The Myth of Objectivity

I had the occasion to fly today in the wake of the failed underwear bomber. It was a domestic flight, and honestly? There was no discernible difference between this trip and the one we took on December 23rd. Strange experience, then, to get home and watch the news where the lead story on at least 2 national broadcasts was how much our traveling lives will change because of this incident.

The older I get, the more critical I become of the media. There is a saying that goes something like, if when you're young you're not a liberal, then you have no heart, and if when you're old you're not a conservative, then you have no brain. I'll never agree to that, but I do believe that as we gain experience, it often becomes harder to trust people, while at the same time it's much easier to see that institutions are made up of those same people.

This Is America, Dinosaurs

My four-year-old nephew loves The Land Before Time series of movies, and in general my sister supports his fondness for them (he owns several of them on DVD), but the dino-speak drives her crazy. For example, to dinosaurs, the moon is the night circle and snow is frozen sky water (never mind the sky puffies, pointy seeds, and sinking sands). Why can't talking dinosaurs speak regular English?

Think of the harm on impressionable children... for a while, my nephew referred to volcanoes as "smoking mountains"and earthquakes as "earth shakes." But maybe they're trying to translate real dinosaur mouth talk into something we can understand-- in that case, I guess it's just the price we have to pay for extreme prehistoric realism.

As God Is My Witness

An amazing sunset tonight here in Atlanta: the sky flaming red and dark pink, textured by clouds like so many rags wrung and laid twisted to dry. All that was missing was Scarlett O'Hara, fist raised and vowing to never go hungry again.

Treasure

My older nephews and I have been geocaching together for years, and now that my youngest nephew, Richard, is four, he wants in on the treasure hunting. It seemed like a perfect holiday afternoon activity to take a walk to the park and look for a cache that is hidden there. Over the years, we've found almost a hundred caches, and it's safe to say that we find what we're looking for more often than not, so it was a confident party of seven who set out between opening our stockings and the big holiday dinner. The cache we were after was only rated one out of five stars for challenge, and I was expecting a quick and successful initiation for Richard into this fun pastime.

Long story short, we couldn't find the treasure, and he was a little disappointed, as we all were. We promised to look again tomorrow when the light was better, but as we were walking home in the gathering darkness, Treat and Richard were ahead together on the path. "Hey guys," I heard Treat say. "I found the treasure!"

Richard stopped dead in tracks, his eyes open wide. "He's just teasing you," I told him.

"No really," Treat continued, and before I could scold him, he said, "The treasure was inside me all the time-- it was friendship!" He was kidding, but his voice was so sweet and sincere that I had to play along.

"Friendship and the love of family, right?" I asked him.

"Right," he confirmed, and we all walked on together toward the lights of home.

Comfort and Joy

Thirty seconds until Christmas, and I find myself furiously typing to meet a self-imposed deadline. No excuse to miss even a single day, and what a day it's been. From the first cup of coffee in my sister's kitchen this morning to the finishing touches on the easel we put together for Santa to bring to my niece in the morning, it has been a busy day spent with family preparing for the feast tomorrow, and the nicest thing about it all is that my whole family will wake under the same roof in the morning and rise to celebrate the day. We'll catch our breaths and remember that this is what all the fuss has been about.

Writers Watch

The other night we were watching a re-run episode of Bones. It was a case involving a vintage arcade game and an autistic boy, and at one point, the main character, Dr. Brennan, noticed that the victim had been killed in the exact same manner as the monkey is dispatched on the final level of the game. When the plot reached its climax, and the murderer was revealed, that fact was insignificant. A red herring? Maybe, but I don't think so. Ever since I've been dabbling in writing that novel, I've found that I'm more aware, and usually more appreciative, of how writers develop their plots. It happens when I read, and when I watch TV and movies, too. It's like some kind of literary spidey sense. Anyway, regarding the Bones episode? I have a tingling that they changed the ending. The only way the detail about the killing makes sense is if the culprit was going to be the kid, but who thinks an autistic child murderer is good TV? Much better if his dad did it instead, right?

May this Message Find You Well

A holiday card today from a former colleague-- it was one of those annual update letters. Turns out that in the last year she's started homeschooling her children. Why does this seem like the ultimate betrayal from a former public school teacher?

I know. It's complicated.