Sara McGrath's Open Salon Blog

Population minus eight hundred people

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:03:18 -0500

"Eight hundred people died in an earthquake." I said this to my seven-year-old daughter while she ate breakfast and listened absently to the radio news. I knew by her occasional comments that she does listen to the news reports with some attention.

"That will help with our population problem," she replied.

I paused, momentarily stunned.

I could have attempted to shame and criticize her for the insensitive remark. I can imagine many people in my life who would insist that I must do so. However, I simply said, "Yes."

I paused again, but only for a bare instant before I knew what to say. "The people who died had family who will miss them. Probably some babies died. Probably some mothers."

"Oh," my daughter said, "yes." Then she wrinkled her bottom lip as she does when she feels overcome with sadness. She does this when a favorite character in a movie dies, such as the sabor-toothed smilodon in the BBC's Primeval the other night. This child of mine is typically quite sensitive.

I didn't intend to add pain to my daughter's life. I didn't plan my words as a morbid moral lesson. Nonetheless, the words had escaped me. "Eight hundred people died in an earthquake" (LATimes.com, March 5, 2010). Perhaps from the simple need to express my own grief when faced with one among countless unimaginable tradgedies.

Yesterday's news reported one thousand killed in the war in Afghanistan (EurasiaReview.com, March 3, 2010).

Or perhaps I spoke those words in an attempt to breathe life into a number in a news radio report-800 lives lost, 1,000 lives lost. One life lost a thousand times.

Sixty people trampled to death during a stamped in an Indian temple (TheNational.ae, March 5, 2010).

Each life lost unexpectedly and tragically brings me back to my father's death. I know loss and grief. During the days following my father's death, my daughter witnessed my tears and withdrawals and tears again. I would not have expected my personal pain to expound so that I now shed tears for countless unknown loved ones of lost ones, but so it does.

One premature baby died from malnutrition and neglect (ABCNews.go.com, March 4, 2010).

The Chilean death toll was reduced from the initial estimate of 800 to only 550. Does that make it less tragic?

My daughter will probably think more about those lost lives. She might even say something about it to me.

Dan Savage is a retarded product of public education

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:02:56 -0500

Dan Savage of Seattle's The Stranger posted the following blurb.

"God only knows how many child abusers 'home school' their kids in order to isolate their children and avoid the scrutiny of teachers and school officials who are legally obligated to report suspected abuse to the authorities." ("Every Child Deserves a Mother and A Father." The Stranger, Feb 11, 2010)

Contrary to my usual tact, I'm going with some anger-fueled expression.

How many of these child abusers have you heard of? Teachers, little league coaches, priests, cub scout leaders, neighbors, family friends. . .

I was not homeschooled, yet I was abused. I displayed virtually every symptom of a sexually, emotionally, and physically abused child, yet my teachers did nothing helpful. On the contrary, my first grade school counselor told me I was sick, and I knew he meant sick in the head. My mother never even knew that the man was calling me into his office.

As a mandatory reporter when I ran a day care, I made several reports to social services which went ignored. I even called the child's school. Years later and she still lives with a known, previously convicted pedophile. Her mother knows it and so do her teachers.

As for the respondents to Mr. Savage's ignorant post who suggested that most people don't have the skills to pass on a basic education to their children, I ask you:

If you can't pass on a basic education to your children, presumably the same basic education you received from public school teachers, what makes you think your child's teachers can do any better?

If you think I can't pass on a childhood education to my children, you're essentially calling me stupid.

Steve Phillips, Brooke Hundley, Yvette Prieto

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 13:02:14 -0500

How can I live in this culture and not recognize the names which dominate the Google top 20 search lists? Quite simply, I don't spend my time watching TV, which apparently constitutes the supreme tranfer medium of culture. I'm shockingly, culturally blind.

I have nothing against television. It just doesn't compete for my attention. Apparently, I'm in the minority with this point of view, n.k.a. culture blindness.

