Tag: news (Page 4 of 9)

On Pet Peeves and Quotes

October 20, 2015 / DB

Over the weekend we had a conversation with the girls about pet peeves. We took turns sharing what some of our biggest ones were, which ended up being pretty funny. S. and I made most of ours about things the girls do that make us crazy. And the girls each chose ones that had to do with their sisters.

The clip below from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight would have been perfect had I decided to share a few of my real pet peeves with the girls. Misquotations in general bother me, but when people throw out a reference to the generic “Founding Fathers” that is clearly ignorant of history, it makes me go a little insane.

People, of all ideological stripes, who try to make modern political arguments based on the beliefs of the “Founding Fathers” are either stupid or intentionally ignoring some very important facts.

1) The “Founding Fathers” were not a monolith. They were not George Washington and his cronies. Or even Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and a bunch of lackeys. There were dozens of Founding Fathers. They would not put a rubber stamp opinion on Obamacare, Roe v. Wade, or immunizations if asked.

2) The Founders were a cantankerous group who disagreed on many aspects of how their new nation should be governed. As ridiculous as it is to believe that you could pick up Washington, Jefferson, Madison, etc. and plop them down in the modern world and their views would be completely consistent with the ones they held nearly 250 years ago, it is even more ridiculous to insist that there was a singular view of government among the Founders that we can apply to governing in 2015.

3) Finally, what so many of these knuckleheads ignore is that the Constitution – a document some in our country believe to be a perfect, unalterable tract on par with the Bible – was a big, fucking compromise. Urban states compromised with rural states. Abolitionists compromised with slave owners. Maritime states compromised with states focused on internal trade. And so on. Yet modern politicians are blasted for making compromises with their ideological opponents and accused of selling out the Constitution.

All this make me batty.

Listen, it’s fine to say you believe something because of the principles John Jay or John Adams stood for when our nation was being formed. Or that you admire how Alexander Hamilton looked at the world. It’s another to claim that the “Founding Fathers” all believed the exact same thing, would not have changed that view over time, and we need to adhere strictly to those 18th century views. Whether you’re arguing for gun control, against universal health care, or about who gets to choose when we go to war, stop insisting that “The Founding Fathers” should get final say in the decision.

Oh, and now for the clip. Which, I admit, goes a little broader than my little rant there. But it’s a useful piece of advice: before you slap a quote from someone who has inspired you on your email signature or Facebook page, do some checking and make sure they actually said it.

https://youtu.be/Tu_bmX344nY

Love

June 26, 2015 / DB

History is undefeated. Someone said that once, right?

And history won again today when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gay men and women can legally marry across the country. As much as scared old people and misguided middle aged and young people tried to dig in their heels, it was going to happen. A majority of the country supports gay marriage, something that seem unfathomable just a few years ago. Hell, it’s hard to get 57% of Americans to agree on anything. Did you ever think that gay marriage would be something that garnered Reagan in ’84 type numbers?

I say it was inevitable because, no matter how many moral, biblical, and ethical questions its opponents raised, like every civil rights battle, once the momentum began to swing that way, even if gently, there was no stopping it. Most people are for fairness. And denying folks who work and pay taxes and serve on juries and volunteer to fight overseas and run businesses and line next door and complain about the weather just like us the same rights we have was a hopeless battle once the general public realized that was our reality.

I’m very happy today not just for people I know, live near, or am related to. I’m also happy, and proud, of my generation. It is us, as we moved into middle age and control of our business, political, and popular cultures, who said, “Enough.” While we may not always embrace what is different from traditional “normal,”[1] our generation has made great efforts to moving our society toward being more fair. Several guys I know who were afraid to wear Levi’s on “Wear Jeans If You’re Gay” day 25 years ago are celebrating today’s ruling on Facebook.

And while gay marriage has often been considered a traditional, Left-Right issue, I know an awful lot of otherwise reliably conservative people my age who have no problem with gay marriage. They may come to it from a different angle than those of us on the left side of the political spectrum, but arrive there they have.

Certainly there are still a lot of people, of all ages and political beliefs, who think today’s ruling is an awful day for America. I hope they come to realize that the ruling is not about their lives, or about heterosexual marriage. Allowing people who are in love and make a commitment to spend their lives together the same protections before the law that hetero couples have in no way diminishes those rights. In fact, it reassert them and makes them stronger.

Love and history won today. You don’t have to like it or understand it. But it sure makes the world a better place if you are able to.

