My Kid Is Smarter Than Your Kid

Noah, my three-year-old son, showed off his smarts a couple times today.

Starting back when Paige and I were first married, we’d do this horribly cutesy thing I only share because it relates to today’s story. When one of us would say, “I love you,” the other would reply, “I love you more.”

“I love you more.”

“No, I love you more.”

And back and forth it would go. These, it turns out, are the heady debates of a pair of philosophy majors. We never did this in public, and any observer would have been forgiven for throwing up a little bit. I’m embarrassed to share it now. But it’s our thing, and I’ll cop to it.

Today, Noah climbed onto our bed to wake me up (Paige was already up and about) and started an “I love you” war, which consists of “I love you”s which get progressively louder until we’re shouting them at each other. Falling into an old habit, I said (no, shouted), “I love you more!”

“I love you more!” he replied.

“No, I love you more,” I corrected.

“I love you more, too.”

Why, in almost nine years of marriage, did neither of us think of that one?


This evening he surprised us again. Noah prefers for his mother to read to him while he goes to sleep. I remember more than a few “chopped-liver” moments, when he politely asked me to leave the room so his mommy could put him to bed. Tonight, after his bath, I picked him up, carried him into his room, helped him climb into his PJs, and then flew him out to the living room to get his favorite pillow. When we came back, Paige had dimmed the lights and was preparing the blankets.

“Would you like Mommy or Daddy to put you to bed tonight?” I asked him.

Noah looked down at Paige, already climbing into her position on his bed, then he stared off into the distance, thinking really hard. For a moment, both Paige and I thought he just might surprise us and choose me tonight.

Finally, he spoke.

“I want Daddy and Noah to go out to the living room. Mommy can go to bed.”

Tone-Deaf Economics

A piece in today's New York Times titled "You Are What You Spend" tries to make th case that we shouldn't measure the differences between rich and poor in terms of income (which stands at at 15:1 ratio from the top quintile to the bottom) but in consumption. This lowers the difference to a 4:1 ratio. Yes, the top quintile only spend an average of four times as much as the bottom. This is supposed to be comforting to those who have been concerned that wealth distribution is becoming dangerously imbalanced in this country.

First of all, if the wealthy can afford to spend four times as much as the poor, that alone should be cause for concern. A four to one ratio doesn't sound so bad in raw numbers, but let's translate it to goods. Let's say we're talking about cars. If the poor can afford a $10,000 car, the rich can spend $40,000. Think about the differences in models between $10,000 and $40,000. But wait, do the wealthy spend four times as much as the poor on bread? On toilet paper? If the proportion is less than 4:1 for some goods, it must be even greater for others. Instead of thinking in terms of the size of a house (one expects the house of a wealthy person to be significantly larger than a poor person's) think of it in terms of a mortgage payment. If the poor person spends a thousand dollars a month on housing, the wealthy person is spending four thousand. That's a lot of house.

If this isn't disturbing enough, let's consider the real danger here. The article argues that this movement from 15:1 to 4:1 should be comforting, but why the huge differential between the income and the spending of the wealthy? Shouldn't that be the crux of the article? It isn't. The article gives this issue a single sentence: "The rest of their [the wealthy's] income went largely to taxes and savings." Well, how much of that is taxes? If it's mostly taxes, that would seem to imply a very progressive tax structure keeps the wealthy from outspending the poor 15:1. Imagine the social consequences of a 15:1 world. Try to imagine people who buy bread that is 15 times better than yours. What would butter that's fifteen times more expensive than mine even taste like? What would toilet paper that's fifteen times better than yours feel like? Talk about two Americas. These quintiles would be on different planets.

But what if it's not mostly taxes? What if it's mostly savings? The writers of the article, W. MICHAEL COX and RICHARD ALM, seem to be implying that there is not a significant difference between people who can save such a vast portion of their income, and people who can't afford to save anything. If we measure the differences in our social classes merely by consumption, this implies that the amount saved is irrelevant. But it shouldn't take an economics degree to know that savings matters. Not only do people who have massive amounts socked away sleep better at night, but they can make better long term financial choices (improving their financial situations and widening the gap), and they can weather larger economic downturns while the folks on the bottom get hit without any protection.

