My Book to Help America

No, not mine. His. Doubt we'll see anything like that again (except, naturally, as an exercise in teaching children irony, workin' 'em up to cheer for Colbert with all the cool kids).

Hey, it builds character!

I have a deep and personal hatred for communists, so I'm obviously no big fan of China, but of all the reasons to hate them, I cannot understand this focus on lead in children's toys.

Heck, in my pappy's day, kids ate lead sandwiches from asbestos lunchboxes. After school, they'd throw cherry bombs at girls and then have thermometer-eating contests. For dinner, pot roast - but only if they finished all their lead first.

I mean, seriously, they used to ride rusty bikes without helmets and make go-carts out of planks from the dump and eat dirt just because, and there ain't a goshdarned thing wrong with 'em!

Kids today? Forget eating dirt, you're liable to get suspended for bringing a peanut butter sandwich to school! Heck, if a kid would happen to sketch a gun with his knife in some peanut butter, he's bound to be expelled for good and sent to juvy.

I say it's time to stop coddling the little wimps. A little lead exposure never hurt anyone. Let the chicoms poison 'em, it'll only make them stronger!

Speaking of the many wonders of diversity...

You know what, I'm not thrilled about it, but I can at least handle the sad reality that our exaggerated respect for Indian cultural sensitivities is destroying children's literature (via Instapundit). But aren't things just a tad out of hand when it also destroys children's lives?

Also: Dr. Markesteyn? Really?

I refuse on principle to think of a dirty play on words on a children's classic with which to title this post

You know how we conservatives are always saying that liberals have absolutely no moral compass? Well, it may usually be a slight exaggeration, but not today, not in the crazy mixed up world of NYT reporter Alessandra Stanley.

Stanley today writes a review of the TV adaptation of the Gossip Girl series. The very series that, not long ago, was rightly eviscerated by Naomi Wolf in these same pages, revealed as the repulsive piece of trash that it is. So what does Stanley have to say about the soulless, materialistic, drug-fueled, sex-obsessed characters? Why, that they remind her oh so very much of the Little Mermaid! Or, no, wait, perhaps Sleeping Beauty. Well, in any case, definitely Willy Wonka. You see, folks, it's just another fairy tale!

"Like 'Peter Pan,' 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' or the 'Harry Potter' series, these novels are fantasies and projections of an imaginary world where parents are dead or peripheral, and lost boys and girls struggle on their own with good and evil, or in this case, Bergdorf Goodman and evil.
Even the characters’ names — Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen — are as fancifully evocative as those found in children’s books ...."

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. I know, I know, Judy Blume is still banned in some places for her sexual themes, Alice got high from her mushrooms, and some Harry Potter fanfic has just gotten way out of hand. But, and I will try to muster the deepest reserves of my eloquence here, come on!

The moral of this story: if you have kids, make sure to keep them away from Alessandra Stanley!

He's guilty... of saving the world?

Hewitt and Medved were both complaining a great deal about the OJ coverage yesterday, lamenting that the media were in full frenzy mode over the arrest at a time when they should be focusing on truly important things, like the latest huge developments between Israel, Syria, and Iran, not to mention the war in Iraq.

I think they might be wrong on this. What they forget is that the media is not our friend, it's our enemy! It's an ultra-liberal, anti-Israel, anti-Bush fifth column. So wouldn't you much rather it focus on OJ than on anything serious? I know I much prefer to hear news of a leaked OJ audiotape than a leaked Israeli plan of attack! Every moment they spend squeezing the Juice is one less moment spent on uncovering the misunderstood, loving side of Hamas!

By the way, the OJ murder trial was my first foray into the bizarre and thoroughly disheartening world of racial politics. There was only one black kid at my school (that's Montreal for you - a now obsolete joke was that our black population doubled with every Expos home game). The day of the verdict, our teacher gave us permission to leave class and hear the decision, so we're all huddled around a TV in the gym, and they make the announcement, and we're all absolutely stunned. I remember distinctly wandering outside, feeling almost shell-shocked, everyone around me just gaping in disbelief - except for the black kid. He was literally running around the playground, pumping his fist, yelling with joy, and taunting all the visibly upset kids! What a world.