My apologies for using the word normal. But I speak of mainstream America’s view of the LGBT community. I’m not making a judgement or declaration. Which I bet most of you knew already, rendering this footnote moot. ↩

The Chosen Few

May 6, 2015 / DB

I am a wee bit distracted this week. We’ll get into it more soon, likely next week, but I made a semi-major purchase over the weekend. Which, of course, demands that I share a lot of words about the research that went into said purchase and how the purchase is working out. But that’s a few more days away.

In the meantime, a rare political post!

It’s the worst time of the year. That’s right, it’s candidate declaration season! Every couple days another person throws their hat into the ring for the process to determine who will face off in the presidential election next year. Although the Twitter/Instagram/Facebook announcement is becoming the cool way to declare, these cyber-announcements are quickly followed up with the traditional speech to the true believers that presents a pleasing photo opp for the evening news.

(Quick aside: I’m just not into politics the way I used to be. I find the way political matters are generally discussed in this country to be toxic. All of us – media, politicians, and general public – spend far too much time focused on who is winning the day, the news cycle, the week, etc. Deep, substantive discussions of policies, their implications, and seeking compromise that helps the most people gets pushed to the background. There’s plenty of in-depth material out there. But that isn’t sexy, so much more air time gets allotted to the lowest hanging fruit: who is insulting whom.

I think this is bad for the country. Political opponents are painted as evil, America-hating “others.” It’s not just that their politics are bad, but they are genuinely bad people that must be destroyed. People have been hating politicians since the first election. But the legitimacy of the democratic process is put into question by the pure hate we spew at folks with the wrong letter after their name. I have little interest getting worked up about the things I used to care deeply about when I know it will turn into some nasty, bloody battle that ends with me angry at people while others challenge my right to hold my views.

As I said, this is toxic. It drives a lot of people, me being the perfect example, out of the process. When we cede the political process to the nuts at all extremes, nothing good can come of it.

OK, not-so-quick aside. Sorry.)

The thing that fascinates me about this time of year is the amount of ego it takes to believe that you have the answers to the problems of our country.[1] I find this true of even politicians I’ve supported and voted for, not just those whose views are polar opposites of mine. That concept is utterly foreign to me. I have a hard time being the leader of a small group of people. I can’t imagine looking in the mirror and thinking, “Yep, I’m the guy to lead America forward for the next eight years!”

But the ones who really jump out at me are the folks who have never worked in government. The “Washington is a mess, and I can fix it!” crowd. The people whose only experience with government is lobbying for handouts or special benefits for their own businesses. Or who have held a position as far outside government as you can get.

You have to admire the figurative balls this takes.[2] If I, with no experience running a business or managing people, showed up at a stockholders meeting of, say, Apple, and insisted that I could run the company better than Tim Cook, I would be laughed out of the room, But in politics, because so many of us are alienated by every step of the process, a bunch of us actually believe that this is a reasonable argument. Candidate A has never held elective office, has never worked as part of an elected official’s executive team, but is going to magically step into the White House and somehow force the 535 members of Congress, the entire judicial branch, and every employee at every level of the Federal government to “work right,” whatever that means. Through sheer force of will and personality, this candidate is going to make the largest bureaucracy the world has ever known hum like a well-oiled machine.

When I’m listening to the news in the morning while I make breakfast and lunches and hear the latest candidate offer forceful declarations that they are just the man/woman to do all this, I have to chuckle and shake my head. I think all politicians are full of shit. The people who have never been a part of an elected government, though, are full of a very special kind of shit.

But I also give them credit. If you’re going to swing, might as well swing for the fences.

Or state, city, etc. ↩
Figurative being an especially important disclaimer now that women are running for president in each cycle. ↩

Robin

August 12, 2014 / DB

Robin Williams was a force of nature. That’s a cliché, often used in moments like this, but it was certainly appropriate for him. When he was on, and rolling, there was no getting in his way. Nothing was safe or sacred. Anything could, and likely would, serve as inspiration. He wasn’t the best comic of his generation, but he probably induced more stomach-splitting laughter than his contemporaries. After you watched Robin, your abdomen hurt.

Of course, there was more to him than just jokes. He made one of the most successful jumps to dramatic acting that anyone has ever made from comedy. His best work was deep and emotional. There were always the comedic moments, but the impact came from him plumbing something deep within and sharing it with his character.

I knew that Williams had cocaine issues in his younger days. No one could have all that energy and mania naturally.

