bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • The ethical defense attorney.

    If a prosecutor thinks the defendant is not guilty, he might decline to prosecute.   Defense attorneys don’t have the option of declining to defend a guilty man — well, that’s not strictly true, an individual defense attorney can, but sooner or later somebody has to agree to defend.   

    You hear people saying that they could never be a defense attorney because they could never defend a guilty person.  Speaking theoretically (I am not a lawyer) my belief in the principle of due process means that, if I were a lawyer, I should be able to defend even someone I knew without a doubt was guilty of the most horrible crimes.  Still, you always wonder, if you were a defense lawyer and you did find yourself in that situation, could you really give it your best efforts?  Would the abstract principle that "everyone deserves a fair trial" be enough, especially in the face of the concrete:  this scummy, guilty defendant right here?   And deep down there was this question:  I know defense attorneys are necessary to guard the rights of the innocent, but does that really excuse them from all moral culpability when defending a known-to-be-guilty criminal?

    That’s why I was glad to read the very first comment on this thread at the Volokh Conspiracy, who provided a concrete reason for a defense attorney to put his best efforts forward at defending even the known-to-be-guilty defendant.

    When I was doing criminal defense work (as a PD), I thought of myself as an Inspector General for the criminal justice system. It was my job to make certain that the police and the prosecutors did their job, and did it properly.

    My focus was on the police and prosecutor. My client’s actual guilt or innocence was not relevant to whether the police had probable cause, got a needed warrant, gave a required warning, or whether the prosecutor laid the proper foundation for a question, introduced evidence on every element of the offense, engaged in improper final argument, etc.

    Client’s used to criticize me because I never asked them if they were innocent. I didn’t ask because they got the same vigorous (but honest) defense whatever the answer.

    There you go.  If you think of the defense attorney’s job not as "to try to get every defendant to go free" but "to make certain the police and the prosecutors do their job correctly" — that goal is good and right independent of the actual guilt or innocence of any defendant.   I’m thankful to that commenter for clarifying my thinking around that particular bit of workplace ethics.

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  • Keeping track.

    So I was bemoaning how lately I can’t seem to find time to keep decent records of what we’re doing every day for Oscar’s schoolwork.  I have my weekly plan written down every week, and I generally know how well we’re sticking to it, but I’m not doing a great job checking off the boxes or saving records of the narrations and things.  I keep trying different things but what I really need to do is keep a diary or a journal of the day-to-day stuff — you know, "taught Lesson 117 in math" or "did handwriting page 7" or "assigned definition of ‘nomad’ for copywork."  It seems easy, but I just can’t seem to discipline myself to sit down and do it at the end of the day!

    That’s what I was thinking as I sat down to give Oscar his instructions for his independent work the other day.  "OK, kiddo, here’s what you’ve got to do," I said, pulling a mini legal pad towards myself.  I ripped off the list from the day before and wrote the current date at the top.  "First I want you to read in your Religion book," I said, drawing a little square for him to check off and writing read pages 107-109 in Religion, "then copy the spelling words," copy spelling list /ng/ words, "then finish your math sheet with the division facts on it," finish math facts sheet D 3.0,  and so forth.  He sat down and chewed on his pencil, reading over his to-do list.  I stood up, crumpled up the list from yesterday, and tossed it in the garbage.

    Now how am I going to discipline myself to keep proper records?  What I need to do is sit down and make a list every single day of all the things we did for school.

    Wait a minute.

    Sometimes I am that slow.

    A couple of days later and I had made a nice little printable blank daily to-do-sheet, complete with little square checkboxes.   The last item on each sheet, and only the last item, is pre-printed:  Give this sheet to Mom.  As long as I’m going to write out a to-do list by hand for Oscar every day, I might as well keep the damn things!  I added a space at the top and bottom for my own notes.  Why can’t this be my school record?  Or, if it’s not enough and I need to keep longer-term records organized on another kind of sheet, why not figure out a sheet that works together with the daily sheet to make a total-year record?

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  • Minestrone.

