So What Can "American Idol" Teach Our Kids About...Cheating??

Honesty and fair play: two concepts that we constantly try and instill in our children. Try your hardest and be proud when you’ve given your all. If you don’t win the race, it’s alright as long as you did your best. If you can’t win honestly, it’s better to lose than cheat.

As parents, we hope that these are ideas that will sink in with our sons and daughters and help motivate them to do their best regardless of the circumstances – as long as it’s done in a respectful and honest manner.

So what does it mean when a cultural phenomenon like “American Idol” - a show that so many young people look to as an example of how hard work (and a bit of luck) pays off in the end – is suddenly in the news for cheating??

As the New York Times reported just a short time ago, AT&T may have rigged the system somewhat so that more votes were cast for the ultimate winner through a block voting system than were for the runner-up. In fact, according to the Times story, “AT&T…might have influenced the outcome of this year’s competition by providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes at parties organized by fans of Kris Allen, the Arkansas singer who was the winner of the show last week...There appear to have been no similar efforts to provide free texting services to supporters of Adam Lambert.”

Simon, Randy, Paula and the new judge (you can tell I watch this show a lot) didn’t smash someone’s dream of fame and fortune. It wasn’t even millions of fans voting for Kris over Adam who did it. No, it was a company – a sponsor – who decided (allegedly) to rig the system.

What does this teach our kids about fair play, hard work and honest effort? No matter what you do, someone else can change the rules on you at the last minute?

Special Little Moments with Your Kids

There’s so much rush to life: getting up, ready, and out the door on time for work; making sure the kids are up and dressed and have their show-and-tell items ready for preschool; scheduling the biweekly lawn mowing; meetings; family visits. The list of responsibilities for parents is never-ending, and it seems like everything is a constant rush to complete one task and get going on the next one.

As such, it’s the quiet times that really make the rushed times worthwhile. Our oldest daughter going to great lengths to set up our living room for a show she’s about to perform, and making sure we have pennies to buy our tickets and seats with a good view. My youngest daughter coming down to get me to read a story to her and then falling asleep in my lap for two hours. Both of them shrugging off my concerns over their being afraid to enjoy their first-ever viewing of two of the “Jurassic Park” films – surprisingly, without the crying and screaming I expected (case in point with my oldest, after a pair of T-Rexes has divided one of the characters among themselves for a quick snack: “Daddy? Will the others now go try and find him? Did he hide in the jungle? Will they be able to put his head back on?”).

Life can be brutal, exhausting, and often demoralizing. The work never ends, you never seem to have enough time or enough money to do everything you want or need to do, and you juggle all of this with trying to be a good parent. But that’s where kids can be helpful and give each of us a gift with the little things they try to do – to entertain us, to get our attention, to make us feel loved.

Make sure you enjoy those small moments that will help keep you going.

Your Child is Dangerously Ill; Would You Support Their Decision to Refuse Treatment?

For the past few days, network news has been riveted by the story of 13-year-old Daniel Hauser, the Minnesota boy suffering from Hodgkins lymphoma who has refused chemotherapy and whose parents are respecting his wishes. I’m not certain whether Daniel doesn’t want to proceed due to religious convictions or as a result of how the first round of chemotherapy made him feel. However, the pace has certainly picked up; in short (for those not familiar with the story), a judge intervened in the matter, Daniel and his mother have now disappeared, and an arrest warrant has been issued.

There are two issues that I see here which are troubling to me and which I can’t sort out in my mind: parents respecting the wishes of a child versus pushing for something which could save his life; and the right of the courts to intervene in decisions which should be made by a family. To begin, I can’t judge the maturity level of Daniel nor his capability for making such a decision about his own health; after all, he is only 13, and I can’t recall that I’ve met anyone at that age who is able to tackle such life-changing decisions. His parents are certainly doing what they feel they must in order to support their son. However, I look at my children and try and reconcile the anguish these parents must be feeling between honoring and respecting your child and doing whatever you need to do to save their life.

I don’t have a common frame of reference with those whose religious convictions lead them to turn down medical assistance and instead wait for direct intervention from God (although I do feel that the abilities with which our doctors and nurses have been blessed in order to save lives is direct intervention from God), and as such I’m in no position to judge anyone based solely on that. However, even if I did believe that, how in good conscious – how as a course of loving my children – could I look at either of my daughters during a time where their health is in danger and not want to sweep them in my arms and get them to the best care possible? Isn’t one of the roles of a parent to want the very best of everything for your children, including medical care? Even if one my kids was at a point where they were young enough to be under the age of majority and still decided they didn’t want to pursue medical care, I have a feeling I would have to resort to the “I know what’s best for you” argument and force them. Choosing between supporting your children and doing what you – not they – feel is best for their well-being is a decision I hope never have to face.

