Nobody Knows Anything

I can’t remember where I’ve heard this—one of those old wives’ tales, undoubtedly—but before Sophia was even born I heard that you always get the child who’s the direct opposite of you. I said, How silly is that? Kids learn from the people they’re around the most.

Okay, to anybody else out there who thinks this isn’t going to happen to them? It’s going to happen to you.

Her Royal Girlness

Sophia is the girliest girl ever. She wants Princess everything. She would be happy with a continuous loop of Disney Princess movies on in the background. On her own she decided that dresses are by far the bestest thing in the world to wear. A week ago I took out a long-sleeved shirt and pants for her, because it was a very cold, very rainy day and I wanted her to keep warm. She responded by flinging herself on the ground and wailing, “But if I don’t wear a dress, how will anyone know I’m a girl?” This happened, honestly and truly. I was spurred to buy her some tights…which she loves and she wants to wear tights all the time and maybe she should start taking dance classes again so she can wear tights even more.

(Has to be dresses, by the way. The skirt sets Grandma has bought her so many of have pretty much been left untouched. The dresses though…those will be worn through before we send them on to Goodwill.)

The time I told her that there were special kinds of dresses she could wear to bed? I thought she might cry from happiness. She wears pajamas now only when there isn’t a nightgown to be had. And if the nights were any warmer she might skip the pajamas to keep her nightgown streak unbroken.

The Princess dresses I’ve bought her at Costco? She’d wear them all day every day if I’d let her. As it is, she comes home from school, slips into something not quite comfortable but definitely satiny and poofy, and goes about her business.

She’s also been quite firm about what she wants for Christmas: makeup.

Yes. Makeup.

Now, I am seriously confused about where she got that one, because it certainly wasn’t from me: I don’t wear makeup. If there’s any time of year when I would wear makeup, it’s a little lipstick in the wintertime, because my lips chap so fast. But I haven’t worn it much and certainly not recently. And she hasn’t gotten it from toy commercials or anything: she doesn’t see commercials. (Thank you, TiVo.)

I mentioned the makeup thing to the mom of one of Sophia’s best friends and she said, “Do you shop at Costco? They have this gigantic package of toy makeup for kids. Non-toxic, washes right off.” So maybe Sophia’s gotten this from one of her friends, but I think it’s far more likely that Sophia has just decided that it’s time, she’s 4, it’s time to wear lipstick (”Because I like lipstick”) and perhaps a touch of rouge.

(I talked it over with Darin. He’s certainly not big on makeup in general, but he’s said that getting her the box of play makeup would be fine.)

Last week, when I bought an In Style magazine, Sophia said she needed a magazine too. Eventually I discovered that what she wanted was a wedding magazine—the ad on the back of InStyle was for a wedding magazine…and Sophia wants to figure out what she’s going to wear for her wedding.

Today I bought her pink nail polish to complete her Princess outfit for tonight. On the way home, she asked me whether she’d marry her friend W____ from her preschool class or someone else. I said she had plenty of time to decide on that one and she didn’t need to rush into anything. After we got home, I put a coat of nail polish on her fingers. I told her to stay still until it dried…and damned if she didn’t sit still until I touched her fingernail and was sure it was dry.

After she finished with trick-or-treating tonight and I was helping her get out of her big yellow dress, she said excitedly, “Guess what? I can wear nail polish on my toes, too!”

I don’t know where she’s getting this stuff. I don’t know if this is a phase. I know, she’s 4, she’s playing, trying on various things. But still. Whoa. Definitely wasn’t expecting this persona. and what’s worse is I feel completely unprepared to deal with it. Well, I guess if I start finding out about these things when she’s 4, I might have a clue later on. I don’t even know how to put on makeup (I flash back to those horrible explanatory diagrams of needing to brush from the tip of your ear to the edge of your cheekbone near your nose in a giant swash in order to place the blush correctly, and I want to throw my hands in the air).

