two-year-old, remember), and Lil' E and I goof off together a bit before we go out for breakfast.  He's so behaved during breakfast I can't believe it.  He just sits there and eats his pancakes the entire time.  E says he's hit or miss, which is better than Lil' S who is miss or miss.  There is a 0% chance Lil' S will sit still in a restaurant for longer than five minutes without an iPhone or an iPad or a screen of some sort, so watching a kid his age do so is mind-boggling.

Breakfast is over a little before 10, and I'm on the road back to DC immediately.  It's a nice drive actually.  I keep waiting to hit traffic, but I never do.  I make great time (back before halftime of the early games), and most importantly, I do not get a speeding ticket.

And that was my vacation.

Until next time ...

Entry 261: South Carolina Vacation Part I

Just got back from a vacation to visit S's family in Columbia, South Carolina.  Here's what happened the first four days.

Monday, November 21

I only have one regular meeting at work I absolutely need to attend: Monday, 2:00 pm.  It's amazing how often this day and time can impede travel plans.  In this case, I have to wait until after the meeting before I can leave.  S and Lil' S have been in SC since last Wednesday, and I'm joining them there tomorrow.  Tonight I'm staying in Blacksburg, VA with my friends E and F and their two-year-old son Lil' E.  Because I don't leave until 3:00 pm traffic is rough out of DC.  It takes me over two hours drive the first 45 miles of the trip.  I don't get in to Blacksburg until 8:30.  

Upon arrival, E greets me: "F is in the hospital.  Lil' E is downstairs with the neighbors.  Let's go get a beer."  Apparently, F had to have surgery to remove her gall bladder three weeks ago, and in doing a follow up procedure, they injected some dye into her pancreas, and her body had an adverse reaction to it.  This made her feel very sick, and they rushed her to the doctor this afternoon.  Ultimately she is/will be fine, but they want to keep her in the hospital as a precaution.  E has been overworked lately trying to keep up with his (and her) job (they're both instructors, and he's been covering a class for her) and care for her and Lil' E, so she instructed him to take Lil' E to the neighbors and take me out for a beer and some dinner -- so that's what he did.

[I learned the full name is Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State College.]

Tuesday, November 22

Lil' E gets us up pretty early because that's what two-year-olds do.  He's a little unsure of me at first, but I get on his good side over a bowl of cheerios while E showers.  At one point I fart, and he points towards the chair and says "noise", which I find hysterical.  We take him to daycare, and then E and I get breakfast, and then we visit F in the hospital for a few minutes.  I hit the road again after that, and get into Columbia around 2:30.  There's no traffic the entire way.  It's times like this you question whether or not living in a big city is really the way to go.

Lil' S is napping when I arrive, but he's super happy to see me when he gets up.  He says, "Daddy!", and then runs over and climbs up on my lap and keeps smiling and hugging me, which elates me to no end.  We don't do much for the rest of the night, but eat and sit around (a true vacation).  S's sister is in town as well.  Than around 10:30 pm, S's cousin arrives from Jacksonville with his wife and their two daughters (ages 5ish and 10ish).

At night, I stay up on late (S's mom gets up with Lil' S, so I can sleep in -- arguably the best part about my vacation) and read articles about the Ferguson Grand Jury's decision to not indict Darren Wilson.  I feel the same way about it as I felt about the Trayvon Martin tragedy, which is that Officer Wilson didn't do the right thing, but within a strictly legal framework, he probably (key word, here, as we don't know what actually happened) didn't commit a crime.  As I understand things, officers in Missouri have tremendous leeway in using lethal force if they are involved in a scuffle and feel their life is threatened. 

The two big questions that came to my mind in reading this are: a) Is it a good thing that police officers have an almost carte blanche license to kill? b) Why did Wilson feel his life was in danger in an encounter with an unarmed man?  I'll answer the former in a word: no.  On the latter, if you honestly think his race played no part in it (as I've heard many contend), then you are a fool.  If Michael Brown had been my idiot (white) friend from high school, who once tried to punch a cop, he would have been subdued with non-lethal force (don't officers carry mace, anymore?) and eventually given a plea deal to a misdemeanor.  But, as I've said before, white people are irrationally afraid of black people.  So just existing as a large black teenager (admittedly one who just committed a strong-arm petty theft) is a threatening offense to many people.

