Lessons on War We Can't Seem to Learn

On Sunday night, Julia and I went with my lifelong friend Camille to the National Memorial Day Concert held on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, where her husband Robert McDuffie, a world-renowned solo violinist, played with the National Symphony Orchestra. The annual event was celebrating its 20th anniversary, but the last time I went was for Bobby's previous gig there, nine years ago, when he paid tribute to Schindler's List and his music and accompanying slide show moved me--embarrassingly, I have to say--to sobs.

This time, with Julia, who was wearing hand-me-down red patent leather shoes that are at least three sizes too big for her (but suitably fancy in her mind for the occasion), I kept my liquid emotions in check. 

But I found the whole thing wrenching nonetheless. There we were, with a picnic spread out on the baby blankets Julia had on insisted on bringing, on a beautiful night on the Capitol grounds--the same spot where I watched Barack Obama's inauguration. The Capitol dome was lit up behind us. The top of the Washington Monument stretched above the tree line in the distance ahead. It must be where I go for doses of patriotism.

 

Except that what I was feeling wasn't pride in my country. It was sorrow and disappointment. I couldn't help but remember that nearly a decade ago when we were there, the concept of our country at war was neatly tucked away in the past whereas this time, we were honoring the nearly  5,000 soldiers who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq and the thousands more who are injured in wars that are ongoing as I write. 

Part of the show was a tribute to the mother and sister of one such infantryman, who, when their son and brother was returned to the States with part of his head blow away, moved into Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Md., giving up their jobs and homes to nurse him back to what, in his case, passes for health.

Then Colin Powell spoke, telling us that there are 10,000 adults who have given up their lives to care for their wounded adult children. And if not for them, he reminded us, they would be in Veterans' Hospitals--"or worse, homeless." Nevermind that Powell seemed an unlikely source for this information. Shouldn't our VA Hospitals be like 5-star hotels after what we've put these men and women and their families through?

Flag-waving and pool openings have long become the substance if not the soul of Memorial Day--an updated version of the men, women, and children who dressed in their finery and went out to picnic at Chancellorsville, Va, spectators to one of the early battles of the Civil War that unfolded in the fields beneath them. Not a lot has changed.

New PD Post - Washington Not Having Food Fights But Fighting Bad Food

I snuck out of a forum on education featuring Education Secretary Arne Duncan today to go to a talk given by New York Times Minimalist columnist Mark Bittman and Washington-based chef Jose Andres about eating better to save not just ourselves but also the planet. It pretty much goes without saying that I wrote a PD post on the food panel ahead of anything I might write later on Duncan (who was compelling) and the allocation of resources in education. In my short life as an education reporter, I have come to understand that most of the statistics are not rosy. And if a nation moves on its belly, as Napolean said, there's no reason why a blogger shouldn't, too. 

The events were put on by the Center for American Progress, and the best part was that Ralph was also working at both, so whenever I got tired of trying to focus my new progressive eyeglasses on the words, "Center for American Progress," I would watch him take pictures. Afterward, he took me to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Black Salt. 

I'm pleased to say that after listening to Bittman urge the audience to eat less meat, I ordered a crab cake. But I realize that that's only a partial victory, because, as the head of P.R. for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) once told me when I interviewed him for U.S.News, "Fish are not swimming vegetables." 

Next time, I guess it's seaweed salad for me.

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Parenting Advice from Goldie Hawn

Speaking of teachable moments, I'm not one to think that Hollywood stars are the best source of parenting advice. But I told a friend who has worked with a lot of actors that I thought Goldie Hawn, whom I interviewed last week for a PD story on a mindfulness program she started in schools, was wise. She said that she kept running into smart ones--Hawn, Meg Ryan, and someone I can't remember--and marveling, until finally she realized that just because they can act doesn't mean they can't think. Point taken.

I caught up with Hawn on a particularly vulnerable parenting day in our house. After what we thought was incredibly bad behavior on Sam's part, we gave him the maximum sentence: we forbade him from playing in that day's T-ball game--a double-whammy, since (1) Ralph is his coach and (2) Sam's dedication to baseball and the Muckdogs, his team, surpasses his dedication to God and country. But that morning he had grabbed a ball away from Julia, and, when called on it, he walked away, down the hill by himself to school. When Ralph caught up with him, Sam rounded out the episode by hitting his dad. 

When I asked Hawn what she'd learned as a mother, she said:

"If I have the intention to be happy as a mother, then my zest is rubbed off on the children. Being a joyful parent is actually choosing your battles. Be the best of you, and don't let them get the best of you."

She went on to say that getting angry should mean something:

"I would get angry if they weren't kind. If they lied, that was a felony. If they cursed in the house."

After that, I felt better about punishing Sam so strongly. It didn't keep him from misbehaving the next day, or the day after that, but I've come to believe that much of parenting is about conditioning your child so that small mistakes don't become nasty habits and good habits, like doing your homework and sitting down to dinner every night with your family, take root. But the process of parenting--well, that's more about educating me than him. 

Cell Phones: For Talking On, Not About

I have a friend who used to say that conversations about flight delays and last night's dreams were off-limits, because everyone has them, and they're not nearly as interesting to your listener as they are to you. To the list of verboten topics, I would add stories about technological glitches.

