You’ve Got To Be Taught

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of People whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late.
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

—–from South Pacific

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Mamacita says:  South Pacific was a landmark show for many reasons, the main one of which (in my opinion) is the attitude it took regarding race.  Imagine the looks on the prunes-and-prisms bigots when Lt. Joe Cable fell in love with the beautiful Tonkinese girl, Liat, whose mother turns out to be Bloody Mary.  Just think of the shock when prejudiced America discovered that the two little half-breed children were the offspring of the Frenchman, Emile De Becque and his native islander wife, who is deceased.  Nellie Forbush, the naive little nurse from Little Rock, can’t deal with it; it’s too far removed from what she knows.

Characters we are supposed to love turn out to harbor horrendous racial prejudices that threaten their futures.  I suppose there are still people who think this way; it’s hard for me to comprehend.

The point, I think, is that nobody is born with these, or any other kind, of prejudices.  Prejudices are taught to us from an early age by prejudiced people.

Let me repeat:  NOBODY IS BORN WITH PREJUDICES.  Ever.  Carved in stone.  Fact.

We fear and hate what we are taught by others to fear and hate, and people who feel it is their duty to teach children to fear and hate are among the worst of humankind.  I hope there is a specially horrible circle of hell for parents who deliberately teach their children to hate, fear, and suspect people who are in any way different from themselves.

I had a conversation once, several years ago, with an older lady I loved very much, but any respect I might have had for her convictions was absolutely and 100% negated when she told me that it was possible to be prejudiced AND Christian, for she was both.

I could not, and still can not, sanction that combination.  No. I would love this lady always, but nothing she said to me about her religion meant anything after that revelation.

These lyrics are, of course, song lyrics, but my students MIGHT be able to remind you that all songs are also poems, and that anyone who likes even one song likes one poem, too.  Each song you like equals another poem you like.  I’d wager money, if I had any, that a lot of people who swear they hate poetry would also state that they loved music.

Hypocrites.    You can’t have one without the other.

I love South Pacific.  I love most Broadway musicals, in fact.   But these particular lyrics have always hit me in a sensitive spot, and helped me to understand that no, nobody is born prejudiced, and all of those who ARE prejudiced were taught to be so and have actively chosen to remain so.

In other words:  no viable excuse, whatsoever.

Since I stand firmly with Albert Einstein’s “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” this Saturday’s theme is “imagination.”

Take the word apart.  Do you see it?  IMAGE.  People with imagination can take their whims, dreams, and fancies and turn them into images.  I know that there are people who have no imagination.  I used to pity them, and I still do to some extent, but really, such people are an awful inconvenience, and are responsible for a lot of injustice, and these days, when I consider unimaginative people, I’m mostly just disgusted.

Unimaginative people are the ones who tell a daydreaming child to stop wasting time, thus interrupting the cure for cancer and rocket fuel made of sewage.

I know people who wouldn’t care if they never learned another new thing. I pity them, because when learning stops, stagnation begins. Those stinky little ponds all over southern Indiana, covered with scum and mosquitoes? They stopped moving, and now they are dead and dead things stink. When people stop learning, they might as well be buried and get it over with, for they are as good as dead. I consider a person who is content to allow his/her head to be stuffed full of other people’s opinions as good as dead, also. Echoes have no imagination.

Thinking can be hard. Some people just aren’t willing to put forth the effort. Besides, thinking sometimes makes us question our choices, values, and beliefs. Can’t have that. Many so-called “religions” encourage people to stifle their imaginations. I find this horrific beyond words. Then again, genuinely imaginative, creative, and intelligent people aren’t easy to stifle. Sheep are easy to boss around, but imaginative people aren’t so easily led. Even as a small child, I assumed a lot of churchy people were dumb as a sheep, because so many of them accepted whatever the preacher or rule book said, without a single comment, question, or raised eyebrow.

Harsh? Sure. But it’s how I roll. One of the many things I despise about most of our public schools is the fact that they pretty much beat the curiosity and imagination out of our children. Often, children are punished for wanting to know MORE and refusing to stop once ONE answer or solution is reached. Of course, as Professor Umbridge says, the important thing about school is taking tests, and tests are concerned only with predetermined answers, not curiosity. “Next year, Billy,” a teacher might promise. But when next year comes, Billy soon learns that the new year is just like the old year: day after day of sitting and waiting for other kids to catch up, with never anything for the kids who already know, and detention or worse for the child who dared experiment with his lunch or the ink in his pen or the clay or a poem or story or the paints in the art room. Sigh.

Curiosity. Imagination. Dreams. Let’s encourage them in our children, for the curious thinkers and scientists and writers and dreamers are the hope of the universe.

As for unimaginative and uncurious adults. . . . I should be a lot sorrier for them than I am, but it’s their own fault. Life is full of choices, and there’s more than one kind of Easy Street.

