Category: Children

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Annual Christmas Post for 2012

~~This is a re-post of my annual Christmas blog, for all you perverts who asked for it. ~~
~~My sister will never forgive me.~~

Someone else's Christmas tree

The year Jack was 15, he and I went to my sister’s for Christmas dinner. When we got there, Susan put a pork tenderloin in the oven and we gathered around the tree to open gifts. Susan’s two boys, ages 15 and 13, were there, as was my mother. We spent a lovely hour ooohing and ahhhhing over what everyone got and gave. It was a very nice time.

We were almost through opening gifts when Su left to check the pork tenderloin we were having for Christmas dinner. She was in the kitchen for a few minutes. The rest of us waited to open any more gifts until she returned.

We were chatting and laughing and not paying any attention to her when Su tip-toed back into the living room and tapped me on the shoulder. “Come here,” she whispered.

I had been sitting on the floor. I got to my feet and followed her into the kitchen.

“Have you ever cooked a pork tenderloin?” she asked.

“Sure,” I told her. “Lots of times.”

“Good. I have something I need to ask you, then,” she said, and opened the oven door. She reached in and pulled out the roasting pan holding the meat. I thought she would has me about how to tell if the meat was cooked through, or how best to carve it or something. I am always willing to dispense sisterly advice. But that wasn’t what Su wanted.

“Is it supposed to look like this?” she asked.

portk-tenderloin-2  

I gaped.

I blinked.

Su put the pan down on the counter and grinned at me real big. “Shhhh,” she said.

We walked back into the living room, and she beckoned to Mom.

I couldn’t help it. I could barely hold in my laughter, and it was obvious. I do not have a poker face at all. When my mother followed Susan into the kitchen, I did my best to keep three large teenage boys at bay, thinking they were too young and … ahem … tender … to witness what had been prepared for Christmas dinner.

I was unsuccessful. The boys barreled into the kitchen just as their grandmother was in the act of looking at the slab of meat that faced her. Their Gran glanced up with a quizzical look. For a second I thought she didn’t get it.

pork-tenderloin-3

Then she burst out laughing.

The boys crowded around. “What is it? What’s so funny?” they demanded. Their mothers and grandmother were laughing too hard to tell them.

Su headed down the hall to the bathroom before she wet her pants. When she came back, she suggested that a creamy Bearnaise sauce would be a lovely accompaniment.

pork-tenderloin-1

 

That set us off again. Sis headed back to the bathroom.

We females of the family enjoyed every bite. “Mmmmmm.” “Yummy.” “This is delightful,” we said.

The boys, for some reason, opted for a meatless Christmas dinner.

And now, for the crucial question:
If a pork tenderloin is circumcised, does that make it kosher?

 

 

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Charlie Brown Christmas Field Trip Cancelled

The field trip by the local elementary school to a church to see the Charlie Brown Christmas play, complete with Bible soliloquy, has been cancelled.

This is not a win for the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers.

Why not? Because the church, and not the school, is the entity that blinked. And that’s too bad. We still have a school district that thinks it’s okay to violate the constitutional rights of children, and was ready and willing to defend a religious field trip in court.

In a statement to the press about the cancellation, the church said,

In the wake of some controversy over our Christmas production offered to schools, Agape Church wishes to salute the courageous stand that the Terry Elementary Principal made in not succumbing to the pressure of one complaint voiced to the Arkansas Society of Free Thinkers and media.  We applaud the support that the Little Rock School District has shown to Mrs. Register, and agree with their position that attending the matinees was not a constitutional issue.  Christmas is a Christian holiday, hence its name, Christmas. Our program addresses its origins with light-hearted songs and theatre.  The context of the birth of Christ is broadly described in both Old & New Testament texts.

But because of what this issue has become, as a church, it is not our desire to put hard working, sacrificial teachers and cast members in harm’s way. What we want said is that we love our city, our schools, parents and families.  People are at the heart of the matter to us.  While we regret the loss of students who will not get this particular opportunity right now, we have taken the school matinees off the table, and welcome parents to bring their children to our public performance schedule, Saturday, December 15 @ 2pm and 6pm, and Sunday, Dec. 16 @ 6pm.

To quote bible verses and song lyrics that apply, they reflect our heart toward the Little Rock School District and everyone involved – Peace on Earth, Good will toward men.

Pastor Happy Caldwell, Agape Church

“Sacrificial teachers”? Please. That is just insulting. And who was in harm’s way? ASF had threatened nothing beyond a possible lawsuit. The hate and threats came from the religious people toward us, not the other way around – unless I just happened to miss the Meetup announcement as to when all my fellow Freethinkers would be out there naked at the church with their picket signs and their evolution and their gay marriage and their roasted babies in covered dishes, all plump and juicy and waiting for the potluck after the looting and pillaging and stuff.

And apparently Pastor Caldwell does not know where the traditions of Christmas, including Charlie Brown’s tree, actually came from.

 

With the additional performances over the weekend, any family that wants to take their kids can do so. The church may even get an overflow crowd because of all the free publicity we’ve generated for them. We wish them well.

This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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A Reader’s Legal Question: Student-Led Prayers

Reader questions are edited to eliminate references to specific people and places, unless there’s a need to call out the cavalry. If you see something here that almost resembles your question, but your main concern isn’t addressed, go ahead and ask again in the comments. I’ll do my best to respond.