    Monday night I made Mark’s favorite soup.  The recipe I use is very fast and easy, especially if you use canned beans.  In my mind, then, it’s an "easy" meal, saved for a day when I have little time to cook or clean up. But I wasn’t so busy on Monday; I put it down only because I couldn’t think of anything else,  and I had some good chicken stock I needed to use.  So with that extra time I made some parmesan garlic toast to go next to it.  And since we didn’t have a lot of extra stuff to do that night, Mark opened a bottle of good red wine.   And the minestrone became — something special.

    The kids finished their dinner, asked to be excused, and ran downstairs to play.  That left my husband and me sitting across from each other at table.  In the dimmed light it seemed as if the one-pot meal had left the kitchen nearly clean.  We poured more wine, nibbled on the garlic toast, and grinned at each other, unable to believe our good luck.  Ten years since we got engaged.  Evenings like this are rare, and I wouldn’t trade anything for where we are now.

    I can’t promise the same results, but here is my recipe for minestrone soup and also for the parmesan garlic toast..  One fifteen-ounce can of beans may be substituted for the cooked dried beans, but I like it much better if you don’t.  Kale, chard, or cabbage substitutes well for the turnip greens, but mustard greens or collards don’t work very well.  I have successfully used diced potato instead of pasta to make the soup gluten-free.

    Minestrone soup

    • 1/2 cup dried navy beans
    • 3 tablespoons olive oil
    • 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
    • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
    • 6 cups homemade chicken or beef stock
    • 1 – 15 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
    • 1 large carrot peeled and sliced
    • 2 small zucchinis, sliced
    • 1 bunch turnip greens, tough stems removed, cut into shreds
    • 1/2 tablespoon dried basil
    • 1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
    • 1/2 tablespoon sugar
    • 1 bay leaf
    • 1/3 cup dried small elbow macaroni
    • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
    • salt and pepper to taste
    • 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh parsley
    • 2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

    Cook the beans by your favorite bean-cooking method, e.g., cover with water in a heavy saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce to low and simmer until tender.

    When the beans are nearly done, heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic and saute until translucent, 2-3 minutes.  Add the stock, tomatoes, carrot, zucchini, cabbage, basil, oregano, sugar, and bay leaf.  Simmer about 20 minutes.  Add the pasta and cook uncovered until al dente, 8-10 minutes more.

    Drain the beans only if they’re swimming in liquid.  Add them and a bit of their liquid to the pot along with the vinegar.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Garnish with parsley and parmesan.

    Parmesan Garlic Toast

    • 8 pita breads
    • Olive oil – maybe 1/2 cup
    • 3 cloves garlic, more if you like
    • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or other herb
    • About a cup of freshly grated parmesan
    • Salt and pepper

    Crush garlic in a garlic press and mix with olive oil and herb.

    Cut the pita breads in quarters and split the quarters into single layers (so you get eight quarter-rounds out of each pita).  Place inside-up on baking sheet, either nonstick or lined with aluminum foil.  Brush each bread with olive oil mixture, being sure to get a bit of the pressed garlic on each bread.  Sprinkle with salt and a generous grind of black pepper.  Top with parmesan cheese.  Broil carefully until browned and crispy with melted cheese.

    And, of course, serve with your favorite red wine.

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  • Fasting food.

    Now that I’m  home with three small children, and homeschooling, I don’t prepare sitdown meals called "breakfast" and "lunch."  We generally eat snack-size meals all day long, a pattern I got into when I was nursing my firstborn.  It’s typical for me to start the day with one egg and lots of black coffee, then have a piece of cheese about ten o’clock,   then maybe a can of tuna and some crackers or celery between noon and one, then a cup of tea and something else around three-thirty.  The 18-mo baby eats when I eat.  Meanwhile, the 4yo and 7yo get some toast or oatmeal whenever they wake up, a sandwich or a bowl of soup whenever chores are done, cookies at tea-time, and all the fruit and baby carrots and pickles and cheese and glasses of milk that they feel like fetching for themselves out of the fridge. 

    (Some homeschoolers swear by the beauty of sitting down for breakfast and lunch with the whole family who’s at home, blessing the food, and taking the time to connect peacefully in the middle of the day.  I swear by never having anyone eat anything during the day that takes me more than five minutes to make or clean up.)