1.  Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.  — Albert Einstein

2. The key to life is imagination. If you don’t have that, no mater what you have, it’s meaningless. If you do have imagination… you can make feast of straw. — Jane Stanton Hitchcock

3. A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. — Edgar Allan Poe

5. Trust that little voice in your head that says “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…” And then do it. — Duane Michals,

6. Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. — George Scialabba

7. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. — Albert Einstein

8. Anyone who can be replaced by a machine deserves to be. — Dennis Gunton

9. I remembered a story of how Bach was approached by a young admirer one day and asked, “But Papa Bach, how do you manage to think of all these new tunes?” “My dear fellow,” Bach is said to have answered, according to my version, “I have no need to think of them. I have the greatest difficulty not to step on them when I get out of bed in the morning and start moving around my room.” — Laurens Van der Post

10. Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. — Albert Szent-Györgyi

11. I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. — Ursula K. Le Guin

12. If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. — George S. Patton

13. So you see, imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. — Brenda Ueland

14. Most technological achievements were preceded by people writing and imagining them. I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books. — Arthur C. Clarke

15. He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet. — Joseph Joubert

16. As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. — Ursula K. Le Guin

17. We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry. — Maria Mitchell

18. One of the virtues of the very young is that you don’t let facts get in the way of your imagination. — Sam Levinson

19. The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.– Henry Ward Beecher

20. When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microspically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.– Cynthia Heimel

21. There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton

22. It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. — Henry Thoreau

23. I like nonsense — it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope… and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities. — Dr. Seuss

24. If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. — Rachel Carson

25. Anyone who thinks the sky is the limit, has limited imagination. — Unknown

26. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. — Albert Einstein

27. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself. — Alexander Graham Bell

28. Reality can be beaten with enough imagination. — Unknown

29. Let your mind alone, and see what happens. — Virgil Thomson

30. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. — Pablo Picasso

31. Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. — John Dewey

32. It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. –Alec Bourne

33. Reporting facts is the refuge of those who have no imagination. -–Marquis de Vauvenargues

34. No course of life is so weak and foolish as that which is carried out according to rules and discipline. -–Montaigne

35. Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is? -–Frank Scully

36. Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. -–G.K. Chesterton

37. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. -–Albert Einstein

38. What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. -–Theodore Roethke

39. There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream – whatever that dream might be. -– Pearl S. Buck

40. Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations. -– Ralph Charell

41. I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren’t a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future. -– David Copperfield

42. In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities. -–Janos Arany

43. Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them. -–Josie Bisset

44. Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. -–Gloria Steinem

45. Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. -– Harriet Tubman

46. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails Explore. Dream. Discover. -– Mark Twain

47. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. — Einstein

48. Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly. — Arnold Edinborough

49. I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. — Eleanor Roosevelt

50. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. — Aldous Huxley

Imagination should be encouraged, not discouraged.  Everything in the universe is fodder for the imagination, and any teacher who doesn’t know this, and doesn’t try like mad to make sure he/she encourages dreaming in all students, is a. . . well, you know.  Paging Auntie Em.  Of course, there are, sadly, always people who aren’t interested and whose life goal seems to be to prevent everyone else from dreaming and reaping gold from any lesson.  More sadly still, our schools often cater to this lowest common denominator instead of showering the imaginative and eager learners with opportunities.  sigh.

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings” has become “Every time a bell rings, a child has to force himself/herself NOT to think about yet another subject that should rightly be fascinating but which has been edited and censored and otherwise beaten down to fit inside that little box lest it inspire someone to greatness.” (Whilst trying to ignore and dodge the antics, bullying, disruptions, hands, tantrums, etc, of the uninspired kid in the next seat over. . . .) (and likewise trying not to draw attention to himself lest he be told to take Butch and Woim out in the hall to help them with their spelling.)

Because we can’t have any individual greatness, you know; it’s not fair to the OTHER students who wouldn’t recognize greatness if it bit them on the ass and called them by name.

I might dare to remind whoever crosses my path – and aren’t y’all LUCKY – that, in the words of Madeleine L’Engle (see, you’re getting your famous quotation after all – “Like” and “equal” are not the same thing!!!!!

I might also dare to remind you that the entire universe is a big game of “Six Degrees of Separation” and that those who don’t know enough to make any connections are losing.

The answer isn’t really “Kevin Bacon,” you know.

The answer is “42.”  And if you don’t know why, be afraid.  Be very afraid.

There are, of course Twelve Actual Rules of Christmas, according to the law, and in case you don’t know what they are and have intentions of storming the school or business that’s maliciously ignoring your rights as a Christian/Jew/Catholic/Protestant/Wiccan/Pagan/Atheist/Order of Elfland/Kisser of Mother Earth’s Backside, etc, perhaps y’all should take a glance at the law concerning such matters.

