Shocked by the evening news, I asked my sixteen-year-old what he'd heard about neo-nazis working as security guards in refugee housing. He rolled his eyes.
"Mom, what demographic likes to wear a uniform and carry a stick?"
Young men who post on their Facebook pages--Sagt Nein zum Heim--say "no" to the home for refugees--feel invigorated by statements like "Keep Germany White." They crack skulls during their spare time, which is most of their time, since they're jobless. They look like good bouncers, except that they're the ones you'd want bounced.
Aren't the authorities doing background checks? Yes, but only in one state, fortunately the one in which I am living. Why only here? Because here we have enough applicants for the job to be selective--and enough budget to pay them. Those
with desirable political attitudes--Welcome, Refugees!--are not, in
enormous numbers, signing up to be security guards. Guys who want "no
foreigners in our town! In our back yard! Near our kindergarten!" instead apply, and abuse refugees when they can get away with it. A
photo of a right-wing extremist working as a security guard in
Bielefeld, his foot on the neck of a refugee man lying prone and
handcuffed, showed no isolated moment.
It's not just right wing guards--it's the middle class. My son brought home a story: a friend's daughter, studying a technical field, switched degree programs from the "teaching" degree ("Lehramt") to the B.A. She therefore had to take the same courses all over again before taking exams that will probably ask the same questions. The university system has a Byzantine quality, and there's no getting around the problem. She blanched when she discovered that Syrian refugees whose studies were interrupted by war will be allowed to take the exams without repeating courses they've already taken. Anyone should be allowed to take the exams, in my opinion, and I teach in the system. You'll either pass or fail, whether you've taken the course or not. What really got the goat of the young German women was that Syrians are exempt from the tiresome requirement to repeat courses, but Germans and Austrians are not.
"Austrians!" said she, in outrage. If they can't and she can't, why should the Syrians get this special treatment?
My answer would not please her. But I think it obvious. I'll pose it as questions: Haven't the refugees been through enough? Lost enough time? Why not let them try the exams and get on with their professional lives when they pass, instead of dragging them through an extra three or four years of university courses they have already taken?
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
What Can Germans Do For Syrians?
Lots.
I keep wanting to answer the question of my nervous student, who wondered, "Can we take a whole country into Germany?"
Yes, and here's how we're doing it. My local church (denomination unimportant) has a parish hall that seats around 100. So a lady active in various church groups invited 70 refugees from the recently-erected tent city, people who trekked and were smuggled and walked and God knows how they finally got here, but they did, within the last few weeks.
I got to the parish hall around three in the afternoon, with my daughter, who was deciding whether she'd play the violin. I brought my tap shoes and a chocolate cake. By the time I got there, so many cakes lined the tables that I had a hard time finding a place for mine. There must have been fifty cakes there. German ladies know their cake, believe me. Also coffee, of course, and tea. About thirty Germans, mothers, a few fathers, children, were sitting having their cake and coffee and wondering whether the Syrians would come.
What if they had no transportation? What if they didn't get the invitation? Security's tight at the tent city--so tight that the grandmotherly lady who made up the laminated posters inviting refugees was not cleared to enter the tent city. She had to hand over the posters to somebody who, she discovered, did not put them up.
But then the Syrians arrived! Almost all were young men and not all were Syrian, although to a man they were refugees. I counted one or two women. Once everybody was seated, the German ladies got really busy handing out cake.
The minister welcomed everybody and detailed services, religious and otherwise, that the church can offer--young peoples' groups, German lessons, computer services . . . . then a volunteer translated everything into Arabic, and after that I translated everything into English.
Then it was back to entertainment. A girl played the violin; her sister accompanied her on the piano. Then more announcements were made about the weather--Gee, it's getting cold here! We know you're used to warmer weather, and Germany isn't usually so cold in October! So eat cake, please, and drink your tea or coffee, and by the way, containers of warm clothing can be found at the local school at the following hours . . . . that announcement was translated into Arabic and into English.
Then came more entertainment: a local troupe did some hip hop. That woke up everybody! The guests cheered, whipped out cell phones and took pictures. I got up and tapped the shim sham shimmy. More cheers--then the Syrians took the stage and did some dancing of their own. The minister was very happy about all this--he wanted intercultural, he wanted everyone welcome regardless of religion, and all this was happening.
Only one or three pieces of cake were left over at the end.
Guests left happy.
Guys who arrived looking stunned, blank, and continued to look stunned, blank, through the serving of the coffee and the cake and through the first several announcements were smiling by the time the dancing was over.
So, Germans--and Americans, you too, please: if every household baked one cake, if every church, synagogue, mosque, house of worship of any or all denominations, offered a friendly afternoon with good eats and good tea and coffee and friendly offers of help with the local language plus donations of clean, seasonally appropriate clothing--all this would not cost anyone a lot of money, and it would make the world a happier place.
I keep wanting to answer the question of my nervous student, who wondered, "Can we take a whole country into Germany?"
Yes, and here's how we're doing it. My local church (denomination unimportant) has a parish hall that seats around 100. So a lady active in various church groups invited 70 refugees from the recently-erected tent city, people who trekked and were smuggled and walked and God knows how they finally got here, but they did, within the last few weeks.
I got to the parish hall around three in the afternoon, with my daughter, who was deciding whether she'd play the violin. I brought my tap shoes and a chocolate cake. By the time I got there, so many cakes lined the tables that I had a hard time finding a place for mine. There must have been fifty cakes there. German ladies know their cake, believe me. Also coffee, of course, and tea. About thirty Germans, mothers, a few fathers, children, were sitting having their cake and coffee and wondering whether the Syrians would come.
What if they had no transportation? What if they didn't get the invitation? Security's tight at the tent city--so tight that the grandmotherly lady who made up the laminated posters inviting refugees was not cleared to enter the tent city. She had to hand over the posters to somebody who, she discovered, did not put them up.
But then the Syrians arrived! Almost all were young men and not all were Syrian, although to a man they were refugees. I counted one or two women. Once everybody was seated, the German ladies got really busy handing out cake.
The minister welcomed everybody and detailed services, religious and otherwise, that the church can offer--young peoples' groups, German lessons, computer services . . . . then a volunteer translated everything into Arabic, and after that I translated everything into English.
Then it was back to entertainment. A girl played the violin; her sister accompanied her on the piano. Then more announcements were made about the weather--Gee, it's getting cold here! We know you're used to warmer weather, and Germany isn't usually so cold in October! So eat cake, please, and drink your tea or coffee, and by the way, containers of warm clothing can be found at the local school at the following hours . . . . that announcement was translated into Arabic and into English.
Then came more entertainment: a local troupe did some hip hop. That woke up everybody! The guests cheered, whipped out cell phones and took pictures. I got up and tapped the shim sham shimmy. More cheers--then the Syrians took the stage and did some dancing of their own. The minister was very happy about all this--he wanted intercultural, he wanted everyone welcome regardless of religion, and all this was happening.
Only one or three pieces of cake were left over at the end.
Guests left happy.
Guys who arrived looking stunned, blank, and continued to look stunned, blank, through the serving of the coffee and the cake and through the first several announcements were smiling by the time the dancing was over.
So, Germans--and Americans, you too, please: if every household baked one cake, if every church, synagogue, mosque, house of worship of any or all denominations, offered a friendly afternoon with good eats and good tea and coffee and friendly offers of help with the local language plus donations of clean, seasonally appropriate clothing--all this would not cost anyone a lot of money, and it would make the world a happier place.
Friday, October 2, 2015
The World's Unlikeliest Couple? Fran and Kim Hit It Off
Did the pope really shakes hands with Kim Davis? (He says. She says he hugged and and thanked her for her courage.) Say it ain't so. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” said Francis about a year ago. Has the spinning of that question been too liberal for the pope's tastes? Did he want to show the intolerant the same tolerance he's been showing the damned? The meeting has all the trappings of the illicit--both sides admit the two met, but their go-between slunk back into the shadows. Did his Holiness hope Kim would re-join her parents' Catholicism? I'd like to think that he wants to show friendliness to the misguided and pities her, and that he thought the story would be a bigger one if he declined to meet her. Kim, who wants attention very badly got to grope the hem of his garment and dream; Francis probably sighed, asked God to send her some wisdom, and took a nap. But don't forget, he gave her jewelry: two very pretty rosaries, and those rosaries got plenty of photo ops. They're darling! So tasteful! Kim can go home starry-eyed and have vivider dreams; Francis can go home and forget all about her, and really--the thing did just end like an illicit tryst.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
If Donald Trumps, Should I Become a German Citizen?
Ask Francis Underwood. Or Machiavelli. Or Edward Snowden who, I am pleased to see, has a Twitter account. Maybe I'll get one, just for you, Edward, and I'll think about acquiring a smart phone, too. But I still write in ink, in a Moleskine notebook. That gives me a feeling of privacy, even if people dig it out from where it's well hidden and read it, and shame on you if you do.
