From Where I Sit

Cautionary tales

2009-12-16T12:19:00.002-05:00

Any editor worth her salt knows one must never find glee in someone else’s mistake. So you mustn’t, dear reader, confuse this post with anything the least bit gleeful. In fact, it is a completely NON-glee-in-any-way attempt to save you and others like you from yourselves.

Well, unless you’re not someone who’d ever have to publish a correction, in which case, it’s just for your information.

No laughing please. It’s not funny.

Well, except maybe the one about the bear.

My first laugh of the day

2009-12-11T09:03:00.002-05:00

Posted on a men’s room door somewhere in Northern Virginia:

Q&A

2009-12-09T09:50:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, a friend asked me some interesting questions in a different venue. I had a bunch of fun answering them. Then I decided I'd like you to answer them.

Use your name, don’t use your name. But please, dear reader, don’t leave us hanging.

Once you’re done, I’ll post my own answers.

Peace,

bzh

************

1. If you could make equal amounts of money doing any of the jobs you’ve ever done before, which would you pick?

2. If you could just eliminate four Disney characters from existence, which ones would you pick?

3. If you had a million dollars, what would you buy?

4. When you think of Jesus, do you first envision an adult, or an infant?

5. What are your three favorite blogs?

A quote for today

2009-12-06T21:29:00.001-05:00

“The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
— Maya Angelou

One of the privileged

2009-12-03T14:12:00.003-05:00

Privilege: A special advantage or right possessed by an individual or group.

Man, do I have privilege. I’m Caucasian, able-bodied, able-minded, straight, educated, upper class and married.

The only place I might, in the teensiest way, have suffered for who I am is my gender. And even that hasn’t stopped me from doing anything I’ve wanted to do. Or if it has, I’m blissfully unaware, emphasis on blissful.

So can we all agree that I have oodles of privilege?

Now, can we also agree that my privilege doesn’t automatically categorize me as an insensitive boob when my attempts to see things from the point of view of those less privileged than I fail?

And wouldn’t it be great if we could extend that benefit of the doubt to the fairly large group of us who are working at it, even if our attempts aren't perfect this time? Or maybe any time?

I spend a lot of time with people whose privilege doesn’t extend as far and wide as mine does. Queer people. People of color. People whose bodies and minds are no longer whole.

Sometimes I get it just right. I say the right things, I do the right things, I think and feel the right things without having to, well, think about it.

Sometimes, though, I don’t get it right. And sometimes I get it dead wrong. None of the times is it because I don’t care and am not trying.

I don’t get it right for the same reason a newly arrived immigrant knows what “Stop moving around” means but can’t say the same for “Do you have ants in your pants?”

I don’t get it right because I’m not queer/black/disabled/whatever. I don’t come from there and, hard as I try, it doesn’t come naturally to think and feel as if I do. I’ve been working at it for a long time, and I still have to think about what I say and how I act, and will for the foreseeable future, before it comes naturally, which may be never.

Does that mean I should be thrown into the pile with the people who aren’t even trying? Should my attempts earn me scorn when they fall flat? Should my good intentions bring me ridicule when they don’t end up to be perfect?

If so, maybe I should just stop trying? Should we all stop until we can be absolutely certain we’ll get it perfectly right every time?

Would that be better?

I do. They don’t.

2009-12-03T11:25:00.003-05:00

Whether you’re gay or straight, this is the strongest defense of marriage you’ll ever see.

I wish Sen. Diane Savino were MY legislator. New York should be ashamed...

Tiger by the tale

2009-12-02T14:43:00.003-05:00

In June, as you know, I ended my longest-running relationship to date. I haven’t regretted it for a single minute.

All of what I wrote then is still true. I don’t know a thing about the people we’re supposed to be interested in. Among the boats I’ve missed: Jon & Kate, Gossip Girl, Twilight, most reality TV and the Kardashians (will someone please tell me what these people are famous for?)

