Perhaps the best analysis I've read...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/video/2011/nov/16/99-v-1-occupy-data-animation?INTCMP=SRCH

You could say the same thing about Paterno...

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/mike-mcqueary-what-angers-most-is-they-see-themselves-when-they-consider-his-actions-in-penn-state-sex-abuse-scandal-111711

Serial Monogamy

Some of you know about our house in Iowa. We've had it on the market since May, but there have been no offers. So we decided to take it off the market and rent it out, again. Posted an ad on Craigslist and got a huge amount of interest. One family that is relocating to the area seems like the perfect match for us. They sent a relocation specialist to look at the house. Pictures were taken, questions were asked, phone calls were made.

Earlier today I called the wife to tell her we've accepted her family's application and would be thrilled if she and her family would rent our house. She was happy, no doubt about it. But she wanted to talk it over with her husband, see a few more pictures from the relocation specialist, and "sleep on it." And given that they'd be taking a lease out on a house sight unseen, I really can't blame them.

I told her that we think they'd love our neighborhood and the neighbors. Our families have a lot in common and so it would be comforting to know that our property would be in good hands. And those of you who have followed our "Great Adventures in Out-Of-State Land Ownership" know that we are great landlords. I told her that we were going to keep our ad open, that the house will be scheduled to show again Wednesday night, but that we'd cancel it as soon as we got a signed lease from them. All in the interest of transparency. And she seemed totally fine with all of this. I found our entire set of interactions (email, text, and phone) to be refreshingly honest. It felt like the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

So tonight I got home and noticed that our Craigslist ad was off the front page. I festered over it for a while, and then, worried that we'd lose this family and not have any traffic at the next showing, renewed the listing.

And now, I feel like we totally cheated on the potential renters. Even though I told her we would continue playing the field. Even though there is no expectation of monogamy, I am totally freaked out that the family will wake up in the morning with the intention of renting our house but that she will go to Craigslist anyway, see the renewed ad, think we decided not to rent to her, and call me to break up with us.

I can't go back and delete the second ad, because that would remove the original one, and if they don't take the house I won't have time to repost a new ad before the showing tomorrow night. What I really need is a good cover story; one of those "it's not how things appear" alibis that always seem to work in the movies and Law and Order episodes. Got any suggestions?

Only in Iowa

Oh, those Iowa business professionals!  Always so innovative!

http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2011/10/10-if-you-guess-who-will-be-fired-next.html

Explain it to me like I'm a 4-year old...

"It's because most of their income comes from capital gains,"
 
From the war over "fixing the tax system" comes the argument that the super-wealthy's low tax obligations is because their money comes from capital gains rather than actual labor.  Interesting.  Because when people complain that public sector employees deserve higher taxes, it's because they aren't working hard enough.   But when people want to protect the wealth earned by gazillionaires, it's because they haven't been working at all.
 
Maybe Kevin Drum can explain it better...

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/lies-damn-lies-and-average-tax-rates
 
Or, maybe not.

I've been making this argument for years!

I'm so glad journalists are finally catching on:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-am-a-job-creator-who-creates-no-jobs/2011/09/20/gIQAhpgGjK_story.html

Twins!

I was finally feeling better. Josh and I drove to work together that morning and we stopped to get donuts to share with my office in celebration of my one-year anniversary at work. Truth be told, we were both feeling a little giddy over the excitement we expected to stir in my office. I shuffled through my papers, just to make sure everything was there. We second-guessed our plans, wondering if we should wait until the weekend when we were to fly back to Washington D.C. for the Jewish New Year, so that our family would be the first to know. But we were bursting with joy and couldn’t wait any longer; we decided to share our news first with the people who had become our Midwest family.

We parked in the A lot by Gilchrist Hall just as Iowa Public Radio started to run down the top news stories. It was 8:05 Central Time and the announcer made a brief mention of an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. Josh looked at me incredulously. I rolled my eyes, shook my head at the vision of some yutz and his Cessna collapsing down the side of the building ala Wile E. Coyote and thought to myself, “I bet that wasn’t part of his flight plan.”

We thought nothing of it.

When we got to my office, I walked to the conference room, opened the donut box and tacked the ultrasound to the wall. Josh stopped by my colleagues’ desks to say “hi” as he often did, reminded them that today was my one-year anniversary, and encouraged them to grab a donut. No one thought it was strange that he lingered in my office that day; he often hung around for a few minutes before he went to his own office across campus.