Kevin Spacey has just revealed that when Francis Underwood breaks the fourth wall, he's talking to "one person, and one person only: Donald Trump." Clearly Trump, for whom life remains a game, is taking notes, unless that's too scholarly an activity for him. He grins, glues his comb-over down, and vaults back into the ring after each gaffe, leaving us all gasping and wondering how he gets away with it.
The land of the free and the home of the brave isn't America. America is the land of the NSA and the home of the rich. Angela Merkel, aka Mutti Theresa, if you've seen a recent issue of Der Spiegel, is setting an example that Americans would do well to follow by electing Hillary Rodham Clinton. Women really should rule the world, and besides, Bernie Sanders just doesn't cut it for me. He's full of dreams, and he loves to tell the truth--ambitions I applaud entirely for persons like myself who aren't politicians. If you want to be a writer, you've got to dream and tell the truth. But if you want to be a politician, you absolutely must learn to lie, and Bernie can't quite do that, at least not obviously. Trump is over the top, right up there with Joseph Goebbels who notoriously--but alas, truthfully--remarked: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or moral consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. And Trump is the State, the old plutocrat.
Hillary knows how to lie just enough to fix things. Bernie doesn't, in my opinion. Trump isn't nervous, unlike the other two, because he's just enjoying the game. He dines with Francis Underwood, Machiavelli and Joseph Goebbels in the finest restaurants in Hades. As he would probably tell you himself, the climate there may be warm, but the company is better than that of Heaven.
Kevin Spacey has just revealed that when Francis Underwood breaks the fourth wall, he's talking to "one person, and one person only: Donald Trump." Clearly Trump, for whom life remains a game, is taking notes, unless that's too scholarly an activity for him. He grins, glues his comb-over down, and vaults back into the ring after each gaffe, leaving us all gasping and wondering how he gets away with it.
The land of the free and the home of the brave isn't America. America is the land of the NSA and the home of the rich. Angela Merkel, aka Mutti Theresa, if you've seen a recent issue of Der Spiegel, is setting an example that Americans would do well to follow by electing Hillary Rodham Clinton. Women really should rule the world, and besides, Bernie Sanders just doesn't cut it for me. He's full of dreams, and he loves to tell the truth--ambitions I applaud entirely for persons like myself who aren't politicians. If you want to be a writer, you've got to dream and tell the truth. But if you want to be a politician, you absolutely must learn to lie, and Bernie can't quite do that, at least not obviously. Trump is over the top, right up there with Joseph Goebbels who notoriously--but alas, truthfully--remarked: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or moral consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. And Trump is the State, the old plutocrat.
Hillary knows how to lie just enough to fix things. Bernie doesn't, in my opinion. Trump isn't nervous, unlike the other two, because he's just enjoying the game. He dines with Francis Underwood, Machiavelli and Joseph Goebbels in the finest restaurants in Hades. As he would probably tell you himself, the climate there may be warm, but the company is better than that of Heaven.
Monday, September 21, 2015
When The Syrians Came to Dinner . . .
They came bearing a gigantic bouquet, so gorgeous it could have graced an altar in a church wedding. They came bearing chocolates and they came bearing wine. And they came bearing stories: the Arab Spring hadn't been great for Syrian Catholics--about 2.6 percent of the total population. Assad was a dictator, but he left them alone, apart from protecting them. Before the protests started, the different religious groups all got along, and Syria was a rich country.
"We lost everything," said one woman matter-of-factly, counting herself lucky: she and her husband had been able to apply for a visa as soon as they landed at a major German airport, a possibility no longer open to the tidal wave of immigrants coming in. Our city has published no list of when the next group is coming--about 400 are already here and many hundreds more expected--possibly to protect them. At our local tram stop there's a new anti-Nazi sticker on the Plexiglass shelter, and yesterday at the main train station I saw policemen in riot gear surrounding a large group of angry young men in T-shirts with Gothic script. Neither I nor the native speakers standing beside me could understand what the men were shouting, but we heard the rage, distinguished the word "München" (Munich) and assumed the worst--namely that the protesters were letting it be known that they didn't want refugees here in our town the way they were taking over Munich. Things were ugly enough so that I was very glad to be standing on a different platform.
Our Syrian guest and her husband have now been in Germany nearly three years, and in that time she has achieved a level of competence in German that will soon make her employable. Another guest, here for a year, finds German too difficult. He will not be employable anytime soon, although he is willing and able to work, and like many an immigrant, will probably find work using his hands rather than the degree in political science he had nearly finished when he had to flee. I'm lucky, in the sense that I need not have more than passing competence in the language--I can talk to the butcher, the baker, and the pediatrician, but I get to work in English and speak it at home. We had a lovely dinner. To the question of my student who wondered whether we could "take an entire nation into Germany," I'd answer: Listen to Mutti Merkel: Yes, you can. Wir Schaffen das!
"We lost everything," said one woman matter-of-factly, counting herself lucky: she and her husband had been able to apply for a visa as soon as they landed at a major German airport, a possibility no longer open to the tidal wave of immigrants coming in. Our city has published no list of when the next group is coming--about 400 are already here and many hundreds more expected--possibly to protect them. At our local tram stop there's a new anti-Nazi sticker on the Plexiglass shelter, and yesterday at the main train station I saw policemen in riot gear surrounding a large group of angry young men in T-shirts with Gothic script. Neither I nor the native speakers standing beside me could understand what the men were shouting, but we heard the rage, distinguished the word "München" (Munich) and assumed the worst--namely that the protesters were letting it be known that they didn't want refugees here in our town the way they were taking over Munich. Things were ugly enough so that I was very glad to be standing on a different platform.
Our Syrian guest and her husband have now been in Germany nearly three years, and in that time she has achieved a level of competence in German that will soon make her employable. Another guest, here for a year, finds German too difficult. He will not be employable anytime soon, although he is willing and able to work, and like many an immigrant, will probably find work using his hands rather than the degree in political science he had nearly finished when he had to flee. I'm lucky, in the sense that I need not have more than passing competence in the language--I can talk to the butcher, the baker, and the pediatrician, but I get to work in English and speak it at home. We had a lovely dinner. To the question of my student who wondered whether we could "take an entire nation into Germany," I'd answer: Listen to Mutti Merkel: Yes, you can. Wir Schaffen das!
Monday, September 14, 2015
The Brothers, Normally Grim
But they weren't!
I knocked on the sixteen-year-old's door, and the thirteen-year-old was in there. In a rowdy voice, the older one said, "Mom! He's being nice to me!"
The younger one: "I promise never to do it again, Mom!" They smiled at one another in a conspiratorial fashion.
Wouldn't it be great if things were like that all the time?
How well I recall a conversation between a young colleague and our then-glum four-year-old about my older son, who was already in first grade and lording his superior knowledge over the younger one. We were in a café, and the colleague sat with us, turned to our little one, said, "You know, I had brothers too."
"You did?"
"And the older ones tricked me and hit me all the time."
"You had brothers?" Brothers, at the time, must have seemed to our younger son alien beings who appeared capriciously at inopportune moments to torment him.
Smiling, our young colleague detailed the heinous crimes of his three older brothers ("I had three, remember that! You only have to deal with one!") but explained that now his brothers have become good friends. "When we all grew up, we became friends."
Our younger son gave him the fishy eye.
But now maybe my sons really will be friends. How nice that would be.
I knocked on the sixteen-year-old's door, and the thirteen-year-old was in there. In a rowdy voice, the older one said, "Mom! He's being nice to me!"
The younger one: "I promise never to do it again, Mom!" They smiled at one another in a conspiratorial fashion.
Wouldn't it be great if things were like that all the time?
How well I recall a conversation between a young colleague and our then-glum four-year-old about my older son, who was already in first grade and lording his superior knowledge over the younger one. We were in a café, and the colleague sat with us, turned to our little one, said, "You know, I had brothers too."
"You did?"
"And the older ones tricked me and hit me all the time."
"You had brothers?" Brothers, at the time, must have seemed to our younger son alien beings who appeared capriciously at inopportune moments to torment him.
Smiling, our young colleague detailed the heinous crimes of his three older brothers ("I had three, remember that! You only have to deal with one!") but explained that now his brothers have become good friends. "When we all grew up, we became friends."
Our younger son gave him the fishy eye.
But now maybe my sons really will be friends. How nice that would be.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
The 800,000 versus the 10,000
There's really something to be said for German efficiency in a millennial refugee crisis. Obama says he can only let in 10,000 and gee, isn't he generous. Those Germans are out there with welcome signs in English and Syrian, handing out apples, water, home-baked yummies, and medical care to the 800,000 who are here or on the way, including 40,000 children. Future Lehramt (teaching) students, this is great for you! You'll all get jobs. When the Neo-Nazis tried to horn in at the Dortmund main station, the good guys drowned them out with smiles and balloons and slogans and friendly remarks. At the Munich main station, a big banner flew: No Place for Neo-Nazis. The bad guys are in a minority here in Germany--Idaho has more Aryan Nation types than Germany--but Germany is trying so hard to live down its dark days that it will use its natural efficiency to the good. Not to ship people to their deaths but to build housing and get them medical care. Germany still carries the burden of its enormous guilt.