One bit of evidence I found very damning for Wilson was his hyperbolic testimony of the encounter.  When you use words like "demon" and "it" and ascribe superhuman properties to the victim (Hulk Hogan against a child), then it says to me that you don't have a firm grasp on reality.  And perhaps your opinion about what constitutes a legitimate threat to your life shouldn't be the final word.  I saw a video recently of a black man being shot by a white officer at a gas station for getting his ID out of his van.  This is literally what happened without an iota of exaggeration.  (You can Google it.  I don't want to link to it because it bums me out.)  Now, suppose the man had been killed -- very possible, he was shot after all -- and further suppose there wasn't a camera around to capture it all.  You don't think the office would have been saying his life felt threatened?  That the man dove into his car and pulled out something that looked like a gun?  Who could say any different?

[A little lake near S's parents house.]

Wednesday, November 23

The big event for the day is a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's (which, by the way, I just learned has a possessive 'S' on the end; I always said "Chuck E. Cheese").  I haven't been there in about 30 years, and it is not how I remember it all.  I remember it being fun and nice, not headache-inducing and seedy.  It's like being in a run-down casino only instead of degenerate gamblers, booze, slot machines, and has-been lounge acts, it's hyperactive little kids, sugar, video games, and an ear-splitting animatronic band that sings mostly about pizza.

But the kids love it.  (There are four kids and five adults, and the ratio is barely adequate.)  Lil' S is super funny.  He climbs up on one of the rides, puts the token in the slot, rides the ride stoically, not so much as a semblance of a smile, and then puts his hand out for another token as soon as it's over.  He's serious about having fun!  He also gets up into the "tubes" they have on the ceiling because of course he does.  He's too short to climb the steps that take you up there, so instead he goes up the slide when S turns her back.  (Luckily no little kid is coming down at the time.)  It actually really makes me nervous because you can't see where he is, and it would be extremely difficult for me to get up there if anything should happen to him.  Eventually he comes down, but he gets back up again, this time by soliciting a boost up the stairs from an older little girl.  ("He'p me! He'p me!")   Hey, at least he's resourceful.

Oh, and also, I set the pop-a-shot record.

After Chuck E. Cheese's, we stop at Baskin-Robbins because pizza and soda and french fries wasn't enough junk food, we need something from the dessert group.  I get a scoop of chocolate and peanut butter that I split with Lil' S.  I feel like chocolate and peanut butter doesn't get its just due as a delicious ice cream flavor.  I put it right up there with cookies n' cream and mint chip -- probably even a bit ahead.  (Yes, you read that correctly.)  By the way, does anything make you desire water more than Baskin-Robbins ice cream.  For me, I could run wind sprints in Death Valley and still not be as thirsty as I am after I finish a cone at Baskin-Robbins.  I don't know why that is.  

Thursday, November 24

Thanksgiving!  On Thanksgiving, some families eat turkey, drink booze, and watch football.  Others eat Rice Krispies sauteed with peanuts in chili powder, drink coffee, and watch Frozen.  At my in-laws it's the latter -- although, truth be told, I'm able to put the football games on the big screen in the background.  I get to watch the Seahawks lay waste to the 49ers in San Francisco, which is pretty awesome.  

After everybody goes to sleep, I stay up late again and read more articles about Ferguson.  The rioting is horrific, but I agree with the people who say focusing on the rioting is missing the point.  People are rioting in response to the Darren Wilson decision the same way a firecracker explodes in response to a flame.  It's the catalyst, but it only happens because of tremendous volatility below the surface.  If gunpowder isn't packed tightly into a little package, lighting a wick does nothing.  Similarly if black citizens didn't feel oppressed by a police force that is supposed to be working for them, not against them, the response to the Michael Brown killing would have been very different and much less destructive.

Also, all the commentary suggesting that the rioting somehow negates the larger point (an unarmed black man was killed by a white police officer) reveals a big double standard when it comes to rioting.  When I was in grad school, I inadvertently got swept up in a riot on the UMD campus (I quickly extricated myself and went home).  Students were lighting sofas and benches on fire and disobeying orders to disperse, while the police marched in formation, many on horses, and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowds.  It went on all night, several students were expelled and/or arrested, and it created a large amount of lingering tension between the police, the student body, local business, and the UMD administration.  The "reason" for the riot: Maryland beat Duke in a regular season basketball game.  Seriously, that's it.  And nobody suggested that the riot somehow negated the victory, and nobody suggested it was a systemic problem with (mostly white) college students.  Rioting isn't a racial thing, and it's usually not a response to any one particular thing.  It's a misguided and dangerous human expression of community.

