“(I)n 1973, the Michigan legislature passed a law intended to regulate unlicensed day care providers, not good neighbors, to ensure the health and safety of children.” – Ismael Ahmed, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Services

Recently the plight of a West Michigan woman made national headlines when she received a letter from the Department of Human Services warning her against running an unlicensed daycare. Except that she wasn’t doing that: She was helping her neighbors. Between the time they left for work and the time the school bus arrived, the woman looked after their children.

In these parts, that sort of caring gesture is called “neighborliness”.

But another neighbor – anonymous, of course – called the DHS to report an unlicensed daycare center. The DHS sent a letter to the helpful lady, complete with a list of consequences like fines and jail time.

News shows and bloggers leaped on the story. A few (very few) right-leaning commenters equated the law with a Michigan full of “union toughs” and power-hungry “libs”. Evidentally they missed when Governor Granholm*- a notoriously left-leaning politician – talked to Mr. Ahmed and Michigan legislators about working together to change the law.

I also tired of comments (both online and in real-life) that stated that the helpful neighbor should go ahead and get a daycare license. I suppose some of them responded out of igorance, having no idea that a license entails background checks, home inspections, etc.

But what bothered me most were others implied that private citizens (Jane Q. Neighbor, if you will) shouldn’t be doing public service.

I’ve heard that tune more than once, lately.

In the spring, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposed an amendment that would have protected the conscience clause, which allowed health care workers to opt out providing abortions and the like. After it went down in flames (thanks in part to 16 Catholic senators voting against it), I heard and read a lot of comments that dismissed the idea of workers having the right to refuse to compromise their moral convictions. When informed that Catholic hospitals are the largest provider of hospital services in the US, a co-worker remarked, “Another reason for national health care.”

The implication was that “godbags”** shouldn’t become doctors, nurses, or technicians unless they are prepared to do abortions, sterilizations, and whatever else might offend their moral sensibilities. Leave public service to secular authorities.

Last week, a fellow on the radio talked about ending the tax-exempt status of religious organizations. Someone mentioned the charity work that such organizations do, and he responded that our government has the responsibility to ensure the welfare of its people.

“(I)t is my responsibility ethically and morally to enforce the code. We don’t mean to be punitive with the non-profits…” – the Salem (Massachusetts) Health Agent, in 2007 after holiday bake sales were required to meet restaurant health requirements

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I tend to agree with what Charles Dickens wrote in Martin Chuzzlewit : “Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.”***

Michiganians are typical of most Americans in that if someone needs help, we donate our own time and money. When I worked at a Detroit parochial school, the most generous children often had the least. The principal told me of children going hungry so they could give their lunch money to a classmate whose family lost everything in a fire.

When I first moved to the Thumb, I was introduced to the Spaghetti Dinner fundraisers, “Chinese” auctions, and raffles for Barrels of Cheer. If a church, a fire department or another community institution needs money, there is no end to the bake sale, bottle-drives, and volunteers. No one waits for officials to step in.

It would also be a shame if we lose our tradition of spontaneous self-giving, not because it becomes illegal, but because red tape and restrictions stifle. It would be a profound loss if Jane Q. Neighbor starts to think paying taxes is the same as charity.

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*Referred to as Her Jenniferness whenever her liberal-headedness gets in the way of fiscal responsibility

**For some reason, I like the derogatory terms “godbag” and “Papist”. The former sounds like an affirmation that we’re empty until our lives are filled with the Divine. And the latter sounds like the pet term for members of the Society for the Appreciation of Human Nipples. (Oh, let the spam begin!)

*** Martin Chuzzlewit is yet another Dickens book in which I loved a supporting character – Mark Tapley – more than the main characters. See also Aunt Betsy in David Copperfield.

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009 –

Ha! Amateurs! I refer both to the conservatives and to the “Teaching Ambassador Fellows” who wrote the plans.

Conservative political commentors think they get ticked off by propaganda posing as “education”? Since I spent the summer working on new lesson plans for all my classes, I am furious at these so-called “Teaching Ambassador Fellows”. The classroom activities list is pure crapola. There’s no justification for how it fits ANY curricular goals, and it’s not even grade-specific. Heck, my colleague who was hit by a drunk driver made better lesson plans from the hospital!

