The Lives of Neighbors

We have a neighbor across the street. Supposedly, he's in his late 20s, which makes him a decade or so my junior. And not to put too fine a point on it, he's a deadbeat.

Deadbeat has no visible means of support. He lives in an apartment above his mother's house. By all accounts, he spends his days drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and watching television. He's been doing this for the two years he's lived with his Mom, since his sister kicked him out. (Sister has since taken in their Dad. We're talking about multigenerational dysfunction.)

Obiter Dictum: if it matters, these are all white people. If it matters.

Normally, none of this would involve me. Deadbeat poses no threat to the community. But, Deadbeat has custody of a daughter the same age as mine. No Mom is in evidence.

My heart breaks over this. After Spungen's moving observation that a child's peer-group status is often driven by her parents' status, and that a missing Mom is particularly hard on children, I'm now seeing that dynamic playing out in real life.

Here's the way the system is supposed to work. Moms talk with other Moms and coordinate visits, enforce standards of behavior, kinda-sorta ensure some level of reciprocity. That kind of Mom stuff. Dad's role is . . . actually, I'm not sure what Dad's role is! The truth is, if it wasn't for my family, I wouldn't know if my neighbors disappeared from the face of the earth. At least until summer, when the lawns weren't cut.

So here's what happens: Deadbeat's daughter (DD) just shows up. No call-ahead, no escort across the street. Nothing. And she's usually hungry. And her presence is just marginally extra-maintenance intensive. The other children, they can play for hours with little supervision. But DD can only go for a half-hour without getting into some sort of spat, nothing major, but that requires adult invervention (which we hate). And it doesn't help that Mrs. Ф suspects her of stealing from us, only doll clothes, and unfortunately she didn't confront her at the time, but in any case now she doesn't fully trust her the way she trusts the other children.

Now my daughter has a big heart. She likes DD. Actually, she loves everybody she's ever met, including DD. And I don't mind feeding DD when she comes over, and I'm much more willing to let 'em fight stuff out on their own, unless physical injury or property damage is imminent. But then . . . I only have to deal with this on weekends, and only during Mrs. Ф's absence. So it's really easy for me to moralize about how we should show charity to a child with a crappy home life.

Mrs. Ф has to deal with it every day. And she's already tired of it. Tired of the extra maintenance. Tired of the suspicion. Tired of the lack of reciprocity.

What to do . . . .

I suppose I should man up, go talk to Deadbeat and try to create the kind of dad-to-dad relationship that performs the functions of the normal mom-to-mom ones. But frankly, this would broadcast a "we're having a problem with your child" vibe, and I can't think of a remotely plausible cover story that would soften the blow. Plus I would suck at it.

Please post suggestions in the comments.

Marion Ravenwood is BACK!

. . . in Indiana Jones IV: the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And the best part: the bad guys are the Soviet Communists! Finally, 17 years after the end of the Cold War, Spielberg and Lukas are willing to portray the Soviets as the bad guys in the same un-ironic, campy way that they portrayed the Nazis.

It's too bad that Hollywood is so cowardly that it has to wait until our enemies are stinking up coffins before making movies where they're portrayed as, you know, evil, as opposed to misunderstood. Still, though, this counts as progress over fabricating enemies, or dragging out the Nazis for one last beating.

As a bonus, Karen Allen reprises her role as Marion Ravenwood, the spitfire love-interest from Raiders back in 1981. I always thought that their on-screen relationship was the most adult; those of the other Jones movies were ridiculous caricatures of romantic love. Reading that she's back, I teared up a little. It's like . . . Mom and Dad getting back together.

Why We Blog, Part One: Sex

Anyone reading the last dozen or so posts might conclude that Delenda is a blog obsessed with two topics:

1) Race

2) Sex

That was never the plan. Actually, the plan was never to blog at all, but only link to other stories and posts that I found compelling for one reason or another. Then I really only wanted to blog about the evolution / creation debate. Yet here I am, wrapped around these two topics.

I will address the issue of race another day. Today, I would like to try to explain what motivates the postings on sex. It's easier to start with what doesn't motivate it.

1. You're lonely and bitter.

Nope, sorry. I'm happily married with two children. I've had a reasonably successful career that's paying for a PhD. I have a church and friends and all that.