Another trope we've all been hearing ad nauseam: the vast majority of violent crimes against African-Americans are carried out by other African-Americans.  My response to this is, "yeah, so?"  Are we not allowed to talk about a problem (police brutality, particularly against minorities), because there is another tangentially related problem (gang violence) with a larger body count?  This is a very bizarre line of thinking.  As Mike Pesca of The Gist podcast pointed out, it's like saying we can't discuss ISIS because more Americans kill Americans than Arab terrorists kill Americans.  Like I said, it's bizarre, or at least it should be bizarre.  Unfortunately, with today's right-wing at it's right-wingiest this type of tortured logic is all too commonplace.

Anyway, when I finally fell sleep tonight, I had a very uncomfortable dream that had nothing to do with Ferguson or anything else in the news.  I had the old panicky back-in-school dream, but with a twist.  Instead of forgetting to study for a test or walking the halls in my underwear, the source of my consternation is that I am back living in shithole house.  In the dream, I come home and my roommates (who in real life are two of my roommates from undergrad) are sitting down in a pile of trash watching TV.  I sit down next to them in a tattered chair and pick up nachos off the ground and start eating them.  I look in my bedroom and see a pile of soiled clothes covering the bed.  I'm disgusted and depressed, and I wonder why I went back to get another master's degree when I already have a Ph.D. (apparently that's the pretext for me being back in school).  Why don't I just get a real job?  I take a hit off a warm beer that was sitting in an empty plant pot.

Then I wake up and have the glorious realization that it was all just a dream.  I don't live like a slob in a shitty college house anymore.  I live in a nice house with my wife and son.  My bed isn't a hand-me-down twin mattress on the floor.  I can turn on the heat, if I get cold.  The dishes aren't growing mold in the sink.  I did get a job after I got my degree.  Real life is pretty good after all.  It's a very fitting dream for Thanksgiving.

OK, that's all for tonight.  I have a rule here at Crocodile DG: as soon as I start writing about my dreams, it's time to go.  So go I shall.  I'll put out Part II later this week.

Until next time ...

Entry 260: Why All the Rapin'?

Today I'm going to talk a bit about everybody's favorite topic: rape!  It's been in the news a lot lately.  Talking about rape is a weird thing because you have to follow certain social norms or else people get upset and offended.  I don't really understand all the rules.  Like, is it kosher to joke about rape or not?  I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells talking about rape -- any sexual assault, really.  I mean, I get that rape is a horrific crime, but that's not it alone because murder is a horrific crime -- worse than rape --  but joking about murder doesn't carry the same social gravity as doing so about rape.  For some reason rape is much more taboo.

Think about it.  What if instead of going to murder mystery parties, we went to rape mystery parties?  What if the board game Clue was centered around rape instead of murder?  What if instead of first-person shooter video games, we had first-person rapist video games?  Imagine if people jokingly said "just rape me now" or "I'm gonna rape that guy!"  It's disturbing, right?  But if you substitute "rape" with "kill", then these phrases turn into completely innocuous idioms.  It's very strange, and I'm not sure what the explanation is.  Is it a sex-versus-violence thing?  I don't know.  And I don't have a point other than it's weird.

[It was the entitled rich kid, in the frat house, with the roofie.]

Anyway, one man who isn't afraid to joke about rape is comedian Hannibal Burress.  I'm sure you've heard all about him and the whole Bill Cosby thing.  As many people have pointed out, it's pretty strange and sad that it takes a viral video for people to care about something.  Allegations against Cosby go back years and nobody really cared.  By 2006, there were at least four women who came out against Cosby, all telling the same basic story.  That was eight years ago.  Since then Cosby has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, and he had a network TV deal in the works until just a few days ago.  But only now is he being raked over the coals because there is video of a comedian joking about him?  Like I said, it's strange and sad.  It reminds me a little bit of the Ray Rice ordeal in that people didn't become truly outraged until after the punching video went public, even though everybody saw the aftermath, and he admitted it.

Cosby, for his part, is certainly not admitting anything.  He's not even talking about anything, which, let's be honest, probably means there is something there.  Yeah, yeah, I know, it's innocent until proven guilty, but my mind is not a court of law.  This isn't a he-said-she-said type of thing; this is a she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said type of thing.  The number of Cosby accusers is now up to 15 (probably more since I posted this; it's a rolling number, like that giant nation debt counter).  15!  And he's not saying anything about it?  If one woman accuses you of sexually assaulting her, you can claim the high road and stay silent -- but 15?  You kinda gotta defend yourself then, right?  You gotta do the talk show circuit proclaiming your innocence, and explaining why all these women are speaking out against you.  I mean, 15 is a pretty damning number when it comes to sexual assault accusers.  As Eugene Robinson (the journalist, not ex-Seahawks safety) put it in this article:

It is possible that all the women who accuse Cosby of sexual predation are lying, in the sense that anything not prohibited by the laws of physics is possible. But it doesn’t seem very likely.

