Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

The Little Shit Who Was

Those of you who’ve been following along will recall that when Neal Pollack’s recent piece on salon.com was first published, he had his wife referring to their 2-year-old son as ‘the little shit’. It was changed to simply ‘he’.

Since neither salon.com nor Neal Pollack has shown any prior concerns about publishing words like ‘shit’, it seems more than a little precious that salon.com should coyly refer to the missing words as “including an expletive”. Since when are they so delicate?

Hm. Weird. Is salon.com going all wussy?

Michael Friedman is a Weenie

Painting amid `Controversy’: “The piece in question is a painting depicting President Bush being sodomized. Artist Alfred Phillips said images of an oil barrel and a man wearing a Muslim headdress in the work are part of a political statement about the United States being abused by oil companies.

“Michael Friedman, the artist who complained to the county, said the painting is offensive and tasteless.

“‘Something snapped inside,’ he said. Friedman entered a piece depicting Pope Benedict XVI with several swastikas in the background.”

Maybe that snapping sound Friedman heard was his one remaining brain cell burning out.

Like a picture of Benedict XVI among swastikas isn’t potentially offensive and tasteless?? For those of you unfamiliar with the new Pope’s past, Benedict was forced to join the Nazi party when he was a young man in Germany. He let his party membership lapse when he was able to do so. People could easily infer from Friedman’s painting that Benedict was enthusiastic about the Nazi philosophy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Benedict’s opposition to Naziism is well documented and beyond doubt.

Likewise, people might infer from Alfred Phillips painting that George W. Bush actually enjoys being anally probed by the Sauds (and the Kuwaitis and…well…pretty much anyone who’s willing to sell oil cheap.) I’m not saying this is true, but… most people in those kinds of “relationships” at least try to get dinner and a movie out of their dates before they get fucked.

Wing Feathers

Minnesota Power Falcon Cam

Amazing! Look at how much their wing feathers have grown in just 3 days! The first photo is from today. The second photo is from May 27th.

Oh…and one more thing

It’s a little amusing that Neal Pollack vents his spleen all over those of us in “the loony corners of the Internet” when salon.com’s own “Table Talk” forum has a couple of ongoing discussions about his article that are not at all different from what we’ve been saying here.

I guess he’s at least learned this much: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Twice Shy

Man, if that was “extremely traumatic” for you, you’ve got some absolutely devastating years ahead.

This is from Neal Pollack’s own web site, The Maelstrom. He’s got a couple of posts about our discussion here so, if you haven’t yet, do head on over and read what he’s got to say.

As this long weekend comes to an end (and as salon.com moves Pollack’s When Toddlers Get Fired piece off their front page), the discussion here is starting to die down.

So, before I forget, on the subject of SATIRE…

I love satire. It’s one of my favorite literary forms. The thing is, though, if it’s going to be any good, people need to be able to identify it as satire. If Neal Pollack were actually a single guy with no children, then his piece on salon.com might have been seen as a satirical send-up of how self-absorbed parents put their own personal satisfaction ahead of the needs of their child. Okay… so if Neal was going for satire, he failed. Miserably. How much of what Pollack wrote is a genuine reflection of his and his wife’s attitude towards their child — and how much is just stuff he made up in a failed attempt at humor? Most of us will never know. We can only base our opinions on what he gave us and what he gave us didn’t make him or his wife look very good at all.

Oops.

It’s one of those “live and learn” moments for Neal and Regina, I suspect. When you write about your personal life and publish it, you make your personal life other people’s business — and other people are sometimes going to loudly disagree with how you’re doing things.

I’ve received a couple of private emails from Regina, Neal Pollack’s wife. (Well, I assume they’re really from Regina. You can never be sure on the internet.) You’ll all be interested in knowing that she comes across in email as a perfectly nice and normal sort of person. She said pretty much the same things she’s already written in comments here on the blog. One thing that came across much more clearly in her emails, though, is that reading all of our comments was quite upsetting to her. No surprise there, I guess.

In one of my replies directly to Regina, I wrote: Perhaps it’s some comfort to know that the majority of people who’ve commented are motivated by a genuine concern for your child.

I got the impression that she does appreciate that.

