Adaptations

We finished First Language Lessons Level 4, which is good since we should probably be somewhere in the vicinity of fifth grade by now. I'm moving Elle right into Easy Grammar Plus from here. It's considered junior/senior high school level, but we'll take our time, and at the rate we're going she'll be on track to complete it by the end of grade 12. Just kidding.

I hope.

I was lucky to catch a screening of Waiting for "Superman" at our local college. It's thought-provoking and well done, though it does not tell the full story. As an independent educator, I occasionally found myself snickering out of sync with the room full of pros, but everyone was pretty much in agreement: The system is not working; something has got to change. There were few dry eyes by the end of it all. It'll be out this week on DVD.

We're celebrating Darwin Day, February 12, with a visit to Dinosaur World along with the group Humanist Families - Greater Tampa Region. Coincidentally, I just happened to receive Inherit the Wind from Netflix for a nice tie-in. "Coincidentally," I say, because if your queue is anything like mine, it's frequently altered without your express written consent. I'm never quite sure what exactly will turn up in my mailbox. Our local theater company is doing a production of Inherit the Wind as well, and Elle has expressed an interest in seeing a live performance.

Happy Darwin Day!

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The World Question 2010

The Edge posits its annual question, How Is The Internet Changing the Way You Think?

I read this question on someone else's blog, though I cannot for the life of me now remember whose. I thought it was interesting and began composing an answer in my head and planning a post. A couple weeks elapsed during which time I became aware of additional ideas I would like to add to my still theoretical post, but whenever I sat down to put fingers to the keyboard I was eventually distracted by more pressing concerns like when was Mafia Wars finally going to open up Bangkok and how many more rounds of Farkle would it take to win back all the chips I'd lost. Wait, are they called "chips" or "points"? Let me go check that real quick...

Today, determined to finally spill my story, I began a search for the pointer-outer of this interesting article leading me on a search of the most likely bloggers' sites where I then lingered to read their newer postings. Where was I...?

In spite of how it seems, not all my time is spent online (though I'll admit to hiding my online status so you'll never know for sure), and I determined to disprove any evidence that the internet was breaking my thoughts into byte-sized chunks by picking up a book, a big fat one that would require a great deal of concentration to finish. After two weeks of plowing through -- insert name of the book after getting link from Amazon store in case anyone wants to buy it through my site and while I'm there quickly check my store credit balance and notice, dang, it's still zero, and think that a Kindle might be nice and consider checking out the new iPad for comparison later, but first add a status update that just popped into my head when I used another open window that was still running Facebook, and oh! hey, it's my nephew's birthday, just a quick b-day wish and a laugh when I read my daughter's post to him before getting back to, ummmm, oh yeah... Infinite Jest. I'm a whole -- run out to the car to find the book to check the page number and discover the bookmark fell out and futilely spend a good 15 minutes trying to figure out where I was, so for convenience sake estimate that I'm -- 100 pages in. Time for youngest daughter's dance class, time to get back in the car. Listen to "Living On Earth" and note a teaser for an interesting story I will not get to hear as it comes too late in the program and aim to look it up when I get home. Get home and forget it. Remember to try and file online paperwork for a past benefit claim and review online college application. Remind myself to update Sarabelle's transcript with corrections and additions, check Facebook and try to complete this post instead. Pride myself on the fact that while I may occasionally converse in the third person, at least I don't limit myself to 140 characters. Just learned while fact checking Twitter's limit, although apparently there are now ways to get around that. Kids interrupt to ask me to find a movie on Netflix. After searching, spend a few extra minutes adding reviews of previously viewed movies for enhanced future movie recommendations. Notice my RSS blog file has 61 updates...

Wait, what was the question again?

The Great Beyond

Enjoying some beautiful, Florida winter weather yesterday led to a deep gratitude and wonder about the ridiculously amazing fact I am here at all, and then, naturally, to thoughts of impermanence.

I'm impermanent. I'm okay with that. I feel very fortunate to have had a turn on this planet in spite of the enormous odds against it ever happening and am enjoying the ride as much as possible during this blink-of-an-eye existence.

But who will take care of my kids when I'm gone?

