Hereditary Misanthropy

My son's sandcastle is in ruins -- Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade. His "friends" succeeded the sack, deaf to his wails for mercy.

I can only look on with apathetic anticipation, knowing that eventually the tide would have done -- wholly apathetic itself -- what his peers' malice accelerated.

I shouldn't allow the symbolism to move me this way. But that doesn't stop me. My son is back at the house now, demanding another encore of some animated distraction or another.

I'm busy down at the beach, rebuilding the noble crenellations and mighty parapets of his sandcastle by twilight, as the tide tiptoes closer.

Because You're Never Too Broke for Chinese Hookers

Last week, I bought generic Hamburger Helper to make dinner for baby Wyatt and me.

Hamburger Helper is a food-like product than normally costs around a dollar and a half, but I saved nearly fifty cents by denying the siren song of that creepy severed Mickey Mouse hand mascot. And while the generic version couldn't quite match the lofty prison-cafeteria standards of the real thing, tough economic times dictated I make the sacrifice.

Keep that sacrifice in mind as you watch this three-minute video from the Cato Institute blog:



Here's hoping that many more Congresscritters book trans-Alaskan flights, and soon.

In Communist Russia, TSA Plays with You!

Presenting the Playmobil Security Checkpoint:As Christmas 2009 came and went, I often lamented the fact that I couldn't find an appropriate toy to help me illustrate the realities of the police state to baby Wyatt. Granted, the happy little Playmobil traveler is unable to remove his shoes, open his bag, or relinquish his fingernail clippers -- which is misleading -- but the basics are covered.

Assuming the tiny plastic globetrotter didn't refuse to disclose his salary, attempt to carry on boomerangs, request to actually watch the screener rifle through his belongings, dare to carry cash, or consort with suspicious eight-year-olds, he will make his flight just fine.

Rumor has it a Playmobil S.W.A.T. No-Knock Raid playset is in the works, complete with a terrorized old woman, dead dogs, and a County Executive who thinks everyone involved deserves a pat on the back.

It's a Wiggly Sack of Potatoes! It's a Smelly Plush Doll! It's... It's... Okay, it's my Kid in a Costume

Granted, so far it's all just playing dress-up, but the seeds are officially sown. I wonder if this is how Gandhi felt the first time he saw Gandhi Jr in a dhoti, or when Rollie Fingers first saw his boy sporting a dirty junior-high mustache.



On a superpower-related note, I can't help but notice that several of the millions of daily visitors to ScotticusFinch have neglected to vote on the last two polls (left sidebar). How can I be expected to advance the science of personal opinions unless you people participate? If you have already voted, go to your neighbor's cubicle while she's at lunch and vote again*. My bloated self-esteem could be at stake.

If you want to suggest a more click-worthy poll, please do so in the comments.

*See what I mean about being devoted to science?

14 Days Without Sleep Makes One Weak

A full two weeks ago, I drifted off under anesthetic while some eight-year-old with palsy practiced pumpkin-carving in my sinuses. Since then, and into the foreseeable future, I have been spending the hours between 10pm and 6am on the sofa, sitting straight up, pretending that I might eventually sleep. This overnight posture is required because of the 74 gallons of drainage (the medical term for snot) I now generate per night.

Every hour or so, I abandon my post on the sofa, stumble in the dark through the gauntlet of baby paraphernalia and empty tissue boxes to the bathroom, and force saltwater up my nose in direct conflict with everything I learned at YMCA swim class. The commotion, of course, convinces the dogs that it’s time for breakfast, so even after I find my way back to the couch, alternately dripping tainted saltwater and “drainage”, they sit attentively by my side, reminding me in that whiny dog language that their bowls are still empty. Never mind that it’s 1:45am.

Eventually baby Wyatt wakes up, and we go about our morning as if the night was somehow rejuvenating.

59 minutes out of every hour during the day, I hold my breath. Not by choice, but because my nose is clogged full of that stuff inside Cadbury Crème Eggs and breathing through my mouth all night has turned my throat into some sort of parched, scorched Taliban survival course. I try to save that one breath per hour for when the boss comes around to ask if everything is okay. “Yep,” I bark, which is code for “Please ignore the fact that I look like Martin Landau three days into a meth bender; I do not actually have the swine flu.” At least I assume it’s my boss. The hallucinations lately make it difficult to tell him apart from the giant Pillsbury Dough Boy who lives in the supply closet behind me.

Assurances have been made that I will eventually heal, although the “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!” banner hanging behind the Doc at my follow-up appointment was a bit disconcerting. And I’m pretty sure it was his lawyer who poked his head into the exam room, telling the Doc, “Hey, the judge totally isn’t buying it. You should probably have a bag packed and keep your passport on you.”

So for now, it’s back to the sofa and the Scotticus-shaped indentation that has formed within it, where I offer a fatted calf to the gods Kleenex, Ocean, Afrin, and Advil. I pray that they are appeased and benevolent, but I’m not holding my breath.

