“Kippers for breakfast, Aunt Helga? Is it St. Swithin’s Day already?”

The Meming of Life is taking a break from the Feast of Doubting Thomas to St. Swithin’s Day, and possibly a tad beyond. In the meantime, here’s the third in our video series on YouTube.

Coming video topics and very approximate schedule:
P.T. Barnum’s Birthday: Indoctrination vs. influence
John Paul Jones’ Death Day: “What if my child becomes religious?”
Constitution Day (Puerto Rico): The moment of the question
Francis Scott Key’s Birthday: Three myths about death
Feast of Santo Domingo: Teaching kids about evolution

iPod full of sunshine

The results of my informal podcast poll are in! I’ve listened to long excerpts from 35 podcasts recommended on this blog and by friends on Facebook and in TheRealWorld. That’s all it takes, really — within 3 minutes I have a strong inkling whether a podcast is for me. If I’m still listening at ten minutes — rarely the case — it’s decided.

Here then, in no particular order, are the eight podcasts that are, at this point in my life, for me:

Clever Little Pod (comedy)
Friday Night Comedy (BBC)
Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me (NPR)
The Bugle (topical comedy with John Oliver etc)
This American Life (narrative nonfiction)
The Moth (narrative nonfiction)
RadioLab (science and culture)
The Naked Scientists (science)

…and though those are in no particular order, one podcast — after hearing just half of a single episode — has risen waaaaaay above the rest: RadioLab — “where science meets culture and information sounds like music.”

Holy shite, that’s a great program.

I first heard about RadioLab about a year ago — in fact, I think it was from Joe, the designer of the PBB website. I checked it out, thought it looked good, then filed it away, since I wasn’t into podcasts at that point.

Then another friend mentioned it, and another. Finally I put out this call for recommendations, and several people screamed RADIOLAB.

Now I see why.

Titled “Stochasticity,” the episode I’m halfway through is about randomness. And even though I was already familiar with the principles they’re talking about, I’m still eating it up alive. I also played the first bit for the kiddos, who likewise feasted on its tasty innards.

After just half a listen, I’m so well convinced that I downloaded 62 past episodes — 62 hours of RadioLab. [Cue Homer Simpson’s gargle when thinking about bacon.]

As promised, a plenary indulgence is now winging its way to kcruz, barrettc, MCable, tarrkid, Jenny, and several others who wouldn’t know what to do with a plenary indulgence even if it did windows. And a retroactive one for Joe.

I’ll be doing a post about stochasticity shortly. Thanks ever so very seriously much to everyone for your suggestions. My earbuds are buzzing with gratitude.

Pod Almighty

Always a few years behind the curve, I’m finally getting into podcasts. Not many — in fact, very, very few.

I was interviewed by DJ Grothe for the Point of Inquiry podcast last month, a well-produced show from the Center for Inquiry that I listen to once in a while. But when I got an iPod Nano for Father’s Day (poetically so, since my previous one was destroyed by an actual offspring of mine), it wasn’t science and skepticism podcasts I thirstily reloaded. It was comedy.

My almost-fourteen-year-old has had it with my sense of humor. So have I, truthfully, though I’m nicer about it. When I recently made some pointless bit of wordplay, as I do every 45 seconds (see post title), he looked at me with unforgiving eyes and said, “You know what you should do? You should, like, save them up. When something pops into your head, just don’t say it. Save up a hundred, and maybe they’ll add up to one good one. Then you can let that one out.”

I know exactly what he means.

As I’m getting older, I notice that it’s harder to really make me laugh. I see the joke coming, which kills it, or it’s no good to begin with and deserves to die. My standards were lower once. I used to laugh at things just because they were funny. Now, to get a laugh out of me, it has to be (1) funny, (2) smart, and (3) unexpected.

I have tried over thirty new comedy podcasts since Father’s Day, mostly British, which has a much higher success rate with me. Precisely zero hits. I’m still down to just two unsurpassably brilliant weekly podcasts that I’ve listened to for a year, waiting breathlessly for new episodes like the slathering, smart-comedy-starved dog I am:

Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me (The NPR News Quiz)
The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4 (Friday Night Comedy)

(Warning: This second one alternates, four on/four off, with a decent but much less funny BBC program called The Now Show).

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both are comedy quiz shows based on current events. Like The Daily Show, there’s nothing better when it’s done well, and I never, ever survive either of these shows without being snuck up on, a dozen times at least, by great comedy. And that, along with my wife, my kids, and coconut red curry beef, is just about all I ask of life anymore.

Alrighty then: What podcasts do y’all favor, whether comedy or otherwise? A free plenary indulgence to the first twenty people who turn me on to something ab fab.

Truly, madly, deeply

I’m surely not the first to point this phenomenon out, but I find self-canceling verbal intensifiers interesting, and I’m running into a lot of them lately.