I have the excuse of jetlag, he's just a moron

Hello from Seoul! Sorry I haven't been posting, I was busy packing and flying and settling in and everything, and am inexcusably behind on my blog-reading. I'm still very jetlagged (I'm writing this post at four in the morning!). I'll write all about Seoul and my job (teaching US History) and all that soon (hopefully after I get paid I'll even be able to buy a digital camera and do my best Althouse impersonation!), for now I just wanted to post this short clip of Dalton McGuinty being a complete moron, because it's been cracking me up all day (or night, whatever):



Silliness, I know. For the more serious example of the guy's cluelessness, see here.

PS: This reminds me of when John Kerry came to my high school during the campaign and spoke to us, an auditorium full of high school kids, about his promise that, as President, he would institute a program of mandatory community service for high school kids. Didn't go over too well, as you might imagine. Then there was the time that Jean Chretien spoke at my (other) high school graduation, and, I kid you not, delivered an entire speech about Star Wars, concluding, in his trademarked unintelligible mumbling, "May da force be witchu." The dominant Canadian leader of my youth, ladies and gentlemen. Is it any wonder I left the hemisphere?

Manchildren

Sorry I've been gone, I'm on vacation, blogging will be light for another week or so.
Anyway, Udolpho's back, and he said what I was gonna say, anyway:

" It's getting tough to make a coming of age movie in an age when by my estimation adolescence now lasts until you're in your late thirties."


(via RC)

How I Built My Resume Over Summer Vacation

First they came for our childhood, then they came for our adolescence. A great essay in the WSJ (via the invaluable ALDaily).

I would say that adulthood is next, but I feel like that's been missing for quite some time already.

The Not-So-Dangerous Book for Boys

Beyond parody. Then again, what isn't, these days? Another hilariously pathetic detail from the original article is that there is even an internet station set up in the camp so the scouts can all keep checking their email.

The story does leave us with a very difficult question, though, one that is at the heart of conservatism. The Boy Scouts changed their name to the Scouts in the 60s, and who can argue with that? I'm an obsessive when it comes to women's equality, and I despise misogynistic institutions with a true vehemence, from the finals clubs [Harvard's frat houses] in my backyard to, well, basically the entire Muslim world. But (there's always a but!), I probably have to admit that this departure from tradition, this decision to change something as fundamental as the very name of the organization, likely jeopardized the institutional resistance to further, less savory, changes. In other words, it probably wasn't that long a slide from girl scouts to vegan pacifist scouts. So, how can we insist upon some changes and put our foot down over others? Is there any way to stop the ball once it starts rolling? I have no idea! But this is why I fear change. I also fear bright lights and loud noises.

I hate UNICEF

They're disgusting jew-haters, for one. They're the UN, for another (but I repeat myself). Even if they were neither of these things, though - sending kids around on Halloween to collect money for others instead of candy for themselves? Bastards.

This random thought brought to you courtesy of today's Gregalogue. If you aren't watching RedEye (or, at the least, RedEye Recap), you probably lead a healthy and fulfilling life, and I hate you.

Awesome

I love this. And I hate those ads. I don't smoke, never have, but nothing makes me want to light up a big fat stogie more than these insufferable secular preachers (who are all stoned half the time, anyway - because you can't get liberal street cred for harrassing 'the reefer industry'). Ditto for the MADD morons who would come to my school to stage idiotic atheist morality plays about the dangers of drinking and then show slides of car accidents. Oh, drunk driving is dangerous? You don't say! Well, hand me a brewskie and get out of the way, I'm hitting the road, you busybody %$^&.

