The latest Round Robin Photo Challenge is “Silly Animals.”

I’m a dog person. Always have been, always will be. I’ve found that dogs can be a lot like people, especially when they’re sleeping. No one has to show them what a pillow is for: they’re smart enough to have figured that one out on their own with no assistance at all. And if you let them, they’ll take yours happily.

A couple of months after I adopted Zoey, I walked into the bedroom and saw her taking a nap. She was beginning to reach the point of understanding that she was in her “forever home,” as animal shelters like to call it, and was getting more and more comfortable.

She had sprawled out across a body pillow almost as if she had been trying to attain some kind of dramatic effect, and I couldn’t resist snapping her picture. The animal shelter I adopted her from got a copy and they ended up running it in a “success stories” column in their newsletter.

My parents taught me at an early age to love animals, and they’ve always had pets themselves. Their current inside dog is Jesse, who likes to twist himself into odd shapes resembling question marks. I caught him in one of his familiar sleeping positions, comfortably zonked. Even the flash didn’t wake him up!

Those are my picks for “Silly Animals.” Visit the Round Robin Photo Challenge page for links to the other participants!

You might want to take a look around your home at the photos you’ve decorated your living space with, because this might help you choose your question.

For those who have never played, the rules are simple: I offer two different questions, both related to the same topic, but you only choose one of them to actually answer.

Last week, for the second week in a row, Babs of “ Independent Single Professional Female in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. YEE-Haa!!” was first to answer last week’s question about Funerals. Congratulations again, Babs!

Now, onto this week’s choice of questions. And remember: don’t answer both questions!

THIS WEEK’S TOPIC: PHOTOGRAPHY

QUESTION A:
Someone’s about to get their picture taken. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or the one taking the picture, and why?

or

QUESTION B:
Of the photos you have on display in your home, not counting yourself, of whom do you have the most photos? Why do you think you have so many photos of this person?

Choose A or B, (indicate which question you’re answering!) then either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.)

Remember: choose one or the other…not both!

My Answer:
Question B: I have several photos of my parents, and several with me and former co-workers. I have a few of the dogs, too, but I have five of my best friend. I appear in a couple of those as well. I’ve known him for about 14 years and for about ten of those fourteen years, we worked together and therefore saw each other every single day. For three of those years, we were even roommates. Despite that nearly constant contact for the better part of a decade, we’re still as close as ever, and I guess I have those pictures on display to remind me how lucky I am to have that kind of friendship.

Millenia Black weighs in on dissention among black authors that’s being caused by publishers she describes as being insistant that the writing of black authors should be relegated to African-American niche markets rather than mainstream fiction.

She makes this interesting comment in her post, “Publishing Suppression ~ Suffer in Silence?:”

“I still maintain that most white authors don’t realize the advantage they have simply because they’re white. Many are too busy yapping about supporting their fellow authors….But how often does that support extend to fellow authors who happen to be of color? I wonder. Maybe many white authors choose not to notice their unjust advantage. I wonder.”

There are three important points in that single paragraph that I’ll take one at a time.

First, the advantage issue. Okay, I admit it: I don’t realize the advantage I have just because I’m white. I can honestly report that I never even thought about it. When I eventually come to the table with finished manuscript in hand, if my race is an advantage, there’s not a lot that I can do about that, even though it’s unquestionably wrong. Frankly, I don’t want my work accepted for publication because I’m white; I want to know that my work is being bought because of the quality of my writing, and I hope that when a potential publisher has my manuscript in hand, that publisher is able to find quality within it.

We live in a world where white people are treated differently, and very often a lot better, than black people. But I’ve never felt singled out because of my race for anything. That’s not to say that I haven’t been, but if it did happen, there was nothing to indicate to me, before or after the fact, that it had happened. I therefore don’t think about the fact that I’m white. To me, being white is the same thing as having hazel eyes…it just is.

But then, it’s easy for me to say that.

Years ago, my best friend and I were visiting the home of his girlfriend at the time. She happened to be of another race, and the subject of race came up during a casual conversation on her backyard patio, and her cousin said something I’ve never forgotten:

“You’re lucky you’re white. You feel like America is your country, right? I was born in this country just like you, but I don’t feel like I have a country.”

He didn’t go into great detail about specific incidents in which he was certain he had been a target of discrimination. Instead, he said that black people in America are victims of it in subtle ways that to them are about as subtle as that proverbial runaway locomotive. I can’t imagine it if I haven’t lived it, he told me, and I’m sure to some degree he’s right about that. Even if he read more into certain situations than was ever intended or warranted, there’s no better conditioner to make people begin looking for examples of discrimination than to make them a repeated target of it.

Recently, I read about a television personality who was moving from somewhere in the midwest to somewhere in the southwest. With the move apparently came a change in his last name, from something more Anglo-Saxon to something more ethnic. The assumption the account tried to put forth was that either this person changed his name before going to his old market, fearful that an ethnic-sounding name would hurt his chances of getting the job or establishing an audience, or that he was now changing it because he thought in a different market, an ethnic-sounding name would be all-the-more helpful.

Since I’ve never felt the need to worry about such things, it’s easy for me to be out of touch with any “advantages” that come to me just because I am of one race, or more specifically, because I am not of another.

There’s a big difference, however, between being unaware of any such advantage because of my own experience and being a participant in any discrimination that results from it. More on that later.

Second, the support issue. A lot of people have written about supporting fellow writers lately. I don’t have a problem with that. When I choose to support a fellow author, I make no effort to first scan for white authors to support. In other words, if you’re a writer, you’re a writer. If you can tell a good story that keeps me turning pages, I don’t care if you’re violet, vermillion or chartreuse.

I’ve read plenty of books that don’t have author photos. So it’s entirely possible that I’ve read the work of black authors in mainstream fiction without realizing it. I don’t mean that as a cop-out: If black authors are being intentionally shut out of most genres, then it’s certainly likely that I haven’t read something in those genres written by a black writer, but I give every book on the shelves of that section the same chance to wow me.

The majority of what I read tends to be suspense and horror, and, admittedly, I don’t recall noticing an author of color among any of the horror/suspense title’s I’ve read recently; that’s not because I avoid such books.

If I pick up a book that looks interesting, has an interesting title, interesting tease copy and interesting first pages, I’ll buy the book based on those things alone. I rarely, if ever, look for the author photo, anyway. When I do, the main thing that I look for is some estimation as to the author’s age: I particularly enjoy seeing that younger authors have finally gotten their book in print: that gives me a boost in the hope department. If I saw that a book I was considering had been penned by a black person, I wouldn’t put the book back on the shelf and walk away in disgust.

Why would anyone??

Third, the “choice” point. I’m not sure about this one. The suggestion that some authors “choose” not to notice implies that they’re part of the discrimination, and that leaves me with a very important question:

How would one tell the difference?

If I sell a book and I feel that they like the book for the writing, not for my appearance, (which isn’t likely to win me a contract, anyway!), what must I do before signing on the dotted line so that I’m not accused of “choosing” to ignore my advantage? And what to what test can I subject a would-be publisher in order to make sure they’re not publishing me just because I’m white, regardless of what I’ve put on paper?

Must I stipulate in my contract that for every dollar the publisher spends on promotion of my book, it must spend an equal amount in promoting or recruiting mainstream black authors? How can one know my motivation anyway?

As the saying goes, I didn’t start the fire. So if I sell a book one day, am I any more to blame than a black author is who signs a contract and puts them in the AA section? I’m not trying to be facetious here: it seems a fair question. Where is the line that, once crossed, takes a white author from being unaware of his advantage to “choosing” to be unaware?