Exactly.  I mean, I hate as much as anybody the thought that Cliff Huxtable is a rapist.  But I also hate the thought that I'm going bald, and this doesn't mean I will wake up tomorrow with a full head of hair.

Alright, that's all I got.  Relatively short entry this week.  I'm tired, and I don't have anything else to say about rape right now.  If you want more, you can read this article about the prevalence of sexual assault on the University of Virginia campus.  It's pretty horrifying.  We definitely need to do a better job teaching our sons not to rape -- it sounds silly to say it this way, but it's true.  When Lil' S is old enough to understand such things I'm going to teach him a general rule of consent that I once heard somebody whose name I can't remember say (sing, actually) on the Dan Savage podcast: If it feels a little bit rape-y just don't do it.

Until next time...

Entry 259: Blog List Removal

Time to clear out the blog list, lightning round style.

• I found this "debate" (now several weeks old) between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly interesting.  Stewart kinda sorta gets O'Reilly to admit that white privilege is a real thing.  Of the all wacko right-wing pundits, I've actually found O'Reilly to be one of the  more reasonable.  This is a bit like saying, "among the soiled diapers in my son's Diaper Genie, this one smells the freshest" -- but still ... It's something, I guess.
• I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't understand why people deny the existence of white privilege.  Black Americans were literally enslaved by whites for the first several hundred years of our country's existence (including its time as a British colony), and then they were legally discriminated against until, like, 60 years ago.  Black people weren't even allowed to play baseball until 1947.*  (My mom, who is still alive and healthy, was born in 1945.)  Brown v. Board of Education happened in 1954.  LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  Black people weren't accepted in the LDS church until 1978 (a year after I was born).  And an African-American was not admitted to Augusta National Golf Course until 1990 (1990!).  Given this history, I ask you, how could being white not be a privilege, all other things equal?  That last clause is very important -- hence the italics.
• The way I see it, the solution to America's racial problems are remarkably easy.  White people need to stop being afraid of black people.  That's it.  Just stop being afraid.  Chances are nobody of any color is going to hurt you.
• Whenever somebody starts a sentence with "The way I see it", expect an oversimplified, useless statement: The way I see it, poor people just need to start making more money.
• I "love" when people defend their prejudices by inventing extremely unlikely hypotheticals: Hey, if you're walking alone through a crime-infested neighborhood at three in the morning, and you see some black kids dressed like extras from "The Wire" on one side, and then you see some white kids dressed like Alex P. Keaton on the other side, which side are you choosing to walk down?  If you could guarantee to black people that they would only ever face discrimination in the early hours of the morning, in dark alleys, and that at all other times, in all other places -- on the street in daylight, in the office, at school, at social functions, etc. -- they would be treated exactly equally, I think they would gladly sign off on it.

• Last thing about race.  Watch the video below.  It's pretty funny.  And pretty much nails why race is still a big part of American life.
  

• Yahoo mail is quite possibly the worst internet platform I've ever had to deal with.  I use Yahoo as my "spam account".  If I have to register at a commercial site, I use it so that my personal Gmail account doesn't get bombarded with ads and such.  I have so many other things linked to Yahoo that getting rid of it would be a HUGE hassle, but I'm contemplating it because it's so incredibly glitchy.  Here are some of its myriad problems: Inbox doesn't load, or loads very slowly; individual email doesn't load, or loads very slowly; doesn't mark messages as having been read even after you've clicked on them numerous times (the most frequent problem, by far); marks messages as having being read, but still shows a positive number next to the inbox, even though they have all already been read (e.g., "Inbox (3)", but there are no unread messages); skips messages when using the "View Next Email" feature.  It's both the desktop and the mobile app.  Here are a few screen shots that illustrate what I'm talking about.

• And here's a screen shot of an advertisement that was in my Yahoo mail account.  WTF?!  Can you at least give me a NSFW warning?  I shouldn't have to worry about getting fired for looking at porn on a company computer, if I check at the office to see if a bill payment went through.

• Question: Do you find articles bemoaning judgmental parents more annoying than parents who are actually judgmental?  I think I do.  It seems like every other day somebody on Facebook is linking to a HuffPo article by a mom who is tired of other parents judging her because she gives her kid formula or feeds them non-organic strawberries or lets them watch more than ten minutes of TV or some other such offense.  (There are dad versions as well.)  I just can't related to these types of articles.  I never feel like other parents are judging my parenting.  I mean, isn't it a bit narcissistic to think everybody is being critical of you?  (And, by the way, this is being asked by a narcissist.)  This assumes people are thinking about you at all, which, chances are, they aren't.  And even if they are, why do you care?  I could give a shit if another parent is critical of the way I'm raising Lil' S.  But then again, as S is always quick to point out, I'm "a robot".
  
