The Republic of T.

After stumbling upon it a year ago—months after the flames died down, only to end up stirring up the embers (and to eventually have someone more authoritative than me say basically what I’d been saying all along)—I some how missed the anniversary of Blogroll Amnesty Day (B.A.D.), which Jon and Skippy called on others to remember by linking to blogs at various points down the long tail. (I think a few links even came my way as a result, which I appreciate.)

It’s funny what changes. A year ago, when I wrote that post, I was working parent of one child and a moderately successful mid-level blogger trying desperately to climb the steep slope between me and the next tier. A year later, I’m moderately successful mid-level blogger who’s now a working parent of two, who’s not so much trying to climb to the top as clinging to my particular ledge and trying not to slide further down the slope. These days, just holding my own and not losing any ground counts as success.

I think I stopped trying so hard. After the Clinton blogger lunch debacle and the Blogroll Amnesty Day experience, I made a conscious decision to stop trying to be “one of those people,” whoever they are. I’m not sure if I’ve slowed down, or what’s changed, but it marked a change for me. So, today seemed like a good time for a round-up, in honor of Blog Amnesty Day.

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When I was a little boy, growing up in Augusta, GA, I wanted to be famous. Actually, I wanted to be a star. I sang along with the radio and one day discovered I had a voice, and eventually—happily—discovered that some people even enjoyed hearing it.

My sister, her best friend, and I used to dream of fame. We made up songs, and sang them into tape recorders. After we saw The Wiz, we learned all the songs, cast ourselves in the parts (I was the scarecrow) and acted out scenes. We dreamed of moving to Hollywood, where it would all happen, of course.

Now, decades later, I’m no closer to fame than I was then, and light years away from stardom. But what I’ve seen from this distance has me thinking that perhaps my youthful dreams are best left that way. I’m not sure I’d want the glare of spotlight that never, ever shuts off shining into every aspect of my life, or on my family. Not based on what I’ve seen and read lately.

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This Friday, I had something anyone who’s ever lived through the first few months of parenting a newborn will understand is something to be treasured: a day off. The rest of the family left the house in the morning, and I went back to bed. But, of course, we never take a day off from being parents. Not that I want to, mind you, but those few extra hours of sleep Friday morning (I went back to bed. Surprised?) were sweet.

I’d taken the day off, because Parker’s pre-school was having a special performance, and of course we were going to be there to see it. Parker had been talking about it for the past month. At first he decided he was going to dance, and after he picked a song I burned it to CD so that he could take it to school with him and practice. But I know my son. He’s very stage shy. At home, with us as an audience, he sings, dances and puts on quite a show. But he generally prefers not to be in the spotlight and not to be the center a big audience’s attention.

So I wasn’t surprised when he announced that he’d volunteered (with one other child) for the job of handing out tickets. (Pieces of construction paper colored by Parkers class served as “tickets.”) I told him, “That’s a very important job. If nobody handed out tickets, there’d be no audience to see the show,” and that Daddy and Papa would be there so he could give us our tickets. And he did, as well as handing tickets to other parents as they arrived. He even helped with some of the props for the other students performances.

We were very proud and we told him so.
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Saw this over at Kip’s and couldn’t resist chiming in.

The inevitable, even clichéd, response on the part of theists to this litany of woes is to ask: what about Hitler and Stalin? Yes, the question resorts to the hackneyed rhetorical ploy of et tu quoque (Latin for “So’s your old man”). But at least the question’s inevitability forces the atheist to show his hand. Thus Dawkins lamely avers that Hitler did believe in God (of sorts) and, hey, Stalin attended an Orthodox seminary in his youth! If that retort seems a tad desperate, England’s most pious unbeliever concludes with this wan distinction: “Stalin was an atheist and Hitler probably wasn’t, but even if he was, the bottom line of the Stalin/Hitler debating point is very simple. Individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism.” So it’s not atheism that’s the problem, only atheists!

Once and for all, can we put this in the same category of ridiculousness as Kirk Cameron calling the banana an “atheist’s nightmare,” or that the human eye could not possibly have evolved?

Here again we approach something akin to the mental blockage otherwise known as irreducible complexity, which—when boiled down to gravy—isn’t all that complex. It’s tempting here to apply one of the common corollaries to Godwin’s law: that, in any debate or discourse, whoever mentions the Nazis or Hitler first “loses” the argument.

But that seems almost too easy. Especially when it’s even easier to debunk this with just a little thought.
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A new feature I’m toying with maybe adding. Just for fun.

There are so many stories I come across in my daily reading of news and blogs that inspire the question, “What the fuck is wrong with people?” that I’ve started thinking it might make a good idea for a comic strip.

OK. So, I’ll admit I’ve always wished I could draw, and I always thought it would be cool to be a cartoonist. However, my sister was blessed with the visual arts talent in our family. (She’s always been a talented artist.) I, on the other hand, never made it past drawing stick people in the margins of my notebooks in school.

I’ve been toying with various comic strip tools online, though, and I think I may have found a way around my inability to draw.

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(With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

It began with Veggie Booty. Or rather, I should say, it ended with Veggie Booty. As was my habit, I’d tossed it into the cart during our family’s weekend grocery shopping trip. I didn’t read the label, in part because I’d read it before, to make sure there were no animal products among the ingredients, and didn’t think I needed to read it again. Then I learned about the recall.

Also, shopping with a healthy, active five-year-old doesn’t lend itself to taking the time to read labels. So I didn’t. Until I read that Veggie Booty was recalled because it was tainted with salmonella, which was traced back to a spray-on seasoning, which was eventually traced back to China. Fifty two people became sick, complete with bloody diarrhea, including an 18-month-old.

My spouse and I each take about 30 seconds or less to read a food label. Even though we’re shopping with our five-year-old son and our two-month-old son, we have all the time in the world. In fact, because of them, we have all the time in the world to read food labels. We have 1,900 years, to be exact, because it will take the Food and Drug Administration 1,900 years to catch up on food import inspections.

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