    It works really well for us.  But I admit to having some trouble two days a year:  Good Friday and Ash Wednesday.   Jimmy Akin sums up the situation in one of his "Annual Lent Fight" posts (the rest of the Annual Lent Fight posts are here):

    The law of fast allows the eating of one full meal plus two smaller meals, provided the two smaller- meals are not as large as a regular meal if combined. This law, of course, is hopelessly confusing as many people tend not to eat similarly-sized meals.

    Count me among the hopelessly confused.  Yes, yes, yes, common sense and all that.  But (a) I am not good at common sense when I am hungry and (b) I am really prone to rationalizing and being aware of rationalizing.  If you could look into my head over the course of Ash Wednesday it would go something like this:

    • is it time for a smaller meal yet
    • is it time for a smaller meal yet
    • is it time for a smaller meal yet
    • oh goody it is time for a smaller meal!
    • let’s see must not let this one and the next one add up to a regular meal
    • how about a single egg?
    • but I usually eat a single egg at this time of the day
    • that’s not any different from usual
    • hmm maybe i ought to have less than a single egg
    • but wait, if i have a single egg now and a couple of pieces of toast later, that won’t add up to a "regular size meal."  should be okay
    • but i am a nursing mother and i’m going to be hungry.  nursing mothers are exempt.  it ought to be enough just not snacking between meals.
    • but i’m not nursing all that  much.  the exemption isn’t really meant for me.
    • this can’t be that difficult.  common sense.
    • i know i’m not supposed to have snacks between meals.  fine. 
    • so if I have an egg and some toast now, and something small later, and then dinner, I should be good.
    • but wait!  an egg and some toast now is more than i usually eat at this time of day!  I’m just trying to rationalize eating enough now so I won’t feel hungry.  feeling hungry, i.e., suffering a bit under obedience, is the whole point of this exercise.
    • forget it.  I won’t eat anything.  that’s the only way to be sure.
    • that’s crazy.  why hold myself to stricter standards than the church seems to think i need to?  after all, i have duties to my family today, and there’s no way i can do them properly if i don’t eat something.  i’m pretty sure the point is to eat less than usual, so you can feel it, but not so little that you can’t carry out your duties.  i’ll just have some toast.
    • wait, shouldn’t i eat something better for me?  maybe I should eat a veggie omelet.
    • or maybe I ought to eat just some plain toast specifically because it’s not as good for me as the veggie omelet.  after all the point is to deny oneself.  it’s a fast, not a health food diet.
    • but i’ll enjoy the toast more.  i will experience more suffering by eating the veggie omelet.   
    • argh!  can’t think.  I’ll eat the egg and toast now and then I’ll be able to think what I should do.

    Then I eat, and then a couple of hours later the same thing happens, and then at dinner time I do what Rich Leonardi laments he does and scarf down everything I see, and then I look back at the day and I realize I ate the same number of calories I usually do.  Maybe more.  The only thing different was (a) the calories were distributed a little differently throughout the day and (b) I spent the whole day thinking about food.

    I can’t help but think there’s something wrong with this.

    The comments thread in Rich’s post that I linked above made me think that I’d actually have an easier time — a hungrier time, but a mentally-easier time — if I just went without food on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  At least instead of those two smaller meals.  Maybe I’d be better off with one meal and nothing but liquids to keep up my strength in between.  Even caloric liquids traditionally don’t count as breaking your fast, and I should be safe from the wild mood swings of rationalization/scrupulosity problem there as long as I don’t actually get out the blender.

    I know there are some who would look at all this and say, "Do you really think that God cares what you eat?"  I suppose especially to Protestants, the confusions in my mind, the overindulgences Rich reports at the end of the day, are proof that our laws of abstinence and fasting are so much legalistic vanity.  Where’s Christ in all this?

    Yet.  Obedience for the sake of obedience has meaning.  Accepting suffering for the sake of obedience is following His example, and two days a year isn’t really that much to ask.   Ten days later and on a full stomach I can see that I have a real fear of suffering even a little bit (at least when it comes to food) and it really clouds my mind, so that rational thinking flies out the window and emotions rule me.   

