Foundling Wheel story

Something else to think about:

Updating an Old Way to Leave the Baby on the Doorstep

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/world/europe/28rome.html?ref=world


And, again, I found some inconsistencies (arising, I think, from quoting out of context or perhaps a mistranslation). First I found this and wanted to post it so Julie could get her bile exercised – that’s what I’m there for, after all.

The boy, who was named Stefano by the hospital team after the medic on call that night, was dressed in clean clothes and seemed to have been breast-fed, Dr. Paolillo said, because he at first refused a bottle.
“It seems he was loved until that moment,” he added.

But before you start writing angry letters to Dr. Paolillo, he says this at another point in the article.

The discovery of an infant girl on the bed of a truck in July 2005 inspired Dr. Paolillo to create the Casilino cradle, which cost about $52,000. “It was obvious that the mother of that child wanted a better life for her,” he said, noting that the baby had been bathed and wrapped in a cloth to keep her warm. “Often, there is an act of love behind abandonment.”

Foundling Wheels, hunh. A night-drop box for babies. Imagine.

Auden and I

Some things to get off my chest. The reason I’ve been falutin’ at different altitudes than usual is that I’ve started reading W.H. Auden’s “The Dyer’s Hand.” Good stuff, and deep – I think. I qualify it because he’s the kind of author that presents things in a beautiful way, ordered, concise, with intriguing examples. The examples or similes are such that, by the time you’ve worked out how they might apply, you’re on his side because you’ve forgotten to think about a counterargument. Here’s an example. He’s talking about the difference between a contract (which is the basis of a master-servant relationship, the point of which I’m still trying to figure out) and a law.

[T]he relationship of all individuals to a law is symmetric; it commands or prohibits the same thing to all who come under it.

So far, so good. The law doesn’t make master-servant relationships. It allows them, but they are not the basis of law and its enforcement. But then comes the thing that’s still gnawing at me.

Of any law one can ask the aesthetic question, “Is it enforceable?” and the ethical question, “Is it just?” An individual has the aesthetic right to break the law if he is powerful enough to do so with impunity, and it may be his ethical duty to break it if his conscience tells him that the law is unjust.

What gets me is the “aesthetic question” and the “aesthetic right.” Aesthetics, as I understand it, involves beauty, nature, art, and the perception (and evaluation) thereof.

There are too many things going around in my mind surrounding this problem to put in a proper order, so I’ll just start spewing (please pardon me and skip this paragraph if it’s too tedious, I promise to finish up with something facetious). You prove your aesthetic right by exposing a law as unenforceable and therefore become an artist by cheating on taxes or hiring below minimum wage – this gets at the romanticism in certain crimes; criminals are artists; but are lawmakers or law-enforcers the artists on the other side; are laws beautiful or natural or artistic or are they the perception (and evaluation) of beauty, art and nature? - I’ll stop.


Other examples or points of his aren’t as well thought-out.

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. If my friend takes up Vedanta, I can accept it, but if he prefers his steak well done, I feel it to be treachery.

And it is. Treachery to Vedanta. Imagine, a Hindu eating steak.

(I'm telling you, publishers who don't read this, I'd make a good proofreader on a conceptual level.)

headlines

Cheney Unhurt After Bombing in Afghanistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/world/asia/27cnd-cheney.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?hp


Cheney Unhurt After Bombing in Afghanistan
“Almost” counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades, but not in suicide bombings.
Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
Even they know the power of non-violence.

Coco Tuesday

Sometimes I feel sorry for the cat, but then he’ll do something that makes me think he deserves what he gets.
Why write this on a Coco Tuesday? Because Coco is the prime enforcer of all things Baci. He lives for squirting the cat, even after the cat has already gotten off the table or counter or stove or wherever he’s not supposed to be. The cat, I assume, by now believes his name not to be Baci Kitty-Cat Boom-Bang, but Baci Get-Off-The-Table.
The silly cat happens to be curious about the bubbles the kids create in the bath and the kids help him out by having soap-ball fights. Yesterday, Coco topped the whole thing off by picking up the cat (after the kids had gotten out of the tub but before I had a chance to drain it) and throwing him in the water.
Ack. (More money in the shouting jar from me.)
But as soon as he’s dry, who does the cat snuggle up to?
I should just stay out of things.

Madge Monday

Madge has been delightful lately, so I don’t really have any good Madge things to relate.
She recently scrounged together twenty dollars so she could buy herself a computer game. I have more coins now than I know what to do with. So I put them in the “shouting” jar, something we instituted so the kids would feel a monetary pain for whenever they raise their voices, but it turns out that Julie and I now can no longer afford any non-necessities. The coins started off in the shouting jar, but Coco took them out and recycled them to Madge’s piggy bank, so I have no idea where the cash is right now.
I’m sure it’s redolent of some sort of governmental fiscal scheme, but I’m not sure which.

“Redolent,” jeez. See what happens when Julie’s out of town for a few days?