Reader Question:

I was talking at a conference recently with a hotshot in the atheist movement, and she told me thought that student led prayer etc. was not really legit. With a strict interpretation of separation of church and state would that not be true? What is the principle with which students are allowed but adults are not?

– Jimbo

Answer:

In public primary and secondary schools, the adults are employed by and acting for the government. The students are not. That means that adult religious speech is restricted and student religious speech is not – usually. This answer is restricted to public schools run by the government, which accounts for most schools in the U.S. In this answer when I say “school,” I mean a public, government-run school, not a private or parochial school. The rules are different for those.

We know that schools cannot start the school day with a prayer, and we know that prayer is not allowed at school functions like school board meetings, athletic events, and graduations. These are events organized and led by the adults at those schools, though. What about when students take the initiative?

A significant United Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines School District, decided in 1969, was not a religious freedom case, but controls freedom of speech by public school students, including their religious speech. The Tinker students wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended when they refused not to wear them. The Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment applies to public school children, and that school administrators have to demonstrate a constitutionally valid reason for restricting student speech. If the school wanted to restrict the students’ speech, it had to prove that it had more reason than just to “avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpleasant viewpoint.”

So, the general rule is that if a voluntary group of students wants to pray at school, and voluntarily gather for that purpose, they can. The key term in that rule is the word “voluntary.”

As long as there are tests and oral reports, there will be prayer in schools – just not coordinated, formal prayer. Student-led or -initiated prayer over the school’s PA system, for example, is not a voluntary association of students agreeing to come together to exercise religious freedom, free speech, or freedom of association.  Nor is a student-led prayer – even a nondenominational and non-proselytizing one – over the PA system at a football game. “Moments of silence” for secular purposes, such as a meditative moment to calm rowdiness, are fine; moments of silence during which students are encouraged to pray are not permitted. Even non-denominational prayer is forbidden because the Establishment Clause requires absolute religious neutrality on the part of the government.

A “See You at the Pole” (SYAP) prayer movement began years ago, and students from all over the world participate annually, on the fourth Wednesday of September. Students who choose to do so gather at the school’s flagpole before classes begin for a student-led prayer. Unfortunately, SYAP events and other student-led religious clubs can serve as a vehicle to promote bullying of non-religious students, or even students who are not evangelical Christians. Public schools must protect their students from “subtle coercive pressure” in elementary and secondary schools, so administrators may be justified in stopping the campus meetings of these student groups if bullying actually does result.

Because of the coercive pressure exerted when the authority figures at a school participate in prayer, teachers, administrators, and coaches should not join the voluntary prayers of the students. There has not been a Supreme Court decision on this issue, but the various federal district and appellate court decisions on the subject tend to agree that adult participation lends too much emphasis to the religious activity.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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Public School Field Trips, Religion, and the Law

Question:

What’s the big deal? Why can’t public school children go see that Charlie Brown Christmas play?

Answer:

The law of separation of church and state, as it applies to public school field trips, as explained by the Appignani Humanist Legal Center’s Bill Burgess in a letter sent Monday:

November 26, 2012

Sandra Register
Principal
Terry Elementary School
10800 Mara Lynn Drive
Little Rock, Arkansas 72211

Dr. Morris Holmes
Little Rock School District
810 West Markham Street
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201

cc: Little Rock School District Board of Education

Re: Public Elementary School Field Trip to Church to See Christian Play

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am writing to alert you to a serious separation of church and state concern.  We have recently received a request for legal assistance from the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers and the Central Arkansas Coalition of Reason on behalf of the parents of a student at Terry Elementary School. They informed us that the school has scheduled a field trip for students to view a production of “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!,” a Christmas play with a sectarian theme, staged at and by Agape Church, a local evangelical Christian church,[1] the week of December 14.

The American Humanist Association is a national nonprofit organization with over 10,000 members and 20,000 supporters across the country, including in Arkansas.  The purpose of AHA’s legal center is to protect one of the most fundamental legal principles of our democracy: the constitutional mandate requiring separation of church and state, embodied in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.[2]

As you must know, the Supreme Court has made clear that the “First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state” and that this “wall must be kept high and impregnable.”  Everson v. Bd. of Ed. of Ewing Twp., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947).  To do so, “the Constitution mandates that the government remain secular.”  County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 610 (1989).  In order to secure this freedom from state-backed religion, the Constitution requires that any governmental “practice which touches upon religion, if it is to be permissible under the Establishment Clause,” must have a “secular purpose” and not “advance . . . religion.”  Id. at 590.  Specifically, the government “may not promote or affiliate itself with any religious doctrine or organization.”  Id.  Courts “pay particularly close attention to whether the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of [unconstitutionally] ‘endorsing’ religion.”  Id. at 591.  Endorsement includes “conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.”  Id. at 593.

In short, “religion must be a private matter for the individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice,” not the state.  Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 625 (1971).  In addition, the Supreme Court has in particular expressed especially “heightened concern” about preventing any sort of public school involvement with religion because of the risk of “subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools” environment.  Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592 (1992).

Applying these general constitutional rules to the issue at hand, we have reason to believe that the school’s actions are in violation of the Establishment Clause.  The school is encouraging impressionable young students to attend an event in a Christian venue with a Christian message.  The effect is to affiliate the school with that message, encouraging its adoption by the students by means of this endorsement.

