Children’s Toys

Tom Vanderbilt goes after children’s play equipment or, as he calls it, "kiddie sprawl":

I have come to think of all these things, in both their lack of use and aesthetic alien-ness, as being symptomatic of the decline of the American lawn. I don’t mean grass per se but, rather, the whole relationship of the house to its exterior; the meaning of the outdoor space as a pastoral enclave in a larger natural setting; the civility and beauty brought by the carefully considered arrangement of plants, trees, and shrubs—the sort of things one used to see in the so-called "garden suburbs." […]

The unused plastic playthings and private playgrounds scattered in the barren yard speak not only to vanishing outdoor play but to a larger cultural disconnect from nature, from one’s own environment. But there is a simple solution for this. Instead of buying cheap, potentially toxic plastic water slides and the like, plant a garden. Plant a tree. Plant something. It may not impress your neighbor, but it will last longer, it will look better, and it will have a better effect on the environment than plastic slides.

Rachael Larimore counters the joy-kill:

While they might be unsightly, they are durable, safe (no splinters or jagged rusty metal), and affordable. We have a few that get hauled into the garage each night, but the main feature of our backyard is a sturdy wooden play set with swings, a slide, a rock-climbing wall and other accessories. When the weather is nice, and occasionally even when there’s a foot of snow on the ground, my two sons play on it probably two or three hours a day. That leaves many hours of the day when one could pass by and see it looking lonely and abandoned, but it is by far their favorite plaything. However much or little they use it, it was a worthwhile investment. It can accommodate the dozen or so kids who live on our street, or our passel of nephews, or even all of them at the same time. It provides exercise, helps develop agility and self-confidence, and even jolts the imagination, as the kids are always coming up with games whose rules and objectives escape me. One of the knocks on parents these days is that we either park the kids in front of the TV for six hours with a bag of chips, or we hover over them obsessively and overbook them with dance, gymnastics, karate, and swimming lessons. To me, having some toys in the yard to go climb on is a remedy to both of those ills.

Michael Gerson’s Spiritual Leader

Perhaps he shouldn’t be criticizing others for their choice of spiritual affiliation:

Contrast Wright’s words and actions with those of Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, the leader of Gerson’s church, and ask yourself who has been sleeping.

Gerson is a member of the Falls Church in Falls Church, Va. His congregation and the nearby Truro Church, played they key role in leading 11 Virginia parishes out of the Episcopal Church after the Church consecrated Gene Robinson, an openly gay man as bishop in 2003. Most of these parishes joined the Church of Nigeria, which Akinola leads.

Akinola, Gerson’s spiritual leader, favors throwing gay people in jail if they come out, speak about their orientation or organize politically. It’s all the more troubling when you realize that Wright has done little negative but vent, while Akinola has real political power in his own country, and has used it to demonize, imprison and disenfranchise gay people.

Lipstick And Heels

Ampersand points out this 2005 essay by Julia Serano:

Media depictions of trans women, whether they take the form of fictional characters or actual people, usually fall under one of two main archetypes: the “deceptive” transsexual or the “pathetic” transsexual. While characters of both models have an interest in achieving an ultrafeminine appearance, they differ in their abilities to pull it off. Because the “deceivers” successfully pass as women, they generally act as unexpected plot twists, or play the role of sexual predators who fool innocent straight guys into falling for “men.”

Death Customs

From a 1963 article by Jessica Mitford on how funeral homes rip you off: 

Foreigners are astonished to learn that almost all Americans are embalmed and publicly displayed after death. The practice is unheard of outside the United States and Canada. As Alfred Fellows, an English jurist, wrote in The Law of Burial, "A public exhibition of an embalmed body, as that of Lenin in Moscow, would pre sumably be dealt with as a revolting spectacle and therefore a public nuisance."

Just part of the Dish’s recent death obsession: couch coffins, dead Victorian children, suicidal madams, the Clinton campaign, etc. No apologies here: blogs are like conversations. Free association rules.

No One Likes Profiling

Richard Ford writes:

As I’ve argued in my book, The Race Card, the reason racial profiling is one issue that almost everyone can agree on (we’re against it) is that no one bothers to define profiling very well. In fact, there’s almost a silent conspiracy among civil rights activists, government officials, and law enforcement to keep the definition as murky as possible. The activists demand an end to “profiling”—meaning any use of race in traffic stops; in response, police promise not to “profile”—meaning stopping people based solely on the basis of race. The activists get a symbolic victory; the police get a PR victory—nothing changes. Like an international treaty, the best way to get to a consensus is to let everyone interpret the key terms to suit themselves. Until, of course, it comes time to enforce the treaty …