• Speaking of S, I'm thinking of starting a new regular segment on this blog: "Stupid Argument of the Week".  It will run until I get tired of posting stupid arguments or until S finds out I'm doing it, whichever comes first.  Here's the first installation:
  
  Me: Hey, have you noticed Lil' S started singing Jingle Bells?  It's so cute.  He goes, "jingle bells ... jingle bells ... jingle bells all the way."    
  S: Yeah, I don't even know where he heard that.
  Me: I don't know either.  It must be daycare.
  S: Hmm ... I don't know how I feel about that.
  Me: What do you mean?
  S: It's a religious song.
  Me: [thinking through the lyrics to Jingle Bells] No, it isn't.
  S: It's a Christmas song.  Christmas is a religious holiday.
  Me: No, it's not a Christmas song.  It's just a song about the winter.
  S: It's a Christmas song.  It's only played during Christmas time.
  Me: No, it's just about the winter.  Snow, sleights, bells on bobtails -- all generic winter stuff.
  S: If it's just about the winter, then how come it's never played in January and February?  It's still the winter then.  It's only played at Christmas time.
  Me: OK, in that sense it is a Christmas song because that's when people listen to it.  But it's not explicitly about Christmas.  It doesn't mention Christmas at all.
  S: It's still a Christmas song.
  Me: It's a Christmas song, but it's not a "Christmas song".  You can't control when other people play a song ...  It's like eggnog.  Eggnog is a Christmas drink, but there is nothing inherently religious about eggnog.  If his daycare was giving out eggnog you wouldn't have a problem with it.
  S: Yes, I would.  I don't drink eggnog, and we don't give him eggnog at home.  I don't want them giving it to him at school.
  Me: I've given him eggnog before.
  S: Well, I don't given him eggnog.
  Me: Right, but there would be nothing wrong with his daycare giving him eggnog.
  S: Of course there is.  It's super fattening and full of sugar.  They are supposed to give them healthy snacks.
  Me: No ... I mean ... Uh ... Never mind.
  
  And there you have it: "Stupid Argument of the Week"!
  

Until next time ...

*Technically, Jackie Robinson was not the first black man to play Major League Baseball.  That was probably Bill White who appeared in one game in 1879 before the "gentlemen's agreement" to ban dark-skinned people from baseball wen into effect.

Entry 258: You Take the Good, You Take the Bad ...

I was mildly bummed Tuesday evening when it became apparent the Republicans were going to regain control of the Senate.  It wasn't just that they won; it was also how they won.  They won almost every close race, despite not really running on anything other than "Obama = Bad".  (To be fair this was more or less the Democratic position back in 2004.  I remember seeing many a "Anybody but Bust" bumper sticker.)  As Paul Krugman put it in yesterday's column:

But the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. 

Indeed, when you have a two-party system, voting becomes a one-on-one, zero-sum game: any loss for you is a gain for your opponent and vice versa.  Further, voters tend to hold the president -- the highest ranking official -- more responsible for the state of the union than they do congress.  The Reps did the math on this and realized that "tanking the country" (for lack of a better term) is a good move politically for them.  And they are ideologically ruthless enough actually carry out.  Sure, it makes them look bad, and the public disapproves overall, but they disapprove of Obama (and by proxy the Democrats) more, which is ultimately a net gain for them.  Conversely, if they actually did their jobs and passed bipartisan legislation, overall approval ratings would surely go up, but vis-a-vis the president Republican ratings would go down.  GOP leaders, in moments of candor, have openly stated that they didn't want to be bipartisan because bipartisanship makes the president look good.  Occasionally this strategy backfires (remember last year's government shutdown?) but Tuesday's results emphatically demonstrated that, for the most part, it can work.

What we really need is a viable third, and even fourth, party in this country to break this one-on-one, your-loss-is-my-gain dynamic.  But whenever somebody tries this (Perot, Nader) they get accused of spoiling the election and being a traitor and going on an ego trip and all sorts of other nonsense.  The only way I could see a third party becoming a force is if a superrich person, like a Bill Gates, decides to make it his* life's goal and is willing to spend a substantial portion of his fortune on it.  What would be even better is if he engineered two new parties, one on the conservative side and one on the liberal side.  Actually, the time is probably right for this, people are mostly fed up with Congress.  But I think there just aren't any superrich people that want to do it, which is understandable.  I wouldn't want to do it.  But I would (and do) want somebody else to do it.  