    I guess it’s time to fact the truth:  I’m not capable of using "common sense" to figure out a fast day as I go along.  The Church’s rule, however it’s worded in terms of "meals," logically implies Eat Less Than 2/3 of Your Daily Diet, and do it in no more than three sittings.   If I can’t achieve that without sitting down the day before and pre-planning every bite that will go into my mouth and at what time of day — well, then that’s what I have to do.   If I’m to be obedient, I’ll have to admit to myself and to others when I’m weak and illogical.  I’ll have to admit when I have no common sense.

    Thanks to Rich for explaining his own fasting troubles and getting me thinking more clearly about this.

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  • I laughed out loud when I got to the words “professional babyproofer.”

    "Some parents wonder whether having children will mean an end to their high-design dream."  From the NYT, who else?

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  • The intersection of History and Morality.

    More in what’s becoming a series of posts about reading history books to children and trying to avoid ethnic/intercultural stereotyping, and fostering the right attitude towards the crimes of history as well as the misfortunes (not mistaking one for the other.) 

    In other words, the intersection of History and Morality — for the homeschooler.

    Extracts on History and on Theology from that classic of the homeschooler’s canon, Dorothy Sayers’ essay The Lost Tools of Learning …

    GRAMMAR STAGE

    The grammar of History should consist, I think, of dates, events, anecdotes, and personalities. A set of dates to which one can peg all later historical knowledge is of enormous help later on in establishing the perspective of history. It does not greatly matter which dates: those of the Kings of England will do very nicely, provided that they are accompanied by pictures of costumes, architecture, and other everyday things, so that the mere mention of a date calls up a very strong visual presentment of the whole period.

    …[T]heology is the mistress-science without which the whole educational structure will necessarily lack its final synthesis. … At the grammatical age, therefore, we should become acquainted with the story of God and Man in outline–i.e., the Old and New Testaments presented as parts of a single narrative of Creation, Rebellion, and Redemption–and also with the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. At this early stage, it does not matter nearly so much that these things should be fully understood as that they should be known and remembered.

    LOGIC STAGE [Dialectic]

    History, aided by a simple system of ethics derived from the grammar of theology, will provide much suitable material for discussion: Was the behavior of this statesman justified? What was the effect of such an enactment? What are the arguments for and against this or that form of government? We shall thus get an introduction to constitutional history–a subject meaningless to the young child, but of absorbing interest to those who are prepared to argue and debate.

    Theology itself will furnish material for argument about conduct and morals; and should have its scope extended by a simplified course of dogmatic theology (i.e., the rational structure of Christian thought), clarifying the relations between the dogma and the ethics, and lending itself to that application of ethical principles in particular instances which is properly called casuistry….

    OK, so here’s what sounds right to me:  Stick to fairly objective material for history in the grammar stage, things that can be memorized, free of opinion or too much analysis.  Relate it to ethics and morality by classifying the behavior   That is, when you come across some sort of behavior — good or bad — that seems to require comment, guide the student to consider:  Was this action good or bad?  If good, what virtue is exemplified?  If bad, what sins or wrongs were committed?   Or, if you like, what Commandments were broken?

    In the dialectic stage — roughly, middle school/early junior high — that’s when you can start talking about justification, proportionality, the dilemmas created by competing interests, things like that, and connections between events.  That’s when you can start evaluating how people enact different belief systems, and distinguish between enacting poorly a good ethical system, and enacting well a flawed ethical system.

    Sayers doesn’t say anything specific to history about the Rhetoric stage, but for completion, here it is…

    RHETORIC STAGE

    The doors of the storehouse of knowledge should now be thrown open for them to browse about as they will. The things once learned by rote will be seen in new contexts; the things once coldly analyzed can now be brought together to form a new synthesis; here and there a sudden insight will bring about that most exciting of all discoveries: the realization that truism is true.