Sandy was first, and a moment later we heard a gasp and then “Robin!!” She came charging into my office and cried, “Twins!” and embraced us both. Within moments the rest of the office can streaming in, and Josh and I told and retold our story: how long we had struggled, how we resigned ourselves to ART, how the test the night before the doctor’s appointment made it all unnecessary, how we knew before the doctors that there would be two, and how I had spent the last five weeks praying to the porcelain god. We laughed, celebrated, and mingled, and after about 15 minutes the party started to break-up. Josh left for his own office and we all set down to work.

It was about 10 minutes later when Judy walked back in. “Robin, turn on the radio.” She said quietly. I turned to look at her. Her face had gone deathly white, and the cheerful smile she wore moments before had vanished.

“Turn on the radio.” It was all she could say, and I knew something was very, very wrong.

I went back to the computer, got online and listened to the instant stream of details. Images of horror flashed across the screen. I took it all in but none of it made sense. Pictures. Words. Yelling. Running. Flames. Smoke. Screams. Chaos. My head spun but I instinctively went searching for more news. But every damn site was just cycling through the same details of the two towers’ collapse and the same dreadful images of terrorized masses.

My stomach turned. I saw an online clip of someone leaping to his death from one of the Towers, and my heart stopped beating.

Finally, there was news of The Pentagon and an airplane crash in Pennsylvania. The world stopped breathing.

It would be a few days before all the events would come into focus. The death toll continued to climb and the devastation mounted. Media coverage was angry and the masses were incensed. New details gushed from various outlets daily and added to the collective rage and fury.

But I was a Zombie. I went through the motions at work and at home but my head was filled with fear for the world into which my children would be born. I was entering my second trimester, known as the “honeymoon phase” because my pregnant body should have adjusted to the additional blood volume and surging hormones. But instead of release, my stomach continued to clench and heave. I could feel the lights of optimism and humanity slipping from all of us.

I worried that the human race would never breathe again. And I cried that my twins would never know the world in which they were conceived.

Two horses

received from a friend:

 

Two Horses  Author Unknown Just up the road from my home is a field, with two horses in it. From a distance, each horse looks like any other horse. But if you stop your car, or are walking by, you will notice something quite amazing.... Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him. This alone is amazing.  If you stand nearby and listen, you will hear the sound of a bell.  Looking around for the source of the sound, you will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field. Attached to the horse's halter is a small bell. It lets the blind friend know where the other horse is, so he can follow. As you stand and watch these two friends, you'll see that the horse with the bell is always checking on the blind horse, and that the blind horse will listen for the bell and then slowly walk to where the other horse is, trusting that he will not be led astray. When the horse with the bell returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, it stops occasionally and looks back, Making sure that the blind friend isn't too far behind to hear the bell. Like the owners of these two horses, our mates don't throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges. They watch over us and even bring others into our lives To help us when we are in need.. Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by the little ringing bell of those who are placed in our lives. Other times we are the guide horse, helping others to find their way.... Good friends are like that... You may not always see them, but you know they are always there.. * Please listen for my bell and I'll listen for yours, and remember... Be kinder than necessary- Everyone you meet is fighting Some kind of battle. Live simply, Love generously, Care deeply, Speak kindly.......                                          FOR WE WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT

 

 

Character

The huge growth of our community theater program this year brought in a great deal of new and older talent. The result was that Ben, who previously had featured roles in every performance, had been cast in smaller roles and didn’t get as much stage time as he expected.

Though I certainly sympathized with him, I also saw this year as an opportunity for Ben to learn how to share the stage gracefully with others. As he watched his close friends be cast in more featured roles, I hoped Ben would become gracious with his own loss in the face of someone else’s success. If his passion for acting and performance is to grow, then he will need to find a way to embrace rejection and failure. He will have to learn to separate himself from his acting, to love his friends for their achievements in spite of himself. In short, he would need to grow some character.

Amazingly, Ben never uttered a word of disappointment. He was thrilled to sing his only solo as a member of the band in Grease. He memorized his few lines as the Constable in Fiddler on the Roof and labored over the many different approaches he could take delivering them. Throughout the year I was on the lookout for any cue of leaked discontent or frustration, but there were none. He happily chattered away about what happened during rehearsal. He sang in the shower, in the car, at the table. He practiced choreography alone in his room. He talked about the show and his friends. He was resilient and he was happy.