Anyway, you might have noticed in my opening sentence that I said "mildly bummed", not "totally bummed".  I was only mildly bummed for a few reasons.  For one, part of me thinks, well, if this is the government we want, then this is the government we get, and then when things suck I'll get to say, "told you so."  (But this is not very satisfying because I have to live under the dysfunctional government we're electing, and also because no matter what happens, no matter how much objective evidence there is, conservatives never admit they are wrong.  The Capitol could be underwater, and they would still insist global warming isn't real and that the free market will surely lower the ocean level if we'd only cut taxes on the rich and repeal Obamacare.)

For two, the Democrats are no great prize themselves.  Yes, they are much better than the crazy-and-becoming-crazier Republicans -- but other than that, what can you say about them?  They don't really champion a progressive agenda.  They're fair-weather progressives.  When the country is high on hope and change, they're right there riding that wave; when things get a little choppy (as they always do), it's "Obama who?  ACA what?"  Two big examples of this (as pointed out by Bill Maher on Real Time) are Alison Grimes, who bizarrely wouldn't even admit she voted for Obama, and Clay Aiken who also distanced himself from Obama and wouldn't even speak in favor of gay marriage when given the opportunity.  With friends like these ...  Now, the obvious retort is they are in red states, and if they act too liberally they will lose votes.  And the (perhaps) not as obvious counter-retort is they are likely going to lose no matter what they do.  Is a 54-46 loss any better than a 59-41 loss?  If you're the underdog, act like the underdog and try a David strategy.  Or as Jim Carrey once said, "You can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."  Of course, this assumes Democrats love liberalism -- no safe bet.

[This is what came up when I Googled "David and Goliath"]

The last and biggest reason I wasn't totally bummed by Tuesday's results is that other than the Senate (no small thing, of course) the progressive agenda did remarkably well.  Here in DC, I-71 passed, legalizing possession and growth (but not sale) of marijuana, which is a step in the right direction in mitigating the deleterious, and often racist, effects of the awful "war on drugs".  Minimum wage is set to go up in several states.  Anti-abortion measures failed in two states (but passed in one).  And in the great state of Washington, a strict (by US standards) gun control measure passed, while an anti-gun control bill failed.

It doesn't really make sense that all these things would pass -- many in red states -- and the GOP would also win back control of the Senate.  At least, it doesn't make sense until you remember that most people don't vote on the actual issues, and in fact don't even understand the actual issues (which is why, say, Kentuckians like KyNect and hate Obamacare), and then it makes perfect sense.

Well, that's all I have time for today.  I'll leave with a YouTube clip of the original Tacoma-Narrows Bridge (aka "Galloping Gertie") breaking apart and plunging into the sea (set to some eerily tranquil new age-y music), as yesterday marked the 74th anniversary of this event.  Given the news of this week, it seems like an appropriate way to go out.



Until next time ...

*No, I'm not being sexist by assuming this superrich person is a man.  I just don't want to write his or her a bunch of times.  And even if I did that, what about the people who don't comply with your gender binary norms?  Did you ever think about that?  Also, there is the undeniable, if uncomfortable fact that the superrich are almost all men, so my hypothetical billionaire probably is a man, anyway.

Entry 257: Frankenstein's Monster

Happy Halloween 2014, everybody!  And happy 40th to my sister, who was born on October 31, 1974.  The fact that she was born on Halloween used to come up from time to time as kids.  In particular, I remember sometimes she would try to fool my brother and I into believing that she was a witch, and her birthday was part of the evidence.  She would also turn this crazy Japanese robe that my dad had inside out, so that it was solid black, and wear it like a witch's gown.  She would put on a witch's hat from an old Halloween costume and hold a broom for effect.  Sometimes she would even put tape on her finger nails so that they looked long.  I never really believed that she was actually a witch, but I didn't completely disbelieve it either.  That's one thing about being a kid: There's always like 10% of you that will fall for a trick that 90% of you knows can't be possibly true.

I actually dated a girl for a while who was also born on Halloween.  This might seem like a big coincidence but it's not.  If you take just 30 people, the odds are very much (about 70%) in favor of two of them having the same birthday.  As a little experiment, go on Facebook and look at the first 30 people on your Friends list, and I bet two of them will have the same birthday.  Or you can just take my word for it.