A first-year student in the college of education couldn’t get a decent grade on such shoddy work, so I wondered what these “Teaching Ambassador Fellows” were. Thirteen fellows sent to the U.S. Department of Education as ambassadors to learn about this strange American tradition that some like to calll “edumacation”? Why, no! In fact, these thirteen people were chosen for their leadership, their students’ achievements, and their “insight on education policy”. You can read more here:

http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship/awards.html

Click on each person’s name and you can read his or her fellowship-earning essay. I find a few vomit-inducing in their political-speak. Except for Tamra Jackson, who spent 23 years in the same district, there seems to be a plethora of experiences outside the norm; e.g. teaching in prison, working under a government grant, etc.

I smiled wryly at the teacher who was shocked to find that education was politicized and that colleagues resisted improving education. Try telling a local politician or business leader that his daughter is failing history class because she plagiarized her term paper. I dare you. Or, in my case, have a “school improvement” guru tell you that American students do worse on tests than the average student in a developing nation, so we should adopt their strategies. And when you point out that the average citizen in that nation doesn’t take those tests because their education ended before high school, the guru smiles patronizingly and waves off your critique. Bonus points if the nation in question has a history of considering girls less worthy of education than boys.

BTW, I have noticed that a lot of the “education experts” at conferences escaped from the daily grind as soon as possible. For example, the writer of The Freedom Writers Diary, Erin Gruwell, left the classroom after her memoir became a best-seller and she had a media tour. She became an educational consultant after just four years of experience as teaching. She now heads the Erin Gruwell Education Project, which focuses on inclusion and scholarships.

My ex-boyfriend announced his engagement with a mass e-mail. The e-mail read thus:

SUBJECT: Ahem…
…she said YES!!!!

We broke up about a year and a half ago. He insisted we could remain friends. Our contact mainly consisted of e-mails.

He’d send me jokes and chain letters with lots of graphics. Periodically I’d ask about his dad and stepmother, his sister, his work on the night-shift, his studies… that sort of thing. His replies were nice, usually funny. In all that time, he never mentioned a new (or old) girlfriend. I believe the term actually in play was ”too busy for a relationship”.  

I used to find out such things naturally in conversation. In fact, after 20 years of dating, I prided myself on a hard-earned skill of sensing “hedging one’s bets.” That occurs when a guy keeps me around in case his current relationship doesn’t work.

But with technology, intuition goes out the window. Granted, my best friends have built long-term relationships with men they met on-line, including a still-strong marriage between Type-A Man and Miss Spontaniety.

But I stopped Internet dating after one too many wacky (even scary) dates. I joked that the only thing worse than a bad blind date was paying for the privilege. Or as one of my friends put it, “If these women and I are compatible, then I need to spend the money on therapy!” 

Even if you know someone in real life, technology can distort your view.  Your relationship might vary quite a bit between the real world and the cyber-world. After all, there’s an “edit” button. Not to mention the ability to alter photos, exaggerate with impunity, and generally put oneself in the best light.   

I thought about this when a college boyfriend “friended” me on Facebook. Like many in our circle of old friends, he’s married with child and working for “the Man”, as he puts it. But there’s a weird undercurrent in his comments.  He wants to know how far I live from him. He travels some weekends on business and thinks it might take him into my area.  He really wants me to post a current photo. 

No. He can continue to look at my icon (an Aztec idol) and stay out of trouble.  I wish him well, I like his jokes, but that’s it. Anything else is Lead us not into temptation territory.

As for the engaged “friend”, I e-mailed him back a congratulations. I jokingly asked, “Who is she? And what exactly did she say “yes” to?” But I got no response, not even the usual chain mail.

After a week, I flagged his address as “junk”.

However, the Argentinian numbers have increased sharply. In less than a week, the reported number of deaths more than doubled. The number of cases jumped by 898 between the WHO’s July 3rd report to its most recent report.

An Argentinian aquaintance told me the normal 15-day school break has been extended to 30 days to prevent exposure. Her daughter is doing her work at home and faxing it in. Theatres and cinemas have closed, and children are not supposed to go shopping.

Her family hasn’t been able to get the vaccine, though a shortage isn’t being reported by the government. Meanwhile, tens of new cases are reported every day – and the death toll goes up. Doctors and medical workers are being pulled from their regular duties to handle the workload. That means surgeries have been cancelled, labs are processing only samples that have already been sent in, etc.

Part of the problem is that swine flu prefers cooler weather (although the new virus isn’t affected as much). Argentina’s weather is the opposite of North America, so it is experiencing winter now – prime flu season.