. . . interrupting my Christmas Eve blues (it’s almost here, which means it’s almost over!), my wallowing in Love Actually, my longing for visits from family, my worry about family members who are ill, my total digging (hippie language) of the White Christmas Blizzard happening outside as I type, and my dread of taking down all my holiday decorations in a week or so, with another version of the  Twelve Rules of Christmas, just for you:

1.  Christmas is always better than you thought it would be, even if it’s not.

2.  Christmas brings people together, even if it’s by contrast and not comparison.

3.  Christmas gifts made by childish hands are the best.  Christmas gifts FOR a child are even better.

4.  Christmas dinner is always great, even if it’s frozen pizza.  Because it’s Christmas.

5.  No one is alone on Christmas unless he/she chooses to be alone.  There are just too many places to go or to volunteer, to stay at home or in one’s room and whine.  Feeling left out?  Put on your coat and drive to the soup kitchen/homeless shelter, etc.  If being needed and appreciated is what you’re after – and who isn’t? – head for places where you’re definitely needed and genuinely appreciated.  It’s your own fault if you’re alone and sad at Christmas, or any other time, actually.

6.  Every Christmas tree is beautiful.

7.  Every wrapped package under the tree is beautiful, especially the ones wrapped by inept fingers.

8.  Christmas M&M’s taste better than ordinary M&M’s.  Ditto Christmas Snickers and Christmas Reese’s Trees.

9.  Christmas fruitcakes make great footballs, doorstops, and stories for next year, unless you actually like to eat fruitcake, in which case, bon appetit.  Watch your teeth.  And what exactly are those green slimy things?

10.  Christmas trees often bring the outdoors inside for our pets, ifyouknowwhatImean.

11.  Christmas season begins too soon and ends too quickly.

12.  The proper and polite response to “Merry Christmas” is “Thank you,” even if you do not believe in it.  Rudeness is always a choice, and it’s never appropriate to throw someone’s well-wishes back into his/her face.  If you’re insulted by someone’s wishing you well, keep it to yourself.  Charming Fairylit Woodland Seasonal Solstice Nothingness Greetings to you, too.  (Thank you.)

I’ve watched Love Actually three times this Christmas week, and I might have to give it another couple of viewings to get the sentiment and emotion out of my system.  Otherwise, I might be like Rebecca Randall’s Aunt Jane, so soft and sentimental it’s a wonder I don’t leak out the doorsill.*  It’s been suggested before.

Just to hear the music. . . . That soundtrack – it’s blazingly fantastic.  Fantastic, and, well, lovely.  Just lovely.

Excuse me.  I have to go mop myself up off the floor before all of me oozes under the door and out onto the yard.

If you haven’t ever seen Love Actually, what the bloody hell is WRONG with you!!! oh dear Lord, watch it now.  Be aware, however, that it’s not exactly family friendly in a few scenes.  Watch it late at night, with someone you love.  Or all by yourself in your kitchen whilst making homemade bread and fudge and trying not to weep copious tears into the dough.

P.S.  #13.  Christmas is a time for family and friends, and it’s so magically wondrous when they come to visit!  I can believe in God when I’m with family.  Without them, it can be difficult.

*Bonus points if you understand the reference.

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Mamacita says:  Okay, so, today’s what, the 15th?  It’s time for another politically incorrect rant!  Be warned, oh overly-sensitive types born without the ability to discern. . . .

I am a Christmas fanatic. I live for this season. I LOVE this time of year, the anticipatory days, the buildup, the baking, the decorating, the smiling faces, the wreaths, the trees, the twinkling lights that make the whole neighborhood look like the starry sky, the making of lists, the checking of them twice, the looking FORWARD, the happiness, the glow, the very atmosphere of the world.

Well, of the fun world, anyway, the nice world, the world of generous people who care; the grinches and grumps of the world don’t count. I believe in the TRUE meaning of Christmas, but if you don’t, that’s your business. I do think even non-believers could get into the SEASON, if not the REASON, and have a lot of fun with it, and most of them do and are glad of it. But every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you. . . . . so sit in the corner and complain and try to ruin it for the majority of the nation, go ahead, whine away, oh boo hoo your rights are being trampled because other people (who constitute a majority, by the way) are all happy and singing. . . oh, grow up and look around, you loser!!! Most of us are happier than usual, and thinking of others and trying to make our personal spaces a little prettier, and thinking generous thoughts for a change, and trying to help others in the coldest time of the year, and you’re picketing stores and throwing people’s innocent good will back in their faces and writing editorials demanding your scroogeish rights and doing your best to put a damper on it all.

Shame on you.

And, shame again. Lighten up. Embrace the emotional impact, if you don’t have it in you to embrace any other aspect of it. It’s a religious thing, yes, but nobody has a loaded gun to your right cheek demanding that you surrender all your own beliefs.  But it’s also a cultural thing, and a seasonal thing, and an emotional thing, and a love thing, and a caring thing, and a sharing thing, and it makes people happy when they participate, and if you choose not to participate in any part of it, at least shut up about it so you don’t drag others down with you. You have your rights? Yes, you do. And so do the rest of us, and that’s something you don’t seem to wish to acknowledge in any way because you’re too busy trying to get an entire culture to shut down and do things your way. It’s not going to happen, Scrooge. If you don’t like it, move away.

Yes. Move away. You know, to some OTHER country where you’re allowed to worship, behave, believe, eat, drink, etc, exactly as you please. . . . . oops. Um, wait a second. IS there another country where you’re allowed to do those things? Besides this one that you spend all your time putting down?

I don’t THINK so.