    It is difficult to map out any general syllabus for the study of Rhetoric: a certain freedom is demanded. In literature, appreciation should be again allowed to take the lead over destructive criticism; and self-expression in writing can go forward, with its tools now sharpened to cut clean and observe proportion. Any child who already shows a disposition to specialize should be given his head: for, when the use of the tools has been well and truly learned, it is available for any study whatever. It would be well, I think, that each pupil should learn to do one, or two, subjects really well, while taking a few classes in subsidiary subjects so as to keep his mind open to the inter-relations of all knowledge. Indeed, at this stage, our difficulty will be to keep "subjects" apart; for Dialectic will have shown all branches of learning to be inter-related, so Rhetoric will tend to show that all knowledge is one. To show this, and show why it is so, is pre-eminently the task of the mistress science.

    …Generally speaking, whatsoever is mere apparatus may now be allowed to fall into the background, while the trained mind is gradually prepared for specialization in the "subjects" which, when the Trivium is completed, it should be perfectly will equipped to tackle on its own….

    At the Rhetoric stage is perhaps where you can really dig into history through culture, trying to understand motivations from the perspectives of different peoples.

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  • With apologies to Barbro Lindgren. And her translator.

    Look, there’s Erin.

    Look, there’s Erin’s blank grocery list.

    Erin does not want to make the grocery list.

    Dumb old grocery list.

    Can Baby make the grocery list?

    No, Baby scribbles all over Erin’s pre-printed grocery list form.

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  • Grammar-stage history of colonialization: a few principles.

    I wrote a little bit here about trying to vet potential American History "living book" read-alouds for cultural bias.  I didn’t do the difficulty much justice.  It is hard to find anything that doesn’t have objectionable content of one kind or another.  And what are the criteria anyway?  Is the most important thing to counter stereotypes, or to put them in context?  Ought we to omit books’ errors from our read-alouds, or explain them?  Is the very most important thing to keep the discussion age-appropriate?  Or does that risk leaving out complexities entirely?  Should we stick to "the facts?"  Or should we discuss the rightness and wrongness of how people treated each other?

    Yesterday, Hannah and I — who approached the difficulty in very different and to us, unsatisfying, ways to begin with — came up with some ideas. The conversation started when I tossed a couple of books at her — here, do you think these are salvageable? — while she was nursing Hazel.  We continued it in bits and pieces over four hours between schooling the kids, solving fights and making dinner (try that in a two-hour playdate!)  We debated, argued, picked up books and quoted passages to each other, theorized, offered suggestions, tried them out, and junked them. 

    Here’s what we came up with:

    (1) This is the "grammar stage."  Avoid a level of discussion that’s proper to the dialectic or the rhetoric.   In other words, the emphasis is on objective facts:  What was life like back then?  What happened first, this or that?  What did this person do to that person, and what was the result?

    (2)  That doesn’t mean that our discussion is devoid of morality.  Morality is impossible to avoid in interculture contact!  It does require sticking to a grammar-stage treatment of right and wrong.  That is, an objective, black-and-white sort of treatment.    In my house, that means we use language of right and wrong, virtue and sin.   When I read, for example, the following passage from Story of the World (II):

    …Cortes heard rumors that over on the mainland of Central America, a fantastically wealthy king ruled over a city with streets made of gold and walls made of jewels.  So Cortes collected a band of soldiers to go with him, loaded Spanish warhorses onto a ship, and sailed to the coast of Central America.

    … I can follow it up with "What was Cortes planning to do with those soldiers?," elicit the response "Take the king’s gold by force," and then ask, "Is it wrong to force people to give up their stuff to you?  What do we call that?" 

    (3) Avoid higher-level discussions appropriate to the later stages of dialectic and rhetoric.   In the grammar stage, it’s important (because interesting and true) to learn about people’s different belief systems, but it’s not appropriate to analyze how different belief systems might mitigate the rights and wrongs they do each other.   This is high-school age and college-age thinking.  We will get around to this eventually, but not yet.  So, for example, we’re not going to suggest that Cortes’s cultural background or the Aztecs’ brutality excuses him for thinking he had a right to the (imaginary) king’s gold.   And we’re not going to say "In the cultural context of Aztec spirituality, it was good to sacrifice people."    Taking other people’s stuff is wrong.   Human sacrifice is wrong too.  Third graders can understand this.   Sometimes we can say, "They didn’t know any better."  But that’s about as far as we can go to mitigate it.

