Child Care Kills Our Geniuses

The MacArthur Genius Awards are beyond exceptional. Hats off to this funder.

That more of the uber-wealthy with their criminally insane excess profits don’t do this kind of investing boggles my mind, but such is the reality of boundless selfishness, if I might hitch a ride on someone’s papal dress tails.

But here is not the place ponder this shortcoming at the moment. It is, instead, necessary to draw attention to a single quote in an article posted today in the New York Times by Robin Pogrebin about the award dollars to be given to Ben Lerner by the MacArthur bunch. In case you don’t know of it, each of 24 winners receives $625,000 that they can spend without restrictions (none) over a period of five years. It is food designed to feed their gifts.

So, naturally, as expected, honesty comes pouring forth from the mouths of babes; the poignancy self-evident as can be seen in this paragraph from the Times:

Ben Lerner, a Brooklyn novelist, poet and critic, said the fellowship might enable him to spend less time teaching and more time writing (partly because it could help cover the cost of child care for his 2-½-year-old and 3-month-old). “It takes away all your excuses to not be doing the most ambitious work,” he said. “It means you don’t have to take on more things. You use the money to make space for the work.”

Your kids and those horrific costs of child care -- those little bratty excuses.

Seems we, as a supposedly sophisticated society, have fewer creative geniuses and all-in innovators than we may be entitled to because … well … we can't have those and educationally ready children too. Wow … what a cultural commentary.

This likely hit me harder than most people because I’ve had the pleasure of working in the field of family care services in the past, even developing a model, enterprise-based child care initiative for an outer Bay Area county. Not to mention that I happen to be spending some time (likely pro bono) trying to find a potential funder (or Impact Investor?) with the foresight and genius of his/her own who would consider underwriting the expenses to build a better preschool system -- one that works without sucking all the life out of family or smart parents.

The philanthropic sector is sitting on tons of dollars, much of which does nothing except help the rich school their egos and legacies. I for one would rather see more of that money made available for kids to free up and ready their minds and the creativity of their parents. Child care is clearly killing too many geniuses, and as a maturing nation, we ought to be able to stop this from happening, right MacArthurs?

Good Pope Trips

His trip was undoubtedly successful. Even those of us who are blessed with a profound and deep disrespect for what religion is all about found him a fascinating aberration to watch. For institutions built on faith, there is little higher praise.

But he tripped and fell towards the end like so many others have and will likely get a headache from this stumble (just as have past SCOTUS members, BTW). 

It is painfully clear that he, like the other men left by uncertain organizations to their own devices, do not understand sex, identity issues and women are all about. He and most formal religions continue to get hung up on past ignorances and ill-informed attitudes, laying traps for their own logic. 

To end his great Norte Americano trip by saying little more than offering platitudes and promises that he will do better on sexual abuse, and then by adding on that elected officials can blatantly discriminate in behaviors like marriage equality that make their beliefs uncomfortable … hummm ... these are the signs of much learning that even a godsend needs to do.

It is possible that the Catholic Church can do better. It's people hide behind better knowledge. They should, could and would do more if the wisdom of these masses was unleashed with the added faith of women and persons of various human orientation. To pretend that these issues can be left hanging on old precepts is a big, hurtful weakness … and it could end up being the source of his ultimate downfall.

Two-Spirited Bullessness

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOUGHTS: We could, should and, were it not for a few moralists, would do this better. Let's give it some thought: 

I can’t help it; it’s a weirdness in me. I like when families struggle to accept the gift of pending two-spiritedness in their kids. If you don’t know what that means, stop reading. You might figure it out and your soul will burn! And that would be a waste because I won’t be there to make s’mores!

Two-spirited people, as some of our Native brothers and sisters used to conceive, were people born of a delicate balance between genders. As with everywhere else, social circumstances helped them identify with one gender or the other -- sometimes with biological match, sometimes not -- letting the final determination come about through life situations and the fit of the individual’s humanity. That’s not a bad thing and it is something that parents, schools, communities and even religions should figure out how to come to terms with.

I used to joke about how feminine I am though few people would or do agree with that when they meet me. In fact, since being gay is in favor at the moment -- though we don’t get all the good brownie points like we used to; it seems we’re everywhere! -- I sometimes get the feeling people say I’m lying even about being gay, thinking I’m just trying to be artsy, hip and cool! Trust me, the one who claims that title knows better!