In the play, following a raucous and disjointed attempt to put on a Christmas pageant, Charlie Brown expresses frustration.  Linus says he can tell Charlie Brown “what Christmas is all about.”  He then quotes verbatim the New Testament of the Bible, Luke 2:8-14:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The characters then cease bickering, adopt this religious view (rejecting the supposed “commercialism” of a secular Christmas celebration), and, in the immediately following final scenes, sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”:

Hark the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

The message of the play is clear: Jesus Christ is the son of God and the messiah, and the real meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the anniversary of his birth.  It is completely sectarian in nature and expressly rejects any secular version of Christmas.

A church is of course free to spread this religious message.  Our public schools, however, are not free to take part in the effort.  They may not choose to promote it by encouraging students to attend, let alone by organizing and funding attendance by means of an official field trip.  Although objecting students may decline to attend, they will face the subtly coercive pressure of their peers to do so (in addition of course to the explicit encouragement of the school).  Because of this, the Supreme Court has made clear that an Establishment Clause violation is not “mitigated by the fact that individual students may absent themselves upon parental request.”  Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 224-25 (1963). 

The Establishment Clause forbids our schools from promoting a religious message in this way.  This trip must therefore be canceled.  In the alternative, it may be modified to be instead a visit to a secular Christmas-themed theatrical performance, such as the Nutcracker, would of course present no issue.

Please notify us in writing about the steps you are taking to avoid this constitutional violation so that we may avoid any potential litigation.  Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

 

Sincerely,

William J. Burgess
Appignani Humanist Legal Center
American Humanist Association
________________________

[1]   https://www.agape-church.org/.

[2]  The very first sentence of the Bill of Rights mandates that the state be secular: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”  This provision, known as the Establishment Clause, “build[s] a wall of separation between church and State.”  See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 164 (1878).  The Supreme Court “has given the [Establishment Clause] a ‘broad interpretation . . . in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress. . . .’  [finding that it] afford[s] protection against religious establishment far more extensive than merely to forbid a national or state church.”  McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442 (1961).

This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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The Grinch Who Stole Charlie Brown’s Christmas

Since I’ve been all over national – and international – news the last week or two because of my insidious hatred for Charlie Brown and my determination not to let kids have any holiday fun at all, I’ve gotten some hate mail.

The email below came from a woman I have known personally for several years. I have served with her on a national board, and she and I shared a flight back from a meeting in Washington DC a couple of years ago. We enjoyed each other’s company. She didn’t realize that she was having a pleasant conversation with the poster girl for the Atheist Taliban, and when Faux News informed her of such, she became somewhat irate. She sent me an email that most people would not send except to a stranger. I couldn’t let this one go. I haven’t responded to any of the other nasty emails, but I know this woman. I have enjoyed her company.

And the tone of her email lets me know in a critically wounding way that I have not gotten the message out that I need to get out. I need to explain why the <a href=”http://unitedcor.org/central-arkansas/news” rel=”external>Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, on behalf of – and at the request of – our members who have children at that school, object to a public school taking young elementary children out of class to bus them to an evangelical Christian church to see a Christmas play, the main point of which is to tell them that if their families aren’t celebrating Christmas because of the Sweet Little Baby Jesus, they are not doing it right. So, verbatim, here’s what she wrote, and here is my answer:

Dear Anne, 

I am “outraged” that atheists are denying children the right to see “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in Little Rock. Let 6 and 7 yr. olds be “Freethinkers.” Let them decide. Unbeliever’s children are not allowing freethinking. Ironic..Atheists are deciding for their children AND for the Christian children. It is “awkward” and “unacceptable” to deny Christians the field trip. Good Grief!! Unbelievers’ children can sit in another classroom. Their parents are out of step.

Atheists have their own holiday April 1st when they celebrate April Fool’s Day. I am sad to have read this national news being made by a fellow [member of our organization]. 

You may be The Grinch who TRIED to steal Christmas. But, Christmas is celebrated in our hearts. So atheists continue to lose. 

Are you on [the board]’s Education Committee?? 

Louise

 

Dear Louise:

No one is denying children the “right” to see anything. These children are certainly free to go with their parents or friends to see the play, which is being offered at other times outside of school hours. If their parents want them to see the play, we think it would be a fun family outing. We would encourage them to go – just not as a public school field trip.

We hope that Agape Church has a great crowd for their play and we wish them well. We have no problem with the church offering this play to the community. Our concern is that a public school should not waste its limited resources on a field trip to a church where the children will learn that there is only one “right” way to celebrate this holiday season, regardless of their family’s religion.

The problem is not that Christian children shouldn’t see the play. The problem is that the public school is part of the government, and the government is prohibited by law from supporting any particular religion. Public schools may not take children away from instructional time to transport them to a church to see a play with a religious message. It’s illegal.

This particular play bemoans the commercialization of Christmas. It climaxes when a character recites a lengthy passage from the Bible, then declares that the biblical passage is the “real” reason for Christmas. That scene is the whole point of the story. That makes the play one with not only a religious theme, but a sectarian one. By taking the children to see this play, the public school is telling them that any other reason for celebrating this holiday – as well as not celebrating the holiday at all – is wrong.

There are students in that school who are Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. There are Buddhist children and Hindu children there. There are also children with no religious affiliation. People of many faiths celebrate for different reasons during the winter holiday season. People with no religious affiliation also celebrate. For instance, my atheist household celebrates Christmas eve and Christmas day as a time of love, of family closeness, of sharing, and of joyful and compassionate giving to each other and service to our community. We celebrate the things of the holiday that are important to us. We also celebrate with our Christian family members and friends, but perhaps not for the same reason that they do.