What can a white writer do about the problem? Maybe, as Millenia suggests in a response to the comment I left after reading her post for the first time, it’s about dialog:

“Discussion on this issue is long overdue and lacking…and far too taboo.”

What about consumers? Let’s say the consumer is looking for a story in a specific genre, and finds no title that he suspects is written by a black author? If he buys the first book that catches his eye in the genre he likes, and that book’s author happens to be white, is he confirming the publisher’s suspicion that black writers don’t — or shouldn’t — belong in that category?

What if he decides, for whatever reason, that he only wants a book written by a black author? If he buys one from the AA section, isn’t that confirming for the booksellers (and possibly the publishers as well) that the way to get sales for black authors is to keep them segregated in that one section?

In fairness, I’m not sure that the majority of publishers set out to discriminate when they place a title into a race-based genre. I don’t think that’s their motivation, although it seems to be one of the end results.

I think that there are many publishers who are trying to do their best to make sure that they will get the most return on their investment, and have decided over time that the best way to sell the work of certain writers is to group them into specific categories. Because my preferred genre is horror, I know that there are limitations with this: Dean Koontz has complained for years that he had been pigeonholed in the horror section when he felt that he belonged in more mainstream circles as a suspense writer. More recently, I’ve seen Koontz’s titles appear in the mainstream fiction section, even if some of his titles are double-stocked in the horror section, too. But Koontz has been on the best-selling charts for a long time. Less familiar horror authors often end up only in the horror section.

When it comes to genre labelling, I think it’s done more to help potential readers who are looking for a work more quickly identify what they’re looking for, not as an effort to discriminate. Everything is about marketing and targeting your audience these days. Just look at cable television: the old days of three major networks, either watch what’s there or go read a book, are long gone. Now there are hundreds of cable channels designed to reach people with specific interests.

When race itself becomes a genre, that can mean something very different, particularly those who have experienced race discrimination and are therefore more sensitive to it than I’ll likely ever be. If AA authors need their own category because it is assumed that some readers only want to read the work of black authors, isn’t there an implication that books in other categories are either written by white authors or contains subject matter that is “whites only?”

The same applies to the women’s section: are books outside of this category “safe” for those who don’t want to read about anything that affects women or that is told from a woman’s point of view? And is it true that if you’re browsing outside of the gay/lesbian section, you’ll never find a novel that features homosexual characters or storylines?

Of course not. So then what does it take for publishers to stop putting certain books only in niche markets? And where is the real leverage — for a consumer or a non-ethnic writer — to give them the motivation to do so? Other than discussion, I don’t have anything in the way of a reasonable answer as yet.

Anyone?

Author Tess Gerritsen, who is primarily known for medical thrillers, is offering an interesting contest on her website. At first, I wasn’t sure why it was a contest, because there was no mention of a prize.

Millenia Black then explained to me that the winner of the contest will be the person whose cover design gets the most votes. Prior to the vote, she had an open call for designs.

Even if medical thrillers aren’t your cup of tea, it’s still an interesting idea to allow readers to choose the cover for her next novel, Copycat.

A voter can choose up to three designs they like. I only found three that I really liked.

But it’ll be interesting to see which one actually ends up being the one. There is no mention that I can find about when Copycat’s release date will be. But the “contest” itself ends on February 10th.

Good luck to them all, but particularly to my top three.

Last week’s Sunday Seven had you dreaming of screaming down the fast lane or cruising down the avenue in your ideal ride. This week’s is more in the “Simple Pleasures” category.

Here’s where I normally send a quick shout-out to the first person to play the previous edition, and here’s where things get dicey! There’s that pesky rule that to be first to play, you must either answer the questions here or provide the full link to the specific entry in which the answers appear on your own blog. And I think it’s the first time we’ve ever had what happened last week occur on a Sunday Seven meme.

Our beloved Barb was the first to leave a comment, but hers pointed to her excellent blog, “A Ticket to Ride,” though not to the specific entry. So the “first to play” honor would then move to the second commenter. Last week, that was Nate, a relatively new player of the Seven, who writes the blog “Nate Against the World.” But I get an error following his link that says there’s no such entry.

So that takes me to the third commenter, Carly, of “Ellipsis…Suddenly Carly,” was becomes “first to play.” It’s the second week in a row, so congratulations again, Carly!

On to the challenge!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
List up to seven sounds that make you happy or relax you.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.)

My answers:
1. A Thunderstorm
2. Coffee brewing on a chilly morning
3. The crackle of a fire in the fireplace
4. A Child’s laughter
5. Popcorn popping
6. The Tea Kettle whistling when I’m ready for a nice cup of peppermint tea
7. The sigh of contentment that my dogs let out when they’re snuggled in bed.

One of my co-workers and I were talking recently about novel writing. He completed a novel, a murder mystery, eight years ago and was content to set it aside because there was something about his lead character that bothered him.

I had read the prologue, which ended with an unexpected murder, and liked it a lot.

The conversation drifted to the subject of upcoming novels, and we both mentioned, nearly at the same time, Stephen King’s newest novel, Cell. My friend then asked if I had ever read King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. When I said I had, he asked what I thought of it. I told him that I thought it was a nice insight into his life, how he started writing, what keeps him writing and how he writes. I mentioned that I didn’t necessarily agree with everything King said, but that it at least painted an interesting portrait of King’s writing persona. He asked if I still had a copy and I loaned it to him.

I was amazed to learn the next day that he’d already finished nearly half of it in one sitting. Those of us with anxiety disorder often have a hard time imagining being able sit still long enough to read half of anything that we like in a single sitting. He also told me that he had started thinking about his novel again, and he was beginning to realize what he did and didn’t like about the lead character.

By the next day, he was almost finished with King’s book, and had decided firmly that he needed to make certain changes in the lead character, a television reporter. Among a few other changes he plans is to advance her in age and experience: originally, since the book was written shortly after he started producing news, her character likewise was near the start of her career and felt the unquenchable need to prove herself. Today, with more than a decade of producing — and good producing — under his belt, he thinks his character should be more seasoned, already having proved herself, and beginning to question where she is in life and career and what’s next. (I think all of us can relate to that kind of crossroad in our own life.)

So when we parted ways Friday after work, he said one of the things he intended to do this weekend was to start going through his manuscript to make notes about revision. If the writing throughout is anything like the prologue, I think he’ll have a gripping and compelling tale. And I look forward to reading it!

This is going to be one of “those” entries. It is not directed to a single person, but it does deal with a series of issues I’ve had with a single blogger. There’s a big lesson here about what happens when two people reach a point at which one or both stop listening. There’s also a big lesson here in what effective arguing is and isn’t. If you’d prefer to skip over it, I’d certainly understand.

I received a comment yesterday morning which I have rejected. As I stated recently, while I’ve not published any formal comments policy, I do expect comments to be respectful. I did not consider this commenter, James, to be particularly respectful. Over at his own blog, (which has since been deleted), he began by saying that I seem like a “nice enough guy,” then immediately jumps into ad hominem attack mode, first stating that he could find more “extreme examples of idiocy” if he were to visit more “right-wing” blogs, but, that he instead chooses to “make do” with my “occasional forays into the boneheaded.”

What a nice, polite way to begin. I suppose I should be immediately grateful that he at least considers me a “nice enough guy.”