Therefore, if you intend to stay here, please understand something: you have your rights, and so does everyone else. You choose to be joyless at this time of year, others choose to be joyful. Neither of us is going to change. You choose to hug your personal beliefs close and honestly, I’ve never heard you say anything positive at this time of year so I’m not altogether sure what your beliefs ARE, if indeed you have any goals except to stifle everyone else, but whatever they are, you’ve a right to them.  Please collect your wits about you for a moment and discern that everyone else has rights, too.  There are more of us than of you. Stay in your dark cheerless house if you don’t want to see happy sharing singing people.

Sit there in your dark hole and practice saying things like “Bah, humbug,” and “My RIGHTS are being obstructed!!!! Oh WAHHHHH”  “How DARE that old lady smile at me and give my child a candy cane!” “My neighbors all have wreaths and I am SOOOO OFFENDED!”  “A clerk wished me a Merry Christmas?  I’ll SUE!”  Stuff like that. Be sure your windows are open so the neighbors can hear you. Put a sign on your door, too, to warn people away lest a neighbor bring you a cake or a box of cookies – more signs that your rights are being disrespected.

What’s the matter, you can’t enjoy someone else’s holiday? Okay, then you should be the one who volunteers to work the Christmas shifts for people. It doesn’t mean anything to you, right? You’ll get more money, and that’s important to you, right? Then why aren’t you first in line for that? It would be a wonderful gift for a father or mother who would love to be home with their kids for Christmas. . . .but then, you don’t give gifts, do you, so that’s out. And asking you to work when others don’t would be yet another manisfestation of your rights being trampled.

Honestly. I hope you are in therapy.

But I digress. It’s the 15th of December, and I haven’t done any shopping*  yet. My kids are going to have some kind of Christmas this year, and I don’t care if Tim and I don’t eat for a month afterwards. We don’t need to be eating, anyway, gad.

So, to the majority of the world, a very Merry Christmas. To the rest of you, carry on, and be careful lest you accidently eat a cookie or hear a song or see some twinkling lights; it might scar you for life.  Watch out for smiling happy people, too, lest you be subjected to good wishes.

It’s going to be a very lean Christmas, but no power, principality, or grumpy old fart in the universe can keep it from being merry!

*And, by “going shopping,” what I’m really saying is, “I’m checking out the bargains online.”  It’s cold outside.

P.S.  By the way, I LOVE IT when people with different beliefs share.  Sadly, they seldom seem to.  Around these parts, such people mostly seem to get off on whining.

Surprisingly, no.

It’s a short story because it has only one main plotline and set of characters.

However, most short stories are pretty short.  One of my college professors told us that one should be able to begin and finish a really good short story while sitting on the toilet. I think I agree. Sometimes there’s a fine line between a novella and a few paragraphs, but the right length of a proper short story is somewhere in between: just the right length for a beginning, middle, and ending, giving you plenty of time to finish your business without getting hemorhoids from sitting too long. We keep a lot of our books in the big bathroom and many of them are collections of short stories.

I’m reminded of the scene in “The Big Chill” wherein Jeff Goldblum laments that most of his writing is read on the toilet, and when someone comments that one can read “War and Peace” on the toilet, Goldblum counters with “Yes, but you can’t finish it.”

But with a short story, you can.

Stop laughing. Where else, and when else, in our busy lives do we have a few minutes to ourselves?

Occasionally, I come across a short story that haunts me, makes me obsessed, changes me, affects me, and not always in a positive way. When I say, ‘not positive’ I don’t mean ‘negative.’ I really don’t know how to explain what I mean, either. That doesn’t mean I don’t know, it just means there are no words for it. I don’t count short stories that were poorly written or that I personally just simply disliked for whatever reason. I mean, a well-written short story that knocked me flat on the ground. Right flat, on my back gazing up at the ceiling with a look of dumbstruck amazement, or joy, or sadness, or whatever as long as it was well-thought-out and beautifully written.

Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Star” is one that knocked me flat and wouldn’t let me back up again for a long, long time.

How long? I’m still on the ground from it.

I first read it when I was in the fifth grade and it fascinated me, and frightened me, and made me ask questions that were not always appreciated by my elders, but isn’t that what a good story is supposed to do to us? I came to the conclusion back then, and I still hold to it, that elders who are suspicious of, and do not encourage, sincere questions about any subject, are themselves not secure in their beliefs and are, on some occasions, downright ignorant.

This story absolutely blew me away. I adore it. I am afraid of it. I always approach the ending with trepidation, hoping somehow that it has changed from the last time I read it. It never does.

It will make you think. It will make you question. It will make you glad to be alive. It will make you wonder about the future, and about the past.

Many pastors have forbidden their congregations to read it. It’s been removed from most textbooks for fear of offending someone. But it still exists. And since most bloggers are intelligent, open-minded, and not easily offended, please click on the link below and read this short story.  It’s the right time of year for wondering and pondering.

See what you think.

Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star.”

I will never understand why some people feel they have to be so defensive and hostile all the time. These people whine “insensitivity” but the truth is, THEY are the ones who are insensitive.