Children in elementary school are not in a position to decide about religion for themselves. They are indoctrinated into the religion of their parents. A public school may not legally instruct a child as to what religion or religious customs the child should observe. It is illegal for a public school to tell a child that his or his family’s way of celebrating a holiday is wrong. “Your family does it wrong” is the emphatic message that this field trip will send to non-Christian children as well as to Christian children  (like those whose families are Jehovah’s Witnesses) who celebrate Christmas differently or not at all.

Because children in our school district are limited to only two or three field trips a year, we think that those field trips should be educational for all of the children, not religious reinforcement for the Christian children, and not religious marginalization of non-Christian children. This would not have been an issue had this field trip been to see the Nutcracker, which is a seasonal story without religious themes, and which has the additional qualities of exposing its audience to classical music and ballet in a theatrical setting.

Bullying is rampant in public schools. A child who is singled out as “different” is always going to be at higher risk for bullying. Atheist children are already bullied in public schools. By reinforcing the mindset that there is only one “right” way to celebrate the holidays, children who are singled out as having families that do things differently will be at higher risk of being bullied. It is not acceptable for the school to put these high-risk children at an even greater risk.

I have received a lot of angry and hateful emails like yours – some of which have included actual threats – as a result of the media coverage of this incident. They underscore why the parents of this child did not want to identify themselves and their child publicly. It would be dangerous for them to do so.  Simply because I spoke out for them, and simply because my organization ensures that the law of separation between church and state is enforced, my group and I have been characterized as having declared war on Christmas.

I like Christmas. I don’t want it to go away. But I don’t think our public schools have any business sending kids a message that their families aren’t doing Christmas right.

Anne

So, that’s what I wrote back to Louise. I should have said more to her.

I should have said that, yes, I was on the education committee at one time, and that because I care about education, I care that indoctrination is not a part of it. I strongly believe that even young children should be taught critical thinking skills. Unless they have been taught critical thinking skills, a six or seven-year-old who is naturally skeptical enough to see the mythology of the Christmas story is rare, indeed. We know that. Children of this age are told that if they do not behave well then Santa won’t visit them, and their parents tend to be rewarded with better behavior. Children this age believe in a tooth fairy that leaves money under their pillows for those first lost teeth. Children this age are sure that an Easter bunny leaves them eggs and candy.  In other words, children this age are usually not capable of the critical thinking processes that distinguish fact from fiction.

I should have pointed out that not even all Christians celebrate Christmas and those who do celebrate it in lots of different ways. I should have reminded the people I’ve been talking with that Christmas traditions were co-opted by Christianity from many other, non-Christian traditions.

I should have borrowed Hemant Mehta’s words. (Hemant, if you read this, thank you for your support.) Hemant reminded me that not only does this play expose children to Christianity, it promotes it. He emphasized the dilemma facing the parents we are attempting to help: “It’s tough to speak up against something like this because you’re going up against the majority as well as a tradition. It’s even tougher when you’re putting your child at risk of being ostracized instead of just yourself…Christians just assume everyone agrees with them and it’s downright dangerous in some areas to disagree. You risk losing friends, social status, and respect.” He is dead right, and that’s exactly why the parents came to the Freethinkers, and why they are definitely not willing to be unmasked now that the uproar has become a national outcry. These parents want to protect their own family’s beliefs, and the school has absolutely no business treading on religious ground.

I should have pointed out that atheists don’t see themselves as losers at all. We are, in fact, much freer than someone shackled to an outdated religious code of conduct. We are not burdened with the guilt or fear imposed by dire promises of a vengeful god, and we are moral and law-abiding because that’s what we think we ought to be – not because someone threatens to make us miserable for an eternity if we aren’t. We know that this life is the only one we have, so we make the most of it, as best we can. We are compassionate and charitable not because some Bronze Age book of fairy tales tells us to be, but because being compassionate and charitable makes us feel good, and makes our world a better place and our relationships deeper and fuller.

I should have said that a play promoted by a memo to parents that admits candidly, “This production does expose your child to Christianity through some of the songs and scenes” is a play to which no school should take children. The fact that the school had to put a label on the letter home that said, in effect, “Warning: Religious Content” should have been a huge red flag to the school that they had no business planning this field trip. How is it fair, or reasonable, to warehouse first and second graders in an unfamiliar classroom to protect them from someone else’s idea of religion?

A lot of objections have come to my attention. Even other non-theists have questioned whether this is a battle we really want to fight. I firmly believe that it is. Children have a right not to be ostracized at school for not practicing their teacher’s religion. It is our understanding that these children might not have been invited to the church but for the fact that their teacher was in the play. Talk about coercive pressure! I want to thank Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times, too. He reminded me that I should have said that this field trip to see a teacher in a religiously-themed play is nothing less than proselytizing. The situation is completely insensitive to the potential feelings of these young children and their families. The tyranny of the majority marginalizes a known minority population within the school, and apparently, the school administrators do not care. They should be ashamed.

I wish I had said outright what JT said when he reported on this situation initially:that younger atheist kids in elementary school are closeted for a number of reasons, and sometimes on the strict instruction of their parents: for fear of bullying, ostracism, and of being singled out for any reason. And there are lots of times when I wish I had the nerve to say publicly what I have no problem saying privately: that people who think it’s okay to violate someone’s constitutional rights are full of… well, they’re just wrong.  (I still can’t bring myself to say it publicly.)