There were good reasons to simply ignore his post; it’s his opinion, and I don’t have a problem with him lashing out against my position on any particular issue, even when he takes pains to say that not only that he disagrees but that it’s “one of the dumbest ideas” he’s ever seen or that I’m not only wrong, but “spectacularly” wrong!

However, when a blogger, and a fellow writer, well aware of the power of words, makes outrageous claims about you — for example, that you feel that “beating kids is okay” — that crosses a line that is far beyond inappropriate.

He has published the entire comment he left here, with the added commentary that one shouldn’t “hold their breath” waiting for it to be an approved comment; if he was so sure I wouldn’t approve it, I have to wonder why he’d waste his time leaving it to begin with. But he was right that I wouldn’t approve it. He’s also correct if he’s assuming that it’s unlikely he’ll ever have another comment published in my blog, given his latest remarks. Enough is enough.

But there is a discussion behind the unnecessary foul language, so I’ll run a portion of his comment with the important points he raises:

“Your deep-seated issues with children have to do with control: you want children to do and say what you consider appropriate, which is pretty much at odds with what children actually do and say. You demonstrate a total lack of empathy. On the other hand, this woman here does have empathy. I imagine in your case, you’d wonder why this kid was allowed to keep bothering you, while this woman actually took the time to contextualize the behavior of the child in question with normal child behavior. By contrast, you don’t have any idea what normal child behavior is.”

Doesn’t society decide, in advance, what is and isn’t appropriate? Doesn’t society expect that over time, students will learn manners and how to conduct themselves?

My parents raised me from an early age to be responsible, to follow rules, to be respectful, and to obey authority. I was treated like a child, but reasoned with like an adult. Perhaps I had an earlier start than some kids have, and if so, I come by my expectations honestly, even if they are lofty at times.

As for what I’d have done if I had been the woman in the convenience store, what makes anyone think that whatever he or she can imagine I would do, is without question what I really would do?

What “deep-seated” issues do I have about kids? This will require taking a look back at three previous issues in which I have displayed — at least in his point of view — my “dislike” of children.

ITEM ONE: Tantrum on Tape
Last year, there was the much-publicized story of a five-year-old child handcuffed by police. The police had been called to the school by teachers who said they couldn’t get her under control. News programs — legitimate and tabloid — ran clips of a video tape they claimed lasted nearly 30 minutes, which showed that the girl at times climbed on the tops of desks and swung at teachers who were trying to talk her down.

Unable to reach the child’s mother at work, the teachers called police when they felt they couldn’t bring her under control. Officers arrived after the child had calmed down, but their appearance upset her all over again. (This raises an important point: should the school have called police a second time and cancelled their request for assistance? If she had calmed down already and was quiet, then there shouldn’t have been any reason to have the officers enter the classroom at that point.) In any case, the police entered the situation with the understanding that school administrators couldn’t calm the child down. When she became unruly again, they decided to restrain her with a pair of handcuffs.

In my original post, I said:

“The question is, when a child becomes unruly and threatens the safety of other children, what is a school supposed to do these days? They can’t spank the child, because that’s illegal.

They can’t forcibly restrain the child, because that’s illegal.

They can tell her to go to “time out,” which obviously wouldn’t have an effect.

They can shout at her, which obviously wouldn’t have an effect.

It seems to me that this country has removed from our schools the ability to effectively discipline a child. Then we wonder why kids act up. If the child had injured another student during the tantrum, and let’s say your child was her victim, how would you feel about this child being handcuffed?

What else could they do, that wouldn’t be grounds for a lawsuit?”

To James, this meant that I was advocating both the handcuffing and the “beating” of a child. He responded:

“I’m note sure why you continue to uphold this Victorian idea that beating children is an appropriate way to discipline them. It’s been demonstrated that what you call ‘passive’ discipline (such as a time-out) is just as effective, if not more so, than physical punishment. I do not hit my son, but use time outs. The school also uses time outs. This punishment is so effective that oftentimes the time out itself isn’t even necessary; just the threat of it is enough to guarantee behavior.

I’m further disturbed by your exegesis in this situation. You infer a great deal about the child’s parenting from this incident, though you don’t know the child, the parents, or even the situation that sparked the initial outburst. Given that you have no experience as a parent or as a caregiver, I hardly think you’re qualified to make any judgments in these areas at all.”

Keep in mind this important note about the handcuffing: once police arrive on the scene, if they feel that handcuffing is the right way to handle the situation — regardless of whether it is or not — one must wonder how much control a teacher has at that point. Will a teacher who asks that the police not handcuff her make any headway with them? Maybe, maybe not.

Was handcuffing the child the ideal way to handle the situation? Of course not. And I never said it was. Do I think that spanking the child would have been a better solution? No.

But I never advocated either one. I didn’t advocate anything: I just asked a question!

They tried “time-outs” and attempts to “reason” with the child, according to accounts I read at the time. That didn’t work. That doesn’t mean that such measures are ineffective, but in this case, they didn’t get results. You can blame the teachers for not doing it correctly, or the school for not educating the teachers on discipline, or the district for not providing training to the schools.

But at that moment, none of that mattered: they had a child who they said would not settle down and no way to reach a parent for assistance. I infer nothing about the child’s upbringing or the parent’s ability to teach her right from wrong. I didn’t blame anyone for the outburst itself. I simply asked, “What’s a teacher to do?”

Do I have empathy for this child? Of course I do. Carly, who read what I said and actually provided an answer to my question, added:

“There is clearly something else going on for this child…something that needs to be looked into because it seems she doesn’t have the words to express why she is so angry. At age 5 would we really expect her to?”

I understand that. I agree with it. My point wasn’t to ignore that, but rather to look at what was happening right then and there. I certainly hope that in the time since this happened, a look into psychological issues about why she was so angry has been done. I do feel sorry for the child because she was handcuffed. I’m quite sure she’ll never forget that experience and I genuinely hope she’s not scarred by the situation; if anything, I hope she has taken a valuable lesson that there are consequences — sometimes extreme — for behavior that teachers consider to be extreme. That doesn’t make it right, but most of us have come to know by adulthood that punishment does not always fit the “crime.” It is a shame that this child must carry on with the memory of that incident, and I never said otherwise.

Regardless of what should or could have been done, the reality of this particular story is that there’s no way to undo the handcuffs incident, so she must find a way to deal with it and move on. I certainly hope those close to her are helping her do so. If I could press a button to guarantee that she would have no psychological trauma from that incident, you can damn-well bet I’d have pressed it and way back then.

I did mention in that original post that when I was in school, paddling was one of several disciplinary options available to the principal. For those of us in my class, the threat of that option was enough to quiet down most of us. I never said that we should go back to spanking; in our litigious society, it seems to some that if a teacher so much as touches a child, the teacher can find herself facing an abuse complaint.

The question I asked is, given that times have changed from the way things were when most of us were in school, I wonder what you’d have a teacher do when a child won’t calm down, won’t listen to commands to stop throwing things, is climbing up on desks and swinging at teachers? My basic point wasn’t to call for a return to “Victorian” concepts, but rather to ask what the solution is in such cases? A time-out works, I’m guessing, when a child understands what a time-out is and complies; that is to say, doesn’t an effective time-out require at least some voluntary participation on the child’s part? If you send a child to time-out, and the child won’t stay there and continues on with the tantrum, is that time-out a success?

Some research does indeed show that spanking isn’t more effective than “passive” discipline. But there is a big difference between a “spanking” and a “beating.”

