DadCentric

The Clouds of Zach Sobiech

You may have seen Zach Sobiech's story floating around Facebook, one share to the other, flourishing inspiration beneath the tender drops of so many tears. And if you haven't, you need to.

That is not hyperbole or what passes for emotions on the Internet—that is good, old-fashioned sentiment, grown from equal parts hope and melancholy. Zach's story is wonderful and painful, and while the video runs longer than the short bits we have grown accustomed to, it is worthy of your time.

Zach deserves your time.

Trust me, you will come out ahead on this one. I'm turning off my words now, and I urge you to watch:

 

 

Thank you, Zach.

There is a lot of beauty in this world, if even for a moment, and it is up to us to keep it here for as long as we possibly can. And then maybe even longer.

If you would like to help other children like Zach you may do so at the Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund website. Donations go to the Children's Caner Research Fund.

You can buy Zach's album on iTunes and proceeds will go to the research fund linked above.


via Upworthy

Safe at Home

Since our new Tampa Bay Rays correspondent has apparently dropped the ball on this one (for those of you scoring at home, mark it E-DadScribe), let me show you how this girl learned her military dad was home from Afghanistan:

Nice job, Rays. Now beat those frickin' Yankees.

The rest of you: Monday is Memorial Day. Don't just barbecue. Remember.

The End of Ender's Game (At Least, For Me)

I find myself in a bit of a dilemma today.

When I was around 15 or so, I read Orson Scott Card’s masterpiece science fiction novel Ender’s Game.  Being a big ol’ sci fi geek from way back, I was predisposed to loving the story of a young boy on a future Earth, recruited by the military to learn how to fight a looming alien invasion.  The story was simple and elegant, the writing crisp and vivid, and the book knocked my socks off. 

I read it several times. The last time was only about five years ago.

Last year, I read a press release online announcing that Hollywood is finally making an Ender's Game movie.  I proceeded to have an immediate nerdgasm.

But shortly after the movie announcement was released to the far corners of the Internet, I started seeing more news stories.  The stories focused on Card himself, and the fact that he’s widely known to be a big-time bigot. More specifically, a major homophobe.  Many attribute his neo-conservative perspective to the fact that he’s a Mormon (and is in fact the great-great grandson of Brigham Young – fun fact!).

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, several articles and statements have emerged since then, all authored by Card over the years.  In a 1990 article, Card postulated about the dangerous “homosexual agenda.”  In 2004, Card claimed that gay people are the result of child abuse and molestation, and that gay marriage will never count as "real marriage."  And in 2008, he wrote an article for the Mormon Times, arguing that gay marriage will result in the end of American democracy.

Orson Scott Card

 

There’s more.  There's a lot more.  Go Googling and see.  But that was enough for this sci-fi-fan (and newly out gay guy) to bum hard.

I know how to separate reality from fiction.  With a few exceptions (I’m lookin’ at you, Chris Brown and Mel Gibson), I’m usually able to appreciate a piece of entertainment for what it is, without letting my perspective be tainted by a less than savory backstory.

But… I don’t know.  This just makes me sad.  See, I love Ender's Game.  I remember visualizing the main character so clearly: Ender Wiggin, the boy taken away from his family, isolated in interstellar Battle School, and forced to become a genius at the game of war.  I already have a copy ready for my daughter to read as soon as I think she might be interested.  How do I do this, though?  How do I pass along one of my favorite childhood books, knowing that it was authored by someone whose beliefs are truly ugly?  We’re not talking about some random novelist crouching in a dim corner of the Geek Literature basement.  For many fans, Card is the J.K Rowling of science fiction.  What if you found out the creator of your beloved Harry Potter was, let's say, a big racist?

I still think Ender’s Game is an amazing book.  And I know my daughter will love it.  I also know that if she finds out about Card's homophobic beliefs, she'll refuse to read it.  (She’s very protective of her gay dad that way.)  Do I tell her about Card?  Do I let her enjoy the book for a while and then tell her?  In a few years, when I have the urge to pick up the book again myself and reread it, will I even be able to do so?

This may not seem like a big deal to some people. Maybe I should just get over it. But the thing is, I just found out that one of my favorite childhood writers thinks I'm an abomination. And I'm just not sure what to do with that.