Maybe there is hope for the future, after all! I'm certainly banking on a similar backlash against An Inconvenient Truth, which the average high schooler today is probably forced to watch in practically every class.

Here's to feeling good all the time!

Little Miss Sunshine

I really wanted to hate it, because it was so overhyped, but I'll be honest, I liked it. I thought it would be like The Royal Tenenbaums, some insufferable, too-cool-for-school, irony-filled hipster comedy. But it isn't! And these days, that's saying a lot!

The DVD had alternate endings, and, interestingly enough, one of them is actually much better than the real ending. Best of all, according to the commentary, that superior ending was thought up by Abigail Breslin, the young girl who (with help from Alan Arkin, a favorite of mine from Slums of Beverly Hills) steals the movie. The whole point of the movie is that the youthful exuberance of the girl and her grandfather trumps all the self-absorbed, overserious worries of everyone around them. Yet the directors' ignore their own point, and instead of ending with Abigail's very fun and unique idea, end on a completely typical and overused note.

Anyway (spoiler alert I guess), the movie is nothing too special, but it certainly has its moments, and the best among them is the instant classic dance scene, so here it is, hope you like it!

Further adventures in shopping and sociology

After buying a card, I went to go rent some movies (final tally: The Talk of the Town, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Days of Heaven). There was a man there, a Ron Howard type in his fifties, with his son, who couldn't have been more than seven. The father was super-excited about showing his son some movies (he was shouting to the clerk from across the room about initiating his son into this shared wonder). The movies at hand, you ask? The Star Wars prequels.

I don't share Udolpho's hatred of fanboy geek types. I like Star Trek and Firefly and LOTR, and Star Wars, too. But I'm not kidding myself about their quality. Nothing more than cheap, fun escapism. After working really hard for a few months, I come home, sink into to the couch for a long weekend, turn off my brain, and watch some CSI or a Bond marathon. The thing is, though, that I'm fully aware at those moments that I'm indulging in stupid, mindless laziness. What bothers me is that a lot of people, such as the father I saw, seem to view these works as modern works of genius, as life-defining classics. They scarf down cheeseburgers and think they're dining on steak.

I strongly believe that kids will live down to your expectations. If you treat them like idiots, they'll become idiots. Throw stupid scifi movies (or, even worse, today's filthy, flatulence-obsessed 'children's movies') at them, and they will undoubtedly enjoy them, and they'll grow up to be dumb, crass, and blind to beauty. But show them some true classics, read them the great books, and you might be surprised at how much they understand and appreciate.

As Joseph Bottum (a name fit for a modern kids' movie, come to think of it) put it in Commentary a few years ago, "Certainly the hungry child will find too many of today’s standards awfully thin gruel. It is worth remembering that Dickens’s reading list for the eight- or nine-year-old David Copperfield includes Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker, Fielding’s Tom Jones, Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, and Cervantes’ Don Quixote—any one of which would make a well-qualified recommender of children’s books these days fall to the ground in a Victorian swoon. As Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 Little Women opens, the March girls have just read Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, which is not a title likely to be mentioned in children’s bibliographies any longer."

Parents: your kids aren't dumb until you dumb them down. Let them discover the Star Wars prequels for themselves once they're in their teens (but pray they never do). As long as they're under your control, though, make the most of it and shove the classics down their throats. Even if they don't like it (I maintain that they will), they'll at least know what a good book or movie looks like, what true culture and class feels like, and hopefully won't grow up to pour ketchup on their steaks.

And now I'm depressed

Prof Althouse has a post up about free-roaming childhood in the good old days. Read the comments, which broke my heart. My childhood: karate lessons, recorder lessons, and three hours of tennis training every day. And my parents wonder why the very sight of a racquet is enough to make me sick. But it all got me into Harvard, so it must have been worth it, right? Right?

If I ever have kids, I'm moving to the Outback and shooting any approaching college admissions officers on sight.