I’ve mentioned before that my parents resorted to spanking at times. But I was spanked a total of two or three times in my whole life. I carry no emotional scars from those few experiences. In fact, my memory of them isn’t the spanking itself but rather the long talk we had afterwards, during which my parents took great effort to explain that the spanking didn’t mean that they didn’t love me and that it was critical that I obeyed their instructions. They communicated with me about their discipline: they made it clear why I was being punished, and on those rare occasions when my behavior warranted in their minds that “extreme” action, they made sure that I understood why they felt that way.

I was never, for a single second of my life, abused by my parents.

Some people can’t say that. My dad is one of them. His father wasn’t above hitting him with closed fists during heated moments. My father entered parenthood with the knowledge of what those moments were like, and unlike the many victims of abuse who can be prone to repeat the same behavior to which they were exposed, my father never lost sight of how his own father made him feel and made sure every day that I lived under his roof that I never felt that way.

Those who would ignore the last paragrah and say that the fact that I was ever spanked as a child, even one time, is an indication that I had bad parents quite simply don’t know what they’re talking about!

The difference between a spanking and “beating” is much like the difference between talking in a stern yet calm voice to scold and screaming at the top of your lungs like a madman.

There are some people who either cannot — or, for whatever reason, will not — see the difference between the two. But not everyone believes that spanking involves child abuse. I’m sure there are plenty of readers out there who were once spanked, but don’t feel that they were children of abusers.

ITEM TWO: Controversial Call
Just a few weeks after that incident, another school-related story made national headlines. In this case, a high school student received a cell phone call from his mother during school hours. What made this such a problem was that the school’s policy forbade students from carrying cell phones on campus. What made this an extraordinary situation was that the teen’s mother is an active duty soldier calling from Iraq!

The school had a “no cell phone” policy. Though this incident reportedly occurred inside a hallway during a lunch break, cell phones aren’t allowed at all. The student, understandably, took the call. A teacher, following the established rules given to her, attempted to make him end his call. That, in itself, shouldn’t be considered a problem; if anything, that’s what most people would expect to happen.

What happened next wasn’t the ideal way to handle the situation. According to the teacher, (Peachy referred to the original, now-expired news article) the student never told her who was on the other end of the call. Instead, the teacher said, he “became defiant and used profanity when asked to surrender his phone.” I suggested that the teacher had every right to attempt to confiscate the phone, solely on the grounds that the phone was a violation of school policy, period.

But I also said:

“He should have been allowed to continue the call. If I were that student, I would have certainly continued the call if my mother was calling from Iraq. The school teacher or leader — whoever tried to confiscate the phone — should have dropped the matter as soon as they were told that it was the student’s mother in Iraq at the other end.”

No teacher in his or her right mind would have interrupted a call between a student and his parent calling from a war zone. But the teacher at that moment wasn’t given the benefit — or courtesy — of an explanation, and the student was initially suspended for 10 days for his handling of the situation.

This time, James responded:

“Here you go again: blaming parents and kids without knowing the kid or the parents. You also make a lot of assumptions about what kids ‘should’ do and what parents ‘should’ do, as if you have the authority to make those sorts of statements. Owning pets is not the same as being a parent.”

I have yet to find anyone who can tell me where I ever said that owning pets is the same as being a parent. I never said it. I do not believe it, now or ever before.

He added, in another comment:

“Now: decide for yourself if you’d like to waste precious seconds explaining to some overeager stranger what’s going on, as opposed to continuing your conversation.”

My answer is simple: I sit here with a stopwatch and say, “It’s my mom…she’s in Iraq!” I find that it takes a little more than two-and-a-half seconds to speak these words quickly, as you’d do when you’re trying to talk on the phone, preusmably over a precarious connection. I wonder how long he spent being “beligerent” and “using profanity.” Even if it took him the same amount of time, he could have avoided being disrespectful and the trouble that followed, with just a couple of seconds of real communication. The school is adjacent to a military base, so the notion of a student with deployed loved ones shouldn’t be an alien concept to students or teachers.

James (at his blog) also accused me of begrudging “a teenager his right to talk with his mother (currently in a war zone) without having to explain himself to a busybody.”

As I said then, I never begrudged the teen his right to speak to his mother. I did begrudge him the option of being disrespectful to a teacher, particularly one who was doing her job when she was making sure this student followed school policy. And isn’t it odd that I get accused of making unfair assumptions about students and parents while he doesn’t seem to think that he’s making an unfair assumption about the teacher’s motives when he called her “overeager,” and later, a “busybody!”

The sad parallel here is that the student with the cell phone could have been respectful to the teacher who questioned him, and James, likewise, could have been respectful with the comment he left here. Both chose not to be.

ITEM THREE: Katrina’s Aftermath
Immediately after Katrina’s landfall and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans, I reformatted the sidebar of what was then my primary journal on AOL to add logos and contact information for three charities: The American Red Cross was on top and above the “fold.” The Salvation Army appeared directly below that and was mostly above the “fold,” and Noah’s Wish, an animal charity, was below that and below the “fold.” These three charities ran for at least a couple of weeks on the sidebar. After a great deal of donations came pouring in at the Red Cross and other similar charities, through local and national fundraising campaigns, I reformatted the sidebar again, and Noah’s Wish became the sole charity remaining there. (I doubt very seriously if this change resulted in any major loss of donations to either of the other two charities.) I soon did a post about the pet victims of Katrina. At least one more followed a few days later.

This didn’t set well, either. Ignoring, forgetting, or never noticing the more blatant advertising of charities already in the area assisting the human victims of the catastrophe, he said, among other things:

“Though the situation in New Orleans is still dire, Patrick has moved on to more important issues: arguing about whether AOL-hosted blogs should have advertising on them. Even before the first house dried out, he’d stopped caring about the people, and expended his efforts on talking up the plight of pets. Because, y’know, a pet cat is way more important than a poor black kid.” (Empahsis is his.)

So if I really care about the people who are suffering, it seems, I should have filled the pages of this blog with nothing but discussion about their suffering. I shouldn’t have ever left the subject to discuss anything else, personal or not. Otherwise, I’m a cretin!

Do you hear this message, fellow bloggers? No more posts about your family, or the cute things your new puppy did, or the trip you took last summer or the photos from your family reunion! If you don’t post about those who are suffering in the world right this minute, you’ve stopped caring about people!!

James has talked about a lot of different subjects since then. But I don’t think for a moment that he stopped caring about the people. And yet the cleanup and recovery are still far from over.

It was a child, his race and family’s income level irrelevant, who was forced to leave his dog, Snowball, behind when getting on a bus that was evacuating the Superdome. The boy, whose home and belongings may well have been destroyed, clutched the dog and cried when they tried to take it away. He was so upset be became physically ill and threw up. The officers took the dog, anyway, and reportedly let it loose on the street to fend for itself.

A rescue operation for animals that wanted to reunite people like this with the animals they weren’t allowed to take with them seems to me to be a worthy charity. For some of these people, all they had was the clothes on their backs and their pets. All of their other belongings were destroyed. This child had already been through more than enough misery and suffering when his pet was taken away. Why would anyone have a problem with a charity working to locate his pet and reunite them?

My support of such organizations doesn’t mean that I think charities like the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity aren’t worthy charities or are even less worthy.

I think that anyone who reads what I have to say without preconceived notions about my intent wouldn’t assume that I was making such an obviously-ridiculous statement, anyway.