But luckily we're not in for any recession anytime soon.

Oh, wait.

The Most Dangerous Language Game

Taking a break from the novel I'm working on, I came up with this little short story.

While holding his rifle in one hand and scanning the dense jungle, the hunter scratched his khaki pants. The pants held special significance for him. Back in 1880 his father had taken part in a conflict known as the Transvaal War, where he’d helped defend a garrison of his fellow Englishmen from a hoard of Zulu warriors. From this conflict, the term “khaki” became the popular term for the style of pants worn by British soldiers. The hunter’s father had gained something else from the conflict. Enamored with the sound of the word (and perhaps a bit nostalgic for his glory days), upon his return he’d convinced his wife to agree to name their third son “Boer”.

Boer rested the butt of the rifle on the plank on which he sat, holding the long rifle by the stock. Because Boer’s father had done quite well for himself in business during the Great War, his son could afford to travel the world, hunting for big game. Now the Englishman sat in a tree on another island, closer to South Africa than the south side of Brighton. The jungles of Madagascar held their share of game, and the lush vegetation made for picturesque scenery, but Boer couldn’t help feeling a bit of ennui. So this was his life, Boer thought. No particular purpose, no ambition beyond his own amusement. And this particular amusement had led him to a blind in a tree in a jungle, far from friends and family. It had led to more waiting.

While the hunter sat in the seat some three feet off the ground, obscured by the squat tree’s dense foliage, the large wild pig prepared to attack. Sneaking through the underbrush, the beast avoided detection by pure luck. Boer, distracted by his mild existential crisis, failed to notice the rustling below him. The pig, a hundred kilos of muscle, wiry hair, and rudeness, identified the hunter as a threat (and possible lunch) by smell, and prepared to use all 20 centimeters of its protruding tusks to pierce the wooden plank separating it from its prey.

So, to summarize, while Boer sat and contemplated his boredom, a boorish boar prepared to bore through his board.

This proves that English, even for the English, can be a pain in the ass.

Tear it down!

Please go here and sign this petition from Amnesty International. We need more Americans to sign on, if only to let the world know that most of us do not support extraordinary rendition, incarceration without trials, kangaroo courts, classified evidence, torture. I want desperately to believe that America is better than this, but if we sit on our hands and allow our government to perpetrate a host of crimes at Guantanimo Bay, well... We're as bad as the actions we allow to be done in our name.

So, please visit www.tearitdown.org

Thank you.

My Christmas Poem

Our pastor asked us to create some artwork to express our prayers this Christmas, and to bring it in to share at church tomorrow. I wrote this poem. Blogger is throwing off the formatting (It should be indented on the uncapitalized lines) but I think it still makes sense. We'll see how it goes over.

Christmas in America
-by Ben Gorman

I picture
Sun on sand
melting the horizon
Suffocating heat
Dry grit
scratching their throats.


They have no coyote
to lead them across the desert
But there are no border guards
Or walls
Or Christians
with rifles
Waiting on the other side.

The teenage mother
Her baby
Her new husband
(not the child's father)
Walk across a desert
To become illegal immigrants
because of a dream.

When they arrive
They will not speak the language
They will take jobs away from the locals
And their baby
will be a drain on the economy.

This Christmas
I can't help but think
The child
is lucky
The parents are taking him to Egypt
And not bringing him
here.