Several people, including Neal Pollack, have pointed out that the support available for new parents in this country (the United States) is deplorable. I believe that’s a valid observation and it deserves to be repeated. Assuming the worst of our suspicions about Neal and Regina’s parenting skills are true, there’s little help available for them. That’s bad.

Anyway.

Neal can whine all he wants about how misunderstood he is but, consider, he’s the one who wrote the piece. Presumably he took some time to think it over as he was writing it. Presumably, the process of writing and publishing it took longer than the hour or two of extreme frustration a normal person would feel upon having their kid kicked out of daycare. Right? It’s not like firing off an angry IM to someone. He had time to think it through. If more than a few of us mistook his temporary frustration to be something more unpleasant, he’s really only got himself to blame.

In closing, I find it odd that Pollack would think it’s “ironic” that his kid should turn out to be a delight. Most 2-year-olds really are essentially delightful. It’s not ironic. It’s to be expected.

Be A Good Parent

Fascinating stuff — how strongly people have reacted to Neal Pollack’s piece on salon.com. I’ve never received so much feedback.

I’m the kind of person who likes to figure things out, so I’m going to apply myself here.

Uh-oh!

I think the reason so many people have reacted so strongly — the great majority of them agreeing with me that Neal Pollack and his wife, Regina, appear to be crappy parents who should never have spawned — is because we’re living in an age when crappy parenting seems to be the norm.

I can’t be the only person who’s sick and tired of people letting their little kids run loose in restaurants and stores. And I can’t be the only person who’s grown very weary of witnessing this sort of exchange:

Little Sally: I want that.

Parent: No.

Little Sally: I want that.

Parent: No.

Little Sally: I want that.

Parent: No.

Little Sally: I want that.

Parent: No.

Little Sally: I want that.

Parent: No.

Little Sally: I want that.

Parent: Oh, all right.

Understand, I’m not unsympathetic to the problems parents encounter these days. When both parents work (and, yes, creative stuff like writing and painting count as “work”) there’s often little energy left over for child care.

Here’s the thing, though. If you really and truly don’t have the time or energy to care for a child you shouldn’t have one. There’s simply too much at stake to fuck up child care as badly as so many people are doing.

Now some of you might think I’m advocating for a society where only very wealthy people procreate. They, after all, can afford professional quality child care if they don’t have the time or energy to do it themselves. This isn’t the case at all, though. In fact, some of the poorer people I’ve know have also been the best parents. How is that? Here’s how they do it:

• They put the needs of their kid first. I’m talking about real needs like good food and shelter and love — not pretend “needs” like the latest fashions and soccer camp every summer.
• They get help from their friends and family. If their family doesn’t live near them and they don’t hate their guts, they seriously considering moving closer to the family.
• They temporarily put aside some of their own desires for immediate personal satisfaction. They take a boring job for a few years if it means there’s a regular paycheck and good benefits. Maybe they work different hours from what their spouse is working so one of them will always be home for the kid. (It’s only five years until the kid starts regular school, for Pete’s sake! In the grand scheme of a lifetime, five years is nothing.)
• They get their priorities straight. They come to understand that a big house isn’t really all that important. They understand that soccer and drum line and swim team and gymnastics are secondary to good food, adequate sleep, a good education, and — very important — plenty of time for playing or just daydreaming.

Come on, you all know what I’m talking about! People have gone completely nuts with this whole child-rearing thing. They’re all confused about what’s important and what’s just fluff. Part of that’s got to be because they’re listening to what the kids say they want instead of using their own adult common sense. They’re tired — from working so hard to pay for the big house and soccer camp and the minivan — so they quit using their brains and just start taking what seems to be the path of least resistance.

They’re making huge mistakes and their kids are getting all screwed up and all of us are suffering for it in the long run.

So…

What’s the solution?

People Who Shouldn’t Have Children

These people — Neal Pollack and his wife, Regina — are just horrible!

In this article for salon.com, Neal Pollack is describing how his 2-year-old son, Elijah, has been booted out of pre-school for biting and hitting other children. Even though Neal and Regina both work at home most of the time, they couldn’t be bothered taking care of their kid themselves. When little Elijah was only 14 months old, his mother was already tired of having him around all day because “her brain was starting to melt out her ears.” Even hiring a nanny was unacceptable because “the kid would still be underfoot most of the day, screeching.”