The fact is, even when they reunite those pets with their owners, they’re helping the people as much — in some ways, more — than the dogs and cats, by restoring some small sense of normalcy in their owners’ lives. We all know that pets can improve people’s quality of life. We all know that dogs and cats are used as part of a therapy plan for people in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes. There’s nothing new in that.

We’re talking about people whose lives have been forever turned upside down by a natural disaster. Those volunteers who work to find missing pets are trying to help. There are still far more people doing more “important” work, like finding victims shelter, food and jobs.

How can one be so judgmental of how people help, as long as people are actually getting up off their butts or opening their wallets to help? If he’s going to jump to the conclusion that my moving on to different topics means I don’t care anymore, he should at least celebrate those who are doing something to show that they do care, even if what they’re doing isn’t necessarily what he’d do.

It’s just one aspect of the big picture. When we all write about individual “small picture” items, the blogosphere can help make people see the parts as well as the whole. It shouldn’t be any one person’s responsibility to stick to one single topic to raise everyone’s awareness about one individual problem…especially in a forum as personal as a blog. And this isn’t blog-by-committee: I’m not going to run every topic I wish to write about past screeners to make sure no one will take issue with what I have to say. Someone is going to take issue with something I write no matter what I do. You can’t please everyone, and I dropped that goal a long time ago.

But wait a second: let’s look at this from the other direction: I volunteer with a local animal shelter. Given James’s belief that I have “issues” with kids, I can’t seriously imagine that he’d prefer that I do my charitable work for an organization that would have me working with children. I’m working with animals, not kids. Given his obvious opinion of me, he should be delighted for the children of the world!

For the record, I make absolutely no apology about promoting animal-related charities or volunteering with them. Reversing James’s argument, anyone who volunteered with or promoted people-realted charities must not give a damn about animals. That’s a ridiculous argument. When I assist in a pet adoption, I’m helping people and animals at the same time. I feel good about that. What someone else thinks shouldn’t matter — and doesn’t — so long as I know I’m making a contribution.

What logical right does anyone have to assume that one who writes about animal charities has “stopped caring” about people? In my estimation, none.

Was it unreasonable on my part to use the story of the woman’s chance encounter with a child in a conveniene store and her own relentless search for her, based on a hunch that something was wrong, as an example to show that it is not always true that people who have never had children can’t recognize a problem when they see it? Not when there are people who are so quick to dismiss completely what the childless think about children and what is and isn’t appropriate in their upbringing. What if the police officer who came into the store on the woman’s second visit had summarily dismissed her concerns after learning that she wasn’t a parent? With whom would those kids be with today?

James’s strategy in dealing with what I write on this subject seems to be a three-step plan:

Step 1: Summarily dismiss anything I have to say about a subject based solely upon my lack of personal experience in dealing with that subect firsthand.

Step 2: Manipulate what I have said after already dismissing it, taking my points to the extreme so that what he reports that I said is now exaggerated so far out of proportion that most reasonable people wouldn’t agree with it, thereby attempting to give credibility to his arguments, which turn out to be arguments against the extreme, not against what I’ve actually said.

Step 3: Go into name calling mode, suggesting that while I seem to be a “nice enough guy,” it’s possible (according to the title of his latest blog entry) that I couldn’t be more of a “S***head,” and that I delve into “idiocy” and “wrongheadedness.”

I’ll repeat a question that I asked before, based on James’s earlier remarks: Is it fair to say that one must be a parent in order to have an opinion on children?

My answer, then and now, is no. That does not mean, in my mind, that the childless are always right, or that parents are always wrong. I think there is right or wrong on both sides. If the childless were never allowed to have an opinion on child discipline, they’d likely feel a lot less motivation ever to have a child. If they couldn’t have any thoughts about children or begin trying to develop their own discipline goals, then those who would make such a rule would really be expecting new parents to enter parenthood with absolutely no idea what they’re planning. That sounds not only foolish but wrecklessly irresponsible to me, a non-parent.

I’ve never heard of a school district that requires every teacher, guidance counselor and principal to be a parent before they can get their job. I had plenty of single, childless teachers while I was in school. Since they don’t have the personal experience of disciplining a child at home, 24 hours a day, as opposed to a classroom setting for an hour or so on weekdays, should they be fired until they raise their own families? Should their input not matter until they have kids of their own? If their training on childhood education still isn’t the same as being a parent, and therefore isn’t enough, I think you’d see a lot of good teachers suddenly out of a job if you were to go with James’s apparent position that experience is the only important factor in giving someone any frame of reference when it comes to the right way to deal with children.

Then, there are the myriad books available on the subject of child rearing. I did a quick search in the books section of Amazon.com for the word “parenthood.” It returned 906 listings, ranging from books written for hopeful future parents to books designed for couples after they already are parents. This begs three important questions:

1. Why would books be written for couples wanting to start a family if they shouldn’t be forming any opinions until they actually are parents?

2. Why would there be books written for parents if parents already have all of the answers?

and

3. If all of the experts agreed that there was one definitive way to raise a child successfully, why would there be 906 books on the subject? We’d only need one!

As for his second step in painting my beliefs on the subject in a poor light, does anyone favor “beating” a child? Would anyone take away a cell phone being held by a child who’s talking to a parent who’s serving in a war zone?

Give me a break! Look, if you have to take this extreme a characterization of someone’s argument, there’s something wrong here.

James actually said:

“One of the hallmarks of the closed mind is the complete inability to factor in expertise when having an argument.”

How many parents do you know who you’d call “experts?” How many times have you read something written by a recognized “expert” that you found to be completely off-base or that you had previously tried without any measurable success?

My only “expertise” in the parent-child relationship is in having loving parents who treated me both like a child and like the adult they expected me to become. For them, spanking was an option. It was not beating, but spanking. And when they did it, it was done with compassion, not anger; with love, not hate. I learned from it and became better because of it. My parents were never threatening, and I didn’t grow up in an unhappy home.

I was lucky. A lot of adults today can’t say that. But don’t take that out on me!

If you never experienced the difference between a “spanking” and a “beating,” or if you are incapable of understanding what spanking is when it is used as part of a good parent’s discipline plan, then what right have you to say that there is no difference between spanking and beating, or that spanking is never right, particularly if your primary point has been all along that those who aren’t parents shouldn’t have an opinion? If my lack of experience in parenthood takes away any credibility about anything I say on the subject of children, what effect should we expect one’s lack of experiencing firsthand loving discipline from parents with whom one shares a happy, healthy relationship, to to have on that person’s credibility when they condemn the intention of parents whose methods are apparently different from their own?

A lot of people who were brought up the way I was are living proof that spanking is not automatically wrong, no matter what any experts say about it, and no matter what those who have experienced something very different feel about it.

As for the name-calling, there’s no point in returning that favor. That is one of the keystones of ineffective argument, and really furthers nothing in the spirit of discussion. When one stoops to such a level, the possibility of discussion is long over.

Do I have “issues” with children? Well, in his mind, I clearly do. I can’t imagine anything I could do to change that. So be it.

Do I lack empathy? Not at all. But I point out that this commenter, who has been so quick to jump in whenever he can dispute — and at times in a scathing way — something I said, conveniently skipped over my recent mention of the illness and death of that close family friend and my own father’s surgery. No words of condolence, no expressions of sympathy, nothing. He leapfrogged between those two entries to pounce on the one directly in the middle. On that one, he attacked. On the others, he found no desire in taking the chance to demonstrate what empathy is to someone who he thinks doesn’t understand it.