I was certain that the summer performance would have thwarted all that. When Ben refused to tell me the part he got, I knew we’d have a problem. After some cajoling, he finally told me: while his closest friends had all been given lead roles, Ben, once again, would be in approximately four scenes. Tears welled-up in his eyes. He expressed his disappointment that night, and I braced myself and Josh for the return of “Crabby Ben,” the child who lives with us when there are no plays to rehearse. But the frustrated actor never appeared. Ben went to work being the best damn Mayor that Whoville had ever seen.

Last week was the summer performance. After the show a group of mothers congratulated each other on our children’s fabulous work. One of them told me how much she admired Ben. “Did you know,” she began, “that when Joey was sick that entire week, Ben stood in for him?”

I didn’t know. I wasn't surprised, but I suddenly understood. His friend had been out sick for an entire week with a virus and very high fever. Ben, who has a habit of learning everyone’s lines, songs, and blocking, had seized the rehearsal spotlight. I joked with the mom, “that must have been just what he needed to feed his craving.”

The mom replied, “well sure, all the kids know each other’s parts. But how Ben handled the senior center practice performance was amazing.”

My brow furrowed in confusion and she could tell I had no idea what happened during the field trip. Then she explained: “Joey was still sick and Ben knew that Joey would be devastated if anyone stood in for him. Ben knew that part inside out, but he refused to perform it in front of an audience in deference to Joey.”

A lump grew in my throat; I fought to suppress my tears. In an instant I realized the magnitude of Ben’s sacrifice, his unwavering loyalty and his quiet humility. I guess I was too late with all that character building stuff. Ben had done it without me.

Amazing Word Game

from my mother-in-law
 

Did you know that, the words "race car" spelled backwards still spells
"race car"?

And that "eat" is the only word that, if you take the first letter and
move it to the last, spells its own past tense, "ate"?

And if you rearrange the letters in "Tea Party Republicans," and add just
a few more letters, it spells: "Shut the fuck up you free-loading,
progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent hypocrites,
and deal with the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush and
that our president is black, so get over it."

Isn't that interesting?

For Your Viewing Pleasure

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/cute-kids-dance-to-outkast/1jrz8zv9k

Boycott Amazon

Time was that I loved a good boycott.  But nowadays it's hard to find a corporation that doesn't do something that goes against my values; to punish every company for its various and sundry trangressions and violations would require me and my family to literally live off the land.  And we all know the apocalypse that would bring about. 
 
But Amazon is another story.  With its refusal to collect sales tax from consumers, this company has managed to inflame state governments (who lose out on millions of dollars in state revenue) and businesses of all sizes (who often can't compete due to the location of their brick and mortar locations.)  Sounds like an organization worthy of a boycott from both sides of the political aisle.  And so I hereby affirm that I will not make any purchases through Amazon until it changes its evil ways. 

Here's a recent article for some background, written by my new favorite blogger, Kevin Drum:
 
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/07/amazons-scorched-earth-fight-against-everyone

Everything in Moderation

Before they started school, the boys went to a fabulous pre-school in Iowa. One of their favorite friends there was a little girl named Maia. Maia lived near us and her family was part of our synagogue, so the boys saw her often. She was very big and very, very strong. She liked to play hard and yell loud, and the boys adored her.

Around the time the boys were four, I read a book called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee. It’s an outstanding book about raising resilient children without hyperventilating over their (or my) every possible misstep and mistake. The author explained the Jewish philosophy of balancing celebration, moderation and sanctification to help parents recognize the need to back-off from their kids: to allow unstructured time; to expect them to be rebellious; to refrain from rewarding every small deed; to allow them to fail, to compete, to complain. At a time when I was swimming in self-doubt about my parenting ability, this book was more than a breath of fresh air; it was my liberation.

The fact that the author used a Jewish philosophy was all the ammunition I needed to draw my children in. It wasn’t that teaching them Jewish laws mattered to me so much, but rather it gave me an easy explanation for the behaviors I wanted to guide the boys toward. For example, when the boys asked why we say blessings over bread and wine on Friday nights, I explained that “as Jews, we take ordinary food and make it special one night each week.” When they asked why we sang songs under the stars on Saturday evening, I explained that it was a Jewish way to celebrate nature. And when they complained about not being able to indulge themselves with junk food, I explained that it was because “Jews do everything in moderation.”

I was amazed at how well the moderation argument worked, especially for Noah. Practicing moderation in and of itself would not have been an easy sell for him. But being Jewish has always mattered a lot to Noah, and to say that this was “how Jews do it” was enough to satisfy his 4-year-old sensibilities.