 

P.S. Issues aside, the trailer for the movie isn’t really grabbing me.  Check it out and see what you think.

 

The Harlem Globetrotters Miss Some Shots

There was a time when the Harlem Globetrotters held court with skill, humor, and grace. They palmed a bucket of confetti in one hand and a never-ending dribble with the other—the respective arenas roared with awe. As if that wasn't enough, they spent their personal time wrapped in spaghetti and Justice League hand-me-downs, treating criminals like so many Washington Generals and cracking wise the laugh track way. The Harlem Globetrotters were bringing the wow, and I had the world's coolest wristbands to prove it.


A few months ago I was scheduled to read to my youngest son's first grade class. I was a little nervous about it as I had picked a book that ends in tears (mine), and I am nothing if not an ugly crier. My appearance was to be a surprise, and I went so far as to shave and shower.

When I arrived at the school my services were no longer required. There had been a conflict of scheduling, and rather than my reading to one class of first graders the entire school was now giving ear to the anti-bullying PSA of a very special guest, one of the Harlem Globetrotters.

I was okay with that.

The message was everything one could want in an anti-bullying message—skill, humor, and grace. The Harlem Globetrotters were still bringing the wow, and now it had a message I could believe in.


I must admit, I was pretty excited when I was invited by the PR firm representing the team to take my family to a Harlem Globetrotters game at Staples Center in Los Angeles (our tickets were comped). However, between the nostalgia of my youth, the relative freshness of the anti-bullying presentation, and my lifelong quest for new wristbands, I may have set the expectations too high.

Staples Center was nearly sold-out. It was full of families, celebrities, and celebrities with their families. There was an opening act, a master of ceremonies, and very expensive popcorn. The room was ripe for entertainment.

And it was just ripe.

History

There was a lull, so I decided to get out of the hotel and take a quick walk. Work travel is much more of the former than the latter; you fly in, you do what you're paid to do, you fly out. It is a breathless experience, from airport to hotel room to meetings to events to hotel room, eat, rinse, sleep, repeat. Last year I went to New York City four times. I don't remember why. "On business". 

But this was Washington D.C. I had been there once before. 30 years ago? At least. We were on a Family Trip, visiting relatives, doing a swing of the east coast. We drove through D.C., watched the monuments go by in a blur through the car windows. On a schedule, no time to stop, look at The History, kids. Wave as it goes past. I woke up on the day I was set to fly out, checked my email, Facebook, Twitter. Catching my eye: Boehner's Press Secretary and Obama's Press Secretary were embroiled in a 140-character slapfight. I felt the sudden urge to shower and walk, see some of those monuments, breathe in the past. 

History has a weight. It's writ large, yes; you walk through marble shrines and the deeds they represent and you feel it. These were men. They woke up in the morning with snot in their eyes. They had callouses and hangnails and receding gumlines. What we call history they called work, or perhaps survival. The weight of history, what gives it poignancy as well as power is this: those making it usually don't know that they are. Did that make it better, the not knowing? Or did it make it worse?

My dad had a huge crossbow. It was a simple one; no hand-crank or loop to put your foot through for leverage while you pull the string back. A crosspiece stuck through the stock. The thing had a three-foot wingspan. He brought it back from Vietnam. I was a kid and I was fascinated by it, the crossbow, the war, the past; my favorite war movie was The Green Berets, with its pungee stakes, Tiger Teams, and John Wayne there to tell the Vietnamese kids "you're what this war's all about" while the sun set in the west. My dad also brought back movies, shot on a Super 8 camera. His buddies, skinny and shirtless, sitting in lawn chairs and drinking Budweiser, watching rockets blowing up jungle in the distance. "The only casualty I ever saw was a guy falling off a bar stool," he'd tell me. It was history, and it all seemed so exciting.