I should have thought to say what my friend Lainey said: “I would be pissed if I were one of the parents. Not so much because of my child being exposed to the religious content in Charlie Brown as much as the fact that the school administrators clearly don’t take keeping religion out of the classroom, which is part of their jobs, as seriously as they should. It’s really not about Charlie Brown! It’s about separation of church and state which is very important to non-Christians because we’re in the minority, and they’re demonstrating that they don’t care about even showing us that consideration. It’s very important to speak out and stand up for your rights the very moment they start getting infringed upon. Protecting separation of church and state is far more important than the needs/desires of these children to see this performance. And simply saying it’s not mandatory isn’t fair to the kids — why not simply take them to an event that ALL of the kids can enjoy?”

“Now, come on, really. What’s the harm?” I’ve been asked. The expression on my face probably mirrors Dave Silverman’s, when he was on Bill O’Reilly’s show, being told that the tides come in, the tides go out…

I appreciate the statement that another supporter, Randy, added to the conversation: “I can remember how being different in school is like throwing a bleeding person overboard into shark-infested waters. Children can be very cruel.  Every time I hear of another child or teenager committing suicide, I wonder what the cause was. The religious community continues its attack on the wall of separation between church and state, and we need to patch these breaches when we find them.” So many of the comments I have received tell me that I am exaggerating how atheist kids can be bullied. Since I’ve been bullied plenty for my atheism, even by members of my own family, I call bullshit on those comments.

“This is the dominant culture of this country!” I’ve been told. “Children should know it, and know it well!” Again, I have that Dave Silverman expression of incredulity. Do they really think that children aren’t going to know the Christmas myth if they don’t get to see Charlie Brown? Really? Why not actually expose children to something they might not otherwise be exposed to? The Nutcracker is a beautiful fantasy story that happens to take place on Christmas, but it has no religious theme at all. It exposes children to the beauty of ballet and the glorious music of a full classical orchestra. There are a lot of children who will never see a live ballet or hear a live orchestra in their lives. Wouldn’t that be more appropriate than a rehash of a cartoon they can see any number of times for a solid month each year?

Like my friend Lisa, who is a public school teacher herself, I am annoyed as a taxpayer in this school district that the school is not using the fuel, money, and time on a bona fide learning adventure. Instead, the school wants a rehash of a cartoon that is shown yearly on network television.

“Humbling” does not even begin to describe how I feel, sitting in the crosshairs of those who would hunt down the “Atheist Taliban.” (Yes, someone said that – although, fortunately, he was kidding.) I worry that the message I need send is not getting delivered.

What really stings, though, is that I am being personally attacked because I stood up for a child.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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Après la Chirurgie

Did you hear? I had a softball-sized tumor removed from my neck three weeks ago.

I noticed it about a year ago and shrugged it off, thinking it was a little lipoma that wasn’t any big deal. Then I began having trouble turning my head. The lump was getting bigger – about the size of a golf ball – and I couldn’t comfortably wear turtlenecks or even mock neck shirts. I named my lump Esmeralda and patiently waited for her to gain sentience.

When Esmeralda started aching, I decided to go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor, especially if I think I’m going to get bad news. I’ve had cancer twice, so having a tumor made me think that number three was here. If I pretended it didn’t exist, it would go away.  I’m a very bright girl in these matters. I knew exactly what I was doing when I ignored the wretched thing for so long. Really.

My doctor looked at it and said that there was no question that it needed to come out. Clearly, it was causing me trouble. Even if it was probably just a lipoma and not something devastating, it was in a bad place. And, he said, even for a lipoma it was, well, kind of big. There was definitely an asymmetry to my non-gazelle-like neck. A bump about the size of half a golf ball hung off the side it.

I knew all this before he told me. I knew he’d have to refer me to a surgeon. That’s why I was there, right? So, deep breath, I got the referral and made the appointment and went the next week to see when I could divorce myself from dear Esmeralda, who I was beginning to think of as my dicephalic parapagus conjoined twin.

He sent me to an otolaryngology clinic. Otolaryngologists  cut on people’s necks when the spine isn’t involved. I was glad my spine wasn’t involved, although I did wonder if that was because I simply didn’t have one. What kind of person, being possessed of a spine, was afraid of what was probably just a harmless little lipoma?

At the otolaryngology clinic, I got a CT scan of my neck. Back in the examination room, the surgeon pulled up the scan on the computer screen. “Wow, it’s really big!” he exclaimed. He showed me what to look at. The difference in the two sides of my neck was obvious. One side of the screen looked like what you’d think a neck should look like on a CT scan. By that I mean it had not much flesh and a big amount of bone. At least, that one side did. The other side? Well, it was different. Waaaay different.

lipoma-scan
There was a vast blackness that took up a lot of space on the right half of my neck. It looked as though Darth Vader himself had taken up residence there and his helmet was pushing things around.

The doctor pointed out how my muscle was stretched over this dark growth, how my nerves and blood vessels were pushed out of place, and how much space the thing took up.

“It’s sooo biiiig,” he said again. And again. And yet another time, just in case I hadn’t heard him before. That’s right.  Only I could have a freakishly large tumor in a place with as little flesh as my neck and not notice it for years on end. Evidently, I can’t see a damn thing with my eyes full of sand.