Jorge and I have discussed it in the past: The older of my two brothers has been at the top of our list for years, but now, after remarrying, he and his wife have five daughters between them. Three more would be tough, though they all get along famously. We used to think Jorge's brother would be a solid choice, able to keep them in familiar surroundings, financially secure and able to wisely manage any possible assets on behalf of the girls, but he and his wife are several years older and busy with grandchildren now. My cousin, who is a lot like me with a sicker sense of humor, and her husband, Nature Boy, would be great influences. Adding three more occupants to their home would be challenging, but the possibility of finally having a house in Florida might persuade them.*

Physically, any of the above choices would suffice, but what about spiritually? Who would model morality without religion, without a god? Who would encourage them to challenge authority and blind faith, to be free and critical thinkers? Who would promote the ideas and practices of the four noble truths?

Have you dealt with this? Does it matter?



*We've never actually gotten around to asking any of them, so this may be the first they're hearing of it. Surprise!

Demon-Haunted

Ironic isn't it that my religious friends seem to think the world is becoming more wicked, ruled by Satan, and headed towards its ultimate demise, Armageddon, when really it seems to be an increase in ignorance, majorly perpetrated and propagated by religion, that could cause our demise?

The Tree of Knowledge, ha.

The Biggest Lesson

I had a great post planned out in my head this morning as I showered. Not that I think of you all when I’m showering, that would be weird (though at this point with few recent posts and dwindling readers you all could certainly fit into my bathroom -- just please don’t lean on that collapsing tile wall over there), but I’ve been researching and synthesizing vast amounts of material lately and this little posting session popped into my head during a rare relaxed and undisturbed moment and served to consolidate my thoughts. Of course, once I shut off the faucet, most of those ideas ran right down the drain with the water, but I figured I might at least try and explain my relative silence -- before I chase off the remaining few of you.

I’ve been off on a rabbit trail lately. A fascinating one that caused me to abandon the giant heap of school study-related books I’d been slowly picking away at. One that sent me off to new websites and blogs and a whole new stack of “must-reads.” One that is the apex of studies in logic, history, science, and literature; a giant detective story; a search for truth. The Truth. And one with both disturbing and comforting answers.

The only explanation to the big question that makes sense to me -- from the genesis of my revelation as a skeptical and then lapsed Catholic, to my comparative studies of and eventual distrust and dislike for all religions, to my recent earnest Bible studies -- that answers the doubts, inconsistencies, and lapses in logic without complicated twisted interpretations, is that there is simply no God. What was initially a disturbing idea to me, and I’m not just talking about self-identifying with the likes of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a woman who simultaneously terrified and baffled me as a Catholic school girl, but losing the comfortable and unexamined ideologies I’d grown up with and stepping beyond the safety net of the fence-straddling agnostic label toward full-blown, strong atheism -- the realization there is no personally involved heavenly father, that a man named Jesus may have existed but his story is merely a continuation of the sun god myth and the legend overpowers any historical substantiation, that we are merely a happy cosmological and evolutionary accident -- has become a source of solace and strength.

This is it, folks. We’ve got one chance to get it right and enjoy the ride. We’d best not sit by and twiddle our opposable, naturally selected thumbs in denial of reality, fantasizing a shot at a better supernatural existence. I must relish every minute and make the best of my too-short time here. The depression I fought for years is now chased away with the knowledge that I don’t have time for it; every minute is precious, even the unpleasant painful ones. I’m not wasting any more of my life on this planet in anticipation of a better world yet to come, and will instead appreciate the wonders that exist and try to leave this world a better place.

For those who cannot believe as I do, I don’t dare say you are stupid, as a fundamentalist Christian friend accused, only possibly intellectually dishonest with yourselves. Perhaps you have not truly examined the evidence from the other side. It is a hard thing to do; a hard thing to let go of. But wanting something to be true just doesn’t make it so. Now that my eyes have been opened, I find it nearly impossible to imagine that anyone engaged in a scholarly study of history and science could come to any other conclusion. Now that this greatest of questions has been answered to my satisfaction, I can get on with my life.

The Reason for the Season?

Thinking Parents want to know how the recent votes to ban gay marriage fit with our holiday traditions and ideas of family.