I don’t actually care whether Jennifer Aniston is worried she’ll never marry again, or that Suri Cruise wears high heels. I wouldn’t know Rhianna or Chris Brown if I tripped over either of them. And I’ve never seen a single episode of Grey’s Anatomy, 30 Rock, Biggest Loser, How I Met Your Mother, The Office or Dancing with the Stars. (Relax. Really. I'm getting along just fine.)

What’s more, I’ve developed a real distaste for celebrity news, a real disdain for those who gather it and some real disgust for those who consume it.

I’ve come to hate what I used to be. The last straw was Tiger Woods.

For the love of everything holy, people. He cheated on his wife. Maybe a lot. Maybe more than a lot. And it’s STILL none of my business.

He’s not a public servant. He’s a public figure. An athlete. A golfer. What he owes his fans, his sponsors, the sport and this world is his very best effort on the golf course. Period.

If he were cheating at golf, that would be my business. That he’s cheating on his wife is HER business.

For days, he dodged questions from reporters and cops. He owed neither an explanation. I don’t blame him for clamming up. He has more important things to tend to — like his marriage and his family.

The poking and prodding continued, relentless in its pursuit of the truth, despite the fact that no one is owed the truth but the woman he married.

He didn’t answer. That brought up more questions. Then he gave a non-answer. That really drove ’em crazy. Finally, after three women with whom he apparently had consensual sex came forward — along with their attorneys — to quiet our raging hunger for every morsel of detail, he issued an apology and then told us it’s none of our business.

Having once been married to a scratch golfer, I can say without hesitation that I hate golf. I don’t mind golfers, except when they talk about golf, which I hate.

I have never had a feeling one way or the other, though, about Tiger Woods the man. He’s a magnificent athlete, magical to watch. It appears he’s also a cad. Maybe worse.

And still, it’s none of my business.

Last night, the president of our country gave a game-changer of a speech about Afghanistan. Our health care system is a shambles. Our planet is a mess. Our political parties delight in ruining lives. Our best leaders won’t even get into the game for fear we’ll pounce on their imperfections. Our kids can’t read. People are dying from preventable diseases of every kind in our country. Children go hungry. Parents have lost control. Families are starved for peace.

And we’re worried about Tiger Woods' dalliances?

God help us all.

Two great tastes...

2009-12-02T09:14:00.003-05:00

Justin Timberlake... in an NPR T-shirt.

That's about as close to perfect as it gets for this girl.

Happy Wednesday.

PETA, PETA, pumpkin eata

2009-11-24T11:35:00.005-05:00

I’m no fan of PETA. (Pita, I love. With a good hummus, how can you go wrong? But I digress.)

Truth is, PETA scares the ever-livin' poop right out of me. Jumping out at fashion shows. Throwing red paint around. Stripping down to their skivvies. Making us think about Pamela Anderson naked.

Ack.

PETA probably doesn’t give a rat's ass whether I like ’em or not. I'm not their intended audience. While I eat a largely vegetarian diet, it’s not for political reasons or because I care about the chickens and pigs and cows. I do it because I don’t want to weigh 450 pounds. Beans are one way to keep that from happening.

That said, I love the mock battle PETA wages each year with the broadcaster of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Here’s how it goes: PETA produces an ad and tries to buy space during the parade. It’s usually about turkeys and why we shouldn’t eat them.

The broadcast network makes a show of reviewing the ad and asking for more information.

PETA provides it. The network thinks about it some more before declining the ad saying it doesn’t meet broadcast standards.

Of course, PETA is shocked — SHOCKED, I tell you — at such censorship in the U.S. of A. The hubbub generates a couple of big, well-read news stories, so when PETA posts the ad on its web site, it reaches a gazillion more viewers than it would have on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Game, set, match, PETA.

This year’s no different — well, it may be a little different. This year’s ad is, in fact, awesome. No gore. No shock value. Just a simple prayer that gets some pretty big results.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, dear reader.