I did not know depression was a life-long struggle for him. But it makes sense. Just as that frenetic pace needed a chemical boost, so too, it seems, did that sense of melancholy he tapped into. There was pain just below the surface and it was fuel for his stand up, stage, television, and cinematic performances.

Williams’ career was long and broad enough that I bet many of us had very different first recollections of his work after hearing of his death. Some likely thought of the Good Morning Vietnam radio segments. Others of his role as John Keating in Dead Poets Society. Or perhaps his Oscar-winning performance as Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. Perhaps a few of you, my age or older, went all the way back to Mork & Mindy.

Me? I thought of the night that everything came together in one, ridiculous performance. The night in 2001 when he graced the stage on Inside the Actors Studio.

Here is the opening five minutes. If you want to watch the entire thing, apparently this Asian site will let you do just that.

RIP Casey Kasem

June 16, 2014 / DB

We knew this was coming, based on recent, terrible, news reports. But it still hurts.

Casey Kasem, 1932-2014.

It is not hyperbole to say no pop culture figure influenced my life more than Casey. I began listening to “American Top 40” way back in its earliest days. My parents listened to “AT40”. Their friends listened to “AT40”. My uncles listened to “AT40”.¹ My grandmother listened to “AT40.” Some of my earliest radio memories are of Casey’s voice in the background during car trips or just lazy weekend days when I was playing outside and my parents were lounging or doing yard work with the radio on.

To a kid that did not grow up belonging to a church, “American Top 40” was the closest thing to Sunday service for me. It was a weekly opportunity to take stock, be part of a community, sing, and receive knowledge from a man with a pulpit. In the name of the DJ, the microphone, and the turntable, Amen…

When I got older, had my own radio, and was able to choose my own music, Casey remained an integral part of my life. While there were still plenty of 1970s stalwarts on the charts, slowly the New Wave and New Romantics and synth-pop and hair metal and classic 80s pop artists began to take over the charts. Especially in the cold Midwestern winter months, he got me through Sunday mornings. And, often, I would listen to the replay again that evening.

A favorite “AT40” memory came one Sunday night when I decided to cruise through the AM band² trying to see how many stations I could pick up that were playing “AT40”. I chose roughly the time they were playing the numbers two and one songs in Kansas City, so I could quickly tune through the entire band and assume each time I heard “Easy Lover” by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins, or “I Want To Know What Love Is” by Foreigner, I was listening to “AT40.” I don’t remember how many stations I caught, but I know it was in double figures.

Fast forward to 2007. We were at a local appliance store, pricing some new items for our kitchen. Our salesman was named Philip Bailey. The entire time he was explaining the differences in dishwashers and refrigerators, I kept thinking of the other Philip Bailey and the night I heard his falsetto voice blanketing the AM band.

Eventually I grew up, as we all do. AT40 began to sound a little square as I was discovering hip-hop, Casey’s act a little tired. When Shadoe Stevens took over in 1988, it was kind of the end of AT40 for me. Soon I was listening to “alternative” rock, the music world began to drift from the center, digital music became the norm, and a national countdown show made little sense in the age of 1000 sub-genres.

Every now-and-then, while traveling, I would come across a station that played old AT40’s on the weekends. I would listen happily, trying to guess the next song or who mystery artist Casey was teasing in the lead-in to the commercial break. The weekend L. was born, I found a station here in Indy that played the old AT40s. Again, 20-some years later, Casey and the music of the 1980s became a part of my Sunday routine.³

As I said, given the details about Casey’s health that have become public in the last month or so, the news of his death was not a surprise. But I was surprised at how emotional I got last night. I read many retrospectives of his life.⁴ I searched on YouTube and found several audio clips of entire countdowns, albeit with the actual music stripped out to avoid copyright issues. I loaded one up from 1984 and began working my way through it, stopping to find the appropriate song on Rdio and then listening to it in full before starting Casey’s commentary again.

Perhaps it was the long weekend of sun and water and travel, but I’m not ashamed to admit I shed a tear or two thinking of Casey, who always seemed like the most decent guy in the world, full of Hollywood cheese but free of airs about himself, and how his life ended. We all deserve better, but a man like Casey, who brought so much so to so many people, certainly deserved more dignity at his end.

Casey was the father figure of my musical youth. He taught me to love bits of trivia about my favorite songs and artists. When I’m putting together my year-end lists of favorite songs and albums, it’s because of Casey. When I’m excited to share the music I love with others, it’s because of Casey. When I fantasize about winning the lottery and buying a radio station to play whatever I want, it’s because of Casey.