    (4) Pre-read the material with a pencil in hand.  Use it to mark spots where you’ll plan to pause and ask leading questions.  Also, as you’re reading aloud, you will want to make word substitutions or skip sentences or phrases.    What to skip?  Read on…

    (5) First, cross out all the outright falsehoods.   Then, cross out everything that’s not about actions, accurate descriptions, or information levels.  All else is probably speculation.  A little interior thought or reaction is okay to keep the story going, but it has to be plausibly, fully human.  If what’s left makes a coherent narrative, congratulations!  You can read it.  Otherwise, toss the book and find another one. 

    For example, continuing the passage from SOTW, my comments in brackets…

    When his ship anchored, the tribes who lived near the water came out to see who these new visitors were.  [Plausible.]  But when Cortes and his men unloaded their horses from their ships and rode them ashore, the Indians people scattered in terror.  They had never seen horses before.  [Plausible and understandable; my kids were scared the first time they saw a horse too.]  They thought each rider was a huge monster with six feet, two arms and two heads.   [Implausible.  Makes the natives sound like imbeciles.  And it’s not as if there aren’t any four-legged pack animals native to Central America.] 

    These Indians spread the word all through the mainland:  "Monsters are coming!  Perhaps they are the gods!"  [Implausible.  Natives who had actually seen a bunch of scurvy-ridden Spaniards would probably not think this.  More in the next graf.] And Cortes and his men plunged into the Central American jungles, searching for the city of gold…

    …"The visitors are approaching!" they warned.  And they described Cortes, his men, and their armor.  The king of the Aztecs, Montezuma, listened to these descriptions carefully.  He wondered:  Could this be the god Quetzalcoatl, on his way back to Tenochtitlan?  Ancient Aztec prophecies said that the god Quetzalcoatl would return…the time was almost up.  Also, the description of Cortes sounded like the carved pictures of Quetzalcoatl on the temple walls.  (By chance, the helmet Cortes wore was shaped like Quetzalcoatl’s hat!)  When Montezuma dreamed one night that Quetzalcoatl was approaching… his mind was made up:  The god was on his way.  [Much more plausible and non-derogatory than the earlier "they’re gods" thing, since (a) Montezuma has not seen the Spaniards, he’s only heard a  second- or third-hand description and (b) the text provides fully human, fleshed-out discussion of his reasoning.]  So when Cortes and his men arrived, Montezuma threw open the city gates and welcomed him in.   

    (6) Don’t read bad books to fill time.  If you have to treat a subject briefly in order to keep it true, so be it.    If you don’t have a good book, what’s the point of reading?

    (7) Don’t forget to read about people who exemplified the virtues of their cultures during interculture contact as well as about people who exemplified the vices.  European values produced gold-hungry Cortes; they also helped produce St. Martin de Porres.   If anything, this throws the cultural bad guys into a worse light, since it proves that "he didn’t know better because of his cultural context" isn’t much of an excuse.   (Not that you’ll discuss this at the grammar stage.)

    Other thoughts?

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  • Caucus.

    I went to the Republican caucus last night.  My first thought as we approached the building was:  Wow.  So there really are some Republicans in South Minneapolis.  It was packed.  I exaggerate a lot.  This is not exaggeration.  The radio this morning announced that caucus sites were unexpectedly crowded all over the state, and that some of them ran out of chairs and ballots.   Mark and I snorted simultaneously, "Chairs?!?"  The room we were in was standing room only.   

    Minnesota’s Republican caucus is kind of complicated.  It’s a 200-year-old system.  (Here is the best explanation I have found.) I know, I know, the media all reported that Romney won it.  Actually, what Romney won was a straw poll — it means nothing, nothing, for the delegate count.   Minnesota’s delegates to the national convention have not been elected yet.  That comes later, at district and state conventions.

    Last night each precinct elected delegate(s) to the district and state conventions.  It’s at those conventions that the national delegates will be picked.

    The caucus site I attended — the single packed room — covered several precincts.  When we got there we had to look for someone who was waving over his head the file folder with our ward/precinct number in it.  (It was hard to see with all the Ron Paul signs.  Only Ron Paul people had signs.)  We fought our way through the crowd until we got there, where the file folder guy turned out to be simply the guy who’d arrived first, a youngish professional-looking man.  Five people from our precinct showed up, including me and Mark.  (Some precincts seemed to have maybe five times as many). 