I’m beyond thankful for your presence in my world.

bzh

The things we discover

2009-11-23T15:52:00.005-05:00

Husband and I have begun the process of choosing how and where to educate Urchin. This process has brought discoveries I never would have imagined being a part of it.

For example, I’ve discovered I’m a hypocrite.

While I am fully and completely supportive of a well-funded public school system — and am pleased to contribute my tax dollars in support of such a school system — I am not really interested in having my daughter taught by the current school system in my darling little burg. Like every mother, I want what’s best for my Urchin. And right now, despite the fact that some really awesome people are working to change this, our school system is not that.

I’ve discovered that what many other people want from their children’s school is not what I want from my child's school.

I’m not interested, for example, in getting her into Harvard. If she wants to go to Harvard and gets in, we’ll figure out a way to send her there. (Though I'll be a little sad to have raised a kid who wants to go to Harvard.) I’m also not that interested in the academic achievements of the school Urchin goes to.

I expect her to get an excellent education which will, of course, be supplemented by teaching from her mathematician dad and her writer mom. I expect that she’ll learn what she needs to learn to get along in this world. Mostly, I want her to grow up OK with who she is. I want her to respect herself and others. I want her to value the differences among us, and to see them as a reason to be friends rather than a reason not to. I want her to know what she stands for and be open to listening to — and hearing — other points of view. I want her to use every day to make the world a little better place for someone. I want her to smile often, laugh more and, above all, be true to herself.

I’ve discovered, much to my surprise, that I like the idea of a religious education. Sure, there are plenty of religious schools that wouldn’t be right for Urchin or our family. But there are many others that are teaching the right things AND living what they believe.

Perhaps biggest of all, I’ve discovered that I might be a Friend. That’s Friend, with a capital F. (You might know them as Quakers.) Husband and I visited a Friends School along our search, and the moment I walked in I felt both welcome and alive. That was two months ago, and I’ve been reading and studying about the Religious Society of Friends ever since. A week ago, I went to see a talk by the top Quaker educator in the country, and that sealed it, I think.

I’d be happy to share with any of you my reasons if you’re interested. Otherwise, just know that my next step is to work up the courage to actually go to a Friends Meeting for Worship (translate: regular Sunday church service). It’ll come. In the meantime, I’ll keep reading.

Hope you will, too.

Peace.

Sometimes, we just know

2009-11-20T15:18:00.003-05:00

Listen to this...

Gregg Korbon and his wife Kathryn

Peace, my friend.

Whose God thinks this is OK?

2009-11-18T15:36:00.003-05:00

Psalm 109:8, King James Bible: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

Do you see you?

2009-11-18T12:47:00.001-05:00

Brought to you by the Charlotte Chamber.

Yes, really.

Peace.

RIP, sweet little Shaniya

2009-11-16T20:26:00.004-05:00

I’d have taken her off your hands, you know, the little girl you delivered into the arms of a man who’d rape and then murder her.

I’d have cared for her and hugged her and fed her and laughed with her and introduced her to Nemo and driven her to piano lessons and picked out her Christmas dress and helped with her homework.

I’d have loved her, the little girl you thought so little of as to offer up her 5-year-old body to men for money.

I’d have comforted her after flu shots and broken hearts. I’d have soothed her fears about Captain Hook and bad grades. I’d have taught her to respect her elders as well as herself.

I’d have watched her school plays, gone to parent-teacher conferences and hung her art up on the frig. I’d have made her be home by curfew, taken her to church, shown her as much of the world as I can afford to show and asked her to write home often.

I’d have listened to her dreams. I’d have smiled at her silliness. I’d have held her hand just because.

Instead, you sentenced her to death when you handed her off. When you sold her for sex, you sealed her fate. Imagine the terror she felt in her final moments. In a strange place with a strange man doing things no child should ever know about, things that hurt real bad when you're 5.

She had no mommy to cry for — hell, mommy gave her away. To the stranger. An evil, vile, pathetic stranger.

