Americans have issued this statement on the war on terror

[Currently available only in non-US media, I think. Via Partial to the bean]

First of all, amen. I’ve always thought that.

I was so thoroughly bewildered in high school. Mostly because of the girls, I think. Remember how terrible girls are? Boys, I mean, learn to belch the alphabet in one go and you’re home free. I never understood how social situations worked, and still don’t. No one ever explained it to me, maybe they didn’t know either.

With my own kids I try to help them avoid this by putting them in as wide a variety of social situations as possible, where they can learn on their own and by providing as much honest information as I can. When I was a kid I lived at the end of a dirt road with a shy father who was gone a lot (bus driver) and a mother who on the one hand would’ve liked to get out more and on the other disdained society. So in my attempts to give my kids a broader education than I had, I try to expose them to team sports, music lessons (including ensembles) and so on, where they deal with other kids and so on. Because a lot of it is simply practice.

The other thing is providing non-bullshit information. The bullshit level in public information has always been high, especially the information provided to kids. Which is sad because they are the people who need good information the most as they try to figure things out. So I try to give the girls value-free information.

Well, that’s not true. I make a strong effort to indoctrinate them with my own value system, I’ll admit that. But I also have to say that it seems to me that they were born pretty fully-formed already and the best I can do is help them, it seems. Hold the bike while they climb on and ride off. I don’t tell them not to have sex, I try to make them not afraid of sex, not afraid to talk about it, not afraid of penises; having information about sex, I think, makes them less likely to run out and get exploited, not more. Less likely to be afraid to buy a condom or whatever. So much is so embarrassing for a kid, simply because they don’t know. Etc etc.

Ignorance is the root of all evil, I think. Kids are smart enough to figure stuff out anyway, and they usually realize fast if you’re snowing them. Want your kids to be disciplined? Be disciplined yourself. They learn most by example. They don’t need to be told what to do, they need to be told how things work. They need to be listened to.

I seem to be rambling. Well, it’s my blog, if you don’t like it go do a google image search for “booty necklaces” or something. Where was I? Listened to. I admit that I fail in this a lot. “Yes, honey,” I say a lot and later can’t remember what I was being told.

Kids are so different too. Beta and Gamma are so different from each other. So different. What you learn raising one has only limited application to the other.

Man it’s hot today. 35 degrees Centigrade, what is that in Fahrenheit?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Question: what do you do when a gang of stupid girls (Barbie types) pick on your daughter and a couple other girls (iconoclastic, studious, free-thinking, intelligent but also athletic and artistic types) and make life hell for them and the teacher does nothing but watch and ignore it?

I despise royalty in general, although I have met some who are educated and well-mannered. This weekend I had the opportunity to spend some time at a palais which still belongs to a descendant of the original owner. This prince is quite rich, but also a businessman and he makes the palais, which has an impressive garden, pay for itself by running a restaurant and hotel there.

It was expensive, and a good place to people-watch. There was quite a variety of people there, all rich, but otherwise dissimilar. A lot of Americans. There was the good-looking American art dealer and his rich-looking American clients and his pudgy sidekick with little hands and feet. There was another American couple (you could tell from the way they were dressed even before they opened their mouths – baseball cap, polo shirt, shorts, running shoes); and when they opened their mouths! – too-white teeth (bleached? capped? veneers? glow-in-the-dark at any rate) and the questions they asked: “Is the restaurant good here?” (Doh). “‘Cause we like ethnic food. You have good ethnic food?”

At another table sat a family – a thirty-ish couple and the husband’s mother, but all pressed from the same mold: very tall and skinny, posture somehow just a little out of whack. Similar in the way dynastic families are, with spouses chosen as much for morphology as background. Some sort of royalty, but of the dopey, monied kind that is entitled to its position in the upper class purely by benefit of history and money and not any special smarts. I like to imagine that, if they had to pay their own way through college, they would probably be sweeping floors in an adult book store now instead of lunching at a palace.

Anyway.

The owner – the prince – was standing around. I got to shake his hand at one point, when he mistook me for someone important.

The last 3 days were spent in full Bug Mode. More later.