Sunday morning and thank God it’s Labor Day tomorrow. I’ve got two, count ’em two, sick kids and I suppose my wife and I are about due to get this grunge pretty soon. Guess we won’t be taking any road trips this holiday.
Well the nice thing about being a parent for the second time is that you can be a lot more laid back about it. When we brought our firstborn home and installed him in the crib at the foot of the bed, we used to sit bolt upright from the soundest sleep every time he coughed or grunted in his sleep. “Oh my God it’s crib death I know it is!” And when he was quiet, I had to get up and check that he was still breathing.
What is it about TV shows and changing diapers? I recall that the impression I used to get from family shows was that changing diapers was like the end of the world. Women giving advice to young women contemplating motherhood for the first time, or older women thinking about having more kids always seemed to bring up, “Do you want to go through feeding and changing diapers (again)?”
I got news for those of you who aren’t parents yet, changing diapers is no big deal. I suppose it’s like mowing the lawn – if it’s a rental house, it’s a chore. If it’s your house, there is something different about it. Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of years as a garbageman and sewage treatment plant operator. (Yes, I’m the guy that coined the classic slogan, “Wastewater treatment. You excrete it, we treat it.”) After that it takes a lot to gross me out. (That and being the child of medical professionals. To this day I have to remind myself that there are some things people really don’t want to hear about when they’re eating.) But my wife doesn’t really mind it either.
Now mind you, I wouldn’t care to have two kids in diapers at the same time. And it does get kind of funky when the kids start on solid food…
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It’s official, Carlos Mencia is my second favorite comedian, after Chris Rock. Last night after we got the kids put down way late, we saw Carlos riffing on, among other things, the war on Islamofascism and White Guilt. Some lines, as best as I remember:
“I am not White! I don’t feel the need to apologize for what we did to make this country great!”
“This Middle Eastern guy told me, “My people are crazy, you’d better watch out.”
“No, my people are crazy.”
“Well we blew up two of your buildings.”
“So we blew up two of your countries, you wanna play that game?”
“Well we’re getting an atomic bomb and we might use it.”
“Hey, we’ve got the bomb and we’ve already used it – twice. Go to Japan and go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They can introduce you to a guy with two dicks and five testicles. We called the plane that dropped the bomb the Enola GAY so they’d know they were going to get f&*ked in the a#$!”
Years ago there was a Latino reviewer for the Dallas Morning News who did a piece on “In Living Color”. He said, “Thank God a couple of Black guys did this show, because White guys would get crucified for it.”
What is it with this country?
You want to know how you can keep a nice cushy job in academia when you’re a third-rate hack? Loudly announce that the United States is the worst country on Earth, that White people are the worst people on Earth and that you’re ashamed to be both. They’ll treat you with kid gloves, because they’re mortally afraid to look like they’re repressing you.
Some of this comes from admirable motives, or at least can be sold to the public on that basis. We don’t want to fire someone for publishing his opinions because we believe in free speech. But I’ve got to say, it’s a little like a situation I’ve seen in some local government workplaces. If you’re on the point of being fired – turn yourself in as an alcoholic. Then they’re obligated to “treat” you, because alcoholism is a “sickness”.