Miscellaneous Debris
Friday, December 06, 2002
I just received this note from my aunt, who often sends me wonderful stories about my grandmother, who died when I was five:
As she was dying, your aunt Glennis asked her what she would do different if she could live her life over again. She replied, "Be a gypsy."
I'm feeling a bit geeked out today. Somewhere in Dell-land the gnomes are assembling my new computer, which will magically appear on my doorstep just after they work their voodoo on my credit card statement. It's a shame that computers are: 1) expensive, 2) disposable, and 3) necessary (at least if you're a writer and Web developer like moi). By the numbers, it will be something like 7 times faster than the 400 Mhz Pentium II sitting on my desk — the one that, as of late, has sounded more like a percolating Mr. Coffee than a computer. Just doing my part in the War on Terror.
A couple interesting links have come my way in the last two days, and they make an interesting pairing. Is it strange that I have more respect for an obnoxiously earnest rock star than for my President?
Cathleen Falsani's coverage of Bono's seven-day AIDS awareness tour of the midwest captures a few soundbites that just kill me, particularly these two (which might accidentally get printed ad nauseum and placed on windshields in my church parking lot):
"Christ's example is being demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy, which is AIDS. The church is the sleeping giant here. If it wakes up to what's really going on in the rest of the world, it has a real role to play. If it doesn't, it will be irrelevant."
"To some people the church is their ticket to respectability, a certain bourgeois point of view, a safety net for when they go to bed. My idea of Christianity is no safety net, a scathing attack on bourgeois values, and a risk to respectability. By the way, I don't set myself up as any kind of Christian. I can't live up to that. It's something I aspire to, but I don't feel comfortable with that badge. It's the badge I want to wear."
Meanwhile, in another symbolic move that has left my brow furrowed and my head shaking, our Christian President has repealed the Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation Rule. In No Children Allowed, Jennifer Foote Sweeney tries to make sense of the move. I balk at some of her points, but greatly sympathize with her confusion:
This administration, in relentless pursuit of a religion-based conservative agenda, has used every means possible to undermine a woman's constitutional right to abortion, ban sex education that acknowledges the existence of sex, and promote marriage. Bush has used federal health policy, high-ranking committee appointments, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for abstinence-only and marriage-promotion programs to accomplish these goals. And now, in a move advertised as a way to keep the jobless happy, the president has eliminated a way for struggling families with employed parents to have children without descending into poverty.
There is much to be confused about here. Does this mean that poor Americans ensconced in the welfare-to-work program, who are being offered government money to get married, are not supposed to have children? What if they get pregnant? Does it mean that by having children they forfeit their right to care for them for the first few months of their lives?
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