There is a place called the Chosin Reservoir. You've probably never heard of it. It's in North Korea. A battle was fought there; November 27 through December 23, 1950. 30,000 UN troops were surrounded by 67,000 North Korea and Chinese troops. Temperatures during this time were well below zero, and everything froze; guns, morphine, blood plasma. I remember reading about it in junior high. There was a story: a Marine had been shot through the jaw during an evening firefight. The bullet went clean through one side of his jaw and out the other, and his jaw was held to his head by his own blood. It was so cold, you see, that the blood immediately froze. The cold that was slowly killing his fellow Marines saved his life. He lay awake all night, surrounded by his buddies, who offered what comfort they could. Dawn came, and with it warmth. Enough so that the blood holding his jaw to his head thawed, and when it did his jaw fell off and he bled out and died. Killed by the sun. Can you imagine.

So there was a lull, and so I went for a walk, down to the National Mall. The Mall is a great expanse, and on that day the wind was whipping down it. I'd forgotten a beanie, and my head was throbbing with the cold, but it seemed right somehow. My flight was supposed to leave at 2:00; a storm hitting Chicago changed all that, and so I'd be leaving at 6:30, flying into Dallas, and then home. I had some time to walk. I took it.

 

It's How You Play the Game

If you have raised kids that do stuff like this, then you are already a winner:

 

 

That's good stuff, people.

Conan The Dunce-arian

In my city there lives a man. And educated man. An educating man. Freshly made principal of the High School just this year. He grew up in this city. My wife remembers sitting behind him in Junior High.He started his career as a math teacher in this very system. About a week ago, this homegrown success story decided he needed to do something special to announce himself to his new charges. Something to connect with the kids. Something cinematic. Something that would reveal his personality. Something really dumb. Dumb on a national level.

 

 

Aside from the horrible stupidity of releasing this bit of cinematic brain damage (or brilliant, cogent, ironic, argument against the evils of technology. Luddites, attack!) after Sandy Hook another problem presents itself. 

This man, Mr. Naumann (pronouned "Newman, by the way. Nicely butchered by the national press. No one got it.) attempted to "connect with the kids" by parodying a movie that came out well before the senior class was born (Yep oldies, we're old). He might as well have been like, "23 skiddoo, dames and daddy-o's Dig that crazy Battleship Potempkin! "  

Even without his apocalypticly bad timing, the anachronistic, desperate, awkwardness of the video had to have led to a serious imbalance in in the respect-to-contempt ratio. 

It turns out, he received a 2 day suspension without pay. He was rather contrite, by all accounts. I don't know if that's appropriate or not. He probably should have lost his job not for the action itself, but for the deep, rich, endless expanse of dumbness that it revealed.

To sum up:

"Nnnnew[au]man."

 

 

Dad Pretends to be Gunman, School Responds 'Meh'

Ronald Miller appeared to be a concerned, caring individual – a paramedic who also volunteered at his child's school.

Then last week the North Texas father walked calmly up to said elementary school in Celina, Texas, allegedly told the staff member at the front of the building that he had a weapon and was targeting someone inside.

According to news reports, he proceeded to the main office, pointed at some staffers and said, "You're dead."

Not to worry! It was just his way of pointing out flaws in the school's security after the Newtown shooting a month before that left 20 grade schoolers and six staffers dead. After Miller talked to the school principal about what he just demonstrated, Miller left the school -- unchallenged.

DadCentric Roundtable: Pre-Dad 2.0 Summit Edition

Welcome to the DadCentric Roundtable. Recently, we had an email discussion about the upcoming Dad 2.0 Summit; many of us went to last year's, a few of spoke on panels, and it was a good time. As the second rolls around, we thought we'd have a chat about what we're hoping to get out of Dad 2.0.2, and whether or not blog conferences have any value (outside of getting knee-walking drunk with your Internet pals).

Jason: C.C. Chapman recently posted a great piece on conferences, and how many of them fail to provide anything of substance to experienced folks. We're all graying, surly veterans of the dadblogging scene: apart from getting the chance to watch Andy display his karaoke talents and Whit threaten fellow attendees with that knife he keeps in his boot, is there any tangible value to attending Dad 2.0? In other words, can old dogs like us learn any new tricks?

Seth: Some of us aren't as long in the tooth as you guys.  (Ahem.)  I wish I were going.  I think I'd learn something about the business behind blogging, which I'm pretty ignorant about.  Then again, what I learn may only serve to bum me out. The biggest reason I wish I were attending this year is the drunken fellowship. And I can testify firsthand to the fact that Hinds does a pretty badass Johnny Cash. 