At the same time, where does the court system have the authority to intervene on a matter such as this? I know that there are a multitude of laws on the books regarding endangering the well-being of a child, and certainly the parents could be considered to be endangering Daniel by not forcing him to receive treatment. But Daniel made his decision for whatever reason he felt was appropriate, and if by some chance it is as a result of a strongly-held religious view wouldn’t the court’s intervening be a violation of a person’s First Amendment protections against infringing on their religious beliefs?

At its core, I see this situation as it stands today being just a terrible period of fear: a child who thinks he knows what he is doing (even though doctors have said his chances for survival improve to nearly 90 percent with treatment) but is afraid because of the decision he has made; parents who are fearful of the consequences of their supporting his position; a mother and child on the run who are afraid of being caught. And above all, there has to be an overwhelming fear of the potential for this mother and father to lose their son.

I don’t know what I would do in this situation. Do you?

There's More to Life Than What's Right in Front of You

Today started off great – up early, ready early, out the door on time. Driving to work, all I could focus on was the list of projects awaiting me on my desk and in my email inbox. It’s Thursday, the weekend is almost here, and I was about to knock off some important work before riding off into the Friday evening sunset in just over a day.

To quote Ethel Merman, “Everything’s coming up roses!”

My car, however, had other ideas. It’s odd, but it seems that alternators seem to have this built-in ability to detect the most inopportune time to malfunction. Waving battery needles and red “Hey! Look down here at the dashboard! What do you think is wrong with me?” lights start dancing around in front of me, and before I knew it I was sitting on the side of the road, cell phone in hand, pacing a rut in the median while waiting for Triple AAA to tow me across the Potomac.

If Ethel was trying to tell me everything was coming up roses, Judas Priest was countering with, “You’ve got another thing comin’!”

So, instead of being at work at 7:30, rifling through the morning papers and my stack of news clippings, I was at my desk two hours late, cursing the car, the delay in tackling my work, and my dumb luck. Franz Schubert once said “A man endures misfortune without complaint;” obviously, Schubert never met me on a Thursday morning when my Type A schedule was getting shoved into Type E chaos.

And then I had a chat with a friend. The details of the chat aren’t important; it is sufficient to say that it is someone with a lot on their plate – actually, a lot on many different plates – and it put my car troubles (and griping) solidly into perspective. This friend gives a lot – to their family, their friends, their colleagues; I can certainly say that I’ve been given the gift of some valuable time, conversation, and insights over the past couple of years. On this day, at this particular time, I saw that I could try – in my own inimitable way – to give a little something back.

It certainly never seems, when trying to repay the kindness of friends, to measure up to what I’ve been given, but even in trying to give something back to this friend, I got something back: an awareness (not quite the burning bush, but not too shabby in its own right) that alternators and getting to work on time and clearing off a to-do list are secondary to the needs of others.

A famous Vulcan once said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” Today, I got a great reminder in the midst of the chaos that was my own that it’s sometimes more important to focus on the needs of the one and the chaos that they might be battling in their own life.

So thank you Ford Motor Company – if it wasn’t for your lousy alternator, I might have missed out on a great gift!

Just Because You Leave High School Doesn't Mean Your Teachers are Done

In yet another sign that the years since my graduation from high school continue to quickly fade into the past, I received word last night night that another one of my high school teachers has passed away.

She was 83 years old and had lived a long and happy life, devoting her working life to English and her retirement years to her friends, her family, and what I've heard was an absolutely magnificent garden. I hadn't actually seen her in the two-plus decades since I left school, but I had spoken with her on the telephone a few times over the years and I received word from time that she had made a point of keeping up with what I was doing with my life.

I always felt guilty over the years that we had played some ridiculous pranks on her during our youth - setting her turntable speed to 16 rpm just before she was due to start playing a recording of one of Shakespeare's plays; setting the alarm clock on her filing cabinet to go off in a class later in the day; reversing all of the desks in the room so that she was facing one wall and all of the students were facing the other. We always thought we were being funny, but as time went on I always felt badly that we had tormented her as much as we did.