It seems appropriate to play my all time favorite song to honor Casey’s passing. So, from 1987, here’s a song by a band formed by New Zealander Neil Finn and Australians Nick Seymour and the late Paul Hester. Originally named the Mullanes, for Finn’s middle name and his mother’s maiden name, the band changed their name to reflect the lack of space in their rehearsal apartment in West Hollywood. Reaching as high as #2 on the Hot 100 and finishing #13 in the year-end countdown, here is Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”

One of my uncles desperately wanted to be a radio DJ. It never worked out as his full-time career, but he did spend a few years as a late night and weekend DJ. One of his prized possessions, and one I wanted to steal from my grandparents’ house many times, was the pack of LPs from the week he was in charge of playing “AT40” in the early 80s. That’s right, back then they pressed the entire show to vinyl and couriered it out to stations. I forget how many albums it took to get the whole show on, but it was a hefty box. ↩
That, perhaps more than listening to Casey, dates this story. Music on AM Radio? Seriously? ↩
A few of my brothers and sisters in music are familiar with my Monday emails detailing the highlights of the countdown from the previous weekend. ↩
I don’t know if I knew his big break came from working on a show with Dick Clark. Holy star power! ↩

On Waco And Different Beliefs

March 27, 2014 / DB

Trying to get caught up on some links I need to share before we take a mini-vacation early next week.

Malcolm Gladwell has a piece in the New Yorker about Clive Doyle, a survivor of the Waco, TX Branch Dividian compound, and the lessons that are still emerging, 20 years later, from that disaster.

It’s a really interesting read. What stuck with me most was how the Federal agents, and really all the law enforcement agencies involved in the action, utterly failed to understand the people inside the compound. It’s hard to blame them, though. As I recall, public opinion was pretty firmly on the Feds’ side. David Koresh and his followers were widely assumed to be religious wackos who were likely involved in all kinds of irreligious, and immoral, behaviors. There was no push from the broader public to be more accommodating to Koresh.

I found this section to be especially profound. I think many of us, whether we consider ourselves to be open-minded or not, tend to dismiss people we view as not just outside the mainstream, but dramatically so.

Mainstream American society finds it easiest to be tolerant when the outsider chooses to minimize the differences that separate him from the majority. The country club opens its doors to Jews. The university welcomes African-Americans. Heterosexuals extend the privilege of marriage to the gay community. Whenever these liberal feats are accomplished, we congratulate ourselves. But it is not exactly a major moral accomplishment for Waspy golfers to accept Jews who have decided that they, too, wish to play golf. It is a much harder form of tolerance to accept an outsider group that chooses to maximize its differences from the broader culture. And the lesson of Clive Doyle’s memoir—and the battle of Mount Carmel—is that Americans aren’t very good at respecting the freedom of others to be so obnoxiously different.

I’m reminded of the old saying that everyone is for free speech, until someone else’s speech annoys or pisses them off. We’re all for freedom of expression for ourselves and people we’re comfortable with. But when someone else expresses them self in a way we can’t understand or that disturbs our sensibilities, suddenly we want to slam on the brakes.

Obviously the commentary on the Waco disaster is forever tinged by the political aims of those making the assessments. But this piece is a good reminder that there’s often more to a situation than the public is allowed to know. And if we claim to be considerate of the views of others, we can’t summarily dismiss groups that we find strange.

That said, the whole multi-wives, some quite young, is outside the bounds of acceptable behavior. Still, those poor people never deserved their fates because the rest of us found them to be weird.

Sacred And Profane

Random Notes

March 25, 2014 / DB

10:50 AM, Tuesday March 25, 2014, Central Indiana. It is snowing.

I shouldn’t complain. This is only flurries and not expected to amount to much. 366 days ago, we got 9” of snow. Could be much worse. And it might even warm up to above normal temps in a few days. I think we’re owed a nice, long, pleasant spring.

A few items from the notebook.

Today is the 84th day of 2014. The snow pile out in our front yard, where all the snow from the street got pushed in January and February, is almost gone. There’s still a two-foot long lump of nasty ice. I imagine that will be gone by Friday, making it our first day without any snow in the yard since New Year’s Day. It’s been awhile.

A pediatrician I know mentioned the other day that they are expecting a Polar Vortex Baby Boomlet later this year. Of course. People were stuck inside for weeks, missing work and social events. What else was there to do?

