Roman holiday

Ancient Israel looks fascinating.

In fact, the land of Israel is the subject of my new series of columns.

But medieval Italy, the land of Dante and the Popes (except when there were three claimants) looks more fascinating still.

It always did, I confess.

That's why, in part, I enjoyed writing this column on the Pope's resignation -- which I, along with many other journalists, keep calling a "shocker."

Shocking even though it is perfectly canonical, and he's hinted at it before.

Shocking although his older brother Georg apparently thought Benedict XVI was a little too old to be Pope to begin with.

Shocking even though he left his pallium on the tomb of the last Pope to resign of his own free will...the Pope that Dante apparently castigated for making "the great refusal."...

To borrow a metaphor from the great poet, let me admit that I, along with many others, apparently find this story, rent from the back pages the Catholic Church,  a hell of a lot of fun.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/815662_Column--How-will-history-judge-Benedict-XVI-.html

Online dating: how it can ruin a nice evening

The thing is -- I'm incredibly straightforward.

Not only that, but I stubbornly try to stay calm and polite, even when the guy on the other end of the correspondence doesn't.

I am a bit baffled tonight.

The guy who said last week he wants to meet me isn't returning my emails.

A man who has my email address isn't using it -- which makes me wonder...

A 78-year-old gentleman in New Jersey begs me to talk to him.  I wonder what he would think of me dating a young man in his thirties.

Then, of course, there are the married guys and all the other online bounders.

I never seem to be QUITE cynical enough for the online dating universe.

Instead, I take a break from one site, and leave my profile up on another.

While it may not be a change of characters, it is a pragmatic move.

And what is online dating about among the middle-aged, in the end, but pragmatism?

Doomed, moody pragmatism...not even the delusional feel good kind.

Why do I continue?

I suppose that I'm as entitled to my delusions as you to yours.

Ain't American romance wonderful?

Through the desert

A few days ago, I did the inconceivable.

I asked my seventeen-year-old daughter to move in with her father.

Actually, the verb "to ask" is probably stretching it.

Infuriated by her behavior towards me, I told her I was bringing her clothes down to her father's house.

Those of you who are friends of mine, who have walked this long, often barren, sometimes heartbreaking road alongside me (no one else can walk it with me), will know that, as hasty as this choice appears, it was actually the product of years of agony.

I have been in darkness for a long time -- looking back and wondering if anything I have done has mattered in the least.

The conferences at the six or seven schools she has attended since kindergarten.

The trips to therapists.

The conferences with her father and child guidance experts.

Right now, I don't know how to be her mother.

 A mother is supposed to protect, to rejoice, to discipline, and to teach, as well as to love. I could do none of those but love -- and because of the constant friction between us, to be brutally honest, I often questioned my ability to love her.

A survivor of a family suicide, I fought with every fiber of my being to prevent this from happening. But the choice just ratified what was there already.

I'm also aware that there will be facile, quick judgments -- that I will be seen as  parental failure.

All I want to say is -- walk in my shoes, or anybody else's shoes, before you condemn them.

Tonight I am grieving -- a grief beyond tears.

Is my daughter lost to me forever? Am I lost to her?

There is no answer, at least not now, that I can embrace.

And this is just the beginning.

Pick me! Me! Me! Her?

I have a few friends who are falling in love, or at least into the realm of heavy "like.'

This, and a lively debate in the media, has raised a metaphysical question for me: can you be in love with someone who still has an active dating profile posted online?

Is that the virtual equivalent of that old-fashioned, yet socially relevant expression: "he/she has a wandering eye"?

How far can eyes wander? How many times on OKCupid or Match? Once a day? Once a week? When does the profile come down (around the time of an engagement?)

These questions have become more compelling because of a recent book on online dating written by Dan Slater. "A Million First Dates" has indeed cause some wings to flutter in the dovecots, in part because of the way he focuses the narrative on an immature schlub named Jacob, who can't seem to commit.

Just because Jacob has problems behaving like a grownup (and most of us have met or dated Jacobs or Joannas) doesn't mean that monogamy and marriage are flying out the window.

As Amanda Hess noted in this column posted on Slate in early January, it's not as though there are an endless stream of appropriate females or males waiting to be dated.

Sometimes online dating can feel like anguish.  Sometimes it's just tedious. Other times it's horrible. Occasionally it's fun.

But I still wonder about those who keep active dating profiles after professing commitment to someone else.

Even if monogamy isn't a loser, it's possible that they are.

In some ways, the multitude of seeming possibilities online can encourage immaturity in those who may be prone to that tendency already.  Are they keeping a metaphorical foot in the virtual door?

The line between schlub and gem can be a thin one, particularly when online temptations are involved (let's not even discuss the problems of online pornography  in marriages).

The availability of multiple choice has just exaggerated what was there before -- and, in doing so,  illuminated more starkly the choice between badass and bad.

Requiem for a "non-human person"

Yesterday, trapped in one of New York City's most polluted waterways, a dolphin breathed its last.

