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Defining Down Normal and the Separation of Needs

I was just watching a CBS Morning News story about a couple that gave birth to a Down Syndrome child. The reporter was thrilled to tell us the couple’s next baby was “completely normal.” That kind of crass inconsideration in the media is the sort of cruel framing of a person by label that then seeps into all of society and permeates a popular cultural mindset against those who are thought to be outside the range of “Normal.”

Has “Average” become the new “Normal” — where the middling height, midline intelligence and the ordinary outlook are christened as “acceptable and necessary” in order to fit in to “Normal” society?

Labeling people in order keep them out of some vague and undefined idea of Normal is a dangerous and hurtful game that ostracizes those among us who most need our considered care and who deserve our unconditional love and acceptance.

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Helicopter Parents and Militia Mommies

A good friend of mine in Nebraska — who shall remain nameless unless he steps forward here — sent me a great email yesterday full of fascinating thoughts and feelings as well as the following riff on unsavory and selfish parents:

I have personally witnessed and heard stories about minivan moms. These are the women — who have one, maybe two kids — but don’t work regular jobs, and take their kids to school every day. They band together in packs, always drinking their morning coffee in the drop off lanes at school.

On the surface, this of course is a “Leave it to Beaver” scenario. But I have discovered that many are prejudiced against those of us that have jobs, and drop our kids off and go to work. If we are in a hurry, they bitch and honk at you like you ran a red light or cut them off on the interstate. They travel in packs, socialize at the school, and help out at the school like it matters to their son’s or
daughter’s education if they are there or not.

What I have read, later on in life, these parents, usually women but sometimes men, become “helicopter parents.”  Right now in the Lincoln paper, there’s another article how they follow their kids to college and continually intervene in the guidance of their children who need to start thinking and figuring life out on their own.

In trying to be protective and nurturing, these people don’t do justice to their own offspring and get a bad name for themselves. Like an alcoholic or
drug user, they deny a problem exists. Some of these parents I have run across at the elementary level are down right nasty to deal with.

Have you heard of the “Helicopter Parents” phenomenon before?

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Weighing Humor Against Moral Values

Is funny always funny? Or does the sense of what’s funny change with the cultural ebb-and-flow over time of what certain people find funny? In a recent thread of comments here, one regular commenter made a “joke” about work where the new management team were “Nazis” and the workers were “Jews.”

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When Boys Cry

On Sunday, when Tiger Woods won the British Open for the second time in a row and the third time overall, he celebrated his win by sobbing on his caddy’s shoulder. That was Tiger’s first win after the death of his father Earl in May and, as Tiger told the world later, he was crying because he missed his father so much.

When Boys Cry

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Top Ten Reasons I Hate My MacBook Pro

Yesterday we discussed the Top Ten Reasons I Love my MacBook Pro and today, to be fair, we look at the darker side of the MacBook Pro in the definitive Top Ten List of Hates:

1. Heat: The 17-inch MacBook I have runs hot. Because the case is made of metal the heat goes directly from inside the machine to the case and outside right to your hands. I don’t mind the heat so much but, compared to my other Windows laptops made of plastic, I wonder if this burning MacBook metal is a better or worse sensation or if my wondering is merely being sensational.

2. Whine: It seems many MacBook Pros have an annoying high-pitched whine that Apple cannot seem to fix or even make it clear if they think the problem exists or not. I don’t mind the whine so much — many blame it on the new Intel chip in the MacBook Pros and Intel blames Apple and Apple says nothing — because I always have iTunes playing, the TV is on, the radio is turned up and my Vornado fans are blowing full blast. My poor cat, however, refuses to sit on my lap now. The whine hurts his ears and in a quiet room it hurts mine, too. I can’t imagine using this MacBook Pro in a library where quiet is the mandate of the day: I’d be tossed out on my dual-core.

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