Another of my teachers from those years - a wonderful lady who is godmother to my oldest child, was like my second mother during my parents' divorce, and has become a very dear friend - was the one who had informed me of Mrs. O's death, and she was the one in whom I confided my guilt over the pranks we had played. The response was not what I had expected; she simply laughed and said that teachers are very forgiving folks who understand that they are teaching kids, and that Mrs. O never held those pranks against me. In fact, she told me that the two of them had had many conversations over the years about the direction my life was taking, about some of the writing I had been doing (historical articles published in an Alabama magazine), and about my marriage and the growth of my new family.

Quite unexpectedly, here was another lesson I learned from these two teachers: that they can be very forgiving, and that interest in their students never ends with the walk across the stage in cap-and-gown, diploma held high.

Guilt? It's gone. Now I'm just smiling...

An Evening with Christopher Buckley

From my younger years, I have vivid recollections of William F. Buckley, Jr., mostly from his role as host of PBS' "Firing Line." I don't know how often my parents watched the show, but I have strong memories of Buckley, reclining in his chair, notes on his knee, speaking with his inimitable accent about important news of the day. As I got older and my political beliefs were being developed, I discovered just how important Buckley had been to generations of conservatives in this country as the father of the movement.

The next generation of the family, son Christopher, wasn't as well known to me. I had heard of his many humorous novels - I suppose the most famous being Thank You for Smoking - but hadn't actually read any of them, and until recently hadn't read any of his columns (which are carried on the website The Daily Beast; I highly recommend them). I also recalled that he had incurred the wrath of the hard-right conservatives when he broke with family tradition and endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 election. So when I saw that was appearing at Politics and Prose last night to discuss his latest book, Losing Mum and Pup, I took advantage of the opportunity and attended to learn a bit more about him.

As with my previous visits to the store, I opted to arrive early and am glad I did - the place was absolutely packed. I was fortunate to get a good seat, and the friend who was joining me managed to arrive just two or three minutes before I would have been required to relinquish the seat I was holding for him. What was most surprising to me was that contrary to what I was expecting in terms of the age of the crowd, a large majority of those in attendance were in their 70s - seemingly more from WFB's generation than that of his son, but was certainly pleased that his writing holds appeal to such a large segment of folks. One lady seated near me asked if I was familiar with his work, and then proceded to give one of the best layperson's explanations of his writing that I'll ever get - "He takes people from Washington that you'll probably recognize and puts them in situations that aren't really absurd - but then drags them out to as absurd an end as he possibly can."

This was Buckley's thirteenth appearance at Politics and Prose, and he celebrated this event by bringing his son and daughter with him - both of whom really seemed to enjoy being there with him (I can't say all kids their age would have enjoyed doing something like this on a gorgeous Friday spring night in Washington). He was an extremely witty and charming gentleman and reminded me of a cool college professor that takes the class out for beers at the end of the semester. The audience was quite taken with him and hung on his every word.

He began by reading a chapter of his newest book, which covers the year of his life between the death of his mother and the death of his father (the New York Times recently published a great review, which can be read here). It was very poignant but full of humor - made all the more real by the emotion he put into reading it - and we were all obviously on a fine line between laughter and tears. At the conclusion of his reading, he then took several questions from the audience - and it was almost painful listening at some of the insane queries being posed: one gentleman was intent on hearing every opinion Buckley had about the feud between his father and Gore Vidal resulting from the famous incident at the 1968 Democrat convention (a clip of which can be viewed here), which quickly got old; one lady, who had also lost her parents, went into a long explanation of how she had learned things about them as she was going through their papers and how she was so moved by Buckley's experience that she literally "curled up into a fetal position around the book" (he ended his response to her by thanking her for curling up with his book, "however you did it"); another gentleman tried to be very respectful as he asked Buckley if he thought his father's mind had become sclerotic towards the end of his life (which elicited an audible groan from the audience). Despite the inane quality of most of the questions, he handled each of them very gracefully.

Then came the stampede for the signing line, which one gentleman beat by starting to walk towards Buckley during the answer to his last question, just to ensure that he was at the table immediately. My friend and I found a spot towards the end and had a nice visit as the line moved - surprisingly quickly, in fact, as it seemed most of the crowd left after he finished with the question-and-answer session. He took time to chat with everyone and pose for photos for those who asked, and I had an opportunity to tell him how much I had enjoyed reading his Daily Beast columns and was looking forward to his books.

All in all, it was a great evening - and seeing as how Buckley and his family live here in the Washington area, I'm hoping to have more opportunities in the future to hear him speak.