She suffered alone, in the arms of a pedophile, while you did what, exactly? Buy drugs? Count your money? Change your mind?

Too late. They found her body today, beside a road not far from home. She was out there alone, for God knows how long, with the animals and the cold. The monsters were there, too, but they weren’t nearly as awful as the one who betrayed her.

I’d have taken her off your hands. I would have, and given her the life she deserved to live.

I hope you get what you deserve. You worthless piece of shit.

R is for right

2009-11-16T15:34:00.003-05:00

I’m a fan of Meghan McCain.

True, she believes I don’t have the right to choose what happens in and to my body. And she’s the daughter of and campaigned for Sen. John McCain. And she’s young, gorgeous, rich and more widely published than I. And she often does things I find to be immature and distasteful.

Still, I’m a fan. Here’s why: Though she definitely lives across the aisle from me when it comes to politics, and I often completely disagree with her arguments, she appears to think for herself. So even if we disagree on substantive issues, I feel like she’s arrived at her own conclusions about them, through a thoughtful, deliberative process of gathering information and digesting it.

I respect that.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s anti-Rush and anti-Sarah and anti-right wingers — and they’re all equally anti-her. Or that she believes, quite vocally, that we all should have the same rights when it comes to marriage.

What I really love, though, is that she’s a pretty damned effective burr in the side of anyone who who believes that Rush, Sarah and the right-wingers represent the majority of America, regardless of which party line you espouse.

She’s an excellent foil to the suggestion that anyone whose beliefs sit to the left of Rush, Sarah and the right-wingers but to the right of center is a RINO — Republican in Name Only.

And she’s proof-positive that there is a thinking-man’s wing of her party, however small it may be, that may someday emerge from its youth to take over for the white-haired men in Washington who have yet to figure out that McCain and her friends are the future.

Today, Meghan McCain asked a question I find at once hilarious and so important that I’ve had to actively resist sending her Daily Beast column to every mind-numbed R I know — and there are more than a few.

Her question is this: Why is it that as long as an R is against gay marriage, the party and its followers can forgive all other sins?

Adultery? Check. Thievery? Check. Whatever else for which the rest of us will suffer eternal damnation? Check.

Just as long as they’d never support letting gays get married.

The example McCain uses is, of course, Carrie Prejean, the dethroned Miss California (and Miss USA runner-up) who believes that only “opposite marriage” is OK, but has no problem filming herself having premarital sex.

Eight times.

I have nothing against gay marriage OR filming yourself having premarital sex. Both are A-OK with me.

But premarital sex is a big no-no in what Rush, Sarah and the right wing call the majority of America. (Well, except if you’re the daughter of a vice presidential candidate. But whatever.) And pornography? Bad. Bad. Bad.

So Ms. Prejean broke two cardinal rules, which apparently will be forgiven because she stood up for God against the gays who want to marry. To her fans, that she lived a sexualized existence outside of the bonds of marriage — on film, in photos and in pageants — is no big whoop, because gays shouldn’t marry and tra-la-la.

Good for Meghan McCain for pointing it out.

Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t ever have Meghan McCain over for dinner. She’s not my type (that being older, wiser and less platinum). But I do appreciate her place on the political spectrum. I appreciate that she gives Rush, Sarah and the others fits.

And I especially appreciate that she’s not afraid to point out hypocrisy from the inside out.

Surrender

2009-11-11T15:46:00.002-05:00

Happy Wednesday, my friends.

An eye for an eye

2009-11-10T21:33:00.000-05:00

It’s over. And I am thankful to report that in the hours before the state of Virginia killed John Allen Muhammed, I rediscovered my righteous indignation.

He is dead.

His victims are still dead.

And we all died a little tonight.

Brought to you by the words “happy” and “birthday” … and by the No. 40

2009-11-10T15:41:00.004-05:00

In honor of 40 years of excellence, I present one of my favorite Sesame Street ditties...