I went to pick up the boys from pre-school one day and as I walked down the hallway to the classroom, I could hear Noah screaming at the top of his lungs. I entered the room and saw him and several other children flinging toys and stuffed animals off the top level of the loft in the corner of the room.

I called over to Noah, telling him to stop screaming and throwing things. He of course took no heed, and so I walked over to the loft and told him that it was time to stop. He looked around, noticing that all the other kids in the room were still screaming and having the times of their lives and asked me why he had to stop. I told him that we are Jewish, and Jews do everything in moderation.

He looked over my shoulder. I turned my head to see Maia scaling a post in the center of the room. She managed to shimmy herself all the way to the top so that her head was nearly touching the ceiling. She held on to the post with one arm and waved the other in the air, screaming to the other kids to give her some toys so she could throw them from her perch.

“Mom,” he asked, “do all Jews have to practice moderation?” I told him yes. He looked over to the post and to the girl who had scaled it, and with a look of deep concern said to me “Someone should tell Maia.”

Laugh

Growing up, I was pretty intense. I took everything that I did way too seriously and viewed all decisions I made, including what I ate for lunch, as if my future depended on them. I remember a lot of angst and sadness throughout my adolescence; lots of crying and very little laughter.

All of that changed when I auditioned for, and then became, a Disneyland character.

It was a Sunday in April, 1984. I received a “call back” for the second day of auditions. Upon arrival, we immediately performed the simple dance combination from the day before, and the call-back group was whittled down from there. Given my dance skills, I don’t know how it was humanly possible for me to have made it past that point in the process, but there I was standing in a backstage warehouse, donning a Minnie Mouse head, shoes, gloves, shell and dress.

What an odd sensation to have that ten-pound fiberglass helmet resting on my shoulders! My hearing was muffled as if my ears were enclosed by padded earphones. The mouse head smelled like old, wet laundry that had been sitting in a washing machine for days. Minnie’s eyes were made of the same plastic material from which ski goggles were made. From those plastic ovals, which were about six inches away from my face, I could view 12 feet of outside world in any single direction. And turning my head in another direction required twisting my entire body from the torso.

I stood in costume for a few moments while I gained my bearings: the transformation was sudden and magical. There was no need for intense brooding or solemn nobility. Masquerading as Minnie Mouse gave me a sense of liberation. Though the mouse head rattled on my shoulders with every bouncy step I took, I felt light and carefree. In an instant I had forgotten about chemical weapons, sham American presidencies, and college entrance exams. Minnie Mouse had no concern for such deep and dark issues. Minnie was happiness and laughter. And so was I.

It didn’t take long for me to get used to the physical limitations of the costume and I was soon ready to spring and bound across the room. I could hardly suppress my giggles as the flirty little mouse I imagined Minnie to be grabbed Mickey’s hand, ready to leap and skip with her playmates. Little did I realize that Minnie’s head spanned approximately 4 feet from ear to ear, and as I moved to join the other character candidates in the center of the warehouse, my mouse ear caught Goofy and I was sent sailing backward, falling to the ground in my mouse head. I lied spread-eagle and face up on the ground, my body cradled by the fiberglass shell that rounded Minnie’s body. I tried to get up but the fiberglass shell simply rolled from side to side. My legs and arms waved in the air as I thrashed about. I could see myself flailing about like an oversized and overturned dung beetle. And I started to laugh. In a surreal out of body experience I saw myself as the panel of judges must have seen me: some nebbishy kid and her futile attempts to lift her shoulders inches from the ground and hoist herself back to her feet, only to be propelled down again by the sheer weight of her oversized head!

I was laughing uncontrollably and didn’t want to stop. The laughter that bounced and echoed in my fiberglass head was intoxicating and all I wanted to do was lie on the floor and let the unfettered freedom and happiness consume me.

The sight must have been hilarious, because pretty soon everyone in the room was laughing as well. One of the judges came over to help me up, and I was certain that he would also be escorting me out of the warehouse. But Jeff Duke had been laughing so hard that he was crying, and he must have thought that my tumble and subsequent performance was intentional. It wasn’t long after that when I was given a date and time to report for orientation.

I’ve had the honor and privilege recently to read about the audition experiences of other Disney characters and I realize that my story is fairly blasé’ in comparison. For many the audition was a lifelong achievement and ambition. For me it was just the first time I fell in costume.

But I look back on it as the day I learned to laugh.