The thing about this issue is that it can be hard to watch when a culture is so wholly unprepared for the learning that lies ahead, even by those of us who want more of the awareness to happen. Most people think that transgenderism is the next great barrier for the LGBTQQ communities, and it probably will be. But it still makes people uncomfortable when parents take an active role to minimize their gender-based bias their kids experience.

“We want him/her to decide, so please respect what she/he wishes.” Okay … but that’s hard to do in quick or passing situations. And, like much in life that we have been ill-prepared for, this one puts a lot of us off balance. We can’t say it’s up to the two-spiriters to take the lead because, right now, they tend to be young, very young, like my nephew young -- and the result is many people fumbling through the encounters.

If society took it upon itself to grab this bull (bulless?) by the horns -- decorative or otherwise -- the end result could become a lesson in overcoming our gender missteps in the past.

It’s my birthday and other than the obvious fact that Google seems to know that, I want to leave this observation as a gift to all. Nativisms aren’t always as savage as we like to think.

A New Rattler for the Human Good

America (and the world) needs to think differently and call that newness something else. We have a new snake to catch.

I was reading a Tweet this AM about the forces of corporations, media, government -- the holy trinity of failure or obfuscation. We may also elect to be charitable during harsh times, of course, or become alienated from humanity in spiritual ways … or simply to do as many of us do: have more wine.

But there has to be another option. Another force that is more powerful, overriding, able to cross borders and cultures in a single bound, and that comes together for a different, a unifying purpose. A strength that is not only self-sustaining but well protected by a societal rattle that sounds a warning of wonder to keep us on the right path or that promises to scare away other forces of evil. 

As I was thinking this AM: We need (at a minimum) a name for such a force. And we need to harnesses it collectively to do what needs to be done without someone, anyone (which I can say instead of "something" since corporations are people too!) taking a cut, worrying about their selfish interests, or otherwise controlling and manipulating a key part of that process for their own greed. 

To me, there is a place for the holy trinity within reason: government collect taxes, provide for common defenses (on a limited and smart, peaceable scale) and offer needed services? Ok. Corporations make reasonable profits and pay fairly those who do their work? Sure. The media inform and stimulate debate? Great.

But there is that other thing. What do we call that sense of collective consciousness that activates itself to bring us together and be a guardian "rattler" against the others that seek to slither in and misdirect us all the more? How do we train the former that we want, and learn to avoid the latter, the bad snake of deception and deceit? 

Yep, that’s the something that's missing; that's what we need and need to name. Or so says my post-vacation mind as I jump drive myself out of one desert and into another where the wrong snakes still live?

The Hill Haters

RANT OF THIS CYCLE: I find it rather disturbing at how many people so readily turn their anger against Hillary Clinton. The email nonsense is as good a reflection of this as is "the real" Trump embarrassment a reflection of everything that could possibly go wrong with the spoiling of an American. Yet he gets further rewarded (like he needs it), and she has to work harder to prove the negative of a strong and committed woman.

If The Hill is guilty of anything -- I doubt she is and was annoyed when she apologized -- it is of demonstrating as clearly as possible that the US is so badly behind in the creation of, evolution of and use of electronic transmission and communication systems. We really are. (Which, BTW, is why otherwise smart people think yelling about drones is so important. It is a natural extension of the military hate that we've built into our culture!).

In simple, very simple terms: We all know how to email, though with very little recognition of the hows and whys of what it does let alone of the implications of putting messages into the virtual spaces. Yet we do it, and we have convinced ourselves that it matters little. And I blame this ignorance on the government haters who use all of their energy to try to hold back the water of progress. If conservatarians hadn't weakened government with budget starvations so badly we'd have smarter systems, and we'd take pride in learning how to use them. Instead, we flounder and throw darts at others.

Stupid hating.

She did the same as we all would have done -- likely no more or no less. Her "fault" lies in doing it with the confidence of a woman who has grown used to being wrapped in the comfort of visibility. For this she needs to be recognized, not pressed and pressed and pressed and then hated. It's just nonsense, no matter what is in her emails.

The Hill Haters are that way because they have entirely given up on understanding the processes of technological advancement, and so they are taking out their frustrations and lack of understanding on a resilient, visible, female target. Perfection is fleeting, but many women deserve more credit for what they do than we give them.

Women know that they have to work too much harder to get to and stay in the domain of the successful. That so many of us (often men) denigrate that by making this woman fight to stay where we SHOULD want her to be is ludicrous ... and we should be as ashamed of that as we need be of letting Trump yank our chains.