It continues to surprise me that the majority of Googlers search for celebrity gossip, i.e., brief descriptions of sightings, scrambling for little bits of a celebrity's life. Of course, by joining the party, I can very quickly discover that the hyper-searched names all belong, not just to celebrities, but to celebrity couples.

Steve Phillips and Brooke Hundley (ESPN sex scandal!)
Michael Jordan and Yvette Prieto (public shows of wealth!)
Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian (gold manicure!)

Even so, I still don't feel the draw in focusing on the TV faces who apparently constitute cultural leaders. I feel sufficiently intrigued by the relationships among the folks whom I know personally. I've never seen American Idol. I don't get it.

I never wanted to get married

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:01:48 -0500

Husband translates literally to house master, and wife to woman, in effect, master and slave. I now pronounce you house master and his woman.

I never wanted to get married legally. Once upon a time, marriage meant setting up house with someone. Registration and filing fees didn't come into the process.

If one or the other marriage partner wanted out, he or she simply left the house or set (threw, burned) the others items outside the home. One of my sister's ex-house-partners strew the yard with her clothing and urinated on them. The experience hurt her feelings, but it didn't cost her any money or lose her any belongings, although her stuff needed laundering. She simply walked away.

I never wanted to get married. Nonetheless, I've married twice, both times for the financial incentives. I do enjoy the bonding ritual of a wedding. However, I don't refer to the financially ruinous modern wedding. Expensive weddings, in my opinion, negate the main value of marriage, the financial benefits.

Some people fear marriage because it's a difficult and expensive trap to get out of. I had that experience the first time around. My first love and I got married so we could share health insurance, tax deductions, and make joint purchases on credit. Those benefits turned into expensive complications when I left the house. I couldn't just walk away. I had attorney fees, court filing fees, joint debts, . . . .

After the couple of years it took to end my first marriage, I never intended to marry again. However, a couple of years into my next house-sharing-partnership, I again gave in to the financial incentives, which multiply with the addition of each shared child.

In my present marriage, I'm the husband. My partner gifts his children and me with food and shelter, for which we express supreme gratitude, but I'm the master. I have the experience, skills, and natural authority to make the home and feed the family. I'm no servant-wife. I know my value to my family.

I and the man whom I love and share home and children with, we don't really relate to one another any differently than we did pre-marriage, cooperatively as friends (as if we weren't married.) Our roles in the family compliment one another. We make that plain and value it.

However, by my observation of people I know, marriage more often changes the relationship so that one or the other or both partners act out ownership of each other. Apparently, the house-master and his woman ownership tradition pushes on, even when it goes the other direction or both ways between man and woman.

Back after un-sabbatical, the video game period

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:01:00 -0500

I've been playing a video game instead of thinking. Anyone who knows me knows how ludicrous that sounds. I don't play games. My husband, a game programmer, plays games. My daughters play games. Not me. I've remained, until recently, the only non-gamer in the house. Games, I said, held no interest for me (except as learning tools for my kids.)

I've felt too tire to think and express myself, so sadly I've missed the sense of relaxation and invigoration which thinking and expressing myself gives. On the other hand, I've realized the meditative value of video games, at least simple ones like Faunasphere, the one I've been playing.

I play it with my daughters. That makes me feel less slothly. We cooperate within the game to achieve one another's goals and I see that they learn about the concepts of genetic inheritance, time management, map reading, problem solving, etc.

Wait a minute. I guess that means I have been thinking.

But, back to thinking and expressing in my typical way. When I don't journal or participate in interesting conversations, I feel stuck in life and fall into depression. I have a need to progress, a.k.a. develop personally, grow and change, gain enlightenment.

During my childhood, my family moved at least once a year, sometimes more often. Even while in the same house, my mother would frequently move the furniture around. I don't feel comfortable with static, not even in my head. I move my furniture around. My sister does, too.

I've also been drinking coffee. I don't drink coffee. I didn't like the taste. Perhaps for lack of sufficient change in my life, my tastes are changing.

Well, gotta go. I've got tasks to accomplish in Faunasphere.