Quite simply, they don't. The end-of-the-year holidays are a time to celebrate thankfulness and love. For friends, for family, for the blessings we have, for those who make sacrifices on our behalf. Hate just doesn't fit in there. Penalizing someone for their choice of a loved one and actively setting out to deny them the same rights as any other is mean-spirited, uncharitable, hypocritical, certainly not in keeping with the message of Christianity's eponymous Reason for the Season.

John 13:34
John 13:35
John 15:12
John 15:17

Love one another. Everyone. Not just the ones in your churches. Not just the ones you like. Not just the ones whose behavior you approve of.

Matthew 5:44
Luke 6:27
Luke 6:35

Love your enemies.

Our dining room table easily seats ten. There are only five of us. We've always got room for more.

This week the Australian Parliament made changes to nearly 100 Commonwealth laws to remove discrimination against same-sex couples. The changes cover areas like retirement benefits, health, employment entitlements, and aged care. The Marriage Act of 1961, redefined in 2004 to explicitly define marriage as being between a man and a woman, still holds, however, de facto couples, couples living together without being married, have the same legal rights as married couples. All states and territories now recognize cohabitating same-sex couples as having all the rights of opposite-sex de factos. It's a nice little work-around. And something else to be thankful for.

Thank you, Dale McGowan...

...for putting together a handy dandy list of secular parenting blogs.

I've spent the last couple hours checking them out, as well as the ones mentioned in the comments, and my blogroll just got a little longer.

College?

I skipped college. At some point while I was in high school, probably when I spent one whole Sophomore gym term filing university promotional materials alphabetically in the guidance counselor’s office wearing a full-leg cast, I realized this was probably not for me. Too many smiling faces, too many pretty campuses, too many state-of-the-art sports complexes. I wouldn’t have minded dressing like a prep and lazing around the yard studying with friends, pondering life’s deepest mysteries in the golden autumn sunshine like everybody seemed to be doing in the brochures, and it would have been fun to be in a dorm with roommates and parties and frat boys, but I could not think of one good reason why I needed to be there. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet and going just to get my requirements out of the way, hoping that something would click while I was there seemed like a waste. It wasn’t about the money either (though it still seemed like a fortune then), I’d been offered a scholarship to a pretty good out-of-state university based on my SAT scores and my grandfather would have been pleased to help out and have me as a legacy at his or my grandmother’s alma maters. When the time came to commit to one school or another and I still couldn’t think of why I should go or what I wanted to study, my mother in desperation suggested I go to a local “college” and learn to be a travel agent, based entirely on my interest in traveling. That’s when I knew it was pointless, that college was no more than job training. I could pass tests, I have always been a natural born test-taker, both the fill-in-the-bubble and the B-essay type (I once scored an A+ on a written exam about Anna Karenina without knowing a thing about the book -- it’s only been in the last few years I found out how it ended), and I knew that all I’d get out of it after jumping through the hoops and passing the exams was a piece of paper saying so. There would be no deep philosophical discussions, no real education. If a diploma was what I needed, I’d buy one from the back pages of Rolling Stone, maybe make myself a minister while I was at it. If I wanted to travel, I’d pack my bags and go. If job training was what I needed, I’d get mine on the job.

And I did. Years later, after an easy acceptance by a Florida university -- my application submitted to staunch the parental badgering that “you’ll never amount to anything without some kind of degree” -- and another case of cold feet, I took a job at a theme park in security, moved into marketing, promotions, public relations and concert production, and then when my boss left for a bigger and more exciting opportunity with a Broadway producer, she took me with her (dependent as she was on my skillful rewriting of her correspondence.) She, and most of the staff at my new job, were all Gators, and while there was probably some nepotism, not having a diploma did not limit my potential in the company, in fact, it was probably better for me that I had not pursued that second-chance diploma as it would have branded me a traitorous ‘Nole.

Along the way, I met and married Jorge, a college-drop out with strong entrepreneurial skills and a real estate license, who has been doing well running his own business for twenty years or so.

Our girls have been brought up to understand that they can do pretty much what they want to do, and that most of that does not require a degree. My mother is still pushing college, working on the next generation now, but it falls on deaf ears. These kids have seen first hand that college is not the one-track path to success.