Song of the Strategic Sword Salute

I am no poet. I write perhaps a poem a year. But tonight I’ve written one I’m proud of, and want to share. First, some context: A colleague of mine took her Senior College Lit. Class to see the new film version of Beowulf, which was rated PG-13. She reported that it was good, very bloody, and filled with airbrushed nipples and conveniently placed objects to hide Beowulf’s… epic heroism? What follows is an edited version of our email conversation:

Lori,
I thought you could use this in class. Beowulf: A review in verse.
It's by Dana Stevens, the film critic for Slate, and one of my favorite critics. In fact, after this review she's my favorite, hands down. Enjoy!
-Ben

Ben,
Ah-hah!
I love it! I will share this with them tomorrow. Their reviews are due tomorrow as well. They had to give an overall evaluation and recommendation but zero-in specifically on two strong points and two weak points --I told the boys their two strong points could not be Angelina's boobs.
--Lori

Lori,
Could Angelina's boobs be the strong points if they wrote about them in verse? Points lost for lechery, but made up for in creativity?
-Ben

Ben,
Hmmm . . . perhaps. I don't suppose I'd mind so much either if the girls did "an Ode to Beowulf's Buttocks" (or a "Song of the Strategic Sword Salute"). Ha ha!
Did you guys go see it yet?
-Lori

Lori,
We were planning on going Sunday, had a babysitter and everything, and decided to go to Olive Garden and just enjoy each other's company instead.
I do want to read "Song of the Strategic Sword Salute", though. A limerick or two, perhaps:

Silly MPAA,
Look how many extras we slay.
Unprincipled movie raters,
What made you penis and nipple haters?
And why do you find so much violence okay?

So a sword must be strategically placed.
And often, since he moves with such haste.
Characters can lose their heads.
Kids can take that image to their beds.
So long as they don't see that which has been replaced.

-Ben

State Radio Concert

Tonight I went up to Portland to see the band State Radio. I went by myself. I do not recommend attending concerts alone. Because of the long drive, the high cost of alcohol, and the fact that I've become something of a teetotaler, I didn't buy anything to drink. Because I didn't know anyone I found a quiet space in the corner to sit during the opening band. So, there I was, stone cold sober, sitting by myself in a room full of happy, marginally inebriated twenty-something hipsters. And suddenly, I felt like I was simultaneously the oldest man in the room and back in high school.

Luckily, the opening band was good. Why We Fear Fiction, a local Portland band, put on a high energy show, and the lead singer, besides having a powerful voice, is easy on the eyes, especially with her hair dyed a flaming red that almost matched her red cocktail dress, so that didn't hurt. Still, I felt deeply self-conscious sitting all alone, so I went up close to the stage when State Radio, the headliners, came out to play.

They were nothing short of amazing. Wrapped up in my self-consciousness, I didn't want to dance, but the music was so infectious that I couldn't help it. I didn't want to sing along, even though I love the stinging and ingenious political lyrics to their songs, because I try to be sensitive to the fact that the people around me at a concert did not come to hear the funny looking bald dude in the back of the mosh pit singing his heart out. But the band encouraged us to sing along, and frankly, it was so loud no one could hear me anyway (I hope). By the end of the show I was jumping up and down and head-banging with such ferocity that I thought at one point I might be experiencing a mild heart attack. When the lights finally came up I sat against the stage and caught my breath for a while. It was that good.

Out back, by the bus, I got to shake hands with the lead singer and the bassist, and get a couple signatures for a State Radio flag I'll hang in my classroom.

All-in-all, the moral of the story turned out to be this: Don't go to a concert by yourself, especially if you are thirty, not interested in finding a date, not interested in drinking, and consummately uncool. Unless, that is, the band is State Radio.

How It All Ends Video

A friend of mine is posting a whole series of videos, beginning with this one. I hope everyone checks them out, especially those who are still skeptical about the very real and imminent danger of global climate catastrophe. The first is ten minutes long, but worth your time. The others in the series are for folks who have specific questions about the points of the argument and want more information. Please pass these on to anyone you know who is intelligent and rational but still skeptical about climate change.



Check this one out, along with the others, HERE.