2. You're a misogynist.

As near as I can tell, for many of its users, "misogynist" = "non-feminist". And I am not a feminist. I do not resent women for their greater freedom, but I have little vested interest in it. I am opposed, in general, to the growth of the central state at the expense of individual and local liberty. I am concerned about the social costs to families and children that the legal and social changes on behalf of a certain kind of careerist woman have wrought. But I do not hate women as a class, nor do I seek to "put them in their place," whatever that means.

3. You're ungrateful.

Over on Bobvis, Kirk poignantly commented:

To me, most of your complaints sound almost like bragging. For example, from your posts about your husband's shoes, I'm made aware of the fact that not only do you have a husband (which many single women pine for), but that he can afford expensive things. Ditto your "I have too much booze," post. Ditto, your "Newsroom outsourcing forced me to become a successful lawyer" posts.

Here, you're obviously bragging about how much better things turned out for you than for Beemus. Although you seem to understand that much, you still manage to turn it into some bizarre complaint.

And maybe it's just because it's getting near Valentine's Day, but the one thing that really stuck with me about this particular post (and it stuck with me all day) is that you're compaining that someone (Beemus) found you desirable.

Me, I don't know what that feels like. I've never felt wanted, or desired, at any point of my life. And I'm 41.

I can't imagine ever complaining about it.

So, to reiterate. You were hot enough in college that you could take your pick of men. You picked one who makes a decent living. After a career in journalism, you're now a successful lawyer.

Maybe you're just unappreciative. Maybe we just come from different worlds. I don't know. But to me your complaints read like a veiled form of bragging.

Even though this comment wasn't directed at me, it made me think. Wow, sometimes I probably DO come across as exceedingly ungrateful for how my life turned out. Especially to someone like Kirk who hasn't had it so good. And especially for someone who, however imperfectly, strives to lead a Christian life, to which gratitude is fairly integral.

But the problem is, gratitude is tough to blog. Rehashing the pain of 13 years ago, that's easy to blog. And the fact is, there was a fair amount of pain along the way to married bliss. But the pain isn't really the point either.

Here is the point:

The truth.

The fact is, I was fed a lot of bull coming along. Much of it well meaning. Much of it by people who honestly didn't know how the world really worked. Stuff like:

Don't worry, God will put someone in your life.

. . . or not.

The right girl will come along.

. . . and in the meantime, nobody really wants you around.

Be nice to people, and people will be nice to you.

. . . and maybe pat you on the head on her way out to sleep with this guy.

Girls want commitment.

. . . but they don't choose commitment.

And so on.

So if you wonder why a blogger like me links to someone like this, the reason is that he manages to capture more truth of the way the world works than all the well meaning pablum listed above. Sure, the knowledge is deployed for dishonorable ends. And fossil fuels can pollute the atmosphere. But they get you out of the dark. And I'm tired of the dark.

And maybe, just maybe . . . if we're honest about all of this, instead of dishonest, we might be able to find a way to bring meaningful ethical principles to bear on how we treat each other. We might be able to answer questions like, what kind of courtesy do we owe each other? How can we spread happiness instead of misery? Even to people that are single. And even if we don't want to date them.

On Settling

Lori Gottlieb writes "Marry Him!", about the declining marriage prospects of women as they approach and pass 40:

Now, though, I realize that if I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life, I’m at the age where I’ll likely need to settle for someone who is settling for me. What I and many women who hold out for true love forget is that we won’t always have the same appeal that we may have had in our 20s and early 30s. Having turned 40, I now have wrinkles, bags under my eyes, and hair in places I didn’t know hair could grow on women. With my nonworking life consumed by thoughts of potty training and playdates, I’ve become a far less interesting person than the one who went on hiking adventures and performed at comedy clubs. But when I chose to have a baby on my own, the plan was that I would continue to search for true connection afterward; it certainly wasn’t that I would have a baby alone only to settle later. After all, wouldn’t it have been wiser to settle for a higher caliber of “not Mr. Right” while my marital value was at its peak?

Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they’re invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring. And even if some men do find us engaging, and they’re ready to have a family, they’ll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children. Which is all the more reason to settle before settling is no longer an option.

I was thinking about all this in the context of some of my own writing along these lines. A few posts ago, I suggested that someone's "sexual history" (for want of a better phrase) might have some bearing on their future fidelity. But this is not a message that gets communicated to young people today, even in Christian education. Why?