This time of year, in particular, one reads article after article, letter after letter, about incident after incident concerning “violation of my rights as a citizen/resident of this country and I want it STOPPED RIGHT NOW or I shall SUE and WHINE SOME MORE and WRITE SOME MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR and COMMENT ON WEBSITES and DEMAND THAT MY RIGHTS BE HONORED.” Not anyone else’s:  just theirs.

Well, in this country, we all have a right to our rights. But shouldn’t rants like this be reserved for issues that are more, well, life and death? Because if you’re raising such a stink about a candle and a candy cane, what have you left for horrific death and tragedy?

I really don’t think anybody had you singled out for abuse when that snowman and the reindeer were put out in the yard. And if someone wishes to put out a nativity scene, well, they’ve got rights, too. Just don’t look. Why can’t we all make these diverse ways of celebration a learning time, not a time of hostility and tempers and offense? Oh, and if you want your own beliefs represented in public via a symbol, why don’t you simply ask for one? You know, BEFORE you start ranting and raving and whining and complaining, etc. Nobody is trying to suppress you; maybe people just don’t KNOW! And whatever a person’s beliefs might be, there is never any excuse or good reason for bad behavior and violent reactions. Often, such public displays were purchased by donations or contributions; ask the others who share your beliefs to chip in.

When Sam Levinson came home from school and announced to his mother that “I’m the ‘S’ in ‘Merry Christmas!’”, his mother didn’t go bonkers and storm the school demanding that this very non-Jewish program be removed immediately for the sake of her family. She sighed, and smiled, and said “Oy.” Her family was secure enough in its beliefs to allow a little participation in other people’s beliefs as well.

Families so insecure in their beliefs that they can’t tolerate the slightest insight or gesture from someone else’s belief system are sad pathetic entities indeed. Families who are so sure that THEIRS is the ONLY proper belief system that they can’t tolerate the slightest insight or gesture from someone else’s are even sadder. All religions have that kind of people. They are not good advertising.

What’s happened to people? Why are so many people out there up in arms because the majority of this nation’s population is happy and smiling and sharing and putting up symbols of a belief system that most of that population believes in? Why can’t those who don’t, just smile and shake their heads and go home and put up their own stuff? I don’t get all huffy when it’s Eid-Ul-Adhaor or Boxing Day or Kwanzaa or Navaratri or Omisoka or Posada or Hanukkah or Solstice or Hug-A-Tree-Sprite Day or whatever it might be for someone, and I’m flattered when these people wish me well with language and vocabulary I don’t use myself. It wouldn’t bother me in the least to have to look at a symbol that doesn’t represent me. I would just be happy that someone is probably happy to be represented; I know I am! And if someone doesn’t approve of a symbol in a government building, why not just ask if they would please represent yours, too? Wouldn’t that be nicer, all around, than demanding that ALL symbols be removed because YOU don’t approve of them? People who work for the government like holidays, too. Government represents the people, doesn’t it? And you can always turn your chair so you don’t have to see people being happy because of something YOU don’t approve of. That little twinkling tree or creche on someone’s desk wasn’t put there to make you angry. It was put there to make someone happy.  Why are some people so bent on removing other people’s happiness?

Pretty much my only good memories about elementary school are about holidays. Take those away and I’ve got year after year of sitting out in the hallway tutoring the slow kids.

Why can’t we all just chill?

Because it just seems to me that if you’ve chosen to live in a country wherein the majority of the population believes in celebrating Christmas, you’re a bit of an asscrack if you make a big loud stink about your ‘rights’ and get all huffy when a little old lady smiles at you and wishes you a Merry Christmas. That’s just plain bad manners, oh sensitive one. You don’t have to participate, but what’s the harm in letting others do so? Are people storming your home and forcing you to be jolly? It’s not working.

Why are you so insensitive about the beliefs of friendly people who mean you no harm, and so ultra-sensitive and quick to find and take offense if you suspect someone has put up a twinkling star or a bell or perhaps has a candy cane in the house and might offer you a lick? Someone is wishing you happiness and peace? How dare they! How DARE someone wish you well! The NERVE!

I’ve been invited to Christmas parties all my life. Not everyone does it to my liking. That’s none of my business; I’m just happy to be with a bunch of people who wanted me there, too. I’ve been to Chinese New Year parties and regular New Year parties. I’ve been invited to Hanukkah parties, and Kwanzaa parties, and parties given by Hindus and Buddhists and Pagans and atheists and people who write “nothing” in the blank that asks for ‘religion.’

People who consider themselves ‘nothing’ make me kind of sad, but that’s their business, too.

People who pressure others to conform to a particular sect or belief system, now, that’s another subject altogether. But people who just want to express a wish for happiness to another person, using terminology he/she is familiar with? Thank them and smile back. Your face won’t break unless your belief system is based on finding offense in other people’s belief systems, in which case you’re a prick. And just seeing or hearing evidence of other people’s beliefs isn’t going to hurt anybody, either. I love learning about other people’s cultures and beliefs, and I love seeing their symbols and hearing their stories, too. This knowledge isn’t going to change or betray my own, but it might make me smarter.