Response to a horrid forward

I received the following forward (at the bottom) from my Aunt, who was rightfully skeptical, after receiving it from another member of our family. Here is my response, and please make sure this information is spread to anyone trying to promote this deceptive anti-Obama conspiracy theory:

This e-mail forward is filled with lies. I hardly know where to begin. First of all, a quick google search can't find any association between the name William H. Shay and Yale University, ever. Except in this forward, which has been posted on a couple of "Christian" websites. That connection between a falsely attributed e-mail and its repetition by Christians reminds me of a Bible verse from Revelation 21:8:
"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

Moving on to the lies in the letter itself:
Fox News did a smear story where they asked the question about whether or not the school Obama attended when he was 6 was a madrassa, or Islamic religious school. CNN sent a reporter to the school to verify. Here was the finding:

"...He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.

"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."

Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.

"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."

Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."

"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."

The Obama aide described Fox News' broadcasting of the Insight story "appallingly irresponsible."

Fox News executive Bill Shine told CNN "Reliable Sources" anchor Howard Kurtz that some of the network's hosts were simply expressing their opinions and repeatedly cited Insight as the source of the allegations.

Obama has noted in his two books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," that he spent two years in a Muslim school and another two years in a Catholic school while living in Indonesia from age 6 to 10."

As to the claim that Obama is a Muslim, that's patently false, also. Obama has openly discussed his Christianity frequently, including giving a speech described as follows: "(Obama's speech on faith) may be the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican...Obama offers the first faith testimony I have heard from any politician that speaks honestly about the uncertainties of belief."
-E.J. Dionne, Op-Ed., Washington Post, June 30, 2006. To watch the speech, go here: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/

Is it possible that Obama is secretly a Muslim? Sure. But there is absolutely no evidence of that. It's also possible that Mitt Romney is a Scientologist (he did claim that one of L. Ron Hubbard's books is his favorite), but I believe him when he says he's a Mormon. It's also possible that Rudy Guliani is secretly a Buddhist, that Hillary Clinton is a Hindu, and that former Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee secretly worships the Hale-Bop Comet, but there is no evidence to back up those claims, either. With Christianity, as with any religion, we're known by our works. Only Obama worked with churches in the inner city in Chicago to help the poor. In fact, to my knowledge, he's the only candidate to convert to Christianity, rather than being born into a Christian (or Mormon, in Mitt Romney's case) family. And, unlike the conservatives who focus on who Christians should hate with their anti-gay, anti-abortion rhetoric, Obama is one of the only candidates who actually talks about Jesus' emphasis on serving the poor, the hungry, and the prisoner. In contrast, the Republican candidates (with the exception of John McCain, who knows what it feels like to be a prisoner), have all promised to hold more prisoners in Guantanimo Bay and continue torturing them, a stance that's hard to justify with Christianity.

Another lie: Barack Obama did not take his oath on the Koran. Perhaps William H. Shay (who can't even spell "Koran" correctly) confused him with Keith Ellison, a congressman from Minnesota. Oh wait. I forgot. William H. Shay, at least the one who works at Yale, doesn't exist! Or maybe mythological Mr. Shay is confusing Barack Obama with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida who took her oath on the Tanakh, the Hebrew scriptures. Or maybe he's confusing Obama with President John Quincy Adams, who took his oath to be president on a law volume instead of the Bible to illustrate that this was a country built on laws, not any single religion. (Regardless, Keith Ellison eventually decided not to take his real oath on the Koran, because the swearing in ceremony is just a photo op, and the real Congressional oath is taken on the floor of the Congress in one big group, with no books at all.)
What about this Wahabi conspiracy? Well, Wahabi Islam is an extreme sect, but Obama was never involved with it. Who was, in our government? After George H.W. Bush left the presidency, he took a job with the Carlisle group, a lobbying group that tried to procure weapons for Saudi Arabia, a nation whose government is clearly infiltrated by Wahabists. George the Senior even started calling one of the Saudi princes, named Bandar, "Bandar Bush". Bandar's adoptive brother, George W., just gave the largest weapons deal ever to Saudi Arabia. So, why would the Wahabiist need to get a mole into the White House when they can buy a Connecticut-born Cowboy through his father? I am far less concerned about Obama, who is criticized for being overly forceful when condemning the government of Pakistan for not helping get Osama Bin Laden (Obama threatened to go into Pakistan and get Bin Laden with or without Pakistan's permission), than I am about our current president giving Wahabiists huge supplies of weapons.