Didn’t we just have a bump in the birth rate a few years ago and economists attributed it to the financial crisis? Again, people couldn’t spend money to go out, were stuck at home, one thing led to another…

I think there’s a pretty obvious message in there. Doesn’t matter if the economy is good or bad, the weather hot or cold, or some national tragedy. Biological urges will always win.

With a long car trip planned for later this week, I went ahead and got the girls Frozen on DVD the day it came out. You would have thought I got the girls bars of gold or something the way they freaked out when I showed it to them. There was screaming and yelling and celebrating. And it’s not like it was some big surprise we were getting it. I had already told them we would likely get it before our Kansas City trip.

Between Frozen and “Let It Go” and Despicable Me 2 and “Happy,” it’s been a big year for our girls being swayed by the movie marketers.

Somewhere, somehow, L. has picked up a couple funny verbal ticks. She uses the words “yo” and “dog” to finish sentences all the time.

The other night, at bath time, she told me, “I have to go get my pajamas, yo!”

When she got home from school yesterday, I asked what she wanted to do.

“I want to play on the computer, but I need to eat a snack first, dog.”

Love it.

S. bought a new curling iron last week. C. found it while it was still in its packaging, which was purple and shiny. She came walking out with it.

“Ooooh, Mom! What is this?!”

That’s a classic, and predictable, C. reaction.

M. started kickball practice last week. She just got her team assignment last night, and will be playing with some classmates and some fourth graders who played in the fall. I watched her first practice and she did well at the plate, reaching safely a couple times. In the field, she is similar to in soccer: not super excited to get in the way of the ball. I kind of don’t blame her. This isn’t kickball with a red, bouncy, playground ball. They use a heavy, hard ball that feels more like a cross between a basketball and medicine ball.

A week ago I spent an afternoon brewing beer with some neighbors. We each had a batch going in their cool garage setup, and the extra hands and equipment made it a much more fun process.

My Belgian Pale Ale was fermenting away last Sunday night as I was sitting in the basement watching TV, about to go to bed. I heard a sharp BOOM and then a rattle, like a small explosion. At first, I thought something had fallen in the kitchen above me, or even that someone had busted open a window. I ran upstairs and began turning on lights, finding nothing. I also noticed, despite being nearly 11:00, there was no crying or yelling from the girls’ rooms, as would happen during a storm. S., who was already in bed, didn’t react either. If they didn’t hear anything, I bet the noise came from the basement.

My beer!

I ran back down to the bathroom, opened the shower where I store it, and sure enough there was fermenting yeast all over the wall and ceiling, the airlock was on the floor, and the lid slightly raised. I quickly cleaned up, re-sanitized the lid and airlock, and put it back together.

It appears the airlock got clogged by the rather vigorous fermentation Belgians are known for, trapping the gasses inside. Thus the explosion.

I had to clean the airlock three times in the next day to prevent more blowouts.

Hoping the beer wasn’t harmed too much by the exposure to open air. From what I’ve read, this isn’t uncommon and if you get it closed up again quickly, the beer should be OK.

Lost Warriors

January 20, 2014 / DB

I’m pretty sure at some point in the past ten years I’ve written about my mini-fascination with soldiers, mostly Japanese, who disappeared into the jungles of the Pacific during the closing days of World War II and lived for years thinking that the war was still being fought only to eventually learn that peace had been declared long ago. I suppose it’s just an extreme take on the marooned in the wilderness fantasy. Instead of just being Robinson Crusoe, or Chuck Noland, who were stranded because of accidents, these men were sent into the wilds with orders to fight to the death. When they emerge, the world has moved on in amazing ways. What a way to live your life!

Anyway, one of the most famous of those men, Hiroo Onoda, died last week. A fine summary of his life appeared in the New York Times.

The last holdout, Lieutenant Onoda — officially declared dead in 1959 — was found by Norio Suzuki, a student searching for him in 1974. The lieutenant rejected his pleas to go home, insisting he was still awaiting orders. Mr. Suzuki returned with photographs, and the Japanese government sent a delegation, including the lieutenant’s brother and his former commander, to formally relieve him of duty.

Hiroo Onoda, Soldier Who Hid in Jungle for Decades, Dies at 91

The Return

April 16, 2013 / DB

So, it’s been a while. Stuff has happened. Good and bad. Interesting and banal. Personal and global. So let’s get caught up.