What happens when it hits close to home?

2009-11-09T16:39:00.003-05:00

I am torn today.

Typically, I am categorically, undeniably against capital punishment, for many and varied reasons.

1. It’s too damned expensive. You don’t even need to get to the debate about whether a just government should execute anyone on behalf of its citizens. Just look at the price tag and you can make an informed decision. Fact is, it’s far more expensive to execute a man than it is to let him rot in jail. Don’t believe me? Research it yourself.

2. There are too many chances for mistakes in our judicial system. Just look at the track record of the Innocence Project. And one particularly heinous case in Texas. Execution is forever. You can’t right that wrong.

3. It puts us in the worst company imaginable. You know all those countries we think are back-assward and wrong for the way they treat their people? THEY are the ones still doling out capital punishment. Well, they and WE. The countries whose company we all think we belong in? They gave it up centuries ago.

In my mind, capital punishment is wrong on every level. I’ve sung this tune since college, when I was forced, in a persuasive writing course, to defend a position I didn’t espouse. I had arrived at the University of Fun and Sun a confirmed, dyed-in-the-wool, fry-the sons-o'-bitches conservative. After a semester-long immersion in anti-death penalty rhetoric, I walked away a changed woman.

Since then, I’ve protested planned executions. I’ve shed a couple of friends whose glee over the execution of Ted Bundy was just too much to stomach. I’ve even argued (and believe) that I’d be one of those people who’d beg a judge not to execute the person who harmed her loved one.

So imagine my surprise when, after reading that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from John Allen Muhammed — the D.C. sniper — I was unable to find that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I’ve searched all day. It’s just not there. And I’m horrified by the shallowness of my conviction.

I could chalk it up to spending three weeks of 2002 living in terror that I or someone I love might be next to fall victim to a bullet that came out of nowhere. Or that walking out of Home Depot or vacuuming my car might be my last act on Earth.

I could just say that you had to be there, when the killings were so random that every moment you weren't under cover felt like it could be your last.

I remember crying into the phone as news of the Home Depot shooting — at the Home Depot less than 3 miles from my home — scrolled across my TV screen. The helicopter search lights passed through the parking lot outside my townhouse. The sirens were close enough to scare my cat.

It was a terrifying time in D.C. First 9/11, then the anthrax mailings, then the sniper. The three-pronged attacked left us all shaken and stirred.

So, yeah. I have personal feelings about John Allen Muhammed. His reign of terror affected my life. I could even say that I hate him.

It’s hard to accept, though, that these feelings are somehow enough to make it OK, in my mind, for the state of Virginia to send enough poison through his veins to end his life. And yet, there it is. The depth of my conviction, when put to a personal test, turns out to be an inch deep.

I still don’t believe there is ever a valid reason for a just government to execute a man on behalf of its citizens. But if death is a legal option, John Allen Muhammed is an exact portrait of the man for whom it was intended as punishment.

And so, I am torn today.

Such a Gleek...

2009-11-06T15:54:00.005-05:00

Not long after my divorce was final, I entered what I only half-jokingly call my “morose period.” Morose doesn’t fit, exactly, but “death spiral” seems so melodramatic. Besides, “morose” sounds so artistic and fancy. And hell, who gives a shit whether it fits?

During that time, I tumbled around and stumbled around, disrespecting myself and getting into jams, all behind the veneer of a happy-go-lucky divorcée. When I finally hit rock bottom and began to pick myself up again, life took another very interesting turn.

I went back through puberty.

Not literally, of course. But you’d never have known it by the way I behaved.

I dumped my grown-up music and TV shows — traded them in for boy bands and Britney Spears. I bought their CDs, recorded their appearances on MTV and VH-1, went to their concerts.

I enjoyed a steady diet of music videos, danced to exhaustion in my living room most nights after work and wrote reams of fan fiction. I even joined a message group of older *NSYNC fans, leaving after just a few weeks when even I couldn’t handle the women in there.

