Do the Yak

When I was growing up, a conservative was someone who wanted less government regulation and less government spending, especially on social programs, but generally advocated fiscal restraint and a balanced budget if at all possible, as opposed to "tax and spend liberals." But something odd has happened; our most recent Democratic president inherited a huge deficit but turned it into a surplus by the time he left office. Now the current GOP gang has run up another huge deficit and has no plans to actually pay for anything, other than suggesting maybe people should try to conserve fuel a bit. So... if I avoid jackrabbit starts and turn down the thermostat a degree, that'll pay for New Orleans, Iraq and tax cuts? Yeah. As Joan Venocchi pointed out in today's Globe, Bush's philosophy is even worse than tax and spend -- he wants to spend WITHOUT taxing, so we're REALLY going into the fiscal crapper. And don't even get me started on procurement, Halliburton, etc...

Wouldn't it be nice if all moms and dads -- all adults, actually -- had the freedom to choose whether they wanted to work, and for how many hours per week? I was reading a Boston Globe column about the feminist pendulum swing to the so-called "mommy track" that described how some women are now freely choosing to be stay-at-home moms even though they have challenging and well-paying careers, or at least career options (i.e., education). I think it's great that women have progressed from Point A (get married, stay home and raise the kids or don't get married and get one of the few appropriately "womanly" jobs) to Point B (have the legal and societal ability to get the same jobs men, but if you work full-time, endure guilt and Supermom burnout) to Point C (decide to be a full-time mom as in days of yore, but consciously choose to do so). What would be really great is if, #1, men had the same options financially and socially (I think there's still a fee...

I have a lot of frustration with the "intelligent design" crowd. I'm not a scientist (political or biological) and I don't play one on TV, but it seems more than coincidental to me that this renewed debate comes in an era of religious revival, political conservatism (survival of the fittest, anyone?) and stupidity at the highest political levels. But I digress. To spare you the ensuring rant, you can read what's inspired my current train of thought -- a Washington Post article that offers the best explanation I've ever read about evolution and the whole debate. So here's my two cents to the ID crowd. Folks, just because something is too complicated and beautiful for YOU to understand, or even for any of the people you know who are smarter than you, this doesn't mean GOD did it. Number two, just because things seem perfectly designed and adapted at this point doesn't mean there weren't a whole lot of screwups along the way, which is how it work...

Hurricane Rita is going to hit the Texas/Louisiana border late tonight and do to Port Arthur what Katrina did to Gulfport and New Orleans. Meanwhile, the Red Sox, who have led the division for months, have suddenly started their time-honored choke ritual and are suddenly a game behind the Yankees and a game and a half behind Cleveland for the wild card with 10 games to go. The last series of the season is against New York, of course. Yes indeed, I can feel that familiar tightening in the lower intestinal region that comes along this time of year. In another time-honored ritual, Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy has framed the whole thing in Biblical terms: "The Sox have been put on this earth to make us suffer. My eyes have seen the gory. The Sox are here to test our resolve." Oy. On a much more cheerful note, the delightful Becky always has something interesting to say as she careens happily through life. She recently learned what rhyming was, and is understanding (in her own...

Just had to share some thoughts on bad hair displayed by others, including: -- The guy at a local supermarket with the world's most amazing combover. His jet-black hair is totally absent except at the fringes, so it's about a foot long on one side and it wraps all ALL THE WAY AROUND IN A CIRCLE to cover the sides and then swirls onto the top like a soft-serve ice cream cone. It's like encountering a car accident: horrifying but impossible to look away from. -- James Traficant , Buddy Cianci and Trent Lott -- noxious politicians with even more noxious toupees. Do they actually think they're FOOLING anyone? -- Our former housecleaner in the South, a man also with a rug on his head but one that cost a lot less than the guys mentioned above, so it looked even rattier and didn't come close to matching what was left of his own hair. I'm the last person who ought to give fashion advice, but -- guys, really, going bald doesn't make you less sexy or personable. It ...

I may not be the handiest person when it comes to major home improvement projects, but I like to think of myself as practical in terms of minor problem-solving, seeing what needs to be done and then figuring out some (usually half-assed) way to do it. But even Ben was amazed at my latest solution. See, here's the problem: I finally found a granola bar that I like, but it has one downside: it's very crunchy and creates a cloud of crumbs whenever I eat one. Also I like a chewy texture better anyway from a mouth-feel standpoint. Whattodo? I was in Linen, Bath and Beyond (my favorite kind of store because it's all about storing and organizing and Putting Things Into Other Things) and I saw something I'd never come across before: a small oval-shaped piece of terracotta that's intended to soften up brown sugar that had dried out and turned into a rock. You soak this thingy in water for a while, then put it in an airtight container with the sugar. The container achieves hy...