Normally I don't take deceptive e-mails like this too seriously. Anyone can spew a bunch of lies. But in this case, they are defaming the character of the person I think would be one of the best presidents in U.S. history, and using bigotry against Islam and ignorance as their means. Luckily, no one in our family is enough of a bigot or an ignoramus to fall for this, of course, but please forward this on to anyone who might have received this e-mail, so no one gets away with this deception.

-Ben Gorman
a real person
not an employee of Yale University



>Begin forwarded message:>
>
>Subject: FW: Important - Who is Barack Obama
>
>
>Subject: Important - Who is Barack Obama
>
>You'vegot to read this written by William H. Shay at Yale University
> > >
>Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in
> > Honolulu , Hawaii , to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from
>Nyangoma-Kogel , Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHIEST from Wichita , >
>Kansas .
> > >
>Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii . When Obama was two
>years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya . His
>mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia .
> > >
>When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia . Obama
>attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent Catholic school.
> >>
>Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is
>quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also
>attended Catholic school."
> > >
>Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that
>Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this
>influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned
>to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct
>influence over his son's education.
> > >
>Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, AnnDunham,
>introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school
>in Jakarta .
> > >
>Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim
>terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the Western world.
> > >
>Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN, when seeking Major
>public office in the United States , Barack Hussein Obama joined the
>United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim
>background.
> > >
>Let us all remain alert concerning Obama'sexpected presidential
>candidacy.
>The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside
>out. What better way to start than at the highest level - through the
>President of the United States !
> > >
>ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office - he DID NOT use
>the Holy Bible, but instead the Kuran (Their equivalent to our Bible, but
> very different beliefs.)
>Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading
>ourcountry?......NOT ME!!!
>William H. Shay
>Yale University - Procurement
>(203) 432-4656

A Teacher's Dark Days

I just finished watching Half Nelson, a powerful film about a teacher who works in a tough school with tough kids. Unlike so many puff films about heroes making a difference, this guy is the classic missionary teacher with a dark twist; he has a serious drug habit. To be fair, the strength of the film is the pairing of his story with the story of one of his kids, who is fighting to stay out of the life that has landed her brother in jail, the life of a drug dealer. You can probably imagine how this might cause a painful intersection in the lives of this teacher and student.

But I naturally identified more with the teacher. And, though I don't have a horrible drug habit, I couldn't help but see a little too much of myself in the character. On my darkest days, I think there are two kinds of teachers. There are the a-holes who are arrogant enough to think they can make a difference in kids' lives. And there are the a-holes who just can't do anything else. On my dark days, I think I may be both.

I know we are cogs in the machine, filling our roles just as the students do, perpetuating the system as much as we challenge it. The best we can do, as cogs in the machine, is lean just a little. We shift our weight, in hopes that we might affect the machine's trajectory, if only by a degree or two. And on my darkest days, I realize how little I weigh.

I weight about 135 pounds. Tonight it doesn't feel like enough.

Summer is supposed to be the time for teachers to recharge. Instead, I sulk in the sweltering heat, like cheap meat in stew, thinking about my role and how well I fill it. I look forward to being back in my classroom. It's easier to believe I'm making a difference when I can see my students. In their presence I don't feel as insignificant, as weightless. During the school year I don't have the time to read three or four daily newspapers and contemplate my status as a casual observer of mountains of injustice. I have plenty of work to do, but in the summer I have just enough time to wonder if it's all worth while.

135 pounds. And still leaning.

Towards September.