Jeez. And they wonder why the little guy acts out so often?

They think he isn’t aware on some level that he’s not particularly wanted?

And then — morons that these two breeders are, they think they can solve the problem by sitting the tyke down and reasoning with him. Hello?? He’s two years old, you fucking dolts!

God, I hate people like this.

I’ve got a news flash for Regina: babe, you ARE a bad mother. And your husband is a bad father. You people should never have reproduced. You’re irresponsible. You’re stupid. You’re selfish.

Here’s my advice: Give that poor little kid away to someone who’s actually capable of taking care of him and, both of you, get sterilized right away so you won’t produce any more unwanted children.

Sadly, the Pollacks will probably not heed my advice. Little Elijah will mature into a screwed-up teenager and then into a completely fucked-up adult and the elder Pollacks will spend their golden years wringing their hands and whining about what victims they are and why should all of this bad stuff have happened to them and why couldn’t Elijah just have behaved when he was small.

God, I hate people like Neal and Regina Pollack.

Garden Tour May 2005

Okay… you know that photo tour I had you going over to Flickr to look at? Forget it. I’ve found a much more elegant way of displaying my photos. I’m trying out some shareware called Image Rodeo. So far, so good. If it performs well, I’ll pay for it and use it for all of my photos. (And I anticipate there being a lot more photos in the future — I just got a new digital camera yesterday! Wow, has the technology ever advanced beyond what was available when we bought our old Olympus D320 L eight or nine years ago! And have the PRICES ever dropped!)

Anyway… Click on the link below to view my new and improved Garden Tour slide show:

Garden Tour May 2005

The Results of Deinstitutionalization

Suspect in Montgomery Mall Stabbing Identified: “Antoinette C. Starks, 48, who is charged with stabbing two women at a Nordstrom store in a Montgomery County mall last night, was ordered today to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Court documents released today show that Starks, of the 6000 block of Greenbelt Road in Greenbelt, was released from prison on Tuesday after being convicted of a charge of destruction of property. They also allege that the weapon used in the attacks was two kitchen knives taped together.”

If you’re not a resident of the DC area (or a regular reader of the Washington Post) you probably don’t know about this story. This woman stabbed two people on Wednesday — the day after getting out of prison. The victims were apparently strangers to her.

Now, it may turn out that I’m wrong about this, but this sure looks like a case of a mentally ill person who’s never received the appropriate care. It would be interesting to know the details of her prior “destruction of property” conviction. I’m guessing it was another incident of unprovoked violence.

Back in the 1970s there was a big move to shut down most of the state-run psychiatric hospitals around the US. The idea was that most of the mentally ill people confined in them would do better if they were reintegrated into society and receiving treatment on an outpatient basis at community mental health centers. It all sounded really great on paper. Trouble was, when it came time to set up the community mental health centers, the states didn’t allocate enough money to do the job right. To make things worse, at the same time most of the inpatient facilities were shut down, laws were being passed making it much more difficult to involuntarily commit a person.

You can see the results of this fiasco on the streets in any major city: mentally ill people who are not able to properly care for themselves. While there might be treatments available that could help these poor souls get their lives together, there’s no effective system in place for getting the people to the clinics or monitoring their progress once they start treatment.

A lot of these folks die early from diseases related to poverty and substance abuse. A lot of them wind up in prison after having violently acted out.

The idea of deinstitutionalization was a good one. The lack of follow-through, though, can only be described as tragic.

We have failed these people. Most of the time we can just pretend we don’t see them sleeping on park benches or begging for change. Every once in a while, though, one of them is driven by her illness to behave in ways that we can’t ignore.

Will Antoinette C. Starks finally get the care she very likely needs? Or will she just wind up back in prison?

More of the Power Chicks

Minnesota Power Falcon Cam

Okay, okay…. so maybe it’s a little overkill with the falcon chicks tonight. But I continued watching them after my last post and I snagged a couple more good video captures. The chicks are all pretty much able to sit upright now and even walk around a little bit.

Here’s a good shot of two of them showing off their wing development.

And! It turns out they’ve already started exercising their wings! They’ll be riding the thermals before we know it. Here’s a not-very-good picture of one of them stretching his wings out.