 

A group of Unidentified Dadbloggers at the 2011 Mom 2.0 Summit

 

Greg: I don't think anyone is going to teach me anything new about SEO or Typepad tricks.
I'd like to see more of how blogging is changing journalism...

Homemaker Man: I've never been to a blog conference of any kind, so for me, I think'd it be useful on some level, if just getting to meet everyone and so forth. 

TwoBusy: It all depends on what you mean by learning. If you mean technical tricks of the trade... I have no idea. Is that part of the Dad 2.0 agenda, the way it is at BlogHer? I'm such a technophobe I've never seriously considered that kind of learning as a serious option. That being said, I think there'll probably be plenty to be learned in the sense of meeting people, hearing great stories, and - as a result of all that drunken fellowship (as is often the case: Seth nailed it) - finding some new perspective or inspiration that pushes you & your writing in a different direction.

Or , alternately, you just go out drinking and karaoke-ing with Mr. Hinds and end up making pee angels on the sidewalk at 6am. (see under: cautionary tales/Andy Herald)

What Not To Say To Me About Newtown

"I can't."

"Hug your kids."

When you make a living as a Twitter jockey there are days when you feel like Alex DeLarge, strapped into a chair, eyes pried open, watching nightmares unspool, unable to do so much as blink. A Clockwork Newtown. Friday I was swept down the dark river of social media, reading tweet after tweet, comment after comment. Variations on the two quotes above floated to the top. 

There were others, of course. If I was there and had a gun. Praying for those kids and their teachers. Here are 10 Tips For Talking To Your Kids About Newtown. If you're a brand and you're tweeting you have no soul. Here is a list of politicians who donated to the NRA. Ten shot in Chicago last night. Shooter at large at Fashion Island - please retweet. Jessica Rekos was six. Over my cold dead body will you take my guns. Be prepared for civil war if a serious attempt is made to confiscate my firearms. The shooter got his guns from his mom. Read this. Read this. Read this. I can't. Hug your kids. I can't. Hug your kids.

I can't.

Hug your kids.

I don't know which of those two angered me more.

****

Some numbers: since Columbine, there have been 31 mass shootings in the United States. Of the guns used, 75% were obtained legally. Over half of those weapons were semi-automatic pistols and brand-labeled "assault weapons". If you'd like, and if you believe that when we talk about "mass shootings" that the actual number of deaths matter (i.e., that the concept of acceptable losses in school shootings is something that you're OK with), you can look those up. Start with 2012: there were 12 mass shootings this year alone, with 88 total dead. These are facts. If you like, you can debate root causes, but the butcher's bill cannot be questioned. Some 61 mass shootings since 1982; they all occured, people were murdered, and therefore the number of those shootings that were stopped by a quick-thinking, sharp-shooting citizen with a gun remains at 0. Perhaps you've convinced yourself that "guns don't kill people, people kill people". You're entitled to your delusion, I suppose; all of the stats about countries with strict gun control laws - and we're not talking outright gun bans, just laws that make sense to rational people, including gun owners - won't change your mind. The 11,000 Americans each year who would be alive if a bullet fired from a gun hadn't ended their life...well, they'd probably argue that point with you, if they could. 

****

A date: Friday, October 8, 2010

It's Friday, October 8, 3:12. The backpacks hang in a row below the window. The kids come running out of the classroom. Lucas waves at me, grabs his backpack off of the hook, and runs over. He's clutching a sheet of paper in one hand. He runs over and I drop to one knee and draw him in. For a second I can't speak. Then: "Whatcha got, dude?" He hands it to me. It's a map of the world, each continent labelled, the exuberant scrawl of the first grader. The continents have been colored - yellow, orange, bright green, lavender. It's the world as it should be. 