Is it fair for me to assume that he is incapable of empathy? Of course it’s not. Even if he chooses not to display it here, I know he is perfectly capable of compassion from things he’s written about people whom he obviously does like or at least respect. But even if I’d never gotten that feeling from what he’s chosen to say about himself online, it would still be unfair to expect that reading one’s blog and truly understanding the person who writes it equal the same thing; we may form opinions based on what people write, but we should be able to realize that our impressions of the written word and the real person behind them if we met in person are likely to be very different!

That’s the difference between my style of argument and his.

As for my “occasional forays into the boneheaded,” the obvious question is this: if what I write is so offensive to him, causes so much anger and frustration, why read me? Why invite higher blood pressure? There are blogs I’ve stumbled upon before written by people with whom I did not agree. When I spotted in them what I felt was the same close-mindedness he seems to spot in me, I stopped reading them! When I felt that they were either not interested in my point of view or were more interested in expanding it far beyond anything I ever intended, I stop commenting. I haven’t commented in James’s blog for a long time, and I first learned of his new post about me when the trackback appeared here.

If I’m so wrong and so close-minded, take a visit to, and learn from, Proverbs 14:7:

“Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.”

See no knowledge here? Go elsewhere! Problem solved! Wasn’t that easy? (And as an added benefit, you wouldn’t have to feel any responsiblity to monitor, then report in comments, the status of my “slipping” Google ranking, something about which I can’t imagine that anyone besides me would spend any time researching, anyway!)

If the biblical reference isn’t to your liking, a former co-worker once told me, “Don’t let anyone else rent space in your head for their crap!” For those who think that I’m full of it, why allow me space in your head? It only aggravates you while boosting my counter! (And there’s every chance that actually linking to me might raise my Google ranking! We certainly wouldn’t want that to happen!)

To “make do” with my forays into anything when you are prone to disagree so vehemently with my opinions is like forcing yourself to sit through a television show you hate just to be reminded once a week of why you hate it! Why not just change the channel? There are plenty more out there that will be infinitely more to your liking!

Hasn’t everyone more important things to do with their lives? I might suggest that one alternative to reading my blog would be to go out and volunteer with those “people” charities some apparently feel that I’ve have snubbed! Or, those parents who spend time blasting me for having the audacity to have any opinion about children could always use that time to plan activities to share with their children! I bet they and their children would agree that it would be time much better spent!

In conclusion, I can only offer two pieces of wisdom:

First, just because one person believes something is true, no matter how fervently they believe it, even if they desperately hope it is true to support their argument, their rigid conviction doesn’t make it true.

I think I’ll rely on the judgment of my best friends, a husband and wife whom I’ve known for 14 and 11 years, respectively, who named me the Godfather of their first son and named their second son after me, and who have never, even for a moment, shuttered their children in a secret “panic room” when I’ve visited their home; if they thought I was some kind of heartless monster when it came to children, or that I had ruthless methods of dealing with them, or even that I possessed obvious “issues” towards them in general, I don’t think I’d be allowed anywhere near their kids.

That, to me, speaks volumes. And I think they’re in a lot better position to make such a judgment than someone who has never even met me in person.

The second piece of wisdom comes from a very old source: Book of Matthew, Chapter Seven, Verses 1 and 2.

Look it up.

A previous post in this blog showed the results of a beliefs test, which revealed that I am a “Mainstream to Liberal Protestant Christian.”

The site on which the test exists has apparently been updated, and now gives details about what the different categories believe. Here, in a nutshell, is how people it labels as “Mainstream to Liberal Protestant Christians” are classified:

Also sometimes referred to as secular, modern, or humanistic. This is an umbrella term for Protestant denominations, or churches within denominations, that view the Bible as the witness of God rather than the word of God, to be interpreted in its historical context through critical analysis. Examples include some churches within Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church of Christ. There are more than 2,000 Protestant denominations offering a wide range of beliefs from extremely liberal to mainline to ultra-conservative and those that include characteristics on both ends.

• Belief in Deity
Trinity of the Father (God), the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit that comprises one God Almighty. Many believe God is incorporeal.

• Incarnations
Beliefs vary from the literal to the symbolic belief in Jesus Christ as God’s incarnation. Some believe we are all sons and daughters of God and that Christ was exemplary, but not God.

• Origin of Universe and Life
The Bible’s account is symbolic. God created and controls the processes that account for the universe and life (e.g. evolution), as continually revealed by modern science.

• After Death
Goodness will somehow be rewarded and evil punished after death, but what is most important is how you show your faith and conduct your life on earth.

• Why Evil?
Most do not believe that humanity inherited original sin from Adam and Eve or that Satan actually exists. Most believe that God is good and made people inherently good, but also with free will and imperfect nature, which leads some to immoral behavior.

• Salvation
Various beliefs: Some believe all will go to heaven, as God is loving and forgiving. Others believe salvation lies in doing good works and no harm to others, regardless of faith. Some believe baptism is important. Some believe the concept of salvation after death is symbolic or nonexistent.

• Undeserved Suffering
Most Liberal Christians do not believe that Satan causes suffering. Some believe suffering is part of God’s plan, will, or design, even if we don’t immediately understand it. Some don’t believe in any spiritual reasons for suffering, and most take a humanistic approach to helping those in need.

• Contemporary Issues
Most churches teach that abortion is morally wrong, but many ultimately support a woman’s right to choose, usually accompanied by policies to provide counseling on alternatives. Many are accepting of homosexuality and gay rights.

I’ll post more in upcoming entries about individual aspects of some of these. But this at least is a good start.

In the meantime, if you’d like to take the test, it can be found here.

It’s hard to believe that it has really been 20 years since the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger. I remember that 1986 morning well, because of an ironic joke made shortly before the news came. It might be hard for some people to believe, but it really happened, and the look on our faces when we did get the news was a testament to how oddly prophetic our innocent comment had turned out to be.

Back then, I was a sophomore in high school. The class right before lunch was computer science. When we were finished with that day’s assignments, we were sometimes allowed to get a head-start on the lunch lines. So we were working to finish whatever the programing assignment was that day.

The space shuttle was only vaguely on our minds by the start of class. We knew it was launching that morning, and we’d certainly heard all about teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard the ship. But on that particular morning, excitement of another space shuttle mission aside, we w really had our minds on those greasy burgers and fries that the cafeteria served in one of its lines.

As was often the case, some kind of glitch came up, and the teacher required a moment or two to get a machine back up and running. My friend Al joked that he hoped the computers on the shuttle worked better than the ones in this room, which wouldn’t have been much of an accomplishment. Actually, he said, “I hope the people who built these computers didn’t build the ones on the space shuttle.”

We chuckled. Then I said it. “Yeah, otherwise the thing would blow up!” He and I were the only ones who heard each other’s remarks.

Later, when I told someone else about the comment, she asked me if I had some kind of “vision” about that happening. No, I didn’t. I had no idea. A tragedy like that was the farthest thing from my mind, which is why it seemed so easy to make such a joke: it just never seemed that possible to me that such a thing could happen.

Even though the concerns about the cold weather’s effect on the O-ring seals is now well-known, I don’t remember being aware of the danger. Like many people, I had come to consider the shuttle missions as routine. The networks didn’t carry the launches live, anymore. To see it live, you had to turn to CNN. That was just about your only choice, and most people weren’t watching CNN that morning.

Anyway, later, we finished our assignment and headed to the cafeteria. I got my lunch, Al got his, and we headed down the hall. We passed the library, and through the glass doors we could see people gathered around several monitors that had been wheeled in and set up in an ad hoc fashion. This was odd. The thought of watching television in a library would have been enough to send even the most mellow of librarians into something resembling a nervous breakdown. So we walked in, food in hand, (another no-no) to see what was going on.