Attributed to a Muslim extremist group, the bomb went off in front of the cathedral, killing  5 people. Thank God it went off during Mass, rather than afterwards, when  people would have been exiting the cathedral.

The Pope released a statement here.

In a similar way, Contrarians don’t just disagree with other people’s opinions. They seldom create anything of their own, yet when viewing the results of another person’s labor, they state (loudly) how it could have been done better. They throw no fabulous parties, but they somehow manage to attend the most popular (and disappointing) affairs.

To Contrarians, everything has been done and everything is jejune – and yet they have the ability to emote boredom or apathy without appearing to strain themselves. Highly-skilled Contrarians can quash inventions and innovations without ever losing their blasé mien.  Such are their skills that nonContrarians can’t hear the whoosh as the joy is sucked from the room.

Contrarians can be found in every stage of life, from callow teenagers to retirees. They have a myriad of occupations, from guidance counselor to movie director. And they thrive in a variety of habitats, from intimate family gatherings to classes with “Critical Theory” in the title.

The reverend John Zuhlsdorf, aka Fr. Z, has dissected a theological specimen.

Nicole Sotelo wrote a column in the National Catholic Reporter in which she criticizes the Pope’s declaration of the Year of the Priest (a call to prayer for priestly vocations). She says he should be declaring a Year of the Laity. In between, she declares that priests didn’t exist in the ancient church and that Christ Himself wasn’t a priest, which is why all people should emulate Him in a common priesthood.

Sound confusing?  

As I note in the combox, her manner is familiar to anyone who’s taken a class in “Critical Theory” (Deconstructionism’s eviler Marxist twin). She blatently cherry-picks the Bible because she’s on a sexism/classicism hunt. Thus, truth is no defense.

I’m slightly amused by her implication Pope Benedict is not as great a theologian as she is. She expresses (sardonically) her reluctance to inform him of his errors. If she were any more condescending, she’d be a (male) character in a Dan Brown book.

Gunmen ordered a priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in a drug-plagued region of western Mexico, authorities said Monday.

The three were killed as they drove through the town of Arcelia in Guerrero state to nearby Ciudad Altamirano to organize a spiritual retreat, said the Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco.

No word yet on their names.

UPDATE: They are Father Habacuc Hernandez Benitez, and seminarians Eduardo Oregon Benitez and Silvestre Gonzalez Cambrón. More at CNA.

Obama’s clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.
(…)
At first blush Mr. Obama’s speech seemed rosy, optimistic — one that espoused tolerance and understanding. If you scratch the surface it is a dangerous document that history will view as a turning point for America and Israel — one that will lead to dangerous times ahead for both Jews and believing Christians.

The immediate danger posed by Obama’s speech is in its incredible re-writing of the history of Jews, Christians and Muslims from Medieval times to the present.

I was already tired of pop culture revisions of the Crusades (among other things), as well as the destruction of pre-Islamic antiquities by those who wish to re-write Middle Eastern history. But it’s something entirely worse when the President of the United States buys into it.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson doesn’t believe the Orwellian Newspeak. He fires several quotable quotes (including “Princeton – the New Guantanamo”). Here’s a sample, but check them all out:

“They” and “Some” did it, not me… (…) The President, the First Lady, and the Attorney General cannot begin a speech without “some say”, “there are those who believe,” or “I am not convinced by others who argue”—all followed by their own enlightened antitheses. We are perennially back to Michelle Obama’s “they” who raised the bar, or the nefarious “some” in the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton nexus that shredded the Constitution with military tribunals and renditions in order to steal Iraqi oil.

No one points out that almost every historical reference Obama invoked in Cairo—from the supposed Muslim role in great world discoveries to Islam fueling the Renaissance and Enlightenment to the Inquisition and Spain—was inflated, but, more importantly, always inflated from a politically-correct point of view.

“We should have a nicer attitude to suicide, saying suicide is a very good possibility to escape.” – Ludwig Minelli of the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas

Evidentally my transformation to a rightwing nut is complete, as about a month ago I read this story on Fox News.

A perfectly healthy British woman was planning, with the assistance of forementioned clinic, to commit suicide with her terminally-ill husband.  I’d read about it, thought about it, and then recently the subject came up again so I decided to comment on it.

For me, it’s partly a feminist issue: In the relatively few cases of assisted suicide we’ve seen in our country, more women have chosen – or been coerced – into taking the plunge.  They’re expected to take care of themselves and of others; when they become incapable of doing so, they consider themselves a burden.