In Australia, at least in Queensland, kids may begin apprenticeships or certificate programs in year 10. There’s no stigma attached to the vo-tech path, it’s not a last ditch effort to keep bad kids in school. Students come out of the various programs highly skilled and ready to work. There’s no need to spend years chasing ever higher academic credentials in competition for good-paying jobs. They get on with their lives. The ones that want degrees for advanced studies and choose to go to uni take an exit exam in year 12. Those scores indicate which colleges and professions are available to them. Pretty simple. No padding your high school qualifications with AP classes or club memberships, no SAT prep classes or pressure to be the valedictorian just to get into a “good” school.

I agree with the Gates Foundation’s aim that children should have a basic education and graduate high school with a grounding in citizenship and the skills to continue on to college should it suit them. To imply that college is the be-all-end-all of an education is misguided. It’s one thing to insist on standards, it’s another to inflate them. We need more options: more job training and practical skill development opportunities, more focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, more employers to drop the phony, puffed-up degree requirements. To say that every kid needs to go to college is almost comical. As Syndrome says in The Incredibles, “...I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super -- [chuckles evilly] -- no one will be.

Check out the other posts on this topic at the Thinking Parents Wiki.

Holy Moley

The latest ponderment at the Thinking Parents Wiki was to pick a religion, any religion, that you could conceivably follow, excluding any that may have been part of your past. No fair picking None of the Above either.

Lately I’ve been studying the teachings and trying to follow the practice of Buddhism, especially the mindfulness trainings of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, but since that’s not a religion in the sense of belief in or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god or gods, maybe that shouldn’t count.

Instead, I will offer for your consideration a new religion, new only in the sense that it is not a recognized tax-exempt charitable organization. Yet. I am a Golden Ruler. My god is the god of the unknown and the unknowable, the vastness of the universe from beyond the Milky Way to the universe within, the spark behind the Big Bang. Not yours? No problem! Your own personal god, gods, or lack thereof is welcome. There is no worship involved, only wonder and awe and thankfulness, at least for me. You are free to incorporate any or none of it as you see fit. There are no rigid rituals to follow, though members may create their own. The one immutable doctrine is the ethic of reciprocity: Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You.

Be a Golden Ruler! Join today! Please send your not quite tax deductible contributions to me (surely you wouldn’t mind someone doing that unto you.) Amen.

Hmmmm...

The clock is running. Thirty seconds to explain who I’m voting for.

To be honest, I don’t know yet. I’m one of those accused of throwing my vote away, voting my conscience rather than for the lesser of two evils, for the candidate I believe most likely to avert disaster politically, economically, socially, and ecologically; restore our freedoms; and protect our rights.

I don’t want a dream of change (that’s what concerns me about a certain candidate that sounds too good to be true), I want real change. Big change. Can you affect that from within the same old oligarchical system? I’m doubtful.

So here I sit, a No Party Affiliation libertarian-leaning voter, on the other side of the planet, away from the media saturation and drama, all sound bites and spin doctors, studying voting records, comparing stances on issues, analyzing the choices of respected peers...

...and while I can’t decide yet who will get my vote, it sure will not be this guy.

What if...?

What would you be doing if you didn’t have kids?

If I had continued on the track we were on, Jorge and I would have been living in Belize operating a jungle eco guest house for years. We would have probably overcome the difficulties of drilling a good well on our property and, avoiding the inherent dangers of the area: machete-wielding Guatemalan and Salvadoran illegals, fer-de-lance snakes, tetchy marijuana farmers, gravity-propelled coconuts, been somewhat successful. He or I or both of us might have gone native at some point. I would possibly have become like most other bored, ex-pat wives down there and taken up painting and a fondness for rum, but not until after I’d volunteered a couple of seasons on the dig at Caracol. I would have a bigger stash of ancient artifacts. I would be multilingual, speaking fluent Spanish, the local Creole pidgin English, a little Kekchi Maya, and maybe some German. I might still look good in a pair of shorts and would probably still have a cigarette in my hand (and a much more gravelly voice.) The hair would still be mostly blonde though darker roots would peek out in between infrequent flights to Miami to visit family -- who were always too scared and spoiled to visit -- and shop. We might have considered selling out and moving somewhere else, somewhere more exotic, after several years of thriving tourism slowed and we tired of answering the same old guests’ questions: Twenty years...Why not?...We were looking for a palm-lined beach to string a hammock up on but instead went into the mountains, fell in love with the caves, waterfalls, and ruins, spotted a For Sale sign..., but would be stuck in a difficult real estate market with a unique property. (Essentially where we are today, real estate-wise, with kids.)