Lipomas usually grow just right under the skin and are fairly simple to remove. Unless they become bothersome, it’s not necessary to remove them at all. Mine was different. It was under the muscle, which, the doctor graciously postulated, was probably the reason I had never realized it had been growing there for so long. It was also pressing on important nerves and blood vessels. There just isn’t a lot of room in a neck, and there’s a lot of important stuff there. Like, say, the carotid artery, which feeds blood to the brain. Which my lipoma had shoved out of place. In fact, it had shoved things so far out of place that I was in danger of soon looking like the Elephant Man.

Surgery wasn’t just an option; it was necessary due to both the size and the location. If Esmeralda really did get large enough to become sentient, state law would forbid me from removing her. I mean, I could already forget about using federal funds. Her presence could no longer be disguised with loose clothing or makeup. I had to act, and act quickly.

The problem was, the size and location of the tumor meant that a different doctor needed to do the surgery. Someone who specialized in cancers of the head and neck.  Swell. The”C” word again. Fortunately, I liked the new surgeon. I liked the old one, too, but the new one was quick-witted, funny, and personable. And probably married. (sigh)

My family rallied around me. My sister went with me to the pre-surgery appointment. My mom took me to her house after the surgery so I could be pampered. Jack came to see me that night.  I felt pretty raw, and my throat, complete with a drainage tube, wasn’t pretty either.

scar
Wanna see?

Three weeks later, I’m still a little tired, but I’m fine. Some mornings it’s harder to shake off the latent effects of the anesthesia than others. Of course, staying up until 1 a.m. to finish a novel I can’t put down sort of contributes to the problem, but I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do. (The books are really good. Brent Weeks is a new, young author and he has time to grow. I can’t wait for his next offering.)

night-angel-trilogy
My son, Jack, has demanded credit for cajoling me into reading this series.  Here you go, son.

I have an awe-inspiring scar on my throat. I can come up with plenty of tales to explain its presence.

I’ve told the story of Jack the Ripper to my wide-eyed nieces and youngest nephew (they’re 11, 8, and 6). I have the scar to prove that I narrowly escaped him.

Next, I plan to work up a tale of the Bride of Frankenstein for their entertainment. I’ve already got the white hair at the temples going on, so between that and the scar, I’m not going to have to spend a lot on costuming.

bride-of-frankenstein

The surgeon said that the tumor had to have been there for a very, very long time to be as large as it was. How the hell does a softball manage to hide in a neck for years and only show up as a golf-ball sized bulge?

The size of the thing was apparently really impressive. Every time I call his office his nurse exclaims, “Oh, you’re the one with that really huge lipoma!” Every time. Every stinkin’ time. I’m beginning to wonder if I ought not to have saved the damn thing and taken it on the road. I could have made a living in the sideshow as the girl with the softball in her neck.

Maybe I should have had the thing cut in two and used it for a boob job. Next time, if there is a next time, I’m going to think that through carefully.

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Breast Cancer Awareness

Breast cancer has taken the lives of women we knew and loved, and has made the lived of other women we know and love very difficult. Has anyone’s life been unaffected by it?  Don’t we all know someone who has had breast cancer?

The Susan G. Komen Foundation is the beneficiary of a Three-Day Walk for a cure for breast cancer. The walk is a National Philanthropic Trust project, aimed at nationwide and even worldwide participation.

With money for cancer research, more women diagnosed with breast cancer can be like my friend Ellen, who miraculously survived with a spontaneous remission despite being given a death sentence by her doctor, and my aunt Jackie, who survived with successful treatment.  I can name others who have recovered and others who, sadly, have not.  My cousin Margaret, my neighbor Sassy, my old friend Faye…. all have been the unlucky victims of this insidious disease.

As many of you reading this blog know, I’ve had cancer twice. I’ve not had breast cancer, but my nightmares tell me to I expect to. None of us are safe.

Please donate to this worthy cause.

My friend Kathi, who happens to be my former husband’s girlfriend, is participating in the three-day walk in October. If you don’t participate yourself, please donate to her effort to raise money for a cure.

Is it weird that I ask you to support Kathi?  She’s dating my ex-husband, after all.  If you don’t already know, Skip and I have a wonderful relationship – much better than when we were married – and it all revolves around a certain boy who is closing in on adulthood.  Our son Jack is sixteen, personable, creative, and reasonably well-adjusted despite his parents’ divorce.  Skip and I have worked hard to make sure we work together for Jack’s sake.  He is the single most important thing in our lives.  Skip and I encourage each other constantly, talk almost daily, and support each other’s goals, hopes and dreams.  We call each other for support and to vent. We still like each other.  Thank the gods we divorced before we could develop hatred for one another!

I support Kathi not only because she is my friend and Jack’s possible future stepmom, but because she is actually doing something for a cause I believe in strongly.  If you don’t participate in the walk yourself, support someone who is.

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Gun Control

In the last couple of years I’ve changed my stance on gun control.

I don’t like guns.  They scare the hell out of me, and I see nothing “sporting” about attacking unarmed animals with them in the woods. I don’t own one and I’ve never been comfortable with the notion of having one in my house, despite the fact that my ex-husband had a hunting rifle and a boyfriend had a pistol.