The usual excuse is “Women live in good health longer than men, so that’s why they appear over-represented in suicides.” However, suicides in the US are often in their ’40s and ’50s - that’s “old age” only to a child.    

Jack Kevorkian aka ”Dr Death” killed at least 106 people, more than half of them women. Among them were several who weren’t terminally ill. Marjorie Wantz, 58, had pelvic pain that could have been managed with medication. She chose death over her doctor’s recommendation of pain management, but her judgment may have been impaired by large doses of Halcion. 

Kevorkian was a pathologist who studied disease by examining corpses and tissue. He wasn’t trained to diagnose psychological problems or treat illness.  Sherry Miller, 43, had been suffering from depression for five years before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He didn’t take her depression into account when she came to him. 

I often hear people say that Kevorkian was an anomoly,  since the majority of doctors and medical ethicists do not advocate performing experiments on dying humans.  But in looking at the stories of assisted suicide, a general theme plays out: “I’m useless. I’m no good to anyone, not even myself.”

In the British woman’s case, committing suicide with her husband is couched as a romantic gesture. Nothing says “I can’t live without you” like not living without you.

That’s where the hook comes in: Committing suicide as a loving act – or a heroic act.

In the late ’50s Kevorkian read about experiments using political prisoners. He proposed using drugs to render condemned criminals unconcious, then performing experiments on them, and finally giving them lethal injections so they would never wake up.

His proposal highlighted the benefits to humanity. Here was a low-cost way to study the effects of various drugs and procedures without endangering human life – because the subject is as good as dead. And how many diseases might be cured! How much insight humanity would gain from seeing what makes the criminal tick!

He found a convict who agreed with him. Wrote the man, “I would gladly give you what you requested of me and in doing so it might help others.” 

For a sick person, it’s a tempting idea. In contemplating suicide, he isn’t being cowardly. He’s not just escaping but committing a Noble Act.

There’s the hook again: You’re a burden and you’re going to die anyway. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could do something for the entire world - not just relieving your caregivers – by helping to ensure that no one in a future generation will suffer as you have?

I remember reading about widows who were expected to throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyres. As a child, I wondered why she wasn’t stopped by her children or her in-laws. It was only much later that I understood that it was not just socially acceptable; it was a duty. Widows, being useless to their communities, were better off dead.

The Kevorkians of the world seek a legal framework in which, barring competence or family members with power-of-attorney, ”designated authorities” may give consent. I expect a ”fast track” authorization for newborns and infants with disabilities, since they already are losing their protection under our current laws and culture.

“Quality of life” is the central criterion, but there are other criteria that push against one’s right to live.  Witness the environmental groups that characterize the proliferation of human life as an ecological disaster; let those who live be few and “perfect”.  Consider the black market in organs from developing nations; sensible “harvesting” will fill demand and reduce the exploitation of the poor.

Even countries with declining populations spend a great deal of money and time on the issue of population control (specifically, exporting birth control and other forms of reduction).  However, this is a twist to the ”quality of life” issue: With fewer people,  everyone will automatically have a better quality of life. After all, more resources can be used by me.**

There is also another cultural push, something I noticed in the wake of the financial burden placed on generations unborn: Many Americans don’t have a stake in the debt of future generations because they’re childless-by-choice.  When it comes to euthanasia, they may more easily shrug it off as a matter of little consequence except to the individual who is unable to take care of himself or is burdened with caring for a parent or life partner. (Yes, I use “life partner” ironically.) 

For further reading about end-of-life issues and current events, I suggest the International Taskforce on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.

**I pointed this out to my bachelor brother a few years ago: We both found buying a house to be more economical than renting for several more years. But now we are both single people living in houses that once contained couples raising more than one child.  Electricity, natural gas, water, etc. make the shelter comfortable, but now these resources are in the service of a single person.  In other words, Reason #234 to get married and fill the house with people.

People sense something slipping away, a world receding, not only an economic one but a world of old structures, old ways and assumptions. …I suspect more than a few see themselves, deep down, as “the designated mourner,” from the title of the Wallace Shawn play. – from ”There’s No Pill for This Kind of Depression”

Peggy Noonan has discovered that people are anxious about the economic crisis. More people are going to church; city folks are looking for farms. Gun sales are up; some deep-pocketed persons are pulling large sums of cash from their banks. (Or perhaps, being of Irish descent, Noonan is merely on a mortality rant.)