"But can we take a whole nation into Germany?" asked one of my students.
"Oh, why not? Ever since masses of people walked across the Bering Strait eons ago, migration has been happening. Nations are so temporary. Each private home can help."
"Yes, I see," said my student, who seemed dazed, and did not wish to disagree with the teacher. I'd rather she not question my assertions or use the critical thinking skills I've been insisting on because in this particular instance she, like most Germans, is anxious. Anxious Germans look to a leader. Let's go for a good one: "Let 'em all in! Help them! They need friendly moments, good food, medical and emotional care, and a laugh--and some music." All of which I hope to offer to the five or six Syrians who will grace our dinner table next weekend. Stay tuned.
"But can we take a whole nation into Germany?" asked one of my students.
"Oh, why not? Ever since masses of people walked across the Bering Strait eons ago, migration has been happening. Nations are so temporary. Each private home can help."
"Yes, I see," said my student, who seemed dazed, and did not wish to disagree with the teacher. I'd rather she not question my assertions or use the critical thinking skills I've been insisting on because in this particular instance she, like most Germans, is anxious. Anxious Germans look to a leader. Let's go for a good one: "Let 'em all in! Help them! They need friendly moments, good food, medical and emotional care, and a laugh--and some music." All of which I hope to offer to the five or six Syrians who will grace our dinner table next weekend. Stay tuned.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Kim Davis and God
So the gal who has been married four times and answers only to God goes to jail. As a martyr or a heroine? Oh, we do want to avoid seating her on either of those thrones, but some have already done so, handing her a few extra cushions. As an apostolic Christian? Who are they anyway? Google around and you'll find explanations like "We use the King James Bible."
So do I, folks! I really enjoy reading it even though I'm an atheist who occasionally prays, usually to geographically appropriate deities. When we were in Delos last summer, I sent a few entreaties to Apollo, whose hometown and place of birth that island is. The King James Bible contains the most beautiful poetry in the English language (better than Shakespeare! Okay, well . . . probably yes) and is conveniently, for the very religious, breathtakingly inconsistent and, in parts, unutterably vague. You can pull out just about anything to prove what you feel like proving that day. If you want to know what the bible "really" says, in English, your local pastor or priest or goddess will tell you to consult a host of modern translations, The New American, the New Revised Standard. If you're going for the poetry as opposed to the rules, these translations are not worth reading.
If you're going for the religion, they're not all that hot, either. Not if you want "definitive." Not if you want to know whether you've got a chance at heaven or might be headed straight to the other place. If you're in a sexy mood, read the Song of Solomon in the King James version (Kim Davis's face suggests to me that she--as we used to say back in the seventies--needs to get laid real bad.) If you're going for a guide to punishments, Leviticus'll get you there, but trust me, you don't want to go for that eye-for-eye cut-and-slice school of decapitation and mutilation. Christians are not ISIS, right? I hope not.
Maybe the question is not whether we're dealing with some legitimate form of Christianity but whether we're dealing with a sane person. Or just a sad, desperate woman who can't think of any way to control her fears or her actions except by taking a frantic stab at controlling other people.
Alternatively, are we dealing not with one sad sack of a county clerk, but with something like the end of miscegenation law, which, sadly, only ended fifteen years ago in Alabama? Many a commentator has compared the case of the Lovings--the interracial couple whose marriage was validated by the Supreme Court in 1967--to the current crisis of gay marriage. Mrs. Loving had to be talked into supporting gay marriage, folks, but eventually she did. As I recall, she had to overcome what she thought of as her Christian scruples. She did support gay marriage in the end.
Does Kim Davis need a doctor or a pastor? Or just a good lay? I'm praying that--before I see one more poster-waving protester calling her a heroine for defending God's will--that Ms. Davis gets one of the above. And that she learns to live and let live. Hey, send in Anita Bryant! She sure changed her tune! Remember the sixties babe who promoted Florida oranges and said that God wanted "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve?" She was just going through a bad marriage. She's said that. It would be Christian of her to visit Ms. Davis, homemade cookies and sympathy in hand, and bring Ms. Davis to her senses.
P.S. Rachel Held Evans, please weigh in.
P.P.S. Hey, Rachel Held Evans DID weigh in, and Daily Kos reprinted her tweet, and I'm copying it here: "No one's being jailed for practicing her religion. Someone's being jailed for using the government to force others to practice her religion." Thank you, God! I should say Thank you, Rachel! (What's the difference, right? Wordsworth and Emerson would see no difference.) God's the voice inside of you telling you to do no harm and take care of people. Which reminds me, on another subject, President Obama, when are you going to take care of refugees the way we in Germany are taking care of them?
So do I, folks! I really enjoy reading it even though I'm an atheist who occasionally prays, usually to geographically appropriate deities. When we were in Delos last summer, I sent a few entreaties to Apollo, whose hometown and place of birth that island is. The King James Bible contains the most beautiful poetry in the English language (better than Shakespeare! Okay, well . . . probably yes) and is conveniently, for the very religious, breathtakingly inconsistent and, in parts, unutterably vague. You can pull out just about anything to prove what you feel like proving that day. If you want to know what the bible "really" says, in English, your local pastor or priest or goddess will tell you to consult a host of modern translations, The New American, the New Revised Standard. If you're going for the poetry as opposed to the rules, these translations are not worth reading.
If you're going for the religion, they're not all that hot, either. Not if you want "definitive." Not if you want to know whether you've got a chance at heaven or might be headed straight to the other place. If you're in a sexy mood, read the Song of Solomon in the King James version (Kim Davis's face suggests to me that she--as we used to say back in the seventies--needs to get laid real bad.) If you're going for a guide to punishments, Leviticus'll get you there, but trust me, you don't want to go for that eye-for-eye cut-and-slice school of decapitation and mutilation. Christians are not ISIS, right? I hope not.
Maybe the question is not whether we're dealing with some legitimate form of Christianity but whether we're dealing with a sane person. Or just a sad, desperate woman who can't think of any way to control her fears or her actions except by taking a frantic stab at controlling other people.
Alternatively, are we dealing not with one sad sack of a county clerk, but with something like the end of miscegenation law, which, sadly, only ended fifteen years ago in Alabama? Many a commentator has compared the case of the Lovings--the interracial couple whose marriage was validated by the Supreme Court in 1967--to the current crisis of gay marriage. Mrs. Loving had to be talked into supporting gay marriage, folks, but eventually she did. As I recall, she had to overcome what she thought of as her Christian scruples. She did support gay marriage in the end.
Does Kim Davis need a doctor or a pastor? Or just a good lay? I'm praying that--before I see one more poster-waving protester calling her a heroine for defending God's will--that Ms. Davis gets one of the above. And that she learns to live and let live. Hey, send in Anita Bryant! She sure changed her tune! Remember the sixties babe who promoted Florida oranges and said that God wanted "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve?" She was just going through a bad marriage. She's said that. It would be Christian of her to visit Ms. Davis, homemade cookies and sympathy in hand, and bring Ms. Davis to her senses.
P.S. Rachel Held Evans, please weigh in.
P.P.S. Hey, Rachel Held Evans DID weigh in, and Daily Kos reprinted her tweet, and I'm copying it here: "No one's being jailed for practicing her religion. Someone's being jailed for using the government to force others to practice her religion." Thank you, God! I should say Thank you, Rachel! (What's the difference, right? Wordsworth and Emerson would see no difference.) God's the voice inside of you telling you to do no harm and take care of people. Which reminds me, on another subject, President Obama, when are you going to take care of refugees the way we in Germany are taking care of them?
Thursday, September 3, 2015
The Critical Mom and The Refugees
At the Munich main train station, there's more than enough food to go around. Crates of apples. A wall of plastic packs of pampers. Gallons of water. The police had to tell residents not to bring down any more supplies! The refugees had more than twice as much stuff as they needed. The apples are rotting; nobody can drink that much water. I wish all those supplies could be beamed down to the Budapest main train station.
Until this morning, thousands of refugees--estimates of the number of displaced persons hover around 10,000--were stuck in front of the main train station in Budapest. Police prevented them from entering and--since last Tuesday--let children, mothers, sick people languish without food. Many held tickets and wished to depart for Germany. Austria's willing to help, as is Iceland. Why is Hungary building fences and letting people sleep on cement outdoors? Why do the Hungarian guys on the street say, when the BBC reporter sticks a microphone in their faces, "Let them go back where they came from?"