(Fortunately, the resulting stain is easily removed with lemon juice and 7-Up.)

First was a conversation with a friend about three weeks ago. “We’re all here for a purpose, I truly believe that,” she said. A novice or robot would hear “truly” and think, “Ooo, okay then, this person has strong reasons for confidence in her position.” But once you’ve heard intensifiers used this way several hundred times, you realize that it actually signals the opposite. No one says “I truly believe that” unless they know their belief is founded on nothing but a wish.

Several more “deeplys” and “trulys” popped up in the following days, all used in the same self-canceling way.

Then there was a tragic news story, the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of a local woman. “I truly believe with all my heart that she’s still alive,” said her mother to an offered microphone. My heart broke for her. In her position, I’d surely say and feel the same groundless things. Maybe I’d even intensify them to keep myself from despair.

But if I were an investigator of the crime, and a relative came to me and whispered, “I believe she’s still alive,” I’d say, “What? Have you heard something? Out with it!” But as soon as I heard “truly, with all my heart,” I’d nod and simply offer my sympathies, realizing there was nothing to it.

You’ll often hear “I deeply believe…” followed by a religious conviction. Not so often “I deeply believe” in evolution or the Krebs cycle. But just as I was getting all puffed up on that line of thought, Google — as she so often does, the saucy minx — rocked my confident assumptions like a conjugal trailer on Valentine’s Day. When I Googled the phrase, “I truly believe,” the second site from the top was British journalist Matthew Parris making this reasoned (if mildly patronizing) statement:

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.

That’ll show me. It nicely confused my simple pigeonholes, always a good thing. And I have a feeling Parris — a pro-religion atheist who is a former Conservative politician and gay — does quite a bit of that.

I truly, deeply believe that we need more people like him.

Powering down

I’m unplugging for seven days of family time. Back on April 11. While I’m gone:

Then, and only then…power down yourself. Go outside. Have a day.

Words

Before I became a writer, I was a reader. Never fewer than three books going at once. Bought blank journals with hand-stitched bindings and filled them with notes and quotes to set this or that sentence in amber so I could safely set it on the shelf and forget it.

Them days is gone.

Becca went looking for me this morning and found me in the recliner in my second floor study, facing a huge window with a southeastern exposure, blasted in the light and heat of that fantastic rising yellow star, you know the one. My favorite morning place. The cup of coffee at my side didn’t surprise her. The book in my lap did.

“Omigosh, you’re reading.”

For the last two years, I’ve spent my whole waking day with words. Between my freelance work, books and book proposals, speeches, columns, and this blog, I write about 3,000 words a day.

The variety is delicious right now. On a typical day, I write about parenting, public education, nonviolent peacekeeping, and transforming everyday work into service. I’ve never had such an engaging professional life.

But in the process, I’ve apparently killed the reader in me. When I close the laptop at 5, the last thing I want to see is another damned parade of those 26 letters and 10 punctuation marks, no matter how new and clever their arrangements. As a result of my daily eight-hour word bath, I have (aside from actual research or books I’ve blurbed) finished maybe three books in two years. Maybe.

The Meming of Life is now averaging 45,000 visits a month, and I do my best to earn that. But recently, when I open my panel to see what’s on deck topic-wise, I find drafts that are gonna require a lot of, you know…words… before they are ready for prime time. The last four “best practices” for nonreligious parenting. Kids and alcohol. The music I want for my funeral. A courageous woman who recently went through much the same galling B.S. I did at the College of St. Catherine. The fantastic Genographic Project at National Geographic. A post titled “Vegehumilitarianism,” whatever the hell that was supposed to be about. And 23 more. Sometimes I’m just plain out of words for the day, and I close the panel again. Sometimes not.

I’ll get to them all eventually. In between times, while you’re waiting, here are some things for y’all to do:

The Instruction Manual

The Parable of the Cupboard, courtesy of my new favorite YouTube channel. One of a series of high-quality videos from this incredibly imaginative and thoughtful guy. Enjoy, share them with your kids (of sufficient age and/or grasp), and expect more of them in this space in the coming weeks.

Anatomy of a Frequently-Asked Question [Greatest Hits]

[Another favorite in a series from the archives while I’m too busy to think. Next new post on Groundhog Day.]

First appeared on April 16, 2008

In a recent article in USA Today (“Am I raising ‘atheist children’?”, March 17, 2008), author Nica Lalli addressed a common question for nonreligious parents: “How would you respond if one of your children became religious?” As the topic went rippling through the nonreligious blogosphere, both the consensus inside nonreligious parenting and the false assumptions outside of it were revealed in comment threads.

Like so many questions we hear, the way it is asked is at least as revealing as any answer. Sometimes I can barely hear the question itself for the clatter of the thrown gauntlet. The tone of the question often implies that all my high-minded claims of parental openness are a self-deluding sham—that hearing that one of my kids had chosen to identify with religion would cause me to fly into an icon-smashing, garment-tearing, child-disowning rage, well before the child had reached the stirring refrain of “Jesus Loves Me.”