She thinks that anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication contributed to the financial crisis. I jest not. She writes: “In New York their use became common after 9/11. It continued through and, I hypothesize, may have contributed to, the high-flying, wildly imprudent Wall Street of the ’00s.”

Perhaps she should do a little informal study of how many users of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication work on Wall Street. Then, to compare, see how many users of anti-depressants, etc. voted for politicians who had their hands in the pot of various bailed-out institutions.  It ought to be downright interesting, to say the least.

Instead, she talked to a writer, a psychiatrist, etc. to take the pulse of the nation. And the patient isn’t well.

I know what she means. An aquaintance of mine (I’ll just call him “Max”) ignored the signs of the times: environmental change, the devastating cost of gas, man’s inhumanity to man.

He lived as he pleased, a loner speeding around in his gas-guzzling car and having conflicts with nearly everyone he met. But he reconsidered his ways and really thought what kind of world the younger generation would inherit. And that’s why he’s known far beyond Thunderdome.

Yes, I totally dropped Mad Max into this post. If Ms. Noonan can pseudo-namedrop, so can I. Plus, if you’re going to envision the destruction of society, you might as well go whole-hog.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Dyin’  Time’s here.” – the Collector, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome 

Noonan’s column reminds me of Atticus Finch telling Scout and Jem, “It’s not time to worry yet. I’ll tell you when it’s time to worry.” (I admit to making fun of Ms. Noonan’s friend who wants to move to Atticus’s town. Fictional Maycomb, Alabama, was smack in the heart of a county so entrenched in its caste system that a white man had to pretend to be perpetually drunk in order to “explain” why he married a black woman. I dunno; I’d prefer tough economic times to entrenched classicism and racism. But perhaps I’m being harsh. Perhaps Noonan’s  friend isn’t much of a reader and merely watched the Gregory Peck movie.)

On a more serious note, Patrick Archbold at Creative Minority Report and his readers are also a bit worried that something is coming - they know not what.  Then again, they’ve primed the pump a bit by having a tongue-in-cheek running series about signs of the Apocalypse. If you worry about it, you’ll see it.

We’re always closer to the End than we care to think, both as a world and as individuals. We may be heading into an awful time when our country seems to be dying and our economy falters. But it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.

We’ve tended to romanticize such times: the oft-referenced Fall of the Roman Empire, the last cowboy as civilization closed in, the Greatest Generation, etc.  However, we live in a post-romantic world, and it would be fitting if our cultural descendants don’t bother to eulogize us. Maybe they can give us a fitting name, though: The Laziest Generation, the Navel-Gazers, the Self-Pitying Wasters of Everything.

I like to think that this is a chastizement only. I pray that the younger generations will find beauty and peace in the world they inherit.  I hope that they see beyond materialism and meet Jesus without fear acting as a goad.

“God sees you out of the corner of His Eye.” - from screenwriter Jay Wolpert’s version of The Count of Monte Cristo 

Besides The Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, I also suggest a few other entertainments to tide your over to the approaching Apocalypse:

The Count of Monte Cristo  ~ This is Dumas’ classic tale of a man whose world is destroyed: his career, his name, his relationships. It remains a favorite of mine. The English translation  runs more than 1,400 pages in the Modern Library edition, so it will certainly keep your mind occupied. You may enjoy the movie version with Jim Caviezel, especially the (gasp!) happier ending. 

Last Exile ~ This anime series is set in an hourglass-shaped world upon which environmental extremes have created a near-constant war between the struggling nations. As in most anime, there is a brooding man with a dark past, a lost love, a fey boy, a small cute girl – but the main characters are childhood friends who work as couriers using their deceased fathers’ ”vanship” – like a tractor crossed with a World War I biplane (sans wings). The attention to detail is stunning; e.g. a princess is locked in a bedroom that evidentally once was a chapel, complete with a mural of the Crucifixion. Enjoy it while you still have electricity.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. ~ You thought I was going to recommend that knock-off homage Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett, didn’t you? Sure, it’s about the end of the world, but it lacks the subtlety and dreamlike quality.

Stranger at Killknock by Leonard Wibberly. ~ What if the Second Coming happened very quietly in an Irish village?  This is out of print, but perhaps you can look for it as you rummage through the abandoned libraries and used bookstores of a decaying city. Just remember: The kindling is filed under Brown, Dan.

UPDATE: The inimitable Bob Parks is sickened by Noonan’s love of the new President.