I’ve represented kids with criminal charges involving guns.  I’ve seen bullet holes in children’s bedroom walls from drive-by shootings. I’ve represented women who were threatened with guns by their husbands, boyfriends, and even their sons. I’ve been to funerals of people killed by guns.  I’ve held and hugged a weeping grandmother when a stray bullet in a gang shooting left her favorite grandson, a good boy with an “A” average and college-bound, dead on a dark street in a small town in southeast Arkansas.

I don’t like the attitude of the NRA. It comes across as arrogant, shrill, and combative – not the kind of attitude a responsible gun owner/handler should display, especially around guns.

This is going to sound stupid, probably, but one of the things that tipped the scales for me against gun control was a movie.  It wasn’t just any movie.  It was a movie based on a comic book. Bear with me.  I’ve watched V for Vendetta, a film by the incomparable Wachowski Brothers, multiple times, and I find no fault with its future history philosophy.

Perhaps the helium in my brain is showing, but the point that disarming a populace oppresses the citizens makes sense to me.

One of the very best quotes from the movie is, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”  Why?  Because the power to change government, to oversee government, and to demand that government be accountable lies with the people.

There is a poignant scene in this movie in which thousands of unarmed citizens in Guy Fawkes masks confront the well-armed military. As they pour into the open areas on this auspicious night, the astonished military doesn’t open fire. Perhaps it is the sheer numbers of people; perhaps it is the eerie, surreal fact that they are costumed like that seditionist of the past, but for whatever reason, the armed forces of the government holds its fire and allows itself to be overrun. Perhaps it is because the members of the armed forces are citizens, too, and the whole point of the movie is that citizens must require and compel change in the government.

And then there’s this quote, the source of which I’m desperately seeking:

“An armed society is a polite society.
An unarmed society is a police state.
A disarmed society is a tyranny.”

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Happy Birthday, Daddy

Today is my Dad’s birthday. He would have been 71. He died five years ago and I miss him more than ever.

My dad was my champion. His confidence in me never flagged, even when I was an angry, incorrigible teenager bent on self-destruction. He always told me, without any qualifying adjectives, phrases, or conditions whatsoever, that I could be and do anything I wanted in life. I’m 45 years old and I still believe him.

Dad wasn’t perfect. He drank too much. You know the kind of drunk I’m talking about. He was perfectly functional during the day – had a pretty high-profile position in the little community where he lived, in fact – but evenings were a different story. He was a melancholy drunk, the kind who wanted to sing “Danny Boy” and worry about the re-institution of the draft.

No kidding: when I was a teenager the draft was one of his favorite drunken topics. He was on the county draft board during Vietnam and the experience scarred him, I think. He objected strongly to the war and did all he could to keep kids from our area from going. He had a cousin who was on the ground in Vietnam, a brother who spent his tour with the Navy just off the coast of Vietnam, and a brother-in-law who was about to be shipped out when his luck changed and he was sent home instead. Wars that were nothing but someone’s political agenda pissed Dad off. You can imagine what he’d think about Iraq Redux.

Dad made Christmas magical. His birthday, coming on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, meant that the whole season was special. We had a tradition when I was young, that he and my sister continued after her divorce: Christmas Eve meant a trip to the closest Wal-Mart, 40 miles away in the town of Searcy. Dad wasn’t looking for significant gifts on that trip. If he saw something perfect for someone, he’d pick it up, of course, but the purpose of the trip was really to grab silly gifts, stocking stuffers, and prepare for Pre-Christmas, a tradition our family held dear.

My family inherited Pre-Christmas from Dad’s family. The legend goes that on Christmas Eve the kids were allowed to open one gift, and the adults, being who they were, didn’t want to get left out. They started exchanging gag gifts on Christmas Eve, accompanied by really bad poetry. There was a $10 limit on any Pre-Christmas gift when I was growing up. This encouraged creativity in gift-giving. A rubber chicken was always the booby prize, and one lucky person a year got it. It was a badge of honor to receive the chicken, which was always dressed up a little differently and presented with new panache.

I cooked my first Thanksgiving turkey at the age of 22 and had to call my mother to find out, halfway through cooking, that the giblets were in a package in the turkey’s neck. That Pre-Christmas I got the chicken with feathers stuck in its butt, intended to resemble the turkey. The chicken’s head had been cut off and, um, things were inserted in it. I don’t remember the poem (who can remember those horrible poems?) but I assure you it was appropriately insulting. A new chicken was purchased the next year to replace the poor decapitated capon.

It is still a badge of honor to receive the chicken. Jack and his cousins would be devastated every year when they’d open their pre-Christmas gift and it wouldn’t be the chicken. We had to contrive chicken gifts for them three years in a row just to get it out of the way. It’s hard to come up with a rubber chicken idea and poem for a ten-year-old!

But this isn’t a post about Pre-Christmas. Dad made Christmas special in several other ways, but I should have written about that at Christmas. At least I have blog fodder for next Christmas. No, this is a blog about my Dad, whose birthday is today.

I was Daddy’s Girl. Dad had two daughters, but I was It. Every girl, even my sister, should be a Daddy’s Girl. Sis got double billing with me as an adult, but as children, we were very definitely divided. She was Mama’s and I was Daddy’s. We sort of shared our little brother, who came along half a decade later and was the only boy.

As Daddy’s Girl I had the seat of honor. I considered it the seat of honor, anyway. I think I more or less took the seat, but I had it nonetheless. I sat on the floor at his feet when we had company. I sat to his right at the dinner table. On weekends I snuggled with him on the couch and watched John Wayne and Henry Fonda and James Stewart. If he went somewhere I was the child who accompanied him.