Hungary's last thousand years saw invasions by Tatars, Turks, Habsburgs, and Soviets--before that there were the Huns and a few other violent tribes from the steppes of central Asia and elsewhere. Hungary feels like they just got themselves together, demographically, ethnically, religiously. And now they're supposed to feed another invasion of poor people? When their "Hungarian" population is on the decline? Yes, my friends, yes indeed. We've always been ethnically diverse, ever since Lucy's ancestors ambled, some sixty or seventy million years ago, from Africa to Europe and Asia. The idea of nationhood has always been a way of insisting on a stability of life and population that has never existed at any time in the history of the human race. Nations are so temporary. In my favorite unofficial nation, Manhattan, population 1,636,268, could an influx of 10,000 refugees be managed? Only around every day. Approximately 2.87 million folks in the city of my dreams are fairly recent refugees.
My German neighborhood, in a city of about 700,000, will see an influx of about 400 refugees in the next few weeks. Mayoral elections are coming, and some candidates are running on tickets promising to "end" asylum. But the desperate will always come, and in the paradise of Manhattan, diversity means vitality. Let's make that true here in my city of residence, and elsewhere in Europe. Yes, diversity means misunderstanding, means trouble, means need, too--but fences do not make good neighbors in a refugee crisis.
Until this morning, thousands of refugees--estimates of the number of displaced persons hover around 10,000--were stuck in front of the main train station in Budapest. Police prevented them from entering and--since last Tuesday--let children, mothers, sick people languish without food. Many held tickets and wished to depart for Germany. Austria's willing to help, as is Iceland. Why is Hungary building fences and letting people sleep on cement outdoors? Why do the Hungarian guys on the street say, when the BBC reporter sticks a microphone in their faces, "Let them go back where they came from?"
Hungary's last thousand years saw invasions by Tatars, Turks, Habsburgs, and Soviets--before that there were the Huns and a few other violent tribes from the steppes of central Asia and elsewhere. Hungary feels like they just got themselves together, demographically, ethnically, religiously. And now they're supposed to feed another invasion of poor people? When their "Hungarian" population is on the decline? Yes, my friends, yes indeed. We've always been ethnically diverse, ever since Lucy's ancestors ambled, some sixty or seventy million years ago, from Africa to Europe and Asia. The idea of nationhood has always been a way of insisting on a stability of life and population that has never existed at any time in the history of the human race. Nations are so temporary. In my favorite unofficial nation, Manhattan, population 1,636,268, could an influx of 10,000 refugees be managed? Only around every day. Approximately 2.87 million folks in the city of my dreams are fairly recent refugees.
My German neighborhood, in a city of about 700,000, will see an influx of about 400 refugees in the next few weeks. Mayoral elections are coming, and some candidates are running on tickets promising to "end" asylum. But the desperate will always come, and in the paradise of Manhattan, diversity means vitality. Let's make that true here in my city of residence, and elsewhere in Europe. Yes, diversity means misunderstanding, means trouble, means need, too--but fences do not make good neighbors in a refugee crisis.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Why German Teachers of English Need to Get It Together
My eighth-grader came home from school with a question: "Mom, the teacher asked what the name of a large green space in New York City is, and guess what one girl said?"
"What?"
"She said The Grand Canyon--but that's not the best part!"
"What's the best part?"
"Tell me the five boroughs of New York."
I told him.
"New Jersey isn't one of them, right?"
"GOD, no!"
But you know what? His teacher told his class--this is, you understand, a Gymnasium class, and a good Gymnasium, too--that New Jersey, snobbishly disregarded by Manhattan and even by Staten Island since time immemorial--that New Jersey really is one of the five boroughs. She seems to have forgotten all about Queens, since the entire eighth grade class is probably now studying for a test in which they'll list the five boroughs of New York City as:
Manhattan
The Bronx
Brooklyn
Staten Island
New Jersey
Once upon a time when I was young, the New York designer Donna Karan's DKNY T-shirts were so hot that The New Yorker ran a cartoon: instead of a svelte, sexy model, a lumpy, schlumpy, overweight matron in unattractive glasses and a do-rag galumphed along in a DKNJ T-shirt. The caption? Donna Karan's nightmare.
New Jersey never was, and never will be, a part of paradise. Thus spake the New Yorker who had a commute from the Upper West Side to the industrial armpit of NJ for years, enduring a job that amounted to indentured servitude.
Meanwhile, folks, that large green space in the middle of Manhattan is still Central Park. The Grand Canyon isn't even green, my son pointed out . . . and he's been there. Smell the coffee, English teachers. And drink it. That English tea just isn't strong enough. Neither is that English accent.
"What?"
"She said The Grand Canyon--but that's not the best part!"
"What's the best part?"
"Tell me the five boroughs of New York."
I told him.
"New Jersey isn't one of them, right?"
"GOD, no!"
But you know what? His teacher told his class--this is, you understand, a Gymnasium class, and a good Gymnasium, too--that New Jersey, snobbishly disregarded by Manhattan and even by Staten Island since time immemorial--that New Jersey really is one of the five boroughs. She seems to have forgotten all about Queens, since the entire eighth grade class is probably now studying for a test in which they'll list the five boroughs of New York City as:
Manhattan
The Bronx
Brooklyn
Staten Island
New Jersey
Once upon a time when I was young, the New York designer Donna Karan's DKNY T-shirts were so hot that The New Yorker ran a cartoon: instead of a svelte, sexy model, a lumpy, schlumpy, overweight matron in unattractive glasses and a do-rag galumphed along in a DKNJ T-shirt. The caption? Donna Karan's nightmare.
New Jersey never was, and never will be, a part of paradise. Thus spake the New Yorker who had a commute from the Upper West Side to the industrial armpit of NJ for years, enduring a job that amounted to indentured servitude.
Meanwhile, folks, that large green space in the middle of Manhattan is still Central Park. The Grand Canyon isn't even green, my son pointed out . . . and he's been there. Smell the coffee, English teachers. And drink it. That English tea just isn't strong enough. Neither is that English accent.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
How the Critical Mom Found the Lost Report Cards
Yes, they went missing. On the first day of school, our sixth-grader and her eighth-grade brother asked me to hand 'em over and I said, "Sure!" and opened the drawer in which they are kept--along with school photos and stuff that seems to jump in there by itself.
They weren't there.
"Mommy, I need them TODAY! The teacher said we had to have them TODAY. The signed report cards MUST be handed in ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!"
Yes, I know. But doesn't the school keep copies? Apparently not. This is Deutschland, and nobody, apart from an air-headed American mom, would ever lose something so important as a report card. I can just see the German mommies shaking their heads and boasting about how many windows they washed that morning, knowingly nodding in my direction . . . because guess how many times I've washed our windows in the nine years we've been living in this house?
If you guessed "less than ten," you're generous.
So, the report cards were supposed to be exactly where I'd put them . . . and I really do know where they are: I have downstairs drawers, for the report cards plus school photos and another upstairs drawer for the big stuff: the social security cards, the American certificates of birth abroad, my will, a treasury bond given to one child by a godmother, a bank account given to another by his godmother, the yellow health examination booklets, even my old blue "Mutterpasses."
So did the report cards get sloppily dumped in the play area? What I remembered was each child waving his or her report card around last July, insisting that, "It's my report card, Mom, and so I'm going to keep it in my room."
So I said no, we always keep them in these drawers, so hand 'em over. Very unwillingly, they did so. Then I saw the report cards again on top of the sofa . . . or did I? This was the stuff of wakeful ruminations and nightmares the last few nights.
Then came the gaslighting:
"But I do remember you all saying you wanted to keep them in your own rooms."
"You dreamed that, Mommy! Remember, I gave them to you!"
I envied that look of sanctimoniousness on my daughter's face. I know how it is to want to be right.
I really did remember putting the report cards in the special drawer and then noticing that they were parked precariously on the back of the sofa, from whence they might easily have fallen to our anything-but-tidy floor.
"Did we put them back in the drawer after you had them out here on the sofa?"
"I gave them to you, Mommy."
"I didn't even get to see them," said my husband, with a sigh.
Oh, the guilt.
The night before last I woke from nightmares in which our house was being burgled by a band of child thieves from the next town . . . I couldn't sleep; it was raining buckets and thunder slammed through the air. I went up to my study to read the NY Times online. Then I remembered a Laura Ingalls Wilder story: Wilder and her husband were about to purchase a log cabin with their cherished hundred dollar bill, which had participated in their nomadic travels in a carefully-guarded wooden lap desk. Their daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, remembered that they opened the desk and found that the bill was not there. They took every sheet of writing paper out of the desk and shook it; they took each letter out of its envelope, unfolded it, looked into the empty envelope. They turned the desk upside down and shook it, the felt covered inside lids flapping . . .Finally my mother said, "Well." She meant: No use crying over spilled milk. What can't be cured must be endured.
Blaming the folks with whom they were traveling was "Not to be thought of," said the in-my-best-dress-and-hat-and-gloves Wilder. She sat and removed her gloves and got back in her work clothes. They weren't going to get that cabin.
But Wilder did not give up. She kept searching that desk.
So I kept searching those drawers. I took everything out. I put the report cards in the notebooks we'd long ago purchased. So now all the old report cards are organized. But where were the ones that needed to be signed?
Another sleepless night.