Lunch Served by the Dalai Lama

One of the most remarkable stories I read in the media over the weekend was one which described the visit paid to a California soup kitchen by the Dalai Lama. In addition to greeting and speaking with those utilizing the kitchen's services - he referred to himself in his remarks as homeless as well, which I'm certain did wonders to give the patrons a sense of elevation - he also put on an apron and jumped behind the counter to serve lunch.

You see politicians and celebrities here in the U.S. making these sorts of gestures all the time (genuine or otherwise) and they often go without much notice (just because you see it so often).

This is definitely something you don't see every day...

You can read the full story here. The photos that I've included here were taken by photographer Noah Berger and ran with the story.

Rethinking the Death Penalty

Consider this: your spouse or one of your children heads out of the house to run a quick errand – picking up a gallon of milk or gassing up the tank of the car. While there, a gang of kids approaches them in the parking lot and demands their wallet or purse. Your family member resists, and in the course of fighting off the robbers they are killed. There’s a trial and conviction, and because the killing occurred during the commission of a robbery, the potential sentence could be for the guilty to be put to death.

Fast forward to the sentencing hearing, and you are asked to speak – either in support of the death penalty or of life in prison.

What would you do?

For many years, I always thought that it would be an easy question for me should I (God forbid) find myself in that situation: execution. If someone is going to take the life of someone I love, then it’s only fair that there be retribution and that they pay with their life. I can’t even remember the number of times I’ve seen a news story or investigative report about a killer somewhere had their execution delayed time after time (and I get particularly angry when the killing involves a child) and gotten upset over the delayed justice.

In the past few days, however, everything I thought I knew about how I would react – and my support of the death penalty in general – has been turned on its end. After reading a review of Thomas Cahill’s newest book, A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green, I decided to go out and pick up a copy, and without question it has made me rethink my entire position. Dominique was a young black man arrested, tried and convicted of a murder during a robbery and later sentenced to death. The conviction came about through a combination of ineffective legal representation, backroom deals between the prosecutors and other white defendants, and a flawed system of justice in Texas whereby a person doesn’t even have to be the triggerman to be sentenced to death.

Cahill makes the point that he’s not even sure whether Dominique was guilty or not of the murder, and Dominique - who always insinuated that someone else pulled the trigger – never named names. However, he does an outstanding job of outlining the horrific miscarriage of justice brought about by the Texas judicial system, and it is infuriating to read about court-appointed attorneys not pursuing leads, prosecutors taking the word of white defendants over that of a black man (with absolutely no evidence to back up their position), and countless other intentional “slips” and sidesteps that ultimately pushed Dominique to his death by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas in 1994.

In the midst of the book, there were several things in particular that really seized me and wouldn’t let go. One was a quote from Sheila Murphy, a retired judge who came into Dominique’s case towards the end and who made a valiant effort to save his life; she is speaking here about witnessing wives and girlfriends bringing their children to visits with their husbands and boyfriends on death row: “No place for children to play, no books, no coloring books. They just have to sit and wait while their mother talks on the phone to their father. They just look on with eyes so sad – such inhumanity to innocent children under color of law.”

Another point that clung to me was reading about Dominique’s horrible childhood: drug-addicted and abusive parents; a supportive grandmother who died while Dominique was still young; and ultimately fleeing the home with his younger brothers to protect them from the same beatings and burnings he had endured. He had to resort to selling drugs and stealing, but all the while doing so knowing that he couldn’t allow his brothers to travel the road on which he was moving.

There was an overwhelming level of support Dominique received from various individuals and groups, both here and in Europe. Cahill talks at great length about the amazing men and women involved with the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome who, after one member responded to a letter from Dominique published in an Italian newspaper, went out of their way to show him support and – most significantly – love. They developed a deep and genuine affection for him and were in many ways responsible for the transformation he underwent during his 11 years in prison.

I developed an even greater level of respect for Archbishop Tutu than I already have because of his involvement in this story; he took the time in the midst of a packed schedule in the United States to visit Dominique – to listen to his story, to laugh with him, to cry with him, to show (as with those in Sant’Egidio) him a love and compassion that he hadn’t experienced from his own family. Tutu became a champion of his cause and a source of inspiration for Dominique and for all his fellow prisoners on Texas’ death row. During a sermon following his visit with Dominique, he pointed out one of the great paradoxes about the United States: “You are a very generous people, Americans, and it is very difficult to square with your remarkable vindictiveness, which doesn’t square with your remarkable generosity.”