Here’s something else I’d never say when I have her to talk me down from my flights of cleverness:
I just hope our jolie fille sans s’il-vous-plait doesn’t turn into a belle dame sans merci.

But there you go. Have fun figuring out what I’m trying to say.

headlines

Making the Return Trip: Elderly Head Back North
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/us/26seniors.html?ref=us

Cheney Warns Pakistan to Act on Terror
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/world/asia/26cnd-pakistan.html?ref=world

Making the Return Trip: Elderly Head Back North.
For the first time since the Depression, the flow of the elderly has reversed (from the South, that is. The article mentions no Zombies).
Cheney Warns Pakistan to Act on Terror.
He might be the reason. “We told you. If you keep it up, we’ll turn this car around. Now move over, sonny. Time to fix this puppy.”

the n word

In our house, apparently, it's "nap."

This, by the way, is Julie's joke. Or at least that's where I heard it first. But, since it sounds pretentious to quote other people's punchlines, I'll just appropriate it. It's in our marriage contract anyway. "Paragraph 293: All insightful or humorous comments shall fall under joint proprietorship upon utterance and memorization, however faulty."

This is followed by "Paragraph 294: Any and all statements, however faultily remembered, may be dragged out in future arguments as proof of numbscullness."
However, as you may or may not remember, in our Bill of Marital Rights, "Amendment 2: Arguments spice up a dull evening, but might cause long-term damage. So, if you happen to be the male party of the undersigned, think twice and then shut up anyway."

post-neurologist post

Went to the neurologist yesterday. Everything seems fine.
But, man, poor Coco. He steeled himself on the subway ride, in order to get through the EEG. Then, when they asked him if he wants to sit or lay down, he chose laying down and hopped on the bed and put his head on the towel.
Then, when they were starting to put the wired on his head, his eyes got red and filled with moisture and he started rubbing them and said, “The sun’s too bright.
And so we find ourselves in another parenting dilemma. On the one hand, man, what a brave little kid; he’s only four and already has quite a grip on his emotions. On the other hand, poor guy; he’s only four and already has quite a grip on his emotions.
But, like I said, the visit went fine. Nothing showed up on the EEG and he conversed with the neurologist and on his next visit he’ll just be talking with her, no EEG. Yay.
Then, and I’m not sure what got into us, we went to Chuck E. Cheese on the way home. I had never been before. The kids had been with a foolhardy babysitter who realized that the whole situation was scary and abandoned ship. Very intelligently, she took them to Target for a quick bribe and then took them back home. But, because of this babysitter, we had quite a few game tokens left over and the kids really wanted to go.
And, quite frankly, if a kid doesn’t have seizures in that place, I don’t know what will set them off. I think if you’d pump Eeyore (the lethargic donkey from Winnie the Pooh) full of valium and sent him through that climbing tube (which Coco couldn’t get enough of), even he would convulse.

Headlines write themselves

46 Nations Call for Cluster Bomb Ban
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Norway-Cluster-Bombs.html?hp

Springtime for Hit’s End: ‘The Producers’ to Close
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/theater/23prod.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

46 Nations Call for Cluster Bomb Ban.
The bombs inflict ''unacceptable harm'' on civilians, particularly children.
Springtime for Hit’s End: ‘The Producers’ to Close.
Tony Danza inflicts ''unacceptable harm'' on civilians, particularly children.

future ceo headlines

Korean Men Use Brokers to Find Brides in Vietnam.
Would the brokers make more if they got a percentage of the brides’ future alimony?
Admissions Jockeying Starts Earlier in New York.
With the competition for mail-order brides stiffening, you can’t get started soon enough.

headlines

Britain to Cut 1,600 Troops in Iraq, Blair Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/world/middleeast/21cnd-blair.html?hp

Many Episcopalians Wary, Some Defiant After Ultimatum by Anglicans
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/us/21episcopal.html

Britain to Cut 1,600 Troops in Iraq, Blair Says.
Somehow the party isn’t as fun as they originally thought.
Many Episcopalians Wary, Some Defiant After Ultimatum by Anglicans.
Just watch out, in case 1,600 enforcers arrive to counter Episcopalian permissiveness.

Coco, belated

All I have to do is pay attention, really, and I get Coco tidbits. Here's one, if a little late.

When Coco said, "I'm just helping him take a bath," he was responding to which statement of mine?
a) Baci doesn't go in the dishwasher.
b) Where are you taking the shampoo?
c) Don't lick the cat.

headlines

For Fox’s Rivals, ‘American Idol’ Remains a ‘Schoolyard Bully’

Trial Spotlights Cheney’s Power as an Infighter

For Fox’s Rivals, ‘American Idol’ Remains a ‘Schoolyard Bully’
Audiences love the Seven Deadly Sins set to Karaoke.
Trial Spotlights Cheney’s Power as an Infighter.
If only he’d attempt to sing, then we’d have a winner.*

*The advertising revenue from his show could easily finance the anti-insurgency.