Then I remembered the end of Wilder's story: she kept looking in that old desk until she discovered that the hundred dollar bill had slipped into a crack, and remained hidden.
I thought of the space between the desk drawer and the back of the cabinet. I thought of how the kids--and even me, sometimes--open the drawer, toss the report card in, and close it, without first pushing the contents down.
I opened one drawer, and reached into the space between the end of the drawer and the inside of the cabinet. Nothing happened until I wiggled my fingers and the drawer at the same time--then, hallelujah! Down fell some slightly accordion-pleated report cards, ready to be signed.
My kids stopped complaining.
My husband was pleased.
Only I was overjoyed--because then I knew that after all I was sane, that age had not so destroyed my memory that I'd forgotten where I put those report cards. I just knew I'd put them where I thought I'd put them. And I had! It's a happy day in a middle-aged lady's life when something like that happens.
They weren't there.
"Mommy, I need them TODAY! The teacher said we had to have them TODAY. The signed report cards MUST be handed in ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!"
Yes, I know. But doesn't the school keep copies? Apparently not. This is Deutschland, and nobody, apart from an air-headed American mom, would ever lose something so important as a report card. I can just see the German mommies shaking their heads and boasting about how many windows they washed that morning, knowingly nodding in my direction . . . because guess how many times I've washed our windows in the nine years we've been living in this house?
If you guessed "less than ten," you're generous.
So, the report cards were supposed to be exactly where I'd put them . . . and I really do know where they are: I have downstairs drawers, for the report cards plus school photos and another upstairs drawer for the big stuff: the social security cards, the American certificates of birth abroad, my will, a treasury bond given to one child by a godmother, a bank account given to another by his godmother, the yellow health examination booklets, even my old blue "Mutterpasses."
So did the report cards get sloppily dumped in the play area? What I remembered was each child waving his or her report card around last July, insisting that, "It's my report card, Mom, and so I'm going to keep it in my room."
So I said no, we always keep them in these drawers, so hand 'em over. Very unwillingly, they did so. Then I saw the report cards again on top of the sofa . . . or did I? This was the stuff of wakeful ruminations and nightmares the last few nights.
Then came the gaslighting:
"But I do remember you all saying you wanted to keep them in your own rooms."
"You dreamed that, Mommy! Remember, I gave them to you!"
I envied that look of sanctimoniousness on my daughter's face. I know how it is to want to be right.
I really did remember putting the report cards in the special drawer and then noticing that they were parked precariously on the back of the sofa, from whence they might easily have fallen to our anything-but-tidy floor.
"Did we put them back in the drawer after you had them out here on the sofa?"
"I gave them to you, Mommy."
"I didn't even get to see them," said my husband, with a sigh.
Oh, the guilt.
The night before last I woke from nightmares in which our house was being burgled by a band of child thieves from the next town . . . I couldn't sleep; it was raining buckets and thunder slammed through the air. I went up to my study to read the NY Times online. Then I remembered a Laura Ingalls Wilder story: Wilder and her husband were about to purchase a log cabin with their cherished hundred dollar bill, which had participated in their nomadic travels in a carefully-guarded wooden lap desk. Their daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, remembered that they opened the desk and found that the bill was not there. They took every sheet of writing paper out of the desk and shook it; they took each letter out of its envelope, unfolded it, looked into the empty envelope. They turned the desk upside down and shook it, the felt covered inside lids flapping . . .Finally my mother said, "Well." She meant: No use crying over spilled milk. What can't be cured must be endured.
Blaming the folks with whom they were traveling was "Not to be thought of," said the in-my-best-dress-and-hat-and-gloves Wilder. She sat and removed her gloves and got back in her work clothes. They weren't going to get that cabin.
But Wilder did not give up. She kept searching that desk.
So I kept searching those drawers. I took everything out. I put the report cards in the notebooks we'd long ago purchased. So now all the old report cards are organized. But where were the ones that needed to be signed?
Another sleepless night.
Then I remembered the end of Wilder's story: she kept looking in that old desk until she discovered that the hundred dollar bill had slipped into a crack, and remained hidden.
I thought of the space between the desk drawer and the back of the cabinet. I thought of how the kids--and even me, sometimes--open the drawer, toss the report card in, and close it, without first pushing the contents down.
I opened one drawer, and reached into the space between the end of the drawer and the inside of the cabinet. Nothing happened until I wiggled my fingers and the drawer at the same time--then, hallelujah! Down fell some slightly accordion-pleated report cards, ready to be signed.
My kids stopped complaining.
My husband was pleased.
Only I was overjoyed--because then I knew that after all I was sane, that age had not so destroyed my memory that I'd forgotten where I put those report cards. I just knew I'd put them where I thought I'd put them. And I had! It's a happy day in a middle-aged lady's life when something like that happens.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
The Cosby Women and The Critical Mom
I always thought Cosby was corny, but I ought to have remembered that sentimentality, says Oscar Wilde, is the bank holiday of cynicism. Cosby's very successful stand-up comedy routines have been dubbed "observational humor," so I'd like to observe where the man is in the humor and I find banality--not a drop of wit. Is that a clue? Are there clues? He plays on our sentimentality. What a cute kid! What a face! Oh, that face.
If it looks too good to be true, you're safer assuming that it can't be true.
When I listen to Cosby's women, I think: there, but for the grace of sheer dumb luck, go I. How often did I listen to fools who, fortunately for me, turned out to be harmless, or to be weak enough for me to push them away? Too often, before I reached the age of reason, and because my mother told me absolutely nothing. It's not really her fault: she knew nothing.
So a friend and I sat around the dining room table with my eleven-year-old daughter, who is beautiful, and a copy of the New York magazine issue featuring the Cosby women, and an old CD of Cosby's I Started Out As Child. On that album, his is the face of a goofy cherub. We told my daughter that after Cosby drugged and used one young woman, and she awoke not knowing why she was in bed with him, groggy, and begged for help, asking, "How can I get home?" he said, "Call a taxi."
We said, if your hunches tell you something's off, pay attention--even if the place looks good. We said, always open your own drink, and if someone you don't know hands you a drink, leave it on the counter. We said, if you leave your drink on the counter and come back, or someone "freshens" it for you, just go get a different drink that you open yourself.
And I said, "But there aren't that many men who are this bad," and I hope that's true, too.
If it looks too good to be true, you're safer assuming that it can't be true.
When I listen to Cosby's women, I think: there, but for the grace of sheer dumb luck, go I. How often did I listen to fools who, fortunately for me, turned out to be harmless, or to be weak enough for me to push them away? Too often, before I reached the age of reason, and because my mother told me absolutely nothing. It's not really her fault: she knew nothing.
So a friend and I sat around the dining room table with my eleven-year-old daughter, who is beautiful, and a copy of the New York magazine issue featuring the Cosby women, and an old CD of Cosby's I Started Out As Child. On that album, his is the face of a goofy cherub. We told my daughter that after Cosby drugged and used one young woman, and she awoke not knowing why she was in bed with him, groggy, and begged for help, asking, "How can I get home?" he said, "Call a taxi."
We said, if your hunches tell you something's off, pay attention--even if the place looks good. We said, always open your own drink, and if someone you don't know hands you a drink, leave it on the counter. We said, if you leave your drink on the counter and come back, or someone "freshens" it for you, just go get a different drink that you open yourself.
And I said, "But there aren't that many men who are this bad," and I hope that's true, too.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
The Critical Mom Does the Acropolis
We’re on the favorite ship of all German vacationers: “Mein Schiff 3,” or “My Ship 3.” We've already done “Mein Schiff 1,” on a trip to Norway, and we never met “Mein Schiff 2,” but we’d love to make its acquaintance sometime.
I’ve just returned from dinner overlooking the Aegean Sea, very green at the moment, but rather turquoise at other times, and an amazingly rapid sunset, Helios dropping like a great orange lollipop behind some hills that may, if I understood our guide correctly, have been dedicated to Poseidon.We came into the port of Piraeus around four-thirty in the morning: I heard the familiar grinding of gears as the ship turns around, and then as it backed out to make room for some lesser cruise line.First, we enjoyed a detour involving the Greek Parliamentary Palace (the first king of Greece being, apparently, Bavarian) and the changing of the guard, which involves soldiers in the Greek version of Tracht doing stuff that looks like a cross between trucking and goose-stepping. They come out in these red clogs with hobnails on the bottom and black pom-poms on the top. Oh, but that is only the beginning of their fashion statement. There’s the hats: red, with long horsetails of black tassel. The beige tunics and the beige tights. And the rifles, complete with bayonets, design c. 1914. I had my picture taken with one of them, folks. Their job is to stare straight ahead, whether goose-stepping (and then executing a movement reminiscent of a passé in ballet, followed by a shuffle from tap). Then one hand stick the rifle way up in the air, accent on the bayonet, while the other extends beyond the soldier. The effect is very Walk Like an Egyptian and I rather liked it. I can do those steps for you anytime.