Oh, and if I lived in a country amidst a population whose beliefs were alien and even offensive to mine, would I make a stink about it? No, I would not. I would pay attention and maybe learn something, and do my own thing at home. I would never presume to insist that the world revolve around me and believe only what I myself believed. How presumptuous can a person get?

Honestly? I am not offended when people use their own personal belief system to wish happiness to me. I am honored.

If a person sees me in public – or in private, for that matter – and extends a hand of friendship to me with words that are not representative of my own personal belief system, I don’t withdraw my hand in a huff and hurt them with a stream of words expressing my OWN beliefs in such a way that this person is fully aware they’ve somehow offended me by wishing me well in terms they understand but I don’t.

I’m also smart enough to understand that a creche is not only a symbol of Christmas but the reason we have it in the first place. Talk all you wish about winter solstices, etc; that’s something entirely different. We may have busted a move on your month, but the reason for the season is not the same. I’m willing to share; are you? And Hanukkah belongs to Christians as well as to Jews; at least, it belongs to the ones who’ve read up.

Please, everyone, wish me a Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Kwanzaa. If you celebrate nothing, wish me a Happy Holiday Season. Pleasant December. Good Times. People want to be friendly and wish you well. Don’t throw it back in their faces. Be nice.

Merry Christmas. Etc.

Previously posted last year, and the year before,  about this same time. Still true.  Nice people don’t let their belief systems get in the way of being nice to others.  If you can’t deal with that, you might want to look into your belief system a little more closely, because if it’s teaching you to be impolite, there’s something wrong with it.  Secure, good people don’t have to tear down other people in order to feel validated, vindicated, or politically correct.

Then again, political correctness has never been a goal for me.  I much prefer being intelligent, snarky,  and kind.

Unless you’re obsessed with politically correctness, in which case, may the bird of paradise fly up your nose.

==

Mamacita says:  Grammar.  I love grammar.  It’s such a fantastic segue to. . . well, pretty much anything.

A student once asked me if it was true that a person could go to hell for saying “shit.”  (Not as a noun; as a statement of emotion.)

(It’s an interjection, set off by a comma or an exclamation point, so he really wasn’t too much off topic, and apparently it was on his mind.)

He said that his preacher had told him that he was going to hell because he said ’shit.’ I was more than a little bit flabbergasted, for a variety of reasons.

One, I’m still not used to adult students who say ’shit’ a lot and I don’t have to give them detention or pretend to be shocked.

Two, someone in a position of authority in this kid’s life has scared the shit OUT of him, for saying shit. So much so that this quiet well-behaved kid (who apparently has a potty mouth in church) asked his college instructor if it were true.

I have no desire to enter into any kind of debate with this boy’s preacher. I already dislike the guy too much.  Neither is it my place to talk religious doctrine to my students.

But I do know a lot about shit. I had two babies, remember? And I taught in the public school system for a long, long time. I’m not really sure which of the two had the worst shit. I think probably the schools.  When it comes to shit, the non-organic kind is always worse; it sticks to your heart for a long, long time, whereas we can scrape the organic kind off the bottoms of our shoes.  Or walk it off; it depends on where you already are and where you’re going.  The organic kind can be removed; the non-organic kind can’t.

So I explained to him that some people believed that being profane was a sin, but even so, ’shit’ is not a profanity, it’s an obscenity, so going to hell isn’t part of the package. The commandments are about profanity, not obscenity.

He was really relieved. He’ll probably also continue to say shit in the preacher’s presence.  If my preacher was that stupid, I probably would, too.

I mean, honestly, a minister should know the difference between obscenity and profanity. They are not the same thing. Not a bit. Get a clue, preach. Then maybe he would refer to you as his “minister” instead of as a ‘preacher.’ There’s a big difference between THOSE two words, too.

We also discussed the word “condemn,” its presence in the chapter today being perfection on a stick, and going right along with the student’s question, because to condemn someone is also a profanity. We’ve watered down the word, but its point of origin was pithy and terrible.

I wanted to tackle “awesome” and “awful,” but we ran out of time.  Next week, dear students.  Mark your calendars; it’ll be awesome.

When I finally got home tonight, I was too tired to do any cleaning; this devastated me as those of you who know me can attest.  The cats were sitting in my chair, as I discovered when I sat on them and they scratched me.  Well, who could blame them?  Talk about intruding on an already-claimed space.

It hurt. I might have said ’shit,’ too. I had no witnesses, so you’ll never know.

Read at your own risk. And if you want to fight, bring it on.

==

Dear People-Whose-Own-Personal-Beliefs-Far-Outweigh-Anyone-Else’s:

There is a big difference between “celebrating” something and “having fun with” or simply “experiencing” it. Or maybe. . . LEARNING about something? Perish the thought.

Buy a dictionary, you pompous twits. If your belief system will allow one in your home. . . . there ARE some controversial words in dictionaries, you know. And I’m sure you DO know.