    Mark left with the kids after the straw poll.  They were frightened by the crowd, although Milo was happy to get some Ron Paul stickers.  Only Ron Paul people had stickers.  I stayed.

    That left four people in my precinct to pick one delegate.  Also we were supposed to elect a precinct chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer.  We sort of looked at each other until one man, an elderly African-American, said, "Oh, come on.  Like this.  I nominate him–" he pointed to the guy with the file folder — "to be chair.  Do you –" he pointed at me "–second the nomination?"

    After that it went pretty quickly.   We elected File Folder Man to be delegate to the district convention.  I would have done it except we’re busy that weekend.  File Folder Man says he’ll vote for McCain, and that was okay by me and Mark.   A little after we had that all figured out, another voter showed up, a 21-year-old woman with a Canada tee shirt and black-painted fingernails.  She was a Romney supporter.  We said, "We already voted, but if you want to be the delegate for Romney, tell us and we’ll discuss."  She shrugged and said she really liked Romney but she didn’t want to be the delegate.  So that was settled.  "Wow," she said, looking around.  "I didn’t know there were any Republicans around here."

    "It’s not that, it’s that there are a lot of Ron Paul supporters here," said a guy with a sign and some stickers. 

    He was partly right.  When the site chair, a young black-haired woman, stood up and announced the straw poll results, it turned out that Ron Paul won it with about a third of the vote.  (The Paul supporters seemed to be concentrated in two or three precincts.)  Still, 2/3 of the people there voted for Romney, McCain, or Huckabee (also 2 write-ins for Barack Obama and one for Condoleeza Rice!) — it’s not just the Ron Paul people.  (And more people came too late to be counted in the straw poll.)  The organizers were astonished at the numbers who showed up.  In past elections as few as six individuals had shown up at the caucus site all together.

    The whole thing was kind of crazy and kind of fun.  I was amused that in my precinct, we were four people just sort of dividing up the jobs, while another precinct had maybe thirty people and they were passing resolutions, doing shows-of-hands, all very earnest and well-organized.  Ha!  We still have the same number of delegates as them!

    Having caucused, now, I think it’s kind of a shame that states are moving to the primary system.  Yeah, it’s simpler, it’s fair, it’s easy to understand, more people can participate… but it’s also a lot more impersonal.  The caucus was a rare chance for me to meet people in my neighborhood in person, to talk to them about local and national issues.  I left feeling less disconnected, less alienated, even less cynical (!) about the political process.  No system is perfect, of course, and there’s flaws to the "caucus/convention" system.  But I can’t help but think it would be a loss to the country if it disappeared.

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  • I’m not giving up blogging for Lent.

    Lots of Catholic bloggers do.   Not this year for me, I think.

    I do have a plan for Lent, but it’s a secret.

    If you do away with the yoke,
    the clenched fist, the wicked word,
    if you give your bread to the hungry,
    and relief to the oppressed,

    your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your shadows become like noon.
    The Lord will always guide you,
    giving you relief in desert places.

    He will give strength to your bones
    and you shall be like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water
    whose waters never run dry.

    You will rebuild the ancient ruins,
    build up on the old foundations.
    You will be called ‘Breach-mender’,
    ‘Restorer of ruined houses’.

    — from the Office of Readings for Ash Wednesday:  Isaiah 58:1-12

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  • Neighborhood turnaround.

    Commercial real estate developers like Theresa Carr, profiled here in this piece by local columnist Katherine Kersten, can make a difference.  By declining to renew the leases of "problem tenants," and attracting the right mix of businesses, she and her nonprofit team have turned around a whole neighborhood.

    I remember hearing this neighborhood called a dangerous part of town.  Now I take my kids there for pancakes.  It’s lovely to see a piece on a person who’s helped make that change.

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  • Discernment.

    I have been thinking some more about the how-close-to-space-kids question.  Regular readers know that this is an area that feels unsettled in my life.   My three children are spaced three years apart, and it works great for our family, and all the unsettledness in my heart is — ought I to challenge myself more?   Or ought I to go with what I know "works" for our family?  What is God calling me to do? 