When I was about eleven years old I rebelled completely against going to church, which I thought was stupid and pointless. I just didn’t buy the whole “god” concept, which was no more believable than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny in my mind. The story of Jesus and the ultimate sacrifice he made seemed ridiculous, and I said so rather vehemently. Martyrdom was foolish, no matter whether it was Jesus or Galileo. The choice between burning at the stake and telling a bunch of threatening men that I lied would have been easy for me. I’d be Galileo’s twin.

But at the tender age of eleven, too young even for confirmation in the church, it was Dad who told me that before I declared myself an atheist (I had no idea there was a name for it) I needed to consider whether there was a “Mover of the First Part.” There may not be a benevolent intelligence watching us now, but at some point, something, or someone, set the thing in motion. This was my first real theology lesson. It intrigued me a lot more than any Bible story ever could.

Because of this conversation with my dad, I was agnostic for years. I had to come to intellectual grips with the concept of infinity before I could put agnosticism away completely. Thanks to my dad, I actually studied theology, philosophy, and religion instead of just saying, “This whole ‘Jesus and God’ thing is nonsense, and I want no part of it.” I still study religions. Maybe I’m still agnostic in some ways. Nah…

I have my dad’s sense of humor. All three of his children do. The three of us have all remarked on multiple occasions how glad we are that we have Dad’s quickness to laugh, that we inherited the song that was in his heart. We are all basically happy people. We are happy on the outside and we are happy inside. My brother and I both struggle with depression, a genetic problem that comes from Mom’s side of the family. Believe it or not, though, even when we are depressed and at our worst, we are still optimists with a sense of fun. We are quick-witted. We see the irony in situations that make us sad.

Like Dad, all three of his children often laugh inappropriately. At the funeral of a family friend not too long ago, my brother and I walked in together a little late. Mom and Sis sat on the other side of the church. Jay and I opened the hymnal and the book that had the funeral service in it. We read the paper program. Then I noticed what I thought was a theme to the funeral.

“Jay!” I whispered, nudging him. “Do you notice that all these hymns have something to do with being submissive to God?”

He looked. Sure enough, each hymn had something about bondage or submission. He nodded. “Do you think the deceased and his wife were into BDSM?” I asked.

He moved a step away from me and turned red, trying to keep the laughter in. The widow was and is a woman of a very strong, dominant nature, and we were on the receiving end of her dominance many times growing up. The notion of her dominating her kind, soft-spoken, wheelchair-bound husband wasn’t far-fetched at all, but the idea that she’d do it in leather and with a flogger was making us snort.

Then came the concordant reading. More submission stuff. More bondage. Both of us were trying hard to keep a straight face, and we were not doing a good job. The homily was just as bad. Accepting death as God’s will, submitting whether we want to or not…

Yes, we laugh inappropriately. We should not have read anything naughty into the chosen hymns and texts of the funeral service. We were very bad. We will now submit to be punished, but only by the widow dressed in leather. (giggle) Dad would have found that to be hilariously, and inappropriately, funny as well. Too bad he missed it.

I was Daddy’s Girl. I didn’t care one thing about disappointing my mother or doing what she wanted me to do. If I thought I had disappointed Dad, though, it was worse than being spanked, grounded, or otherwise punished. I never wanted to let my Dad down. When Dad got angry at me, I knew I had truly screwed up. I knew I had to fix it.

When I was in my early 20’s and living 1500 miles away from him, I had a decision to make. It was a major decision, and I wanted him to tell me I was doing the right thing. I laid out the paths I could possibly take and I asked his advice. He said, “Why are you asking me? You’re just going to do what you want to anyway.” He said it gently. I realized that he was pointing out a flaw in my nature. I wanted him to reassure me that a decision I had already made was the right one. I didn’t really want his input.

Years later, when my husband said essentially the same thing to me, I understood that even though I had tried to be more conscientious about heeding the advice I was given, I wasn’t asking for it in the right way. I still have this flaw. Thanks to my dad, I am aware of it and it gives me a really guilty feeling whenever I realize that I’ve done it again. Gee, thanks, Dad.

Dad died very suddenly, either because of an aneurysm in his aorta or more probably from a deep vein thrombosis – a blood clot. Maybe it was the widowmaker heart attack – we don’t know. He had been having problems with numbness in his left foot for several years and no doctor had been able to determine what was wrong. It’s likely that he had a clot in that numb area that finally made it to his heart and stopped it for good.

Jack was ten years old when Dad died. We were talking about Dad one day not long after the memorial service, and Jack put his finger on what really made my Dad special. “You know what was great about Papa? He listened.”

That was really and truly what was great about my dad. He did listen, and he listened well. He didn’t interrupt with advice. He didn’t change the subject because he was uncomfortable. He listened, he asked relevant questions, and he led us to the answer. He wasn’t afraid of feelings. If we needed to vent, he understood that and he let us vent. He only tried to solve problems when we asked him to. He helped us see solutions and he did it with humor, diplomacy, and quiet support.

My Dad was a great man because he listened. I hope that when I die someone can say something that good about me.

I went to college where I did, then went to law school because of my dad. I accomplished what I have because of my dad’s support and encouragement. I look at life the way I do because I am my father’s daughter. I am who I am because I was Daddy’s Girl.

I love you, Daddy. Thank you for making me me. And Happy Birthday, you old fart.

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