I was amazed by the transformation which Dominique underwent. Recognizing that he was receiving extremely substandard legal representation by his court-appointed team, he took it upon himself to read every aspect of the law and educate himself about every bit of his case. He read books to improve his mind and strengthen his spirit, and over the 11 years of his incarceration his writing and communications skills evolved from someone with little formal education to a young man of great intellect and articulateness.

But the most powerful take-away from this book (and to bring this entry full circle) was the power of forgiveness – the forgiveness that Dominique had for those who had wronged him, but most especially the forgiveness of the victim’s family towards Dominique. They forgave unconditionally, were strong advocates of a life sentence versus lethal injection, and because of their opposition to the sentence were not invited to witness the execution. One of the sons told reporters, “I felt it was dirty, and the state will have their chance to face a higher authority – that is, God…I mean, Andrew Lastrapes was my daddy in the first place, and I forgave Dominique. I know God has a place for Dominique in heaven. The person I met doesn’t deserve to die. He became close to me, and I pray that he goes to heaven.”

The book left me with quite a few questions. On the surface, how can this country – as advanced and moral as we claim to be – allow such an atrocious judicial system as that found in Texas to continue to exist? How can this country – as advanced and moral as we claim to be – be in such a rush to put people to death, the way Romans crucified without hesitation.

How can we do this – a nation as advanced and moral and, according to many, as Christian as we are?

There are questions on a deeper level as well. How is it that a family who has actually gone through the experience of losing a loved one at the hands of someone else can forgive so easily, and yet for much of my life I have felt there should be no forgiveness? Why is that I have tried live by much of what I learned from Christ in the New Testament, yet have such an Old Testament view of punishment? Is forgiveness learned, or is it just done?

Yes, this book left me with quite a few questions – questions that I’ll be struggling to answer for quite some time…

First Date Follow-Up

Following up on my last post, I had several comments - both on the blog and off-list - stating that I had done a great job of teasing folks but hadn't done enough to fill out the story and remove the "cliffhanger" status. So, to respect the wishes of some of my friends and readers - and without going into so much detail as to make it boring - let me give you a bit more.

Twenty-five years ago, my family - after having attended one church for nearly two decades - decided to move to a church closer to our home. Being a lover of history and of all things old, I was immediately captivated by the fact that our new church was nearly 150 years old - a brick building with a beautiful sanctuary, huge windows, an extremely high ceiling, and one of those classic churchyards with the tall old oaks and faded stones that give off that wonderful, mysterious aura. The front was bordered by an elegant bring serpentine wall, and the view from the back of the church was of nothing but farms, fields, and a section of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I was also immediately captivated by a young lady in my Sunday school class - long, blonde hair, beautiful smile, intelligent, and funny. She was also three years older than me, which for a 14-year-old was exciting in itself (my father thought it was great, but to this day I'm convinced that my mother was not at all thrilled with the age difference). As interested as I was in her, I was very pleased to find that she was equally interested in me, and our first few Sunday conversations quickly led to numerous telephone calls, notes, and - as I mentiond in my last post - a first date. It was a wonderful evening, and to this day I vivdly remember much of everything that happened.

The first date went well enough that there were others - concerts, plays, walks through the woods. The whole time I never gave a second thought to the age difference, but I should have recognized that it was always the elephant in the room. As much as I was enjoying our time together, she (as I found out later) was becoming concerned about the elephant, and after a few months things did taper off and ultimately end.

For a 14-year-0ld, that sort of thing can be devastating, and it took me quite some time to get over things. With the hindsight of 25 years, however, I can see even more clearly just how wonderful things were, and how blessed I was to have that time - even with the age difference. In my mind, I have this idealized picture of how things had gone, an image to which I was more than happy to cling. Recently, I pulled out my journal from that time and - other than being able to clearly see how I really was a 14-year-old, no matter how much I thought or acted otherwise - was happy to see that much of the idealism was confirmed.

I haven't seen here in about 15 or 20 years, although I've kept tabs on her and know that she's happily married now and living in Europe. I would like to think that perhaps we'll see each other again one day, and I'll have the opportunity to introduce her to my wife and children and to meet her husband. Maybe there will even be a few laughs about the old days - about our church and our youth group, the friends and experiences - and perhaps even a chance for me to say "thanks" for some great memories that I've gladly carried with me for 25 years.

A Special Day

Twenty-five years ago tonight, I went on my very first date. It was a special night indeed, and I still treasure the memory of every moment from that evening.

It seems hard to believe that it was already so very long ago...