Then we hit fifth century Athens, complete with Acropolis, on a sunny day, temperatures in the neighborhood of 100ºF., no humidity. It was breezy, if you’d count the exhalations of Hephaestus (which were, I presume, the source of our weather). The Parthenon, offset by skies bluer than anywhere in the world, except perhaps Vermont in the summer months, dazzled us, and sculpted columns of graceful women holding up one of the outbuildings did indeed, as our guide suggested, turn ones thoughts to Angelina Jolie. The gritty dust blew off hats, but it was worth it to me to stand where the goddess of wisdom got worshiped, through three re-buildings of her temple after earthquakes and Persians destroyed it.On our way to lunch, through neighborhoods graced with olive, lime, and lemon trees, we passed a number of restaurants and shops, whose owners, clearly more than eager to sell after the exit of Grexit, called to us. One young woman trying to lure us into her restaurant called “Where are you from?” and when one among us finally answered, “Deutschland,” she replied, “Oh, no need to be afraid!”But we didn’t stop there . . . after our 280 steps in the direction of the Acropolis, we climbed quite a few more, landing in an ivy-covered enclosure where, finally, we ate--and drank.
I’ve just returned from dinner overlooking the Aegean Sea, very green at the moment, but rather turquoise at other times, and an amazingly rapid sunset, Helios dropping like a great orange lollipop behind some hills that may, if I understood our guide correctly, have been dedicated to Poseidon.We came into the port of Piraeus around four-thirty in the morning: I heard the familiar grinding of gears as the ship turns around, and then as it backed out to make room for some lesser cruise line.First, we enjoyed a detour involving the Greek Parliamentary Palace (the first king of Greece being, apparently, Bavarian) and the changing of the guard, which involves soldiers in the Greek version of Tracht doing stuff that looks like a cross between trucking and goose-stepping. They come out in these red clogs with hobnails on the bottom and black pom-poms on the top. Oh, but that is only the beginning of their fashion statement. There’s the hats: red, with long horsetails of black tassel. The beige tunics and the beige tights. And the rifles, complete with bayonets, design c. 1914. I had my picture taken with one of them, folks. Their job is to stare straight ahead, whether goose-stepping (and then executing a movement reminiscent of a passé in ballet, followed by a shuffle from tap). Then one hand stick the rifle way up in the air, accent on the bayonet, while the other extends beyond the soldier. The effect is very Walk Like an Egyptian and I rather liked it. I can do those steps for you anytime.
Then we hit fifth century Athens, complete with Acropolis, on a sunny day, temperatures in the neighborhood of 100ºF., no humidity. It was breezy, if you’d count the exhalations of Hephaestus (which were, I presume, the source of our weather). The Parthenon, offset by skies bluer than anywhere in the world, except perhaps Vermont in the summer months, dazzled us, and sculpted columns of graceful women holding up one of the outbuildings did indeed, as our guide suggested, turn ones thoughts to Angelina Jolie. The gritty dust blew off hats, but it was worth it to me to stand where the goddess of wisdom got worshiped, through three re-buildings of her temple after earthquakes and Persians destroyed it.On our way to lunch, through neighborhoods graced with olive, lime, and lemon trees, we passed a number of restaurants and shops, whose owners, clearly more than eager to sell after the exit of Grexit, called to us. One young woman trying to lure us into her restaurant called “Where are you from?” and when one among us finally answered, “Deutschland,” she replied, “Oh, no need to be afraid!”But we didn’t stop there . . . after our 280 steps in the direction of the Acropolis, we climbed quite a few more, landing in an ivy-covered enclosure where, finally, we ate--and drank.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Moving the Unmoving Mom
Who is ninety-four. She was scheduled to move into assisted living around the beginning of July. Then July 16--the anniversary of the successful testing of the atom bomb in 1945. Attempts to move her, however, remain unsuccessful. Her boxes are in her hallway and she says everything is "Fine!"
My stepsister and her friends are wondering What To Do. Gee, I'd love to help, but we're going on a cruise. But I've read my Atul Gawande and I think I'll leave her to her own devices. Yes, I'd be relieved if I knew she were in her own room at the assisted living facility where, should she ever actually descend upon them, they will require assistance to keep up with her. Yes, I'd prefer that she not continue in her increasingly dusty, dirty apartment, more prone with each passing moment to fall again and break her hip, or not hear the cars on the busy avenue nearby. But if she just hates the idea of doing what she regards as going gently into that good night, who am I to argue with her? She's as sane as she always was--not very, but she retains every last marble. I knew an old woman whose niece forced her into a nursing home for all the same reasons that I'd like to scoop up my mother the way I can still scoop up my daughter and just carry her, kicking and screaming (unfair comparison: my golden child does neither) and deposit her on her brand-new bed in her brand-new gilded cage. If she hated her life from that moment on--as did my elderly friend with the well-meaning niece--wouldn't it be better to let her do things her own way, including half starving, living in what's becoming a slum, and getting run over? Here's my favorite song at the moment:
My stepsister and her friends are wondering What To Do. Gee, I'd love to help, but we're going on a cruise. But I've read my Atul Gawande and I think I'll leave her to her own devices. Yes, I'd be relieved if I knew she were in her own room at the assisted living facility where, should she ever actually descend upon them, they will require assistance to keep up with her. Yes, I'd prefer that she not continue in her increasingly dusty, dirty apartment, more prone with each passing moment to fall again and break her hip, or not hear the cars on the busy avenue nearby. But if she just hates the idea of doing what she regards as going gently into that good night, who am I to argue with her? She's as sane as she always was--not very, but she retains every last marble. I knew an old woman whose niece forced her into a nursing home for all the same reasons that I'd like to scoop up my mother the way I can still scoop up my daughter and just carry her, kicking and screaming (unfair comparison: my golden child does neither) and deposit her on her brand-new bed in her brand-new gilded cage. If she hated her life from that moment on--as did my elderly friend with the well-meaning niece--wouldn't it be better to let her do things her own way, including half starving, living in what's becoming a slum, and getting run over? Here's my favorite song at the moment:
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The Critical Mom Critiques
Or she tries. I write something approaching a pep talk on the papers I grade, while spotlighting errors. Today, a student settled combatively in my visitor's chair--lower lip extended--and insisted, "Yes, I did!" when I pointed out that she had not, in fact, stated that Teyve's thinking was in line with "the American dream." She might instead have remarked, I said, that when he asks God for more money and cows, he is hoping to get these things, and that this hope bears some relationship to what nineteenth-century Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms experienced when they ended up on American shores, pursuing American dreams.
Hmmmf, my student said.
I advised her to read. Did she read a newspaper? How about Die Zeit?
No, she read WAZ, (Westdeutsch Allgemeine Zeitung or West German General Newspaper), the local rag (the American equivalent would be the New York Daily News sprinkled with a little National Enquirer.) I told her to keep the WAZ to line her cat box but not to read it. She probably told the dean on me.
I am holding in my hands a term paper in which Ayesha, AKA "She Who Must Be Obeyed," the drop-dead (literally: basilisk-eyed) beauty of Rider Haggard's novel is described as adorable. The student who wrote it mentions Haggard's inner struggle to form a firm view on womanhood.
I wish I were making this stuff up. This person is going to be a teacher some day. So is the graduate student who--during the exam I was giving this morning--suddenly lifted her book up off the table.
"Hey!" I said.
"Oh, I just forgot the title," said she.
"You can't look at the book!" I yelled.
The barn door was open, the horses galloping away, but she did not look at the book again.
Meanwhile, another student has produced a last-minute essay on education in a famous American novel. Here's a sample:
In contrast to [name redacted] and [name redacted's] idea of education, [name redacted] teaches his children to be observant of their environment by telling his children about the world outside which are mentioned in songs he sings and encourages them to explore their surroundings. We will see this later. Both teaching methods, if you want to call them that, create an interaction between acquiring and learning.
Oh.
My dream is to teach a year-long course in which students learn to enjoy writing. In my course, students will write from the heart. They will know what it is to have an opinion, and they will have opinions by the dozens. They will never write "all in all." They will read essays and I will teach in such a way that they look forward to reading them. By the end of the term, they will toss their cell phones over their shoulders and head to the library to get dusty among the tomes. Aw, heck, they can go to Barnes & Noble, too.
Hmmmf, my student said.
I advised her to read. Did she read a newspaper? How about Die Zeit?
No, she read WAZ, (Westdeutsch Allgemeine Zeitung or West German General Newspaper), the local rag (the American equivalent would be the New York Daily News sprinkled with a little National Enquirer.) I told her to keep the WAZ to line her cat box but not to read it. She probably told the dean on me.
I am holding in my hands a term paper in which Ayesha, AKA "She Who Must Be Obeyed," the drop-dead (literally: basilisk-eyed) beauty of Rider Haggard's novel is described as adorable. The student who wrote it mentions Haggard's inner struggle to form a firm view on womanhood.
I wish I were making this stuff up. This person is going to be a teacher some day. So is the graduate student who--during the exam I was giving this morning--suddenly lifted her book up off the table.