It's Friday, October 8, 3:00. I move with purpose. My fists are clenched. Behind wraparound sunglasses my eyes shift, left to right, back again, looking for anyone who might not seem...right. There was talk of a second man, one who got away, and for all I know he's here. I pass the moms and their low whispers: "...and he carried a propane tank? For what?...." I know why he brought the propane tank. Because at some point, he would have run out of bullets. (And I can hear them now, the Gun People: "Are you gonna ban propane tanks too?") At some point Lucas will find out what happened up the street, and we'll sit down to talk about it, and a small part of him will die. No - that sounds too natural, too clean. He'll have a small part of him murdered by that man, the man with the propane tank. I stride towards his classroom.

It is Friday, October 8, shortly after two. I'm multi-tasking, answering some work emails while perusing Twitter. It takes a second before the words register, and then I'm on an elevator that suddenly drops, leaving my stomach five floors up. Shooting at elementary school in Carlsbad. We're in Carlsbad. Lucas' school is right across the street. I would've heard gunshots, right? I don't know. Kids scream. They scream when they're exhilarated. They scream when they're terrified. How many elementary schools are there in Carlsbad? I don't know. 6? 8? Less? I run into the bedroom and turn on the TV. I hear a voice. "Shortly after noon, a gunman opened fire..." and then a thought drowns out the rest, and for a brief second my mind goes white. It's shortly after two. Lucas. Two hours he might have been dead.

It is Friday, October 8, shortly after noon. I'm sitting at my desk, on the phone with a candidate. Beth's taken Zoe out; they're likely sitting down to eat lunch. I'm actually not hungry; it's warm and sunny out, and warm weather does that to me. My office is on the second floor; a cool breeze blows through the window, carrying with it the sounds of schoolkids. Noon recess. My boy's among them; I listen hard and try to make out his voice, but of course I can't. Fanciful thoughts turn to pragmatic ones: lately Lucas hasn't been finishing his lunch. Lack of food causes him to drift, become cranky and unfocused. The kid needs to eat. I need to talk to him about that.

It is Friday, October 8, shortly after noon. A man named Brendan Liam O'Rourke pulls up to Kelly Elementary school, a few miles from where Lucas is playing and I'm sitting. Noon recess. Brendan Liam O'Rourke jumps the fence. He leaves the propane tank by the car, but takes the smaller gas can with him. The Kelly Elementary school playground is full of children. The cool breeze carries the sounds of schoolkids across the playground and through Brendan Liam O'Rourke's gibbering brain. He pulls out a .357 Magnum revolver and starts shooting at them. 

(This happened.)

****

Hug your kids.

There's a scene near the end of Toy Story 3. Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the gang are in an incinerator, sliding down into the fire along with the garbage, there to be burned out of existence. And what they do is, they hold hands and wait to die. Part of me loves this scene. It's a comfort, knowing that you'll be with the ones you love at The End. Most of me hates it. Because fuck that. Grab your friends and kick and scream your way as far up that sliding heap as you can, because to do otherwise is to give up. Hug your kids. Listen: one of the few things (getting fewer, it seems) that separate most of us from animals is our genetic predisposition to love and protect children. This is true if you're a parent; it is equally true if you're not. Hug your kids. You will. Of course you will. And when you did, after you read the names of those slaughtered kids (Avielle Richman was six, Noah Posner was six) you knew this: Maybe that hug was for your kids. Mostly it was for you. And in the corner of your heart where the truth lies, you know that every hug given didn't prevent what happened, and in and of itself won't stop it from happening again. Because in and of itself, with nothing behind it, no call to figure out just what the hell we're doing (more accurate to say "not doing") concerning things like gun show loopholes or banning sales of semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines or the abyssmal state of mental health care in this country, hug your kids is nothing more than a waving of the white flag, comfort on the way into the crucible. 

****

I can't.

Can't look. Can't read the names. Can't think about it. Horror freezes us. The deer, trapped in the headlights. If by some chance the deer does snap out of it, give him a few weeks. He'll forget. He'll be back on that road, staring into those lights, and they'll eventually catch up to him. Don't politicize this, they say - the NRA and the dogs at the end of their leash, people with money in the weapons game - as they do after every one of these massacres. Say nothing. Do nothing. Stare into the lights. 

I can't. Can't look. Can't read the names. Can't see the faces. It's too much. It always is.

You can. We can. We must.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source, source, source, source