First, Boston. Ugh. I’ll just restate a terrific thing I read on Twitter Monday afternoon: never forget that there are far more people in this world like those who ran to the explosion sites to help than there are people who do things like this. That doesn’t mean if we all hold hands and think positive thoughts bad things won’t happen. But it does mean that, on balance, most of us are there for each other.

Now, less important things.

As I mentioned in my Friday Vid post that came up over the weekend, the stomach flu does indeed suck. I got it in a different way than M. and C. did, but got it nonetheless. I didn’t throw up, but there were several moments when I really wished I could. I had the aches, pains, fever, chills, severe stomach cramps, and other assorted symptoms. I chugged Pepto, popped Ibuprofen, and took my shift moaning on the same couches M. and C. had moaned on earlier in the week. It wasn’t until Monday morning when I finally felt completely normal again. Good riddance. And hopefully L. and S. remain immune and we don’t see another wave this week.

Wednesday, just as I was beginning to feel the effects of the virus, we had our first big storm of the spring. It was brief but intense and in the midst there was 3-4 minutes of hail. We still have the original roof on our home, but perhaps for not much longer. We’ve had it checked a couple times in the past, but never got approved to have it replaced. The insurance company might finally be ready to cave.

I watched more of the Master’s than I expected to, although some of it was simply because I was stuck on the couch Friday and Saturday. As much as I don’t want to be interested in Tiger anymore, I’ll admit it was hard not to get caught up in his story.

Kobe. Damn. Horrible way for one of the all-time greats to potentially end his career. I was never a big fan, but like most people in my shoes, I came to respect him immensely over the past several years. And his social media explosion this year has been fantastic. His epic trash talking battles with several of the NBA’s young pups have been terrific as well. I’ve just really enjoyed him as a person and player recently, and it’s a shame that this could be it. His career was absolutely amazing. The sports media hungered for The Next Jordan, and he damn near got there.

I don’t think there was doubt about it, but this means it is officially, 100% LeBron’s time.

Sunday we had two more soccer games. C.’s team cruised, and she nearly scored her first goal of the season. M.’s team, after looking great a week ago, got hammered pretty soundly this time. I really like her coach. I think he’s going to be good for her. I’m not sure what his playing background is, but he clearly knows the game. And he has a good touch with both the kids who have more athletic ability or who already have a feel for the game and the kids who are not as advanced yet. M. loves pleasing authority figures, so I’m hoping his encouragement and some extra practice will improve her performance. She did have one nice run of possession Sunday.

I mowed the lawn for the first time this year on Monday! Some people think mowing the lawn is a hassle. I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s the trimming and blowing of debris that bugs me, especially in the heat of July and August. But doing that first cut, getting the dead tops off, and leaving a gorgeous green lawn behind is a good feeling. It’s amazing how our yard was still half winter dead brown a week ago and now it’s thick and green.

Finally, there has been a big change in our house. Or actually Monday was step one in a two-step process that will really alter the landscape of our home soon. I’ll just give you that tease now.¹ I promise I’ll share more soon.

ↁ

Actually many of my readers know what it is. I’m just keeping coy a little longer. ↩

Il Papa

March 14, 2013 / DB

Those Catholics know how to do timing. I was sitting in the parking lot at St. P’s Wednesday, waiting for dismissal, when suddenly the skies opened up and what had been light flurries turned into thick, white flakes that cut visibility and quickly covered windshields. It only lasted a minute or so, but as those big flakes fell, I couldn’t help but think that they looked like white smoke blowing across the parking lot. A little like the white smoke that was blowing in Vatican City at roughly the same time.

Get it?!?!

As this was happening, I was checking Twitter and saw that the new pope was about to be announced. When the kids were let out, C. came out oblivious to the news. But M. came out moments later and ran to me, yelling, “There’s a new pope! But we don’t know who he is yet! It’s 8:00 in Rome!”

She was full of facts.

When we got to the van I asked if they had talked about how the new pope was picked. She said no, so I did my best to share what I knew of the process. We talked it through a few times until she finally let out a gasp and shared the following realization in an all CAPS voice without any space between words. I’ll tone it down for your comprehension.

“OH! So it’s like a secret vote, but it’s just the cardinals, right, and it’s like they are voting for the president, only it’s the pope! I get it!”

Gist acquired.

When we got home, I was surprised that all three girls sat quietly in front of MSNBC as we watched part of the Pope’s address. Considering that none of it was in English, they remained interested for quite a while. Although it could have just been the time difference. For some reason they were amazed by that.

Anyway, my contribution to my daughters’ spiritual lives is checked off for another quarter!

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