"Hey!" I said.
"Oh, I just forgot the title," said she.
"You can't look at the book!" I yelled.
The barn door was open, the horses galloping away, but she did not look at the book again.
Meanwhile, another student has produced a last-minute essay on education in a famous American novel. Here's a sample:
In contrast to [name redacted] and [name redacted's] idea of education, [name redacted] teaches his children to be observant of their environment by telling his children about the world outside which are mentioned in songs he sings and encourages them to explore their surroundings. We will see this later. Both teaching methods, if you want to call them that, create an interaction between acquiring and learning.
Oh.
My dream is to teach a year-long course in which students learn to enjoy writing. In my course, students will write from the heart. They will know what it is to have an opinion, and they will have opinions by the dozens. They will never write "all in all." They will read essays and I will teach in such a way that they look forward to reading them. By the end of the term, they will toss their cell phones over their shoulders and head to the library to get dusty among the tomes. Aw, heck, they can go to Barnes & Noble, too.
Friday, July 10, 2015
The Neighborhood Mom& Pop
I am a big fan of hole in the wall restaurants--anything that's the opposite of McDonald's. What we have in our neighborhood, a place that roasts chickens on rotating spits and provides hunks of ground meat on rolls to kids, takes me back to my childhood, which was so long ago that there weren't any chains except for Howard Johnsons. You didn't have to ask for a key to the bathroom at the gas station back then, and you didn't have to pay, or go through a turnstile, or collect little tickets that saved you fifty cents on your purchase. Each little roadside restaurant--there were such things-- had its own style, and if you never ate at a place called Mother's you did okay.
Zum ______________ reminds me of those places. The clock says Kein Bier Vor Vier (No Beer Before Four) and all the numerals on the clock face are 4. Hee-hee. Delightful. The harried woman behind the counter wants to get everything right, and if you ask for a frickadelle she makes sure it's warm or cold, just as you wish. Do you have your drink? Is everything all right? Chicken? The chicken is tender--moreso than any chicken I have ever cooked or tasted. The fries--if you like fries, and I don't--are crisp, and offered with mayonnaise, ketchup, or tarter sauce. The patrons gaze off into the distance--or off into the year 1967--and remain happy. Especially when they are looking at that clock. The one that tells the time, German style.
I'd pay a considerable amount for that clock. The only clock I ever enjoyed more, my husband's earthquake clock, in which all numerals have fallen, or are in the process of gracefully doing so, to the bottom of the clock face, sits dustily in our cellar, having not quite made it through the last California earthquake. But as long as there's beer, there's life . . . and one that Germans love. That's what keeps folks going to this, our favorite little place.
Zum ______________ reminds me of those places. The clock says Kein Bier Vor Vier (No Beer Before Four) and all the numerals on the clock face are 4. Hee-hee. Delightful. The harried woman behind the counter wants to get everything right, and if you ask for a frickadelle she makes sure it's warm or cold, just as you wish. Do you have your drink? Is everything all right? Chicken? The chicken is tender--moreso than any chicken I have ever cooked or tasted. The fries--if you like fries, and I don't--are crisp, and offered with mayonnaise, ketchup, or tarter sauce. The patrons gaze off into the distance--or off into the year 1967--and remain happy. Especially when they are looking at that clock. The one that tells the time, German style.
I'd pay a considerable amount for that clock. The only clock I ever enjoyed more, my husband's earthquake clock, in which all numerals have fallen, or are in the process of gracefully doing so, to the bottom of the clock face, sits dustily in our cellar, having not quite made it through the last California earthquake. But as long as there's beer, there's life . . . and one that Germans love. That's what keeps folks going to this, our favorite little place.
Sunday, July 5, 2015
The Fourth of July and the Independent Piggie: How to Bring Home Your Guinea Pigs When They Have Escaped From Their Outdoor Cage
Here's what not to do: Run around the garden with the whining desperation of Clytemnestra moaning their names. Then, when you've calmed down, crouch in the bushes and make guinea-pig noises, like your husband is doing two bushes over. Don't bother getting out the flashlight and flicking it around under the clubhouse, beneath which you hope they've tucked themselves: this probably makes them feel like the character in a detective drama with the light trained in his eyes and the question, "Where were you on the night of July 4th?" ringing in his ears.
Don't go to bed desperate assuming they've been consumed by foxes, dogs, cats, or squirrels. Assume they can deal with the moles who have taken over the garden, including parts of their acreage in their little outdoor cage, by themselves.
How did they get out of their cage? Or were they dragged? There's a cat who sniffs around occasionally--I throw empty shampoo bottles at him from the upstairs bathroom and he glares, but runs.
Oh, the cage isn't on level ground. There's one corner with just enough space for an enterprising young guinea pig to squeeze out, and that's what she did, taking the older, more sedate one, with her. And now where are they?
Go to bed. Have bad dreams.
Wake at 1:00. It is raining. Go down to the garden again and look under the slide, where you've looked ten other times.
At 5:00, wake and Google escaped guinea pigs.
Since you don't have a hav-a-hart cage, take all their little houses, the ones from the indoor cage, the ones from the outdoor cage, the ones sitting on the woodpile. Place them around the bushes under which you hope the girls crawled. Place carrots or alfalfa hay at the entrances or inside. Look around. Go back to bed.
At 10:00 a.m., wake from stupified nightmares to the sound of driving rain and thunder. Go downstairs with umbrella, decide to check the houses. Nothing in the first, the one you put under the slide, the place they loved to hide the other time they got away. But that time you were right there.
Check box two. Astonished to see two perfectly dry guinea pigs huddled together, scream. When you scream, the fast one shoots out into the bushes. She's now drenched. Put house back down on other, slower, startled piggie and talk to them: "Oh, thank goodness you're here. Oh, Ginny. Oh, Lily, please come back, Lily, please do come back. Lily gives you a look. Sorry, Lily, my bad. The rain, the cage, whatever you say. Come back, little Lily. So she races into the house. This time, you don't scream. You put down your umbrella, you lift the box and scoop them both up, you bring them inside and wrap them in a dry towel. They have declared their independence and now they are back home, eating carrots and cuddling.
Don't go to bed desperate assuming they've been consumed by foxes, dogs, cats, or squirrels. Assume they can deal with the moles who have taken over the garden, including parts of their acreage in their little outdoor cage, by themselves.
How did they get out of their cage? Or were they dragged? There's a cat who sniffs around occasionally--I throw empty shampoo bottles at him from the upstairs bathroom and he glares, but runs.
Oh, the cage isn't on level ground. There's one corner with just enough space for an enterprising young guinea pig to squeeze out, and that's what she did, taking the older, more sedate one, with her. And now where are they?
Go to bed. Have bad dreams.
Wake at 1:00. It is raining. Go down to the garden again and look under the slide, where you've looked ten other times.
At 5:00, wake and Google escaped guinea pigs.
Since you don't have a hav-a-hart cage, take all their little houses, the ones from the indoor cage, the ones from the outdoor cage, the ones sitting on the woodpile. Place them around the bushes under which you hope the girls crawled. Place carrots or alfalfa hay at the entrances or inside. Look around. Go back to bed.
At 10:00 a.m., wake from stupified nightmares to the sound of driving rain and thunder. Go downstairs with umbrella, decide to check the houses. Nothing in the first, the one you put under the slide, the place they loved to hide the other time they got away. But that time you were right there.
Check box two. Astonished to see two perfectly dry guinea pigs huddled together, scream. When you scream, the fast one shoots out into the bushes. She's now drenched. Put house back down on other, slower, startled piggie and talk to them: "Oh, thank goodness you're here. Oh, Ginny. Oh, Lily, please come back, Lily, please do come back. Lily gives you a look. Sorry, Lily, my bad. The rain, the cage, whatever you say. Come back, little Lily. So she races into the house. This time, you don't scream. You put down your umbrella, you lift the box and scoop them both up, you bring them inside and wrap them in a dry towel. They have declared their independence and now they are back home, eating carrots and cuddling.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Frosting at Midnight
Baking cupcakes to take to school for birthdays is ordinarily quite enjoyable, but I hadn't been able to get around to it until after ten, so by the time all 36 cupcakes were cooling their heels, it was close to midnight, and I started mixing my standard goo for the top of the muffins--powdered sugar, melted butter, cream, dash of vanilla . . . all of which is great for the sated taste buds of American kids, and common to American cupcake recipes--in fact, to cupcake recipes in the English-speaking world. But these German kids take their cake medium-sweet. The afternoon custom of "coffee and cake" here means a round hunk of supermarket sponge-cake, not particularly sweet, topped by raspberries, strawberries, peaches or canned pineapple suspended in a not-too-sweet gelatin known as Tortenguss. This translates approximately as "fruit tart glaze," but it's not what you'd think of as a glaze, going by my got-enough-sugar-to-give-you-diabetes Fanny Farmer cookbook recipe for strawberry tart. I guess if you're eating "cake" as they call it here every day, you can't take the buttery, creamy, calorie-crammed stuff that Americans reserve for birthdays and special occasions, unless you live in the deep South.