Coco Tuesday

Really more of a Madge thing than a Coco thing, but they’re both involved.
Whenever there are subtitles in a movie, for example when Jabba the Hut is talking or when daddy has the crazy idea that the kids might enjoy a Buster Keaton short, Madge reads the subtitles aloud, for Coco.
I have no idea whether he pays attention or not, but I find the whole thing very sweet.

Speaking of sweet. I was on the Subway on Sunday and, as it pulled into the Grand Street Station, the conductor called out “Gung Hay Fat Tsoy” (or however you want to transliterate it), followed by “Happy Chinese New Year.”
It’s amazing how a small thing like that can light up the faces of hundred of strangers.

Madge Monday

Poor Madgie seems sick today, on her day off.
But here’s something she did last week. In school they’re doing math with decimals, and they’re approaching it by play-acting a diner or restaurant.
The amounts listed were something along the order of 91 cents for a cheeseburger, 26 cents for a falafel.
Then Madge came home and made up her own menu, and you can tell she’s living in New York (the spelling is hers).

Pancake 6$
Pizza, pepproni tomatoes 22$
Tea 4$
Chcoclate cake 10$

(You non-New-Yorkers may laugh at this, but her pricing is quite representative.)

more headlines

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power

JetBlue’s C.E.O. Is ‘Mortified’ After Fliers Are Stranded

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power.
Training camps have sprung up across the border, in Pakistan.
JetBlue’s C.E.O. Is ‘Mortified’ After Fliers Are Stranded.
You never know how people will mobilize when things fail to take off.

catching up

I’ve been tired all week. Between lengthy sessions of watching “Bleak House,” seeing “Les Miz,” working, watching a Richard Lewis DVD, more “Bleak House,” and a night of limericks, I finally got some sleep last night.
All the listed activities were worth the time invested and sleep lost, but it made blogging difficult. The more tired I get, the more events seem irritating or even depressing rather than humorous. So I decided to just stick with the headline poems.
But now I’m back, I hope.

Yesterday, for example I learned from Madge that the reason she was such a sassy brat the night before was because she had been reading Harry Potter. While reading, she identified with our dear Harry and equated us, her parents (Julie in particular), with Umbridge. So, of course, she had to lash out.
See, today I find it funny. Yesterday it was so-so. The day before it would have made me mad.

We got to trudge through the snow a lot, too, and I got to tell Madge how I used to pretend I was walking through the wilderness in search of help for my trapped family and I had to watch out for wolves and traps and weak ice. She was very excited by all this. Hopefully I can get her to read some Jack London as a result.

Both of these incidents lead me to another observation. I have noticed, when kids play, that they like to identify with characters from movies or books. “I’ll be so-and-so. Who do you want to be?” And then they act out what happened or take it further.
I tend to think of characters, mostly, in terms of whether I like them or not. First, whether I like them as characters, then, whether I’d like them as friends or how I’d deal with them if they were real people. Sometimes I even think, “What would I do in that situation?” Hardly ever do I think, “I want to be him or her.” (Though sometimes I realize, of a character, often someone I don’t really like, “Hey! That’s me!”)
I wonder when in our lives this change happens? Is it a change in us or a change in the books we read?

A mixture of both, obviously.

And now I should probably take off my Princess Leia costume and go shopping or something.

rolling along

In Fraud Case, 7 Years in Jail for Contempt

Pressing Allies, President Warns of Afghan Battle

In Fraud Case, 7 Years in Jail for Contempt,
Failure to produce evidence earned a sentence as long as a full conviction.
Pressing Allies, President Warns of Afghan Battle.
Same 7 years, different domicile, but a disturbingly similar contempt.

88 Headlines

Tasty Tastemakers of the Runway

Bush Declares Iran’s Arms Role in Iraq Is Certain


Tasty Tastemakers of the Runway,
What you wear, away from the media’s eye, is picked up by the public.
Bush Declares Iran’s Arms Role in Iraq is Certain.
We’ve recognized some of our cast-offs from the Eighties.

(Here's an extra link, but only if you need it.)

tiny insight

Huh. Last night, mulling things over while falling asleep, I realized why the Chinese poetry as exemplified in the Japanese popular song is in a book of 101 Zen Stories.
I’ll be.
That stuff really works, I guess.
What is the reason? you ask.
I figure it’s because you can combine any two things to make one of those poems. Or, in other words, everything is connected. Try it for yourself. Go to the dictionary, open it up, and find some words.
I found “dog biscuit” and “recruit” on this time around. And, voila, a little mulling of the terms and you get:

A dog biscuit is a small reward, a bribe.
It motivates canines to perform the most absurd tasks.
Recruits are harder and harder to come by,
And yet small treats make them roll over and play dead.

Sorry about the pessimism creeping into these things. It might be the weather. Still, I stand by my point.