Just then, on the set we were watching, the image of Dan Rather switched to a replay of the launch. We heard, “Challenger, go with throttle up.” We wondered what the big deal was. We heard, “Roger, go with throttle up.” And immediately thereafter, we saw the fireball. While some of the other folks who had come in around the same time we did reacted with gasps to seeing it happen for the first time, Al and I just looked at each other, wide-eyed.

Did we really just see that? Did I really make that comment earlier? School wasn’t really school for the rest of that day. What I recall of it was that we gathered in our classes and watched continuing coverage of what was happening. But it took me a while to shake that chill.

There is a second moment that I’ll never forget about Challenger. There is a sound on the tape of the explosion that I still remember vividly. It happens on the tape shortly after the explosion and after the NASA spokesman says something about “a major malfunction.”

There is a pause. He’s waiting for information on his data screen. Or maybe he’s waiting for someone to tell him that it’s a big joke. But there’s this brief silence and then this very haunting feedback, like a speaker placed too close to a microphone on a stage.

Somehow, that low, dull sound, coupled with the shot of what is left of Challenger really brought it home to me that those seven men and women were gone…seeing and hearing that part of the tape is what made me realize for the first time that there was no way they could possibly survive that.

That was a moment I could have done without.

We’re slowly approaching the 100th edition of the “Saturday Six.” Can you believe it’s been this long?

Before this week’s questions, it’s time to recognize the first person to play last week. According to the rules, to be considered “first to play,” you must be the first one to either answer questions in the comment or post the link to the specific entry in which you’ve answered the questions. The first one to do that, for the second week in a row, was Babs, of “
“>Independent Single Professional Female in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. YEE-Haa!!.” Congratulations, Babs!

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?

2. How many jobs have you held in your life? How many of those were part of your chosen career field?

3. Of those, how many did you leave voluntarily?

4. Take this quiz (if you haven’t already!): What animal were you in a past life? (Thanks to RedSneakz!)

5. What animal were you expecting you’d be?

6. Time to pull this tactic again: Your turn to come up with a Reader’s Choice Question. What question would you like to see asked in a future edition of “The Saturday Six?” (Don’t answer it…just provide the question.)

Thanks for playing the “Saturday Six,” and be sure to visit again tomorrow for the “Sunday Seven.”

MY ANSWERS:
1. My aunt.

2. Five. Two have been in TV.

3. I left four voluntarily, my fifth one is still the current one.

4. A Porcupine:

You have created your own path in life, and you encourage others to do the same.
Even as life progresses, you always maintain a sense of wonder and innocence.

5. A Dog. (Un-neutered, of course.)

6. Hey, I’ve done my part!

“Pa” passed away last night shortly after 8:00pm. I miss him already. I talked to my best friend last night, who told me that he, his wife and kids were about to leave to drive up to be with the family. I called his parents this morning and talked to them for a little while. They were all with him at the end, and they said it was incredibly peaceful. He knew, they said, that he’d had a good, full life, and that he would soon be reunited with his own parents and siblings who’d gone before him. The struggles he’d had just to do that simple thing we never think about, breathing, are over now.

He and his wife, “Ma,” were married for 64 years. Sixty-four! Such matrimonial longevity seems almost impossible in today’s world, but they managed it, and managed it happily. Pa told me a few years ago that they never argued a day in their married life, and he said it with enough sincere conviction (and her total agreement) that I really believe it’s true. Disagreement and arguing, after all, are different things.

I’ve known my best friend for almost 15 years now. About nine or ten months after we became friends, he invited me to take the hour-long drive with him and spend a weekend at his family’s home. From the moment I stepped across their threshold, I wasn’t a guest, but rather a member of the family, and no matter how much time passes from visit to visit, that bond never seems to weaken at all. It’s an incredible group of people in that home, and I love them all. The sadness I feel for Pa at this point is little compared to what they’re going through, of course, but mine is deep tonight.

I can’t imagine what it’s like for Ma. I can’t imagine anyone putting up with me for 64 years, nor can I imagine what it would be like to lose someone with whom I’d shared my entire life with that long. She’s a strong woman, brought up during the Great Depression, a time that made strong people out of nearly everyone who lived through it. She has her family, her many friends at her church, and her very deep, unwavering faith. I know she will be okay, but still, I really feel for her.

Thanks to all of you who have been keeping them in your thoughts.

As for my dad, he is home tonight, after staying a day longer at the hospital than expected. He went in on Wednesday for shoulder surgery on what appeared to be a torn rotator cuff. The MRI wasn’t able to give the surgeon as clear a picture as he needed, because deeper in the shoulder, there were several bone spurs that had done a number on the tendons and connective tissue as well as the cuff itself. I’ll spare you the very unpleasant details beyond that point which my dad, a former EMT, was only too happy to divulge.

I will say, however, that the surgeon walked into his room after he came around and remarked, “I don’t know how you were walking around without your arm falling off!”

Of course, his arm wouldn’t have really fallen off, even if it had come out of its socket, (and apparently it did during surgery!) but the surgeon then said that most people wouldn’t have been able to stand the pain that such damage would normally cause.

My dad can be stubborn at times.

He faces about six weeks of physical therapy, likely to be painful, but also likely to be not quite as painful as his shoulder must have been before the surgery. Ever the sailing enthusiast, he’s trying to figure out what he will and won’t be able to do by the time his planned sailing trip this May.

A chance encounter with a little girl made a big impression on a Georgia woman, in an incredible story reported by MSNBC. When Tracie Dean visited an Alabama convenience store, she noticed a three-year-old girl whom she thought was troubled somehow. When she spoke kindly to the little girl, the child responded in a way that gave Dean the impression that she wanted to leave with her. Suddenly, Dean says, an older man appeared and stepped forward and the child left with him.

It was enough to leave Dean with the feeling that something just wasn’t right. She was so haunted by the few moments with the child that she jotted down the license number of the vehicle the old man was driving. She called 911 to report that something was wrong, but she says no one seemed to take her seriously.

Undaunted, she did some research of her own, checking missing children websites hoping to catch a glimpse of the little girl. But it was beginning to look like a wild goose chase.

“Every morning I woke up and thought about it. Every night I went to bed and thought about it,” she recalls. “And I just told my sister, ‘When my heart says to let this go, I’ll let it go.’”

Then she returned to the store days later and told an employee about her concerns. They reviewed surveillance tape inside the store and spotted the same man with the same little girl: they had returned to the store on a more recent trip. A police officer arrived, took the tape, and used it to track down the man.

Her hunch that something was wrong, it seems, was right. The man, according to police, is wanted in California for an arson case. He and his wife were arrested and charged with multiple sex crimes against the child Dean saw and a 17-year-old boy also found in their trailer home.

I was once told by a visitor to this blog that people who do not have children shouldn’t have an opinion on the upbringing or discipline of children. Those of us who are not parents, it was suggested, have no idea what we’re talking about when it comes to that subject, and should just leave well enough alone.

Tracie Dean isn’t a parent, either. But I think her story proves that parental experience isn’t a prerequisite to know what the right thing is when it comes to the wellbeing of a child.

I, for one, am glad she didn’t wash her hands of the matter, figuring that since she didn’t have a child of her own, she should ignore her hunch.

Three people close to me have spent some time in the hospital: two of them have had positive outcomes, but unfortunately, the third doesn’t seem to be destined for one.