Weird, I know. But it helped me through. Sometimes, in my darkest days, I wonder if it might have kept me alive.

For almost two years, I felt like the sophomore who’d just been passed a note from the quarterback. I lived on pins and needles, breaking into song in the car, and into smiles as I walked through the halls at work. The whole experience — the pop music, the fan magazines, the concerts — gave me the same feeling in my stomach as a high school crush. I loved it.

Eventually, between therapy and distance from the source of the pain, the whole thing started to fade. I never lost my taste for Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears singles, but I transferred the fantasy feelings and dreams back into reality.

And life went on.

I say all of this because I’ve taken a tiny detour back there. Only this time it’s different. I am nowhere near rock bottom. I'm not even dropping. Things are great, generally. And yet, I received another note.

This one from the Glee club.

Happy weekend, my friends.

P.S. If this one’s more your speed, I get it. Go ahead on.

Mainely sad

2009-11-05T14:37:00.003-05:00

Says it all.

Peace.

* lovingly lifted from aag

Food rules

2009-11-05T09:22:00.004-05:00

My friend bzzzzgrrrl always makes me think.

Sometimes it’s about deep things — God, equality, winter boots, haircuts. Sometimes it’s just about food.

The other day, she posted a list of her food rules — you know, the closely held beliefs that we all have about foods and the way we prepare and eat them. Her list made me giggle, especially the point about matzo ball soup (a point with which I violently agree, by the way).

Anyway, bzzzzgrrrl made her list at the request of whimsy, another blogger she reads. (Whimsy’s rules are here.) I’m making mine because, well, someone must say something about butter.

• Butter is food. Margarine, “buttery spread,” “spreadable food” and all that other stuff is not.

• Brownies without nuts — and I'm talking NUTS — might as well be called cake. Unfrosted, crunchy on the top, sort of dry or maybe chewy, cake.

• Chili has beans in it. “Mushy meat sauce with chili pepper and tomatoes and some other spices” is what you call it if it doesn’t.

• Thanksgiving gravy goes on mashed potatoes, dressing, corn casserole, turkey and any other food on the same plate as the aforementioned.

• Cool Whip on pie is cheating. Actually, Cool Whip on anything that doesn’t specifically call for Cool Whip is cheating.

• Peanut butter should be crunchy — the crunchier, the better. Pair it with a good strawberry jam (like the one my in-laws make every year) and serve with a heavily flavored chip, like Doritos or Cheetos.

• No pomegranates. Pomegranates themselves are just too much work. Pomegranate juice is just too much money.

• Watermelon is salted. Cantaloupe, which I can’t bring myself to call musk melon, is not.

• Fresh salsa should be served with Fritos Scoops. Period. Paragraph.

• To eat a piece of fried chicken remove the extra crispy skin (never original recipe) and set aside. Eat the meat as fast as you can. Savor the skin, by itself, trying not to signal the exact amount of pleasure you're feeling.

• Hummus without tahini is just squished up chick peas.

• The more stuff you put atop ice cream, the better. Chocolate sauce, caramel, nuts, whipped cream. It all belongs.

• Fancy macaroni and cheese is a waste of time and resources. Nothing tops the 99¢ blue box from Kraft.

• Fish sticks are, indeed, fish. I have a lifetime of Fridays to prove it.

How about you, dear reader? What do I need to know before you come for dinner?

Retrenching

2009-11-04T12:40:00.004-05:00

I’ve made a mistake.

A few months ago, I invited someone to read this blog whom I never should have. Not because she doesn’t need to see a differing point of view. She does. Hell, we all do. My writing, however, has shown her I'm someone different than she thought I was. That has ruined our relationship.

Typically I’d simply chalk it up to experience and be done with it. In this case, I can’t. So I’ll be reminded of my mistake every time I see her, for a good, long time.