My biggest problem with this, of course, is that it’s not a phase I ever went through, or if I did, it was stamped out in a hurry. Makeup was not something I’d have ever asked my mother about. And at the Convent girls weren’t allowed to wear makeup at school (although there was a general rush to put it on once the school day was over). I missed some crucial window of time when I could get comfortable with the stuff. I guess I’m happy Sophia’s interested. I’m just wondering…isn’t it a little early?

However, there’s one thing I’m very clear on: if she ever comes home and says, “Math is hard,” I’m going medieval on her petite, well-dressed butt. That sort of girliness I will not tolerate.

I wonder if the same thing will happen with Simon. If so, Simon’s going to be a Republican evangelical smoker who watches football all day. I don’t know what I’ll do then, either.

Well, I’m already certifiable these days, for both personal and political reasons. This nonsense with Movable Type and Blacklist is enough to send me over the edge.

(No, Otto, I can’t switch to Wordpress; we don’t have MySQL. I guess I could ask Darin and Mitch to install that, but considering they already spent one day of their weekend doing all this, I don’t think they’re gonna.)

Blacklist isn’t working: I’m still getting comment spam that I have to delete manually. I tried to test-comment an entry earlier than 14 days old, simply got an error. Four of my most popular entries (Blue Moon ice cream, Blue Moon ice cream: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, children’s names, and Lazytown) are more than 14 days old.

So, great: I’m already hating this site because even thought MT3.x makes it easier to deal with comment spam, you still have to deal with it. I was hoping Blacklist could solve my problems, but it’s not working.

If one day you just get a 404 in this space, you’ll know why.

And more: My templates are all messed up. Must be something in the Weblog Config; can’t figure out what. Darin has already asked what I can go do for the day to get me out of here.

After many months of saying we were going to do it (and never doing it, much to Andy Hertzfeld’s dismay), Mitch and Darin finally got cracking this weekend on completing the move from the server still at Andy’s house to the server at Chez Nous.

Guess what the big holdup’s been? Yes, yes: this very site.

Anyhow—so in order to prepare for the final bit of moving, I have turned off comments, I’m going to export the site, and I’m going to go finish making dinner.

Best part of moving to the new server: availability of the Perl Storable module! Anyone running MT 3.0 knows why that’s exciting.

Update: Well, phew. Apparently it’s done. The DNS has been changed. All things are in new positions, and yet look the same! Homina homina homina, I get to use Blacklist again! Woot! We have Spam Assassin! It’s like the Web is usable again!

Update 2: But wait! Something is wrong! Blacklist is interfering with posting comments, let alone stopping spam! Can the SuperAdlers fix it? And, more importantly, can they fix it before the kids go nuts because we promised them a trip to the ice cream store?

Alas, I have removed this entry due to a personal request.

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

NEWS CORP.’S Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause.

Yes, this site was down for a couple of days. I don’t know why (Darin does, but he’s off “making a living” or something, so he can’t comment). True, my site wasn’t available to you…but it wasn’t available to spammers either! Always a silver lining!

Of course, now they’re back too. Sigh.

Tucker Carlson doesn’t know when he’s been beat.

“I thought that he looked ridiculous,” Carlson said in an interview Monday, “and I think the tape makes that clear.”

Carlson said Stewart continued lecturing the “Crossfire” crew after the show went off the air. “I wasn’t offended as much as I was unimpressed,” he said.

Stewart wasn’t talking about the confrontation on Monday, a spokesman said. Comedy Central executive Tony Fox said there may be some regret over the vulgarity, but that Stewart has been a longtime critic of cable news networks and their political argument shows.

The comedian hasn’t gone out of his way to endorse Kerry. In a public forum last week in New York, he was asked who he would vote for, and he said he’d back the Democrat.

Carlson noted that many of the great comedians kept their political opinions to themselves, not for fear of offending anyone, but because it could hurt their art.

