Cbeebies Controversy

A British children's show is bringing out the worst in some parents.

http://disabilities.suite101.com/article.cfm/theres_something_about_cerrie

Its star,Cerrie Burnell, happens to have been born with part of one arm missing. Apparently, that frightens some children.

The reaction of these knuckleheaded parents is to call for the show to be cancelled. I wonder if these same parents will demand that a person with disabilities be removed from whatever municipal bus they happen to be riding, whatever store in which they happen to be shopping., etc., lest the child be frightened there as well.

It is human nature to be frightened or at least feel a little uncomfortable when we encounter something or someone different. Does that mean we should give in to such fears? Should we teach our children that the solution to being frightened by something that is different, is to get rid of it?

"Cerrie is the new host of the BBC’s popular kids show Cbeebies. She’s your average working mother, balancing her hosting duties and her 4-month-old daughter. Most parents would want their children to see a good example like Cerrie, and these are the parents who have been supportive of Cerrie. But the station that airs the show has received a handful of letters from parents not wanting to let their children watch for fear that Cerrie will frighten them and give them nightmares. The BBC has also been accused of going overboard in their bid for diversity. Others are afraid that seeing the host with one arm will pique their child’s curiosity and do not want to have that conversation yet.

Though she is the center of the whole controversy, Cerrie is not really affected by it. In an interview with BBC magazine, she explained that children aren’t all that fazed by her disability. “Children come up to me in the street every day and say 'What's that?' I wouldn't say they're frightened but certainly they're inquisitive. I would always take the time to explain to a child. All they want is an explanation. And then they will move on."

Honoring Native American history and culture on coinage

Were you aware that the U.S.Mint is releasing beautiful dollar coins into circulation, celebrating the history and culture of Native Americans? Sacagawea adorns the front and various themes will be depicted on the back.

Chances are, you had no idea. I know I didn't, not until I stumbled upon a website about it just the other day. I've had enough trouble keeping up with the Presidential Dollar Coins, which are barely available.

The U.S. Mint has about the worst, most lack-luster public relations operation that I have ever seen. When was the last time you saw a commercial about these beautiful new coins? Most banks barely carry them -- and good luck finding them anywhere else or in your change.

Using dollar coins saves the government money over the far more fragile paper bills. But apparently the government doesn't care enough to do much of anything about it.

Sports fan-nettes

Guys who think that "Women don't dig sports," really need to get out more.

Some of my Female colleagues here at work -- Grandmothers some of them -- know the latest football stats as well as any of the guys.

As for me, I am a guy who really doesn't care much about sports. I blame it on the childhood trauma of being small for my grade level, and quite uncoordinated, and never very good at suppressing the natural instinct to avoid a small, hard object heading my direction at a dangerous speed.

I also fail to see the attraction, as a man, of ogling beefy, sweaty, grown men playing children's games on some field or court while inebriated know-it-alls scream commands and/or curses at them from the stands. I am not attracted to guys and I really am not interested in watching them do much of anything, especially when, as noted above, they are dripping sweat and fighting over a ball.

But I have been going with my Beloved and Her sports fanatic father to a few basketball games this year, especially as "our" team seems headed for some high level glory.

Which brings me to this fascinating conundrum:

She wants to go to the game tonight. I am tired. I do not wish to go.

She certainly has every right to go without me. I am happy that She is having such fun.

It is just that in fourteen years of marriage, this has never happened before.

Another Way Out

"There is only one way out and I am going to research it."

I came across those chilling words the other day, written by a troubled young man 20 years ago this week, and found them all the more disturbing for one reason: I was the teenager who wrote them.

We were in a new place, a cold and lonely place, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of winter. I was 16. All my friends were far away. I had no job,no license, no social life. I felt useless, hopeless and miserable.

But the closest that I came to suicide was to write those words. I toughed it out for another year at home, with the peace of the Northwest forest and the misty Puget Sound to calm my torment, then endured one horrible summer in military training camp -- and then it all changed. I reached my nadir, my absolute midnight, watching the waves roll onto the sand of New Jersey, holding heavy military boots in my hand that would help me walk out into the water and not return -- but I did not take that walk. The morning came. I made it through training. I returned home. I got my driver's license. And then college opened up a whole new world.

My story had a happy ending, a new dawn. I ache for the millions of people, young and old, who hurt so badly that they never make it to sunrise. You see, I was so wrong: there is always another way out. Sometimes it takes a while to arrive, but it is worth the pain and worth the wait.

Nightmare men

"Then the strife of war being aroused will come to the west,
and the fugitive from Rome will also come, brandishing a great spear,
having crossed the Euphrates with many myriads." -- Sibylline Oracles, Book 4, 135.

"The sudden and mysterious disappearance of Nero encouraged a belief that he was alive and would return, a belief still prevalent as late as the time of [Emperor] Trajan, and shared by pagan, Jew and Christian." -- Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 11, p. 144.

Only a few times in history has it happened: A man holds the reigns of power, a man so loathsome, so horrible, so hated, that his very name becomes a synonym for evil. He rises to the pinnacle of power, but over-reaches, his empire collapses and he dies in squalor and infamy. He becomes, as the brilliant poet-prophet Isaiah wrote hopefully about Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, a "branch so abominable" that the very grave would spit him out.

The modern generation remembers this with the late, disgusting madman Adolph Hitler, whose mysterious death in the ashes of Berlin fed rumors for years that he yet lived. And perhaps there are people who still so believe.

For the people of the first century A.D., the hiss and byword was Nero, disgraced and disgusting Emperor of Rome, last scion of the once-glorious Julio-Claudian line. He, too, perished a suicide, and of him, too, rumors of survival long echoed through the lands he had ravaged.

That is the meaning of that cryptic paragraph I quoted above, from the Pseudepigrapha -- the fear that wouldn't die, that the end of the world would be ushered in by the return of Nero from the East to lead apocalyptic war.

The lesson from it: History, like nature, is non-moral. History does not always care to hand over human monsters for exhibit and execution but leaves us to wonder and worry long after their noxious reichs have crumbled. And so, our nightmares linger.

Another lesson: It is a cliche but also a truism, that "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And in the cases of both Nero and the modern Nazi madman, it is a sobering fact that they were both hailed as heroes of the people, when they first came to power.

I am grateful to have a job I am grateful to have a job I am ...

Squirming through a School Board meeting that lasted until 11:30 p.m. last night, only to have to be back at my desk bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:45 the next morning ... and more meetings and more meetings today and then some big hoopla event in which I have to participate on Saturday -- Saturday -- I must remember, I must be so very grateful to have a job, even if it kills me.

I took my pillow with me to work today, thinking I might slip in a nap during lunch. The custodian saw it in the corner of my office and smiled.

Only about 25 more years until I can retire. By which time, of course, my partially hydrogenated childhood, my love of sausage, eggs and cheese and the high blood pressure that runs in my family will probably send the Grim Reaper to spoil my long-awaited fun.