Still, I can't resist telling you that I've been in cell-phone hell for the past few days. After my well-worn iPhone fell into the toilet the other day (don't ask), I had to pull my back-up iPhone out of my drawer (don't ask) to reactivate it. This was not as simple as it sounds, because these things never are. But taking a page from the Obamas, as columnist Jill Lawrence points out on PD today, the rep at the AT & T store tried to turn the whole experience into a teachable moment. When I explained how my phone came to be water-logged, she said, "They don't swim."

And I thought they did.

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I'm having a great time covering education for Politics Daily. Please take a look at it, especially my Q & A with DC School Chancellor Michelle Rhee and my most recent post on Goldie Hawn and leave a comment!

Book Club Members Need to Read the Fine Print

Fact: I have never had a conversation with anyone about their book club where they've said, "I've just finished reading a fabulous book, and I can't wait to talk about it!"

Nope. It's always some variation on: "I have my book club meeting tomorrow night and I still have 1004 more pages to read of NAME OF BOOK GOES HERE. And I can't believe this is the book they chose."

Don't get me wrong. I love books so much that when an acquaintance recently said she wanted to line the entrance of her row house with bookshelves, I thought, I wonder if my hallway is wide enough to do that, too? And, Can I rearrange my radiator to make space? We used to have book wallpaper in our old house, but can you imagine how welcoming it would be to be flanked by real books as you walked into your house? It would be a lot better than being pawed at by a dog standing on her hind legs, which is what happens where I live. I've long dreamed of building bookshelves in my dining room so that I'd be surrounded by good friends on all sides. It would be like repairing to the library after dinner for brandy, cigars, and conversation, only you wouldn't have to leave the table. 

Having said all of that, I feel like the bad mother--you know, the woman who wrote an essay in the New York Times about loving her husband (who turns out to be the novelist Michael Chabon) more than her kids. But here's the thing: I don't ever want to be in a book club.

For me, the joy of books comes from the freedom to choose, both what--and when-- to read. Sure it's fun to talk about books, such as recently, when it seemed like everyone I know happened to be reading The Middle Place. And I was touched when my friend Lisel brought me her copy of The Girl I Left Behind because she had read it and thought I would like it, too. (She was right.) But that's different than having to slog through The Moviegoer because someone in your book club is trying to assauge her guilt over never having read it in college. Or willing yourself to stay awake as you inch your way along in some tome about geopolitics when you'd really rather be curled up with a good mystery. The only period in my life that I didn't love reading was in grades 6 to 12, because there was never a time--summers included--that I was without an assignment. Next came the agony of having to analyze the book in class. What is a book club except English Lit. without the tests? On the rare occasions when I leave Ralph and the kids at home and get together with friends, possibly the last thing I want to discuss is the plot of a 19th century novel. 

The reason this is on my mind is that the other day, my sister's friend Pat came up with a brilliant idea: a magazine club. Members would read an agreed-upon piece like the Gisele cover story in Vanity Fair or Orangette's piece on salmon in Bon Appetit, or, hell, the Organizer Doctor's solutions for arranging what's under the sink in Red Book, sift through it, and still leave plenty of time for free-ranging conversation. 

Think about it. After a lively evening with friends, you could go home, climb into bed, and read. The book of your choice. Without the guilt.

Anyone want to join with me to start Magazines Only?

Life at 24,000 Feet - No Place to Run

One of my sisters is a flight attendant, but for a variety of reasons, that is not a job I could ever hold down. One is that I am a spiller of drinks. Another is that I am a bad flier. I'm not neurotic about it, which is to say I've never declined a trip because I don't like to fly. Let's just say I have a reputation. 

Years ago, when I was scheduled to accompany my elderly cousin on a month-long boondoggle to South Africa, the plane we were supposed to take was grounded overnight to have its engine replaced. Maybe it's because I didn't have anything else to do but worry during my unplanned stay in Chantilly, Va., near Dulles Airport--my cousin Abram, 92, had retired to his room, and I hadn't even packed dental floss in my purse to keep me busy. Still, under the best of circumstances it wouldn't sit well with me to fly for 17 hours with an impaired engine and so I calmly phoned the airline and asked why, with its puny fleet of two jets, I should trust them to fix it. Some way into our trip, my cousin told me that our guide had taken him aside and asked why the airline had a record of my being a "nervous traveler." Word had gotten out, I guess. I felt somewhat justified when, mid-trip, South African Airways went bankrupt and we had to fly another carrier home.

Even before that, when I was on a transatlantic flight in my early twenties to visit my then boyfriend in London, the ride was so rough that I grabbed the hand of the man sitting next to me and gripped it for the next four hours. I don't think I ever learned the name of the person who belonged to that hand, but I know that no amount of pleading on his part would have gotten me to release it. I remember his eyes on me when we were waiting for our luggage, but we never spoke. At least that encounter was anonymous.

Despite my history, I was trying to play it cool the other night when the plane from Atlanta, where I'd gone to visit my parents, started to bump around--a lot. I wouldn't be able to save them if thing went down, I thought, looking at Sam and Julia in their pajamas in the seats next to me. Sam was asleep, and Julia seemed oblivious to the roller coaster. Then Julia reached out and took my hand. And by the look she gave me, which made her momentarily more 30 than 3, I could tell it was for me. After all, she had announced just that day that she wants to be a smoke jumper and then a princess when she grows up. In that same conversation, as if to justify her life's ambitions, she told me that she is brave and smart.

I know people say you can learn a lot from kids, but I didn't learn a thing that night at 24,000 feet. I was just glad to have my little girl's pudgy palm in mine. And to know her name.