There’s a strong consensus among nonreligious parents against putting worldview labels on our children or guiding them by the nose into our own. It’s not unanimous; some of the blog comments I’ve seen since Nica’s piece made me wince, like the atheist mother who said she would not “let” her child identify with religion.

Fortunately, no hot or staining beverages were in my mouth when I read that. Let? Let? I’m not even sure what that means. But that view is happily rare. Most of us are more committed to parenting our children toward genuine autonomy than churning out rubber stamps of ourselves.

One of the many problems with the question is the implication that religious identification is a single point of arrival, like the day a young adult’s daemon takes a fixed form in His Dark Materials or palms begin flashing red in Logan’s Run. Did it work that way for you—or did you pass through a number of stages and try on a number of hats along the way? I thought so. And see what a lovely person you turned out to be.

A close relative of mine went through a period of experimentation with different worldviews. After being a fairly conventional New Testament Christian for a while, she became something of a Manichaean dualist, believing the world was divided into good and evil, darkness and light. She eventually went through a sort of Einsteinian-pantheist phase before adopting a benevolent, utilitarian humanism.

Then she turned six.

I encourage my kids to try on as many beliefs as they wish and to switch back and forth whenever they feel drawn toward a different hat, confident that in the long run they will be better informed not only of the identity they choose, but of those they have declined. Were I to disown my kids each time they passed through a religious identity, I’d have to keep a lawyer on retainer.

Now let’s get specific. My child has become “religious,” you say. Is it “Love-your-neighbor” religious…or “God-hates-fags” religious? “Four Chaplains” religious…or “9/11 hijackers” religious? Dalai Lama…or Jerry Falwell?

Adding to the difficulties is the almost comic range of meaning of “religion.” A good friend of mine has verses from the Book of Psalms scrolling around the walls of his bedroom and believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the sole path to salvation—yet describes himself as “not at all religious, really.” Then you have the Unitarians—the majority of whom are nontheistic—who tend to insist, sometimes downright huffily, that they are religious.

Just as troubling as the idea that I’d protest any and all religious expressions in my children is the notion that I’d applaud any and all nonreligious outcomes. Though many of the most ethical and humane folks I’ve known have been nonreligious, some of the most malignant and repugnant SOBs have been as well. So, then: Is it “Ayaan Hirsi Ali” nonreligious—or “Joe Stalin” nonreligious?

Perhaps you can see why I consider the question, “What if your child becomes religious?” as unanswerably meaningless as, “What if your child becomes political?”

I have three compassionate, socially conscientious, smart, ethical kids, with every indication of remaining so. If they choose a religious expression, it’s likely to be one that expresses those values. They might become liberal Quakers, or UUs, or progressive Episcopalians, or Buddhists, or Jains, framing their tendency toward goodness and conscience in a way different from but entirely respectable to my own way of seeing things. We could do far worse than a world of liberal Quakers.

If instead one of my kids were to identify with a more malignant religion, I’d express my concerns in no uncertain terms. But the consequences of the belief would be the main point of contention, not the fact that it is “religious.” And my love for my child, it goes without saying, would be reduced by not so much as a hair on a flea on a neutrino’s butt.

EyePlejjaleejins [Greatest Hits]

[Another favorite in a series from the archives while I’m too busy to think. Next new post on Groundhog Day.]

First appeared on March 11, 2008

Yesterday I read through a parenting book called How to Raise an American. The book is full of helpful advice for raising children with an unthinking allegiance to the nation of your choice. This one is pitched at the United States, but the techniques described will work equally well — and have worked equally well — to produce unquestioning loyalty to almost any political entity. Lithuanian, are you? Just change the relevant facts, dates and flags, and this book will help you create a saluting servant of Lithuania, singing the National Hymn with pride:

Lithuania, my homeland, land of heroes!
Let your Sons draw strength from the past.
Let your children follow only the paths of virtue,
working for the good of their native land and for all mankind.

(To foster an even higher degree of rabid Lithumania, leave out the part about ‘all mankind.’ Pfft.)

It goes without saying that the same techniques promoted in this book fostered unthinking allegiance to Germany in the 1930s, China in the 1950s, and probably Genghis Khan in the 1220s, for that matter. These are irrelevant, of course, because we are very, very good and they were all very, very bad.

All the same, I’d prefer my kids forgo unthinking allegiance in favor of thoughtful critical engagement. That way, if our nation ever did do something bad — hypothetically, campers, hypothetically — my kids would be in a position to challenge the bad thing, though all around them salute and sing.

It’s Kohlberg’s sixth and highest level of moral development — to be guided by universal principle, even at a high personal cost, to do what’s right instead of what is popular, patriotic, or otherwise rewarded by those around you.

