It has been pointed out to me by an anonymous but apparently dissatisfied source that "there has been a L-O-N-G dry spell on the blog lately." Therefore, having been dragged kicking and screaming by my fingernails back to the keyboard by my ever-demanding public (consisting, no doubt, of about, oh, three people, but what the hey, it's a "public" in my book), I'm now pummeling my so-called brain to come up with interesting things to say.
Failing to come up with anything scintillating, enlightening, or even (at the minimum) marginally distracting to say, I'll fall back on the cheat used by veteran bloggers (of which I, clearly, am not one) all over the world - I'll throw pictures at you!
That one's for you, Pops.
(There, that should keep them occupied for a few minutes, while I think up something else.)
At the risk of getting into way too much detail for those of you who aren't sitting on the edge of your seats to hear every little detail about Joshua's every movement and utterance, here's what's been going on with him this week:
1. He has backslid a bit on the sleeping-through-the-night thing - last night he woke up twice, to his mother's semi-dismay. (Even then, she said on her way out the door, "He's just so cute, I can't possibly be mad at him, even when he keeps me awake at night!") This is perhaps somewhat related to Small But Subtle Change in Behavior #2, which is...
2. ... that he has started looking at his before-bedtime feeding as a Wrestling Opportunity, as well as a Chance To Argue His Way Into More Time Awake With Parents. This started Monday night, when after gulping down his first two ounces of formula, he began twisting around and yelling and complaining and wrestling the bottle away every time the nipple came near his mouth as I tried to give him more. One thing's for sure: whatever other body parts he might not have figured out yet, he's certainly developed his tongue into an impressive tool, since he can come up with all kinds of ways to use it to thwart my attempts to feed him with a bottle when he really doesn't want it. After battling with Simba the Grumpy Baby Lion Cub for about half an hour, I finally called for reinforcements, and Felicia brought me a bottle of breast milk to substitute for the formula, to see if that made any difference. It did, but only for a little while - I guess he must have decided that hey, if this squirming-and-complaining-and-going-on-a-hunger-strike routine worked that well in getting an upgrade from formula to breastmilk, he might as well try it again and see if he could get bumped up to Booby Time (read: Baby Nirvana). We drew the line at that, and ultimately got him to bed, after much mobility and bottle-dodging on his part. He got his revenge, though - he was up again within three hours, and this time got The Boob. Victory was his! (Sigh.)
Let's hope this doesn't become a pattern.
3. More enjoyably, His Squirminess finally discovered why opposable thumbs are such wonderful devices this week - he started grabbing onto toys that his Daddy hands him. Granted, he doesn't hold onto them for very long, and he hasn't yet discovered the Next Fun Thing that'll no doubt come along (namely, that opposable thumbs, along with all those fingers, can also be used to pull every possible kind of grabbable object toward one's mouth), but I'm sure it won't take him long.
Yes, I've got this major milestone in his genius-caliber existence on videotape. Maybe this afternoon, if y'all are especially nice to me, I'll dump the video into the computer and get it posted on the Neptune site. (So stop yer grumbling, or else! Ha!)
Otherwise, life has been going on as normal. I've been at work in the garden, a bit, as baby and other commitments and weather have collectively allowed. I've been doing my best to get back into a physical therapy and gym routine to take better care of my knee, having been suitably cowed by my various doctors and therapists and other such sadistic torture-mongers. Felicia and I took the baby out to Ashland yesterday, and had a nice relaxing afternoon, me meeting with Rabbi Jackie for another in my long sequence of conversion classes and Felicia breastfeeding the baby in the park and doing some baby shopping in a wonderful little store on the plaza. A good time was had by all, except for the puppy, who was left home alone all this time and was very, very happy to see us when we got back late in the evening.
Meanwhile, on the larger canvas, like everyone else in America who isn't living under a rock and has some vague awareness of the political process, I've been watching the events unfolding after Sandra Day O'Connor's surprise resignation with a mixture of resignation, indignation, and bemusement. It's a strange thing, to be sitting here fully aware that one's country is changing while one watches, due to perfectly obvious and visible processes and events, and not be able to do a thing about it - just sitting by and looking on and listening while the wall that has separated church and state so well, and with such great benefit for so many people, for the past two hundred years and more, comes crumbling down around us, while an appallingly large number of Americans cheer and egg the President on.
Including members of my own extended family, no doubt, which is what particularly saddens me. Case in point: I received an e-mail from one of them, no doubt sent with the best of intentions and in all obliviousness to the effect it'd have on me and those like me, the gist of which was that this is a Christian country, and those unpatriotic souls who keep trying to keep (Christian) prayer out of schools and keep (Christian) Biblical excerpts and (Christian) holiday decorations out of the public realm should just recognize that this is a Christian country founded by Christians for Christians, and just get over it. After all, it was the religious right who won the last election, and that's what elections are about, isn't it? The majority that won gets to impose its will on the minority that lost. If you were in Saudi Arabia, you'd expect to hear Muslim prayers; if you were in Israel, you'd expect to hear Jewish prayers; so anyone who thinks we shouldn't expect to hear Christian prayers in America is simply denying reality and the intent of the Founding Fathers and, basically, being downright un-American.