“You’re selling out,” he said. “If you are a satirist or an acute social observer, and he is, and all of a sudden you suspend disbelief on someone or suck up rather than prod or poke someone, people will look at you and say, ‘Even if I agree with you, I don’t like it,’” he said.

Fox said “The Daily Show” poked fun at people in power, regardless of their party. Most people who watch Stewart are aware that he leans to the left politically.

“I don’t think it really impacts the show at all,” he said. “The show does what it does regardless of Jon’s political persuasion.”

Wow. Comedians…keeping their political sensibilities to themselves…who knew?

Bob Hope: he could have been one of the Greats

Mr. Carlson: please, for the love of God, shut up before you do yourself any more harm, ‘kay? Because it could hurt their art? Are you high? The great comedians have always been political. You have access to Google (I should hope): check out the etymology of “the court jester.” (Also, watch the Danny Kaye movie. It’s funny stuff.) Maybe as comedians get more successful they have more to lose if they offend the people in power, so they doing do the pointed stuff and thereby become the bland bores we all think of when we think of comedians. But one of the great things about being a comedian is that you get to speak truth to power and if you do it well you make people laugh as well. Not just the laughter of recognition but because you said something funny. Sheesh.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Now take off that ridiculous tie. You’re an insult to nerds.

(No, I don’t know for a fact that Hope was a Republican. He made fun of everyone. But he seemed to have more Republican pals. Besides which: not the point of my joke.)

Update: And now…your moment of Zen.

You know, I keep hearing that I’m supposed to respect other people’s beliefs, but goshdarnit they make too hard sometimes:

NEWNAN, Ga. - Across the Bible Belt this Halloween, some little ghosts and goblins might get shooed away by the neighbors — and some youngsters will not be allowed to go trick-or-treating — because the day falls on a Sunday this year.

“It’s a day for the good Lord, not for the devil,” said Barbara Braswell, who plans to send her 4-year-old granddaughter, Maliyah, out trick-or-treating in a princess costume Saturday instead.

Some towns around the country are decreeing that Halloween be celebrated Saturday to avoid complaints from those who might be offended by the sight of demons and witches ringing their doorbell on the Sabbath.

“Moving it, that’s like celebrating Christmas a week early,” countered Veronica Wright, who bought a Power Rangers costume for her son. “It’s just a kid thing. It’s not for real.”

It is an especially sensitive issue for authorities in the Bible Belt across the South.

“You just don’t do it on Sunday,” said Sandra Hulsey of Greenville, Ga. “That’s Christ’s day. You go to church on Sunday, you don’t go out and celebrate the devil.”

In Newnan, a suburb south of Atlanta, the City Council decided to go ahead with trick-or-treating Sunday. In 1999, the last time Oct. 31 fell on a Sunday, the city moved up trick-or-treating to Saturday, which brought howls of protest.

In Vestavia Hills, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham, a furor erupts every time Halloween falls on Sunday.

I don’t feel at all bad keeping my kids away from religion. Not a bit.

David Neiwert has an excellent entry on No Child Left Behind, the crown jewel of Bush’s domestic program—and if that doesn’t tell you what kind of shape Bush’s domestic program is in, nothing will.

What little discussion there has been of these remarks has focused, perhaps rightly, on how out of touch they make Bush appear when it comes to the lives of working people. A 55-year-old worker isn’t interested in going back to school to learn a new skill so he can start up another career. He just wants his job back. Bush’s remarks reflect someone who sees workers and jobs as portable commodities, and has no sense whatsoever of the pain inflicted by policies that eviscerate the nation’s manufacturing capacity.

But even more telling, I think, are what these remarks say about Bush’s view of education.

To people like Bush, the value of education lies solely in its ability to provide a steady supply of workers. Education isn’t a matter of improving our lives, making us better citizens capable of thinking for themselves, inspiring us to reach the maximum of our human capacities; it’s a union card, a system designed to churn out as many trained workers as possible.