Yesterday, I sat by the bathtub, tears running down my face, unable to do more than cry, keen, sob, as I wrestled with the implications of that life, and that death.

Here's the story -- and the link to previous blog posts about this magnificent creature.

As the blogger notes, one man had the guts to step into the Gowanus Canal, a toxic Superfund site, and spend a few minutes with the frightened and bleeding mammal, who responded to him with affection and warmth.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/candacewhiting/2013/01/25/gowanus-dolphin-knew-a-moment-of-compassion-before-dying/

I don't know how much you know about dolphins.

They are widely considered by scientists to be among the world's most intelligent creatures, with an intellect both similar and alien to our own.

In this article from a few years ago, one scientist asserted that they should be called "non-human persons."

As a "pro-life' Christian, I try to respect the dignity of every creature (although I'm not tolerant about bugs and rats).

I do discriminate on the basis of intelligence, and ability to feel pain.

It angers me that Christians have warped the idea that God gave them "dominion" over the world and its creatures to mistreat them, be indifferent to their plight or ignore them.

If we are the caretakers of our companion animals, why do we turn our backs on climate change that is extinguishing the habitat of polar bears?

Why do we use sonar that distorts the way whales can navigate in their own underwater environment?

Why don't we come down harder on poachers who kill magnificent elephants for their tusks?

Why don't we confront the superstitions that lead to this barbaric idiocy?

Why don't we protect and defend the vulnerable among us, from unborn children to endangered species?

Why have we indulged ourselves and our appetites at the expense of our beautiful planet?

Perhaps I am sentimental, a bleeding-heart liberal.

I actually believe that my perspective, while difficult, is probably intellectually consistent -- which is why I am haunted by the footage of the man who reached out to that dolphin.

After he left, and went home to take a shower, the dolphin finally  escaped.

Before he died, he drifted over to some people observing him.

Why?

Probably because he wanted not to be alone in his last hours.

Too bad for him.

What would Jesus shoot?

I don't want to take away your hunting rifles...but I don't "get" why you feel you need an assault rifle with 30-bullet ammunition clips.

Target practice? That's an art.

I'm o.k. if you want to go hunt deer, but I feel less safe knowing that you are next to me at BJ's armed to the hilt.

While I don't interpret the Second Amendment the way that the conservative Republican justices on the Supreme Court do, it is the law of the land. I respect your "right" to own guns (the same way I respect the "right" to abortion), though I vehemently disagree with it.

I still don't understand, however, how Christians who worship the ultimate icon of nonviolence can double down on weapons that kill.  Maybe someday I'll run into someone who can explain it to me in a way that makes sense.

Jesus cradling a rifle in his hands...imagine.


 http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/805092_Column--Seeking-Jesus-in-these-violent-times.html

Deep six the "F" word

There are some idiosyncrasies in the journalistic world that drive me crazy.

Frankly, I blame the advent of social media, including blogging, for the fact that, all of a sudden, everyone's a writer.

In one way, that's a blessing.  We now get to hear from people who might have been too shy to express an opinion before, or not had access to a way of getting their ideas out before the public.

Sometimes what they have to say is worth reading.

But with the popularity of Twitter, Facebook and Blogger comes a lot, forgive me for saying so, of dreck.

That includes certain memes that seem to rise and fall in popularity, becoming trite before you can say " Bob's yer uncle."

I'm not crazy about writers who label other writers "elites" from another privileged position.

Nor am I fond of the way that some conservative authors call newspapers, blogs and online magazines with which they happen to disagree "the media" (meaning the mainstream media) when conservative media outlets like Fox are both vociferous and extremely well-funded.

What media outlets are leaching jobs left and right? Or should I say -- left or right?

But in the interest of fairness, it's not only conservatives who fall deep into the linguistic mire.

Liberals also have their favorite words -- one on which is "fascist." Often, it's a response to the accusation by conservatives that those who favor government-funded health care and unemployment benefits are "socialists."

Thus ideas held dear by conservatives become totalitarian or "fascist."

Real fascists (or real socialists, for that matter) would find these comparisons absolutely ludicrous. But it's just another sign of the disintegration of our political and social discourse.

Frankly, as a descendant of people who survived (and some who perished) in the Holocaust, I don't just find it ridiculous. I find it offensive.

In addition, we happen to live in  a democracy, however dysfunctional. That's why we have elections -- right?

But liberals don't own the f-word anymore. And perhaps that fact means that we can begin to wean ourselves from overusing it.

Conservatives like Jonah Goldberg have also been known to throw the word "fascist" around when speaking of his political opposites.

Then there are people like John Mackey.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the Whole Foods owner would call himself.  He recently termed President Obama's Health-Care act "fascist" (though he later walked it back -- perhaps when he realized that he provides his employees health-care).

Wait up.  I'm worried.

What are we to think, however, of a man who talks about our "food addictions" and the need to cure them?

Scary dude.

Conveniently enough, Mackey has provided us with a nationwide network of Whole Foods stores so that we can be reprogrammed.

Oops. I mean, have stores in which to purchase healthier products.

Sounds a little fascist to me.