There are so many things wrong with this outlook that I don't even know where to begin, but it's really had me down, and upset, and frustrated for the several weeks since I got it. (And no, I haven't said anything about it to the relative in question, at least up to this point - though I have no idea whether or not this person ever checks this little blog. What can I say? I'm a chicken about confrontation.) Let's just sum it up by saying that this was a country founded, in very large part, on the principle of religious freedom - which means not having the will of the majority religion, whoever they are and whatever their beliefs, imposed on the minority who believe differently, whatever they believe. And "freedom of religion" does not mean you are free to choose whatever brand of Christianity you prefer (unless, of course, you want to be Mormon or a Jehova's Witness, of course, in which case you're almost as screwed as you would be if you were, say, Jewish, or Muslim). It means you're free to choose to believe whatever you want, including no religion at all, and not be hounded about it, made to feel un-American because of it, given a litmus test for public office (explicit or implicit), be required to submit to another religion's public and compulsory prayers, in school or elsewhere, or otherwise be made a second-class citizen or be excluded from full participation in American society because you do not share the mainstream's religious views.
There is a very large difference between being a country that has a majority Christian population, and being a "Christian country," in the sense that this cousin meant it and that many on the religious right are claiming the United States is or should be. In Saudi Arabia, Islam is the official religion, and is compulsory - no other religion is tolerated, no other is recognized, and the country explicitly and heavy-handedly denies full rights (including freedom of worship and expression) to those who follow other faiths. Is that the kind of country we really want to be? Israel, although it embraces freedom of religion and has very large Muslim and Christian (and other) minorities that are full citizens and are granted full freedom of worship, was founded explicitly to be a home for the Jewish people, and Judaism therefore and understandably has a special role in the public and political life of the country. The United States, in stark contrast to either of these cases, was founded upon the principle of full freedom of religion (along with freedom of occupation, speech, and all the others that so many fought and died to establish and protect) - and although most (not all) of the founders would have identified themselves as Christian to a greater or lesser degree, they explicitly rejected the idea of enshrining their own personal beliefs in any official way in the founding documents of this country (although a few relatively harmless and non-specific references to "God" and the "Creator" managed to find their way in, at the insistence of what passed at that time for a religious right). Indeed, the country's founders went to great lengths to protect freedom of belief and conscience - perhaps because the memory was still very fresh in their minds, back then, of what can happen when a religious majority (including a Christian one) is allowed to mix church and state, with all the power and authority and force and potential for abuse that comes along with the trappings of the state. The experience most of them had in mind, after all, was with the England of the time, which most of their ancestors had fled specifically to escape the tyranny of conscience and belief imposed by the Anglican Church.
This country was founded by French Huguenots (Protestants) who had fled from Catholic France, Methodists and Baptists and Quakers fleeing from persecution in England, Jews fleeing from persecution pretty much everywhere, and Deists and Enlightenment thinkers who believed only vaguely in God, if at all, who wanted to be left to philosophize or experiment or just plain think in peace. All of them, minorities who had been oppressed by a State-empowered majority religion in their home countries. And all of them, when they got here and set about to found a country of their own, agreed on one thing, if only one thing, when it came to religion: none of them wanted the others imposing beliefs on them, however many of the "others" there might be, and however few of them. And to a remarkable degree, up until fairly recently, and with a few bumps along the way, they succeeded in creating a country where everyone could believe what they wanted.
So this cousin's e-mail both saddened and irritated me. Not least because it was simply wrong, on many accounts, both philosophical and historical. Also not least because the kind of country the e-mail seemed to be advocating was one in which I'm not sure I would recognize, or particularly like. And also not least because it's an attitude that I seem to be hearing everywhere these days, in the press and among our neighbors and co-workers and, yes, relatives, with few of those people even bothering to think twice about the implications or where they would lead us.
But most of all because, in case any of you have missed it (or forgotten), His Poopiness is... Jewish. (As is his mother, and yes, as will be his Poppa, once I get through these interminable conversion classes.) And I really don't want my son to be made to feel like a second-class citizen in the kind of country that will result from the unthinking, no-doubt-unintended religious supremism that is being so easily and jingoistically embraced by so many otherwise well-intentioned and wonderful people in this country at the moment - including this cousin of mine, whom I won't name. I don't doubt they meant nothing harmful in it, and probably didn't even stop to think that this kind of e-mail could be in the least bit hurtful or upsetting - but that's the essence of the problem, isn't it? After all, if you're a member of the complacent and ebullient majority, how would you possibly know how it feels to be the one person in the school classroom who feels utterly alienated, alone, isolated, confused, and above all, utterly different while the rest of the class repeats a prayer that to them seems simple and harmless, but that goes against your faith (whatever yours might be)? Or to send your kid to school and wonder if he's going to be beaten up today, because he's different, an outsider, a Jew (Jesus-killer) or a Muslim (terrorist) or an atheist (unbeliever) or an immigrant (job-stealer).
This is why our laws, our Constitution, and our traditions all go to such great lengths to protect the minority - and yes, why winning an election does not mean you get your way in everything, and why the Senate has a filibuster (to provide the only check that exists in the legislative or executive branches of our government against the tendency of the majority, however slim, to impose their will, whatever it might be, on the minority, which would otherwise be voiceless outside the courts)... and why maintaining the independence of the courts, including their ability to defy a popular President, is so critical.
Sorry for preaching, and thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Mostly I just keep my own thoughts about these things, but when it's something that could make the world a darker, more difficult, less welcoming place for our little Joshua, it's a lot more difficult to just eat it.
Now we will return you to our regularly scheduled programming...
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