You can always mark them out with a black sharpie. And I’m sure you DO know how to do that. You’ve had plenty of practice with book censorship. You probably don’t have a thesaurus in your home because – oh NOOOOOO – that would teach your children that there are other ways to express themselves, other words to choose among, other ways to say things. Can’t have it. I mean to say, we just can’t HAVE that.

There is much, much more that I’d really like to say, but my own personal beliefs which far outweigh anyone else’s do not allow me to waste my time trying to deal with the likes of you.

I’m too busy feeling sorry for your children, who have to deal with you on a daily basis, in your humorless, cheerless, sterilized-of-all-fun, devoid-of-all-experiences-which-your-pastor’s-pizza delivery boy’s-grandmother’s-neighbor disapproves of, always-winter-and-never-Christmas, house. Also known as the Valentine-free zone. The “all-experiences outside of our frame of immediate knowledge” -free zone. The shamrock-free zone. The sparkler-free zone. The childhood’s fantasy-free zone. The charm-free zone. The turkey-free zone. The diversity-free zone. The other-people-free zone. The tradition-free zone. If you’ve ever thought or said something to the effect of “I don’t know the reason, but it’s just how we do things here” or “We’ve always done it this way” or “The pastor said so” or “It’s always been a rule here,” then I’m talking about you, Gormless.

I was going to work “twilight zone” in there somewhere but frankly, such households are not classy enough to be associated with that reference.

Oh, and I take back the “turkey-free” zone comment. I bet you know why, too.

What a poor life for a little child, in a house cleansed of fantasy, play-acting, dress-up, dreams, fairies, anticipation, and traditions.

Poor, poor little children.

I suppose poor parents, too, but THEY’VE got a choice, while their children do not.

Not till they are old enough to move out, and start a nicer, smarter, far more interesting household of their own.

(Not judgmental much, am I. . . . .)

Yeah, well, bite me.

Very sincerely indeed,

Me

P.S.

When I try to remember my own elementary school years, the clearest memories are of red and pink construction paper valentine hearts, hand-tracing turkeys, a tree covered with little pieces of glitter-covered artwork (some of them MINE), shamrocks hanging from the ceiling, drawing names for a fifty-cent gift exchange, learning about Hannukah (which my family did not celebrate, but which I was fascinated to learn about; it was my first glimpse into other people’s culture, and MY parents were smart enough to appreciate that.) and sitting out in the hallway day after day tutoring kids who probably STILL can’t spell ‘cat.’

Some of those memories are better than others. Guess which.

Honestly, I think some people never grow out of the obsession to always get their own way in everything. Too bad so many of them have children.

P.P.S. It takes brains to have imagination, and it takes guts to branch out. That pretty much sums it up.

P.P.P.S. If you’re the sorry type who has never read Harry Potter but condemns and forbids it anyway because somebody else heard it was evil, I shall assume there is no Disney in your home, either. Otherwise, you’d be a hypocrite on top of everything else.

“No two people are alike, and both of them are damn glad of it.”

That’s a quotation; that’s not me saying “damn,” although I frequently occasionally do. I am, to my shame, greatly afflicted with “potty mouth,” and although I managed to control it somewhat while my children were tiny, thanks to what I think of as my “Shit Epiphany,” it’s back, in full force. Honestly? I need help.

But I digress. No two people are alike, but both of them are expected to progress at the same rate by our public schools.

Our children are expected to learn to read and write by a certain age lest they be labeled “special education” and given an IEP and pulled from the classroom to be tutored in the Reading Room. Most of them are little boys.

Old hippies like me sometimes have a hard time admitting that there really are gender differences that no amount of “environment” is going to change. One of those differences is this: a lot of little boys need a few more years than a lot of little girls need, to mature enough so that their bodies and brains can sit still, together, long enough to learn how to read and write. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” many of the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.

I saw this miracle happen over and over again. With my own eyes I saw it. Sometimes, when I tried to tell other teachers, especially elementary teachers, about this awakening, they did not believe me. “I had that boy in third grade and I’m telling you, Jane, that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a reader, a good student. He just can’t do it.”

And I’m telling you, Madeline, that I don’t give a rat’s ass* what the child did in your class. I am trying to tell you that in my class, the boy can read. One week he couldn’t, and the next week, he could. And he’s ecstatic.

Heidi learned to read overnight. It does happen. At age eight, Heidi learned to read overnight. And then she went home and taught her friend Peter how to read, and he was in his teens. The “learning how to read when convinced one would never be able to learn because it was just too hard” theme is a big one in this book.

My point? Do I have to have one? I guess I could drag one in by the hind legs if you must have a point. How about this one:

Hold off on the IEP’s and the labeling until the kid is in middle school. Tutor, yes. Give special help, yes. Hang a label on his forehead and put it in his permanent record? Not so fast there, Teach. Don’t do it Not yet. Not just for reading. Save the labeling for the children who genuinely need the help; don’t fill up the room with little boys who just need a few more years to mature.

Same-sex classrooms in the lower grades? Why not? It might work. It would certainly be better for the little girls who, most of them, just naturally catch on to the reading faster; they could move on! It would be better for the little boys, too; they wouldn’t feel pressured and might get comfortable enough to relax and blossom, too.