Reading other parental blogs has made me feel guilty that I haven't documented Sarah and Becky's cuteness nearly enough. And they are of course the cutest, smartest and funniest kids on the planet, except when they're whining and screaming, which is only about 50 percent of the time, or it feels like about that. So I will try to record at least one cute thing a week for posterity's sake. Yesterday Sarah applied one of the Sarah Rules of Pronunciation to a new word. The rule is: add an extra syllable when making a plural form of a noun that ends in two consonants. So for example, one guest, two "guestes." Yesterday the word she created in this way was "deskes," as in, "Those big, brightly colored plastic boxes on the floor you just tripped over and cursed in a muffled tone are our deskes because we're playing school." Sarah likes to rough-house with Ben, and her latest game is "Gronjoe" (I have no clue about the origin of that ...

Since even I'm sick of reading about Bush's incompetence, though I can't seem to stop myself, today I'll just leave it to Bill Maher ... I can't wait to reread this in about 30 years and see how this era is viewed historically, that's all I can say.

I love when someone makes a vivid point with few words and a telling juxtaposition. Derrick Jackson's column in today's Boston Globe is today's winner: "In 1981 as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith, [Supreme Court nominee John Roberts] wrote that affirmative action 'required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates.' Such sentiments will not sink his chances for the high court, not in a nation where affirmative action of inadequately prepared white men is so rampant that we let them manage our two worst disasters," meaning FEMA hack Michael Brown (Hurricane Katrina) and our Yale-legacy president (the Iraq war). You go, Derrick. On to unfinished business -- the story of our Fenway experience last week. It all started when Ben saw an ad on NESN asking for people to e-mail their "Red Sox stories" for possible inclusion in a new show about the people and stories of Red Sox nation. So he jotted a few lines about o...

I had to write in support of Heather, author of my favorite blog, dooce.com. In her latest entry , she notes that she's usually stressed but more or less OK until she sees a TV show about people who are cheerfully and serenely raising sextuplets, which makes her feel totally inadequate that she can barely deal with her one toddler. Well... you go, girl. I think all of us parents feel like we're falling pretty far short of the mark in most ways. For myself, it's little things like working full-time, seeing them for a few semi-meaningful minutes each weekday in rushed mornings and cranky evenings (minus the time I tell them to go play so I can get reacquainted with Ben for a moment or two). It's the knowledge that I'm ruining their psyches by incessantly screaming at them, even though I know at some level that other parents probably just might raise their voices at their kids in the privacy of their own homes, as opposed to when I'm around, when the kids are model...

Last Friday (9/9/05), two unique things happened: Sarah started kindergarten, and Ben and I told our respective conversion stories for the cameras at Fenway Park. At 8:05 a.m., 15 minutes early, Sarah's rather-tense-but-pretending-to-be-normal parents brought her to the Zervas School 15 minutes early, which almost precipitated a divorce right then and there. Although she was excited and not fearful (at least outwardly) about starting school leading up the this day, she was quieter and shyer than usual, perhaps because she's never been in such a large group of kids, all of them larger than she is. Once the bell rang, we went into her classroom, met Ms. Joe-Yen, found her locker with a bumblebee on it (she shares it with a boy named Jacob) and oohed and aahed over all the toys and activities in the room. She seemed withdrawn but not tearful, thank God, because if she had cried I certainly would have lost it. Though not as much as I did on her first day in day care after I retur...

Just in case there was still any lingering belief in the separation of church and state in our fine country, our fearless leader has declared a national day of prayer and rememberance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Some choice quotes from the official White House press release: "Across our Nation, so many selfless deeds reflect the promise of the Scripture: 'For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in.'" (The peculiar capitalization is from the release, not me.) ... "We pray that God will bless the souls of the lost, and that He will comfort their families and friends and all lives touched by this disaster" ... "I ask that the people of the United States and places of worship mark this National Day of Prayer and Remembrance with memorial services and other appropriate observances." I suppose it's only fair that the government ask houses of worship for a favor, since i...

We are parents, and we have the meetings to prove it. Two last night, in fact. The first was a picnic at the Zervas School for parents of incoming kindergarteners. Sarah took it all in stride, disappearing like a shot to climb to the top of the monkey bars and introducing herself to strange children. I met the principal and one of the PTO vice presidents. I tried with moderate success to schmooze and network and comforted Becky, who was totally not in the mood to sit on the grass and chat and nibble on bread when others around us had pizza and she also had to pee. So I took her home to satisfy both basic human needs and then trundled off to the Riverside Children's Center meeting with parents and teachers in the Discovery Room, to which Becky has matriculated after graduating from the Turtle Room. I did a bit of schmoozing but mostly listened to the teachers lay down the rules while the girls colored in the corner. It was another landmark along the long and winding road into The ...

The news and video about Hurricane Katrina are unbelievable. One story said this is the most significant event in recent U.S. memory aside from 9/11, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. The destruction sounds comparable in some ways to Hiroshima, though of course without the radiation, thankfully. Hearing about Katrina makes we wonder how I would react and what steps I would take if I were in that situation. Suppose I were stuck on a New Orleans rooftop with Sarah and Becky and Ben, or even on a piece of dry land? What could I do to get everyone to safety? How far could we carry the children? How would we find food and water? How long would we have to walk? Could we find a boat or a wagon to help us? And what would happen if we encountered looters or robbers? Could I myself steal things or commit an act of violence if I needed food or water or clothing? Probably. It's fascinating to speculate on how individuals and society would cope with a disaster and the sudden, to...