I'm from the Government, and I'm Here to Help

The day may come when Wyatt -- after watching Mary Poppins, perhaps -- will ask me for $9 to go buy an umbrella. Deep in his little heart, he will be convinced that for only $9, he can achieve his dream of flight (or perfect pitch, or whatever aspect of Poppins inspired him), and I have no doubt I will indulge him. The lesson and the adventure will be a bargain at $9.

Not so much, when the lesson costs $787 billion.



President Obama's words at the ARRA signing ceremony eight months ago:

...today does mark the beginning of the end — the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the wake of layoffs.

Chart via Don Surber. Link via Hit & Run via Instapundit. Sheesh.

"I Knew Ward Cleaver. Ward Cleaver was a Friend of Mine. You, Sir, are no Ward Cleaver."

Thank the gods I have crimefighting.

There was a time, after floundering through my twenties from job to job and struggling to find much success at anything, that I embraced the comforting idea that I had been born to be a father. It was my calling, I decided. Protecting, nurturing, and caring for my son would – I was certain – come as naturally to me as drafting did to Frank Lloyd Wright. Just as Ted Williams was a hitter, I would be a father.

The sentiment explained my restlessness at work, since I had no more business pushing pencils than Julia Child had digging ditches, right? I gripped the idea and let it pull me through the workweeks like a rescue rope in a flooded river. I had purpose now; meaning, and motivation.

Reality has been rudely unaccommodating of my expectations. I may be Gretzky in my mind, but fatherhood is more oil painting than ice hockey.

Now, I love my son, and fiercely. I stare at him in my wife’s arms and I know that I would charge the Maginot Line armed with sparklers if that’s what it took to protect him. But that is where he is happiest: in her arms; and the feeling is fairly mutual. I’m frustrated faster than I should be; I’m stymied by his fussing; I’m bored by his squirming. Desperately I want to live up to Heathcliff Huxtable, but each successive evening proves me more Al Bundy. Of course I will never give up, and I’m certain a competent fatherhood will settle in on me just as it has on other men for thousands of years. Still, it would have been nice to be a natural.

So, as I said, thank the gods I have crimefighting. Without that clear and fulfilling calling, I might be left to wonder what the hell I’m here for after all...

Leave as a Boy; Come Home as a Really Pedantic Boy

From the July pages of The Economist (the second-best dead-tree magazine around) comes this piece about a humanist summer camp.

Kids aged 8 to 17 share cabins in the woods. During the day, they paddle canoes, shoot arrows, go swimming and explore nature.

But [cue sinister music]:

Lunch comes with a five-minute talk about a famous freethinker. Campers are told that invisible unicorns inhabit the forest, and offered a prize if they can prove that the unicorns do not exist. The older kids learn something about the difficulty of proving a negative. The younger ones grow giggly at the prospect of stepping in invisible unicorn poop.

…Campers are not told that there is no God; only that they should weigh the evidence. They learn about the scientific method. …The kids are encouraged to explore ethical questions, too. The more argumentative ones sit in a clearing and debate the nature of justice.

Granted, this camp probably produces some of the most unbearably condescending 16-year-olds on Earth. But a skeptical mind is life’s most useful tool, so sign baby Wyatt up for 2017.

Plus, archery!

Hat tip to longtime commenter “Ryan” for the article.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Celebutantes?

One thing is now certain: Baby Wyatt is not the magical harbinger of a new era of liberty. Not yet anyway.

The NSA is proving to be relatively immune to Hope 'N Change®, and has far better things to do than serve as Agents of National Security:

According to the reporter who first broke the NSA wiretapping story, there is no proof the agency has scaled back its interception of the personal phone calls and email messages of American citizens as promised by the Obama administration or even that it is being straight with Congress about its activities.

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed the NSA’s over-collection of data in an article for the New York Times on Tuesday, noting that one NSA analyst was even found to have been reading the private email of former President Bill Clinton.

...“It sounded like, from the former NSA analyst that we interviewed, that it was rare to access the emails of celebrities or famous people,” Risen stated, “but that it was fairly routine, according to him, for people to access the emails of girlfriends or wives or other people that they might know.”

So wives, girlfriends (or both!) and former Poti* are routinely monitored by the NSA, but at least trolling through celebrities' email is "rare".

See the whole damn thing here.

*Is there a plural of POTUS?

Maternity Malcontent. Or, Neonatal Nefariousness

Despite checking in under my secret identity, I'm beginning to suspect my archenemy Red Leader is orchestrating the staff here at the hospital. My infrequent sleep is constantly interrupted, and they have been withholding food since day one. The few foot-massages my wife has had time to offer me seem to always be a second priority at best, and my morale is suffering.

Still, the boy is gaining strength. Many of the world's greatest superheroes did not develop powers until puberty, so hope is not lost. And things could always be worse.

Scotticus: TNG

Wyatt was born yesterday at 20:24. So far there is no sign of him being superpowered, and to be honest I have my doubts that he could even overcome a low-level henchman at this stage.

For years I swore no son of mine would ever grow up to be a sidekick, but... perhaps I've been rash. I look into his face and I know that I will still love him even if he never develops the crimefighting moxie to carry his own storyline.

But by the gods, if some supercycle-riding gadgeteer ever tries to put Wyatt in a sidecar, he'll have a whole new nemesis on his hands.