The biggest difference is that I would probably still be a church-goer. Not a devout one, just a cultural attendee. Until I had kids and began homeschooling and really studying history, I hadn’t the substantial evidence to support my nagging doubts about the incredible hypocrisy of The Church and many of its members and the authority of the Bible. We caved to the pressure from family to baptize all three girls, though to us it was an empty ceremony, and one even made it to her first communion before we finally drew the line at being hypocrites ourselves. I would not force my children to believe something I didn’t. Jorge, ever the patient non-believer, had stood silently aside until my epiphany. I had always questioned authority, but until the kids came along, I never saw the necessity of cultivating defiance and open-mindedness. I would still be a follower.

Check out the other responses at the Thinking Parents Wiki.

Tax Day

Generally I am the sort of person who upon receiving my W-2 or 1099 forms has her return in the mail to the IRS the very same day, so replying at such a late date to the Thinking Parents Wiki has me feeling like the time I sat in line in my car at the post office at 11:57 PM to personally hand my husband's return to the poor postal slob on duty that night. Yeah. I file separately. You can probably see why.

The short answer to the question is, yes, relative to the services we receive from the government we do pay too much in taxes.

We live in Florida. Aside from the sub-prime debacle and the general sluggish national real estate market, Florida has the added burden of sky high property taxes affecting real estate sales. Homestead exemptions reduce tax valuations on a primary residence by $25,000 (for typical owners) and lock in a low maximum 3% annual increase, which is wonderful if you've owned your home for years, but not so wonderful if you're buying these days. The exemption does not transfer over with the property to new owners so they get socked with taxes based on the new, much higher rates. That sure won't speed along any recovery.

Let's see, county taxes on my primary residence support roads, water, sewer, garbage collection, schools, emergency services, all average, nothing special.

But.

We also own another teeny house in the same county. It was our primary residence for years. It's on a boat-only island. There are no roads, water, sewer, garbage collection, schools, or emergency services. Sure, the Sheriff will show up sooner or later if there's a big problem, but if someone needs immediate medical attention, you had better hope you fueled up the boat and the weather holds. There are no county facilities for home owners to access the mainland, meaning we pay for boat slips at local (expensive) marinas over and above the taxes for non-existent services, where at least most of us can access dumpsters for trash disposal. Because this teeny house is waterfront, we pay the same amount in taxes as the bigger house on the dry lot. The county occasionally proposes special new taxes to help establish some of services that we already pay for and don't have out there. Luckily for us they're a rather backward lot.

On a federal level, we pay more for the option of filing married but separately and for not bothering with deductions. It's lazy. It's simple. It's our choice. We pay more than our fair share and we ask nothing in return.

But.

We are also permanent residents of Australia. We rent but do own some investment property that we pay local council rates on. It's inexpensive and a bargain for the infrastructure involved. On a federal level, tax laws in both countries have us paying income tax on any income earned in either country. Money we make in Australia gets taxed as income to us in Australia and in the US. Money made in the US gets taxed as income to us in the US and Australia. Even though we can only earn and live and spend in one country at a time. Fortunately, in one respect, we haven't made much money in Australia. The general income tax rate is around 30%, but with a little bit of legal wangling we can reduce it to nearly half that. Here though, we have free health care and that makes all the difference. Say what you will about socialized medicine (but maybe watch Sicko first), whatever we pay in taxes here is worth it. Three trips to the emergency room for kids' stitches and one overnight with follow-up testing for me in a two month stretch would have been a huge hit to us in the States, being self-employed and uninsured. But here? No charge. Just part of what every Australian is entitled to. What we pay here is very fair compared with the services we receive, if only the IRS didn't have its greedy mitts out too.

Happy April 15, everyone.