The short version of this tale is that after I stayed up past midnight making sure each cupcake was cool enough to frost, frosted it, and tucked them all in portable carrying dishes, I was chagrined to hear, "Mommy, they're too sweet!" For more than around a fourth of my daughter's fifth-grade class, those cupcakes were too sweet.
But not for glazed-eyed me, licking that spoon to stay awake.
The short version of this tale is that after I stayed up past midnight making sure each cupcake was cool enough to frost, frosted it, and tucked them all in portable carrying dishes, I was chagrined to hear, "Mommy, they're too sweet!" For more than around a fourth of my daughter's fifth-grade class, those cupcakes were too sweet.
But not for glazed-eyed me, licking that spoon to stay awake.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
The Critical Mom Writes
And nobody reads. But that's okay. I'm learning my trade here, and from time to time surprising events teach me what grabs readers. When I wrote a post about Chelsea Manning and titled it "The Unmanning of Bradley," I reached many a poor soul who was looking for something considerably more titillating. I was merely reflecting on Manning's poor timing, in my view. When Bradley announced that he was really Chelsea, she was heading to prison, where bad guys are sure to give her a tough time indeed. I hope Chelsea is protected, and I hope somebody's getting her the hormones she needs to remain herself.
Meanwhile, I've reached a milestone: I'm actually getting paid for a personal essay. An entire forty bucks. Ten more than Judas made, is what I'm thinking. I want everyone in the world except for my mom and my kids to read that essay. My kids can read it when they're old enough to understand that Mom is also human--make that forty: a nice round number (and ten more than those thirty pieces of silver that keep coming to mind: I hope the kids don't feel betrayed by Mom's confession, which is not about them, but about Mom when she was younger than they are now.)
Forty dollars would just about replace the forty euros I got fined for forgetting that the month of June had begun: here in Germany, you buy your tram card every month, and you have a grace period until the third of the month. But I'd spent the preceding two days in dress rehearsals and performances, tap dancing. There's nothing lovelier than being onstage except, perhaps, being backstage. I love peeking in from the wings and seeing my very pretty daughter's profile as a lilac fairy; the contrast of the extraordinarily hideous Carabosse waving her arms around plus the glimpse of the audience's rapt faces was lovely. It would be so much fun to go out onstage and be evil! I wish I could play Carabosse, or a vampire, or anything flagrantly outrageous. When you're onstage the lights are so blinding that you don't see the audience or anything else--you're just trying to keep your eyes open while you dance. I love standing in the hallway and jumping back so the young ballet danseur, having completed his tours jetés, can vault offstage, grab his bottle of water, glug it, and vault back on. Plus the opening bars of Cinderella keep marching through my head.
But the lady who checked my May ticket was, naturally, not interested in all these explanations that came to mind . . . . I burbled away showing all my previous receipts for monthly tickets: I do regularly buy my ticket. But oh, they looked in their computer and found that I had actually failed to buy my ticket on time One Other Time, eight months ago. Who gets off on finger-wagging? People who don't get to go onstage or write personal essays, that's who. Or, as the lady said to me while taking my information (and even my kids have the sense to invent phony names and addresses when they are caught!): "You have your work, and I have mine."
You'd think somebody who likes being onstage and writing would have the presence of mind to say her name was, say, Miranda Schulz or Emma Stein. But no, I blurted mine right out.
And paid the dang forty euros.
But when my essay is published---I still can't believe that it will be--I'll post a link to the magazine and let readers guess which writer might be, in another guise, The Critical Mom.
Meanwhile, I've reached a milestone: I'm actually getting paid for a personal essay. An entire forty bucks. Ten more than Judas made, is what I'm thinking. I want everyone in the world except for my mom and my kids to read that essay. My kids can read it when they're old enough to understand that Mom is also human--make that forty: a nice round number (and ten more than those thirty pieces of silver that keep coming to mind: I hope the kids don't feel betrayed by Mom's confession, which is not about them, but about Mom when she was younger than they are now.)
Forty dollars would just about replace the forty euros I got fined for forgetting that the month of June had begun: here in Germany, you buy your tram card every month, and you have a grace period until the third of the month. But I'd spent the preceding two days in dress rehearsals and performances, tap dancing. There's nothing lovelier than being onstage except, perhaps, being backstage. I love peeking in from the wings and seeing my very pretty daughter's profile as a lilac fairy; the contrast of the extraordinarily hideous Carabosse waving her arms around plus the glimpse of the audience's rapt faces was lovely. It would be so much fun to go out onstage and be evil! I wish I could play Carabosse, or a vampire, or anything flagrantly outrageous. When you're onstage the lights are so blinding that you don't see the audience or anything else--you're just trying to keep your eyes open while you dance. I love standing in the hallway and jumping back so the young ballet danseur, having completed his tours jetés, can vault offstage, grab his bottle of water, glug it, and vault back on. Plus the opening bars of Cinderella keep marching through my head.
But the lady who checked my May ticket was, naturally, not interested in all these explanations that came to mind . . . . I burbled away showing all my previous receipts for monthly tickets: I do regularly buy my ticket. But oh, they looked in their computer and found that I had actually failed to buy my ticket on time One Other Time, eight months ago. Who gets off on finger-wagging? People who don't get to go onstage or write personal essays, that's who. Or, as the lady said to me while taking my information (and even my kids have the sense to invent phony names and addresses when they are caught!): "You have your work, and I have mine."
You'd think somebody who likes being onstage and writing would have the presence of mind to say her name was, say, Miranda Schulz or Emma Stein. But no, I blurted mine right out.
And paid the dang forty euros.
But when my essay is published---I still can't believe that it will be--I'll post a link to the magazine and let readers guess which writer might be, in another guise, The Critical Mom.
Monday, June 1, 2015
The Mom With The Serious Hobby
This mom makes everybody breakfast, cooks lunches and dinners, finds missing shirts and sports shoes (except when she doesn't) and cleans the guinea pig cage. What happens when she's gone for a day or two in dress rehearsals for a tap performance--while locating daughter's ballet tights and supervising daughter's ballet jitters for her performance?
What happens is that the middle kid gets the worst deal. The oldest yells a lot and mostly manages to take care of meals by having them outside, with pals. But the middle kid says he knows how to cook fish sticks, and you don't want to aggravate him by telling him yet again to pre-heat the oven, but you do call home and listen to his bored voice saying, "I know, Mom! You don't have to call again at dinner time."
So you don't.
And here's what happens: "Well, I ate the fish sticks, Mom, but they were really cold."
"But--"
"Well, Mom! I put them in the oven just like you said for twelve minutes."
"Did you pre-heat the oven?"
"Oops."
After disposing of the semi-frozen remains of the half-eaten fish sticks, I hoped that since his tummy feels okay today he won't develop hepatitis or tapeworm tomorrow.
That evening, I planned food for the next day with him (frozen pizza! Safer!) and put out an envelope of fifty-five euros to pay his piano teacher the next day--when I also wouldn't be there.
Guess what got lost.
Moms, remind your thirteen-year-olds who have just shot up five inches in the last month, started to get gravelly voices and sprout a pimple or two to carry valuable items in bags. It never goes without saying that small envelopes of money tucked into music folders might fall out, especially if you are running with your folder under your elbow because it started to rain and since Mom isn't there yelling at you, you're wearing a T-shirt, no sweatshirt, and no jacket.
I lost money the same way as he did when I was his age. And my mother forgot to tell me, too. Well, we all know about her. But really, I should have done better.
What happens is that the middle kid gets the worst deal. The oldest yells a lot and mostly manages to take care of meals by having them outside, with pals. But the middle kid says he knows how to cook fish sticks, and you don't want to aggravate him by telling him yet again to pre-heat the oven, but you do call home and listen to his bored voice saying, "I know, Mom! You don't have to call again at dinner time."
So you don't.
And here's what happens: "Well, I ate the fish sticks, Mom, but they were really cold."
"But--"
"Well, Mom! I put them in the oven just like you said for twelve minutes."
"Did you pre-heat the oven?"
"Oops."
After disposing of the semi-frozen remains of the half-eaten fish sticks, I hoped that since his tummy feels okay today he won't develop hepatitis or tapeworm tomorrow.
That evening, I planned food for the next day with him (frozen pizza! Safer!) and put out an envelope of fifty-five euros to pay his piano teacher the next day--when I also wouldn't be there.
Guess what got lost.
Moms, remind your thirteen-year-olds who have just shot up five inches in the last month, started to get gravelly voices and sprout a pimple or two to carry valuable items in bags. It never goes without saying that small envelopes of money tucked into music folders might fall out, especially if you are running with your folder under your elbow because it started to rain and since Mom isn't there yelling at you, you're wearing a T-shirt, no sweatshirt, and no jacket.
I lost money the same way as he did when I was his age. And my mother forgot to tell me, too. Well, we all know about her. But really, I should have done better.
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