I’ve worked my whole life to be gracious with people whose opinions and beliefs I cannot understand. I’ve tried to listen without judging, and to use pieces of their perspective to inform my own. God knows I’m not always successful. In fact, sometimes I just suck. But I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. And to see the best in people who make it very, very hard.

You’d think I’d have learned, oh, the zillionth time ago or so, that some people aren’t like that. Especially some people who profess to live by a certain set of “values” that appear to me to be misnamed. In my experience, though they preach to “do unto others” and “love thy neighbor,” they actually do neither. I’ve never gotten the benefit of the doubt from any of them.

Add my most recent experience to the pile.

When I started writing this blog, I promised myself I’d be careful about who I invited to read it. Friends and family is the rule. And for the most part, I’ve kept to it. In a couple of instances, though, I let a moment of weakness — a moment when I felt a kinship and let my guard down — sway me into making an exception.

Never again.

These ramblings are my heart laid bare. They show me, warts and all, to you, the people who matter most to me. If you don’t do this kind of thing, you can’t imagine how vulnerable that makes me. Thankfully, for the most part, you are gentle with me. And even when you’re not, your intentions are good.

I’ve never wanted this blog to be for anyone except those who matter to me, and by extension, those who matter to you. Opening it up to anyone else just isn’t worth the consequences.

For some reason, though I'm not sure why, I think she may have already stopped reading. If she hasn’t, I hope she will.

It’s not good for either of us anymore.

Britney turns 3

2009-10-30T20:43:00.002-04:00

Will I ever outgrow this stuff?

After the homecoming dance

2009-10-28T11:33:00.004-04:00

They stood by and watched.

I can’t help but wonder whether they cheered, the 20 people who watched as a 15-year-old girl, drunk and unable to defend herself, was raped by five men outside the Richmond (Calif.) High School homecoming dance.

Do you remember your homecoming dance? How good you felt in your dress or tux? How you couldn’t wait for your date to arrive or to open her front door? How you danced close to the person you were SURE you’d be with for the rest of your life? Or how you felt when the girl you’d admired all year said yes when you asked her to dance?

I wonder, did your night end on a picnic table with five men taking turns violating your 15-year-old body?

Jesus, dear reader. Twenty people stood by and watched.

If they didn’t cheer, what did they do? Talk amongst themselves? Make plans for the weekend? Write a shopping list? I mean, what do you do when you’re standing by watching someone be gang raped? Is there etiquette for that? Where’s Emily Post when you need her?

So assuming they just stood and watched, do you think they got aroused, these 20 people? Did they masturbate as a 15-year-old was violated for two hours? Did they have sex with one another? Did they go home and fantasize about it after she’d been discarded, unconscious and naked from the waist down?

Don't any of these 20 people have sisters? Or aunts? Or mothers? Are they really so callous that they can’t imagine the victim as someone else’s loved one? Or maybe even their own?

The easy way out is to shake our heads and ask: What is this world coming to? But really, dear reader, we already know the answer to that.

It’s a world where we solve problems with guns instead of butter. Where a huge group of young people believe the single best option they have is to blow themselves up. Where children are left to die on fences in Wyoming, in landfills in Georgia, in car trunks in Florida.

It’s a world where people pervert the love of God into a vengeful, hateful thing. Where common courtesy is a thing of the past and uncommon kindness is met with suspicion. Where love is judged and scorned and denied if it doesn’t exactly fit one’s own definition of what it should look like.

It’s a world filled with poison and pollution and hate and greed. Where people yell and scream and curse and hit, and others find entertainment in it. Where it’s sport to tear someone down, especially if he’s risen higher than you have. Where it’s unusual to smile at a stranger, give someone a leg up, take on someone’s troubles, teach a man to fish.

I’m sorry, dear reader. I had planned today to share some observations from a 4-year-old’s birthday party. But when my newsfeed tells me that 20 people stood by and watched as a 15-year-old girl was gang raped outside a homecoming dance, all I can think about is how I’m going to keep that 4-year-old safe in a world gone crazy.

Any ideas?

Peace to you.