Anyway, we took Lil' S to a block party this evening in our neighborhood.  It was pretty cool.  They had a bouncy castle that he went in immediately and probably would have stayed in the entire time had I not dragged him out so that the "big kids" could take their turns.  There was also this tunnel maze thing made out of cardboard boxes that he really enjoyed.  He would disappear into it and then reemerge at the opposite end five minutes later.  There were tons of kids in it going every which way, crawling over each other, doing who-knows-what.  It was little kid wild wild west.  Of course, Lil' S was the smallest one playing in the maze because he's only two (the average age was probably six), and he's even a bit undersized by two-year old standards.  But he can hold his own -- mostly.  Sometimes an older kid will do something to upset him, and he'll breakdown and start crying for his "amma".  There were plenty of houses around for trick-or-treating, as well, but he wasn't that interested in it.  I think he only ate two pieces of candy, which is good.  I on the other hand ate no candy.  I'm a diet -- strictly pizza and beer for me tonight.

Lil' S's costume was Frankenstein -- or Frankenstein's monster if you want to be snobby about it.  As most people know, in the original Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein was the scientist who created the monster, not the monster itself.  The monster didn't have a name.  But people soon erroneously began calling the monster Frankenstein, and if enough people make the same language error enough times, at some point it becomes not an error.  And with Frankenstein we are way past that point.  Frankenstein is now the monster -- unless you are buying cereal, in which case it's Frankenberry.

I was trying to come up with some other words like Frankenstein that started out as misnomers and became "correct" because enough people misused them over a long enough period of time.  Here's what I came up with:

• Literally.  It now means "virtually" -- basically it's exact opposite -- because so many people say things like, "In DC, the primary is the only important election because literally everybody is a Democrat," which is something I overheard the other day.
• Irregardless.  It means regardless.
• Poser.  When talking about a phony, it should be poseur.  But in many dictionaries poseur is given as a definition for poser, because so many people misused it.  By the way, remember when calling somebody a poser was an insult of highest order?  I feel like a large part of my youth was spent making sure I wasn't wearing the wrong clothing brand (e.g., Vision Street Wear), so that I wouldn't get called a poser.
• The Terminator.  This one doesn't really fit and it requires some explanation.  A few years ago on the NFL training camp show Hard Knocks, the New York Jets had a fullback in camp named John Conner.  Because of his name and the fact he could hit really hard, his nickname became "The Terminator".  But, of course, in the movies, John Connor was a human not a Terminator.  So John Conner's nickname should have been "man" or "Edward Furlong" or something like that -- "The Terminator" doesn't actually work.

• Paper.  The paper is actually the thing you write on, not the implements that you use to write with...  Okay, this one is only for Lil' S.  When he wants to draw or color (i.e., scribble), he'll point to a pen or his crayons and say, "paper ... paper ... paper".  But he calls paper paper too.  I think he just thinks everything related to drawing is called paper.  Whatever the case, it's pretty darn cute -- except when he starts drawing all over the couch with his paper.  We can only flip the cushions once. 

OK, that's all I got for tonight.  Oh wait, one more thing.  My friend from college Barb Honchak is defending her Invicta 125-pound championship belt tomorrow.  I'm going to see if I can stream the fight without buying the entire UFC Fight Pass -- maybe I can just get a free trial or something.

Anyway, until next time ...

Entry 256: Power of Two, Let's Not Argue, and Boo at the Zoo

Welcome to Entry 256!  As any math nerd worth his or her salt can tell you, 256 is a special number: It's a power of two.  Powers of two are especially prominent in computer science because at the lowest level computers are binary.  A "switch" is either on or off; that is, there are two choices.  If you add another switch then there are four (2^2) choices -- on-on, on-off, off-on, off-off.  If you add yet another switch then there are eight (2^3) choices.  I'm not going to list them all, but you can do it if you want.  I remember in high school computer programming class (my favorite and most influential class ever, by the way) one of the first things we learned to do was convert numbers from decimal to other bases of powers of two like binary and hexadecimal (16).  I don't know if I've ever applied this knowledge directly, but it did allow me to understand two "great" math jokes:

• There are 10 types of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.
• There are 16 types of people in this world.  Those who understand hexadecimal ... and f the rest.

Speaking of math jokes, they (very indirectly) caused a small argument between S and I.  I've said before that S and I have the same two or three arguments over and over in different forms, well, here's a classic example of our "I think I say something completely inoffensive; S hears something condescending" argument.  It's also called the "tone" argument, for short.

The other day S comes home with some books from the library -- mostly they're kids' books for Lil' S, but there are a few for her too.  One of them is called What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe.  I recognize the name of the author because he's the guy who does xkcd -- a math-y, science-y, nerdy (and very funny) comic strip.  It surprises me that S would pick out a book of this genre, so we have a little conversation about it.  I don't think anything of it.