EyePlejjaleejins

During her after-school snack several weeks ago, Delaney (6) asked, “What does ‘liberty’ mean?”

I realized right away why she would ask about ‘liberty’ and was once again ashamed of myself in comparison to my kids. I don’t think I pondered the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance until I was well into middle school. When I was her age, I’m certain that I thought “EyePlejjaleejins” was one word that meant something like “Hey, look at the flag.” I certainly didn’t know I was promising undying loyalty to something.

“Liberty means freedom,” I said. “I means being free to do what you want as long as you don’t hurt someone else.”

“Oh, okay.” Pause. “What about ‘justice’?”

“Justice means fairness. If there is justice, it means everybody gets treated in a fair way.”

“Oh! So when we say ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ it means ‘everybody should be free and everybody should be fair.'”

“That’s the idea.”

“Hmm,” she said. “I like that.”

I like it too. A fine, fine idea. I also like the idea that the next time Laney said the Pledge, she had a little more knowledge of just what she was pledging her allegiance to.

There’s an email that circulates quite a bit during the times we are asked to stand united against [INSERT IMPLACABLE ENEMY HERE] — the text of a speech by the comedian Red Skelton in which he recounts the words of an early teacher of his. The teacher had supposedly noticed the students going through the rote recitation of the pledge and decided to explain, word for word, what it meant:

It would have been interesting, even instructive, if Skelton had held up a photo of himself and his class saluting the flag, which for the first 50 years was done like so:

This gesture was replaced with the hand-over-heart, for some reason, in 1942.

Delivered in 1969, Skelton’s piece is a bit saccharine in the old style, of course. And I’ll refrain from answering his rhetorical question at the end, heh. But the idea itself — of wanting kids to understand what they are saying — I’m entirely in favor of that.

Getting kids to understand what the pledge means solves one of the four issues I have with the Pledge of Allegiance. There is the “under God” clause, of course (which the Ninth Circuit court essentially called a constitutional no-brainer before wimping out on procedural grounds) — but that’s the least of my concerns.

Far worse is the fact that it is mandated, either by law, policy, or social pressure. No one of any age should be placed in a situation where a loyalty oath is extracted by force, subtle or otherwise.

Worse than that is something I had never considered before I heard it spelled out by Unitarian Universalist minister (and Parenting Beyond Belief contributor) Kendyl Gibbons several years ago, at the onset of the latest Iraq War, in a brilliant sermon titled “Why I’m Not Saying the Pledge of Allegiance Anymore.” At one point she noted how important integrity is to humanism:

One of the most basic obligations that I learned growing up as a humanist was to guard the integrity of my given word. Who and what I am as a human being is not predicated on the role assigned to me by a supernatural creator; neither am I merely a cog in the pre-ordained workings of some cosmic machine. Rather, I am what I say I am; I am the loyalties I give, the promises I keep, the values I affirm, the covenants by which I undertake to live. To give my loyalties carelessly, to bespeak commitments casually, is to throw away the integrity that defines me, that helps me to live in wholeness and to cherish the unique worth and dignity of myself as a person….We had better mean what we solemnly, publicly say and sign.

And then, the central issue — that the pledge is to a flag, when in fact it should be to principles, to values. One hopes that the flag stands for these things, but it’s too easy for prcinples to slip and slide behind a symbol. A swastika symbolized universal harmony in ancient Buddhist and Hindu iconography, then something quite different in Germany of the 1930s and 40s. Better to pledge allegiance to universal harmony than to the drifting swastika.

The same is true of a flag — any flag. Here’s Kendyl again:

I will not give my allegiance to a flag; it is too flimsy a thing, in good times or in bad; if it is even a symbol for the values I most cherish, that is only because of the sacrifices that others have made in its name. I will not commit the idolatry of mistaking the flag for the nation, or the nation for the ideals. Yet I must find an abiding place for my loyalty, lest it evaporate into the mist of disincarnate values, powerless to give any shape to the real lives that we live in the real world. Therefore my allegiance is to my country as an expression of its ideals.

To the extent that the republic for which our flag stands is faithful to the premises of its founding and to the practices that have evolved over two centuries to safeguard our freedoms and equal justice, it has my loyalty, my devotion, even my pride. But to the extent that it is a finite and imperfect expression of the ideals to which my allegiance is ultimately given, to the extent that it falls into deceit and self-deception, into arrogance and coercion and violence, into self-serving secrecy and double standards of justice, to that extent my loyalty must take the form of protest, and my devotion must be expressed in dissent.

It remains to this day one of the most eloquent and powerful speeches I have ever heard. And it continues to motivate me to raise children who pledge their allegiance conditionally rather than blindly. That will make their eventual allegiances all the more meaningful.

The complete text of Kendyl’s talk is here.