Many of our most highly esteemed scientists, inventors, etc, were late bloomers. Edison wasn’t even allowed to continue at his school; he was so slow, he held the others back!

Let’s give our little boys a break, what say, people?

And by the way, taking away a child’s recess because he couldn’t finish his vocabulary words quickly is cruel and unusual punishment. I suppose the boy would then be punished because he was extra wiggly since his ‘outlet’ was taken from him? Energetic little children NEED to be let loose on the playground several times a day!!! Taking away recesses for punishment or to make more room for standardized test review is the action of a halfwit who knows nothing about either education OR children and probably hasn’t been in a classroom since 1972 politician, superintendent, or some other administrator who falls into the ‘nimrod’ category of typical la la land unawareness of real people and how we live. Probably people who do that don’t know how to access their email, either, or use a computer. But then, that’s what secretaries are for.

I put up with this for 26 years. No wonder I had a potty mouth.

Back in the olden days, there were plenty of outlets for restless boys to work off their excess energy. Families sent their  boys out to chop wood, plow, herd cows, walk miles to a neighbor or a store, etc. Our boys fell into bed exhausted from genuine labor every night. Now, few boys have any safe or easily obtainable or legitimate outlets, other than sports, for their physical energy and it gets kind of balled up (sorry) in them and then they explode, sometimes for no conceivable reason other than that the kid simply needs an outlet. I’m a huge proponent of self control, but self control can only do so much. Any teacher can tell you that a middle-of-the-day segment devoted to intense physical activity is of vital importance for our students. Girls need it, too, but I’m focusing on the boys in this post. Afternoon classes full of boys who have had absolutely no physical outlet are a nightmare.

Organized games are not enough. Not every kid will get to play; plus, once the adults take charge, it’s no longer free play; it’s business. Let the kids run wild for a half hour or so and let the teachers stand there and try to keep them from getting hurt. Tim’s elementary school had a hill to slide down and a piney grove to play in. I taught in that same school for years and by then, the piney grove, the hill, and most of the coolest playground equipment had been removed because a kid fell down. Go figure. Our kids don’t even know HOW to fall down these days. When they are on ice or trip and really DO fall down, they get hurt because they’ve had no falling-down experience. Kids fall down. Live with it. Sheesh.

And by the way, this guv’ment standard of requiring our tiny first and second graders to sit still for NINETY MINUTES and read without interruption is ignorance in action on the part of whoever thought that one up. Tell me, Mr. Standards: Can YOU sit absolutely still for ninety minutes and read without interruption? I thought not.

*Dammit **, there I go again.

** Crap.

Back in the days of Greek mythology, the ancients understood the connection between what we now call “science” and “literature.”  One of the nine Muses was Urania, who was in charge of astronomy.  No one can study astronomy without also studying the stories behind each of the constellations, planets, and stars; anything that can be seen by the naked eye was charted and named by the ancients, named after a hero, god, goddess, creature, or storyline that the pattern of stars reminded these ancient celestial map-makers of.  A good, imaginative instructor will combine these two; a poor, unimaginative one will believe they are separate entities.

I am sharing with you quotations about the stars.

1. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. — Mark Twain

2. I have … a terrible need … shall I say the word? … of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars. — Vincent van Gogh

3. If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently. — Bill Watterson

4. If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. — Vincent van Gogh

6. I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, – and the stars through his soul. — Victor Hugo

7. I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star. — Carl Sagan

8. I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. –Galileo Galilei

9. Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship. — Omar N. Bradley

10. What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? — E. M. Forster

11. I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly – or ever – gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe. — Brian Greene

12. The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. — Henry Ellis

13. There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. — N.P. Willis

14. Metaphor for the night sky: A trillion asterisks and no explanations. –Robert Brault

15. No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky. –Llewelyn Powys

16. Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel. –Samuel Johnson

17. Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another. — Plato

18. I think a future flight should include a poet, a priest and a philosopher . . . we might get a much better idea of what we saw. — Michael Collins

19. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall, about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen. — Roger Ebert

20. What the space program needs is more English majors. — Michael Collins

21. To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. — Stephen Hawking

22. Human interest in exploring the heavens goes back centuries. This is what human nature is all about. — Dennis Tito

23. I have a hunch the most important reason we’re going to space is not known now. — Burt Rutan

24. Two things inspire me to awe—the starry heavens above and the moral universe within. — Albert Einstein

25. I know that I am mortal and ephemeral. But when I search for the close-knit encompassing convolutions of the stars, my feet no longer touch the earth, but in the presence of Zeus himself I take my fill of ambrosia which the gods produce. — Ptolemy

26. We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens … The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment. — Johannes Kepler

27. Observing quasars is like observing the exhaust fumes of a car from a great distance and then trying to figure out what is going on under the hood. — Carole Mundell

28. Those who study the stars have God for a teacher. — Tycho Brahe (He was so in awe of
the Maker of the Universe that he put on his court robes whenever he went to his telescope.) (One eye was also larger than the other, from his years of star-gazing.)