This view of education, in fact, is pronounced among conservatives in general. And it’s directly reflected in Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program.

Consider, if you will, the areas of accomplishment that are tested under NCLB: reading, math, science, and English. All of these areas are those which are viewed by business interests as those most essential to training a viable workforce. All other areas of education — particularly the arts, civics, history, geography, and social studies — are relegated to minor status.

Now, it’s unquestionable that one of the important functions of education is indeed to prepare young citizens for entry into the workforce, and to provide them the tools to be fully capable participants in the economy. But that isn’t its sole purpose, either.

Education is supposed to make better citizens of us by giving us the tools to understand how our world works. It is, above all, supposed to help us to find our own special gifts and enable them, making our society both more creative and inventive and making us more fulfilled individually.

NCLB not only ignores those aspects of education, but by giving work-related skills primacy, it crowds them out, sometimes altogether.

But, like, you knew that. From Salon’s article on Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire this afternoon:

“I think you’re a lot more fun on your show,” said Tucker Carlson to “Crossfire” guest Jon Stewart this afternoon. “And I think you’re as much of a dick on your show as on any other,” Stewart shot back. It wasn’t the faux avuncularity we’ve come to expect from Stewart on “The Daily Show” but there, of course, he’s playing a role. Here he was himself — and he wasn’t buying any of it.

From the moment Stewart sat down he made no secret of how repugnant he found the show. In fact, he said to Carlson and co-host Paul Begala that he had been so hard on the show he felt it was his duty to come on and say to their faces what he has said to friends and in interviews. What he said was that their show was “hurting America,” and he was being only slightly hyperbolic. Stewart told them that when America needed journalists to be journalists they had instead chosen to present theater.

Carlson, trying to affect an air of dry amusement that a comedian would presume to lecture him, important pundit that he is, but looking as if his bow-tie were about to start spinning, could barely contain his outrage. In an absolutely mind-boggling moment, Carlson tried to counter Stewart’s criticism by pointing out that during John Kerry’s recent appearance on “The Daily Show,” Stewart asked the candidate softball questions. “If you want to measure yourself against a comedy show,” Stewart said, “be my guest.”

Paul Begala tried to put a more conciliatory face on things by pointing out that theirs was a “debate” show. Stewart was having none of it. “I would love to see a real debate show,” he said. And went on to tell them that instead of holding politicians’ feet to the fire by asking tough question, “you’re part of their strategy. You’re partisan — what’s the word? — uh, hacks.”

I need to get the complete transcript of this appearance. (Update: Ask and ye shall receive.)

My favorite exchange:

“I thought you were going to be funny,” Carlson said toward the end of the interview. Stewart responded, “No, I’m not going to be your monkey.”

No, Tucker, your job is to be the monkey. To take something that ought to be important—political discussion—and reduce it to soundbites and faux discussion. Jon Stewart is a more serious commentator because despite the satire and outrageous comedy bits, you get the feeling he might have actually read a few newspapers and had some discussions, rather than getting the latest fax from Spin HQ.

Update: Hahahahahaha:

STEWART: You know, it’s interesting to hear you talk about my responsibility.

CARLSON: I felt the sparks between you. (Meaning Stewart and John Kerry — ed.)

STEWART: I didn’t realize that — and maybe this explains quite a bit.

CARLSON: No, the opportunity to…

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: … is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.

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And yet another update: I finally watched the segment (from this capture; in Comments Nevin also points to this). And I am not only struck by how Stewart is straightforward with his request—basically boils down to, Stop being theatrical clowns and actually do the public a service—but at how inept Tucker Carlson is. The man does not listen. Maybe this is a long-time slam on him, I don’t know, but he reminds me why I don’t like seeing “interviews” on Leno (or Arsenio, who was extremely bad): the hosts don’t listen. They’re already on to the next thing they’re going to say.