Then later I'm flipping through the book, thinking I might read it, so I ask S if she's going to read it soon, and she says, "You can read it now if you want ... Since apparently I'm not smart enough to understand it."  She said it half-jokingly, but only half.  That's what she took away from our conversation earlier.  I thought I was making an innocuous, offhand comment about personal preferences.  She thought I was disparaging her analytical skills.  Sigh ...

[My favorite xkcd joke.]

By the way, I'm not going to read the book.  It looks too heavy on the physics.  Despite being really into math, I've never found physics all that interesting.  My sister says I have a little bit of Sheldon Cooper in me.  But I always point out that I'm not into theoretical physics.  Also, I don't like comic books, and given the opportunity, I'd totally get it on with Blossom.  (I'd just have to make sure to steer away from the topic of vaccines during the pillow-talk.)

Anyway, since I'm on the topic of arguments, I'll give you an example of another big one between S and I -- the "can't let it go" argument.  This one is mainly on me, I will admit.  When I hear or see something that isn't right or that doesn't make sense, I am virtually incapable of just letting it go.  When it comes to debugging complex computer code (a large part what I do at work) this serves me very well; when it comes to dealing with my with my wife, not so much.  In general, to be successful in marriage I think you have to be a lot like Queen Elsa in Frozen.

[What?  Lil' S is really into this movie right now.] 

Here's the example.  We eat a lot of hard-boiled eggs in our house -- all three of us eat them.  As a result we (meaning I) have to boil a lot of eggs, which is fine, but I'd prefer to do it as infrequently as possible.  So one thing I ask S is to give Lil' S only half an egg at each meal and save the other half because otherwise he takes two bites and we waste most the egg -- which over the course of weeks adds up to a lot of wasted eggs.  Apart from the additional boiling, I just hate wasting food.  It's a big pet peeve of mine.

So the other day she's giving him lunch, and I see a bunch of egg that he's obviously not going to eat sitting on a plate.  And then S (perhaps in a preemptive strike) says, "He ate an entire egg today!"  Now at this point, I should just say "cool", and move on.  (Let it go, let it go...)  But I see a pile of ovum detritus sitting there, and I can't help myself:

"It doesn't look like it," I say motioning toward the remaining egg.
"Sorry," S says in an a sarcastic tone, "he ate three-fourths of an egg today."
"There's not three-fourths missing from that egg."
S holds up a sliver of egg white, "Babe, this is all that's left."
"What about all that yolk?"  I say pointing to what looks to be close to the entire yolk.
"He didn't want the yo- ... whatever ... just ... whatever."

And that pretty much sums it up.  Arguing over the proportion remaining of an egg that is about to go into the trash disposal anyway.

[Dueling banjos at "Boo at the Zoo"]

After telling these stories, now I feel like I have to say something positive about S and my relationship, so I'll say this: We make a pretty good team with Lil' S.  This teamwork was in full effect last night at "Boo at the Zoo" -- a Halloween event at the National Zoo, where sponsors set up booths and kids go around trick-or-treating at them.  Some of the animal exhibits are open as well.  We went with a friend who brought her two girls, so the ratio was one parent per one child, and it was barely adequate.  Keeping up with Lil' S in an open space is getting to be a serious challenge.  Actually, in an open space it's not too bad; it's where there are railings and ropes and poles and nooks and stuff that's it's difficult.  And a bagful of readily accessible sugar certainly doesn't help the situation.  Lil' S was constantly climbing something he shouldn't be climbing ("Hey, stay off the railing to the alligator pit.") or just bombing forward full-steam ahead, zigzagging through peoples legs, while I'm trying not to flatten the throngs of other kids in pursuit.  There were several times he got far enough ahead that he couldn't see us (but I could see him).  So he'd stop and get scared and start crying, "mommy! mommy!", and then all the other parents would look around and wonder if he was lost and if they should do something before I could reach him and scoop him up.

But it was a lot fun.  It's a good event.  I'm not sure if Lil' S can do "real" trick-or-treating yet, and if we will even try to take him out next Friday or not, so maybe this will be it for our Halloween celebration.

And this is it for this entry as well...

Actually one more thing.  What do you think of the adult who wears a genuinely creepy Halloween costume?  Not like a fun, cartoonish creepy, but something that would actually scare the shit out of you if you were six years old?  There was a guy at the zoo last night who went as Bane from Batman, and with that weird mouth mask on, he looked legitimately scary.  I mean, it's fun to spook the kids and all, but the goal isn't to traumatize them, right?

Anyway, until next time ...