Last week, my uncle called an ambulance when he started feeling pain in his arm and a tightness in his chest. At 74, he is overweight and has been for decades. He was sure he was having a heart attack. At the hospital, they did a few tests and determined that he wasn’t having a heart attack at that moment, but they scheduled a heart test for the next morning. After keeping him waiting for several hours — no doubt to keep the suspense up — they finally performed the test and the news was great: though there were signs of slight blockage in his arteries, none was serious enough even to require angioplasty. They’ll keep an eye on things, of course, but they ruled out his pain as being heart related. He thinks he may have pulled a muscle or slept wrong, and has been feeling better since going home. I’m glad to have those genes in my system.

My Dad had surgery this morning to repair some tendon damage in his shoulder. At first, it looked like a torn rotator cuff, a problem that I understand is painful by itself. But his problem turned out to be a lot worse. He had developed what turned out to be more than one bone spur and over time it did a number on the connecting tissue of the tendon in his shoulder.

The surgery, which was supposed to take about two-and-a-half to three hours ended up taking more than four because there was so much repair work that had to be done. Mom called me tonight to tell me that he was resting comfortably in the hospital and that they wanted him to stay overnight. The good news is that they expect him to recover, although it’s not entirely clear just yet whether he’ll have full function in the shoulder. Dad loves sailing (a passion my Mom and I do not happen to share), and a longterm loss of motion might affect his ability to get out on the lake. Then again, knowing Dad, he’ll definitely find a way.

The bad news is that my best friend’s grandfather is in the hospital battling severe emphysema and isn’t expected to hang on too much longer. This is an incredible family. On Christmas night, my parents and I went to their home. My best friend, his wife and kids came up from Florida. His grandparents live in an “apartment” at one end of his parents’ house. So I sat there enjoying the time with them and in the back of my head marvelling at the fact that I was witnessing a holiday gathering of four generations of their family.

From the moment that I first stepped through their door nearly 14 years ago, I was instantly one of their family. I was one of them, without any question. I lost my last surviving grandparent this past October. My best friend’s grandparents, affectionately known as “Ma” and “Pa,” have made me feel as if I’m their grandson all these years. My maternal grandfather died about six months after I was born. My paternal grandfather died long before I was born, and I had two step-grandfathers who were good to me, but it was never really like they were “real” grandfathers to me. “Pa” is probably the closest I’ve come to knowing what having a grandfather is like.

We’ve watched him get weaker over the past few years, going from being active well into his late 70s to being tethered to an oxygen tank, to being confined to a motorized wheelchair when walking was too taxing. On Christmas night, I visited with the two of them in their apartment, and he told me that he wasn’t in any pain, that nothing hurt, but that he just couldn’t catch his breath.

The family is keeping vigil at the hospital. I’m told that he is alert and lucid, but hasn’t the strength to speak because he can’t catch enough of a breath to force the words. It’s a very difficult time for them, and they know that I am there with them in spirit. I wish I could be there in person.

For those of you who are compelled to pray about such things, I’d ask you to remember this very loving, special family.

Even if you question his numbers, Joe Konrath has a very good reality check about the self-publishing industry over at his blog, “A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.” One of his commenters suggests that anyone considering POD should print it out, frame it, and hang it over their desks.

There are valid reasons for certain works to be self-published, and there have been authors who have self-published and then landed a traditional book deal because of it. But those success rates seem to be a lot lower than some of the more unscrupulous presses would have novice writers believe. Some of those novice writers end up getting lured into a deal that isn’t right for them just because of the appeal of having a printed book in their nervous little hands.

Konrath’s message isn’t necessarily not to self-publish, but rather to do a lot of research, don’t give up your rights, and know what you’re getting into and what you’ll really have to do to break even, much less turn a profit.

It’s definitely worth the read.

Christian conservatives are celebrating (and patting themselves on the back) after an announcement that NBC has pulled its remaining two episodes of “The Book of Daniel” from its schedule. Yes, there were only two episodes remaining: it had always been a limited series.

The show sparked lots of controversy for depicting a wide array of “modern problems” within the family of Epicopal Priest Daniel Webster, who popped pain pills to escape the reality of his life. But the plot device that sparked the biggest outrage was the character of Jesus, who appeared in a white robe, who would appear to have conversations with Daniel. They didn’t like the fact that the show was portraying Jesus as a character who was anything short of perfection…no jokes allowed.

Protesters flooded NBC and the advertisers who bought commercials during the show with angry mail threatening boycots. I have to wonder where these same people were when “Joan of Arcadia” premiered. In that show, a teen encountered God in various forms. In one early episode — it may have been the premiere — God appeared in the form of a school cafeteria worker. Does anyone picture God that way? I also wonder why the American Family Association isn’t picketing all of the movie rental places, which carry copies of the movie, “Oh God!” and its sequels, in which the late George Burns plays a wise-cracking Almighty. Maybe because Burns always assured his audience that he was old enough to be God, they let that role slip by their sensibilities.

One of the sad points missed in the rush to judgment is that no one ever said that the Jesus character who appeared on that show was meant to be the real Jesus Christ. Since he only talked to Daniel and was invisible to everyone else, it’s a safe bet that this was what Daniel imagined Jesus to be. How can one person’s imagination be an affront to an entire religion? I bet if you compare any two Christian’s personal visions of what Jesus or God would be like in person, you’ll still find differences between their descriptions.

The show itself wasn’t a great show in my opinion. There were a few people who got a big kick out of it, and there were occasional humorous moments. But it just wasn’t stellar television.

The promos that launched it, in all honesty, wouldn’t have made me watch. I can also say the same thing for the launch promos of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” a show that I liked a lot. My point is that promos don’t always tell the story about how good or bad a show is, although a lot of people judge a show’s merit solely by the promos. That’s the main way those who protested it came to condemn it; their demands that it be removed from the airwaves came long before it had ever been on the air at all.

What did make me watch was the furor over it. I wouldn’t have paid any attention at all had so many religious groups hadn’t raised their calls to action for a show they’d never even seen. Apparently, that’s what made a lot of other people watch at least the first episode as well. On a Friday night, which is usually a graveyard in prime time because it’s the night many people go out to get a headstart on the weekend, the premiere of the show garnered a 13.0 rating in Knoxville, Tennessee, a highly conservative community. Knoxville’s rating for the show was the highest in the country, according to Studio Breifing. As a promo producer, I’d be happy with any show that gets a 13.0 rating at 10pm on a Friday night.

But those big numbers were short-lived. What happened next only proves the democratic nature of television. People tuned in that first night, apparently didn’t like what they saw, and the ratings took a dip over the next two shows. NBC, which had at first been determined to press on with the show, now changed its mind.

This is not the first time a show that didn’t attract viewers was axed by its network. Protester back-patting notwithstanding, let’s take a reality check for a second: does anyone really believe that a ratings-challenged network would have pulled a controversial show if it had been able to attract and maintain an audience? If ‘Daniel’ had been bringing home the kinds of numbers that shows like “CSI:” and “Desperate Housewives,” it would still be on the air. And if advertisers knew that’s where the viewers were, there would still be plenty of companies wanting their products there, too. Would these same advertisers pull the ads after a couple of shows when they were threatened with boycotts? Probably. But by then, they’d already have gotten their ads on during two high-rated episodes. They pull the spots in response to a protest, make themselves look like “responsible” sponsors, but after getting their messages to the audience. Mission accomplished.

The catch to the democracy of television is that there are good