Paterfamilias’ Progress

June 20, 2010

Happy Father’s Day. There were two guys playing golf and a terrible lightning storm came up and the first friend was ready to run for cover when the second friend walked up to his ball, lightning hitting all around them, and prepared to hit his next shot.  His terrified friend shouted, “What are you doing—you’re […]

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Parenting Manifesto

June 19, 2010

The true history of all society is the history of parenting. Parents have always seemed to be in charge, but every generation has faced a revolution of children growing up and taking charge—only to be usurped by the next generation. To end the entrenched strife of anxious children and unhappy parents, caregivers must see that […]

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350 in dog years

June 18, 2010

I entered the world like a trickster Coaxed by the smell of barbeque But the Jewess princess was Drugged and passed out By the time I arrived Into Cold male hands and Even colder light * At five I nearly barfed At Kiddie Land The “fun” fire truck An overwhelming howl * Ten brought Slimy […]

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The Deep

June 17, 2010

This day always holds dread and portent for me as it marks the day in my childhood when my best friend, Jonathan, was killed; yet there is another story of attachment and loss that also clusters around this day in the watery tumult of my psyche. It all goes back to high school—junior year honors […]

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Adulthood begins at 27

June 16, 2010

This is a season when the dust is starting to settle around all our recent graduates, ranging from kindergarten to graduate school. I have long argued in my own writing that adulthood no longer actually occurs in our culture at the point that most of us say that it begins (twenty to twenty-two).  A recent […]

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When writing gets leathery

June 15, 2010

Deep in the matrix of my psyche I associate writing with leather.  Not because of leather-bound volumes in oak paneled libraries, but because of coats—leather coats. When I was a kid my dad had a friend who had a leather factory on the far south side of Chicago, near to where my dad had grown […]

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Singularity is forever, but it’s not for everybody?

June 14, 2010

A rather provocative article by Ashlee Vance in the New York Times, Merely Human? That’s So Yesterday, raised a host of intriguing questions.  Essentially the article is about the idea of technological “singularity” where humans and machines will, according to some, meld and then immortality (or at least dramatically extended lives) will be possible. These […]

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WAAG!

June 13, 2010

I’m soon to be fifty, but right now I’m still 49, and so I must admit that I was slightly deflated to receive my AARP Card in the mail (or at least my “offer,” of one—not that I don’t appreciate how the sample card is twice as big as any regular sort of card that […]

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My kid the… squatter?

June 12, 2010

A recent article in the New York Times Magazine by Jake Halpern, The Freegan Establishment fascinated me from a parenting perspective. It is about several people, who seem at first glance as lost souls, who have squatted in homes and worked to create an alternative approach to living—eschewing money, yet working diligently to fix up […]

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Abby Normal

June 11, 2010

I went to sleep last night with prayers for Abby Sunderland in my heart. I awoke to learn that she is okay, and I am delighted and relieved for that. What I wish to say today is that Abby’s situation is a perfect confluence of the opposites (the very place where the transcendent, sublime, even […]

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