    * * *

    I wrote that paragraph very carefully.  Did you notice what’s missing?

    Did you notice who is missing?

    * * *

    Lately I’ve been reading a lot of discussion about child-spacing.  Lots of excellent, in-depth, personal, deep, from-the-heart discussion, from deep within the archives of various Catholic mom-blogs.   This thread at Danielle Bean’s blog is a good sample.

    And I noticed something about the discourse at the same time I noticed something about my own family.

    I don’t write about my husband’s point of view in this area.  I have a good reason not to.  I am trying to protect his privacy, and our marital privacy. 

    We do talk about our fertility and our next child a great deal.  We talk about how to space the children in our family.  When to have another child.  How many children we think we are likely to have.  What principles guide us.   Where we differ in our philosophy about child spacing.  Where we differ in decision-making.  In concepts of risk and safety and comfort.  Whether we are open "enough."  Whether we are on the right path or not.  We talk about how one of us is inclined to be more conservative in chart-interpretation (and execution) and one less so; and that’s not always the same person.  My husband’s voice, his perception of a "calling," or a "not-calling," is as important as mine.  It is not my fertility, it is ours.

    But you wouldn’t know it from a lot of what I write.  It might seem that I only think about myself, my spiritual situation, my calling, what God leads me to, what I can and can’t handle.  Because I only write about myself.  But that’s because I can’t write about my husband’s experience without putting words in his mouth or violating his privacy.  I can’t even really write honestly about "our" experience, even though (when it comes to fertility) there is nothing but "our" and "us," there really is no "me" that stands alone here.  And so — I am stuck writing about a shadow, not a reality.  My shadow.  The reality is much greater than the shadow I can write about.  It is two become one. 

    But when I write, I am just "one."  I don’t think I can write truthfully about family-size decisions.  The Church is very clear that such decisions are between husband, wife, and God.  If I’m only writing about my own spiritual struggles with respect to child-spacing, with respect to any aspect of marital sexuality in fact, you’re missing 2/3 of the discourse.  I cannot write well and truthfully about the rest.  I ought not try.

    So as I was reading over and over the testimony of many thoughtful individuals, it occurred to me that all of them have the same limitation.  They can’t, they ought not, truthfully explain their callings, their decisions, because none belong to an individual; all are rightfully made by a couple working with the Lord.  There is a privacy and an intimacy that mustn’t be betrayed.  In an effort to maintain that intimacy, I know that I unconsciously write as if only the individual and God matters.  I see this kind of "me"-ization in other women’s comments.  For instance, one commenter writes,

    In prayer I really seem to hear God saying that my fertility was given to us by Him and given back to Him by spiritually by me.

    And another:

    With regard to NFP… I feel called to dismiss it for now…

    It’s not that women don’t choose to write some about their husband’s feelings.  In the thread I linked above you can read one mother writing that she and her husband are "of one heart and mind… with respect to having more children." Another writes, "both my husband and I want a baby but we are concerned for my health too."   I believe them.  But these words, the words chosen by these women to represent their husbands, are only representations.  Shadows of something much greater.

    I’m not saying this is a problem, that we can’t really write about our spouses’ hearts.  Thank goodness we can’t.

    The problem is when we forget that we can’t.  The problem is when we (mostly women) read and read and read and read these threads and we start to think that they adequately represent reality.  We start to internalize the idea that it’s about me.  We run the risk of the heartfelt discussion, the interpersonal discourse about child-spacing, being between me and these other mothers rather than between me and my husband.  We feel inadequate sometimes.  Inspired other times.  But even being inspired, encouraged, can be a problem, because it’s still leaving our spouses out!  My husband is not reading these threads, after all.  Shouldn’t our own marriages be the source of the inspiration and the courage?  If we think we aren’t getting enough inspiration and courage from our spouse, maybe we’re making it worse by seeking it elsewhere?  Especially when what we read is necessarily so limited?

    I’m not saying we should stop reading and discussing among ourselves.  Just that we have to be aware of the missing voices, and especially aware because for each of us one of those voices is the voice that we need to listen to most.  And there is another ear that needs most to hear what is coming from our own hearts.

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