1. While there is much in the Bible about being chaste, there is very little about marrying chaste. The requirement seems to only have applied to Levitical priests.

2. Evangelical Christianity puts an emphasis on repentence and forgiveness, so it becomes difficult to simultaneously put out a message that someone's past sins should weigh against their present suitability.

3. Using chasity as a screening factor comes with not inconsiderable cost, especially for women. For one thing, it dramatically shrinks the pool; sadly, this will probably be true in Christian communities as well, though different in degree. For another, and let's be brutally honest here: all things being equal, those of us subject to greater temptation will fail more often than those who are subject to lesser temptation . . . or no temptation. This is not to give ammunition to the ignorant notion that the virtue of chasity was invented by people who weren't gettin' any no how. But it is to admit that being chaste came far easier for me than it must have come to many of my friends better endowed with those qualities attractive to the opposite sex. In the aggregate, this tendency is going to make a difference: the pool of virgin men will on average be less appealing than the pool of players when judged on the conventional qualities.

Given this dynamic, it is understandable that many, indeed most, women might accept the higher risk of infidelity in exchange for other qualities. But they should do it with their eyes open.

On Waterboarding

I know I'm late to the whole is-waterboarding-torture party, but I was struck by Senator Kennedy's (I think) questioning of attorney general Mukasey on the subject. Going from memory (I'm kind of dashing this post off), the senator from MA asked if Mukasey would think waterboarding torture while it was being done to him, personally.

Mukasey stammered out that he would. Here's the answer he should have given:

If I were to fall into the hands of our adversaries, senator, waterboarding would be the least of my worries.

Which goes to the heart of my own position on torture, to wit:

We don't like torture. We specifically do not want American POWs tortured. To that end, we would gladly sign a protocol with any competent authority representing our adversaries on the humane treatment of prisoners, and we would follow that agreement at least as well as they did.

However (you knew that word was coming), until such time as our adversaries either sign such an agreement or show some sign of exercising restraint in their treatment of the prisoners they take, then the treatment of the prisoners we take will be governed by one consideration.

Expediency.

Our enemies torture their prisoners for sport. We will not. Our enemies exploit their murders for propaganda purposes. We will not. But if a prisoner has information valuable to our operations, information that could save the lives of our own troops and civilians, then we have a duty to get that information. By all necessary means.

While we seek an end to the torture of prisoners, we will not unilaterally abjure the use of torture; such only allows our enemies to torture and murder with impugnity.

On the narrower legal question of what constitutes torture under federal law: unless specifically forbidden by treaty with our enemies, we will not regard as torture under the law any interrogation method that is used on our own soldiers as part of interrogation resistance training. This most definitely includes waterboarding.

Let me say several things parenthetically, lest this post seem too harsh for some. I am not endorsing expediency as a general moral principle. And there are no doubt some interrogation methods, if they can be so called, that I would not countenance (rape being the obvious example). I don't know where, exactly, the line should be. But I am sure that the nature of our present discussion is one which a nation in any way serious about its own preservation ought not to be having. UPDATE: Engram provides some perspective.

America's 21st Century Nightmare

Coming across the desk is a new "White Paper" from Air Force Chief of Staff, General T. Michael Mosely: "The Nation's Guardians: America's 21st Century Air Force". Amidst the usual bureaucratic boilerplate, this bit grabbed me:

The future strategic environment will be shaped by the interaction of globalization, economic disparities and competition for resources; diffusion of technology and information networks whose very nature allows unprecedented ability to harm and, potentially, paralyze advanced nations; and systemic upheavals impacting state and non-state actors and, thereby, international institutions and the world order. The following are salient features of this increasingly complex, dynamic, lethal, and uncertain environment:

• Violent extremism and ethnic strife—a global, generational, ideological struggle

• Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and empowering technologies

• Rising peer competitors with voracious appetites for resources and influence

• Predatory and unpredictable regional actors

• Increasing lethality and risk of intrusion by terrorist and criminal organizations

• Systemic instability in key regions (political, economic, social, ideological)

• Unprecedented velocity of technological change and military adaptation

• Availability of advanced weapons in a burgeoning global marketplace

• Exponential growth in volume, exchange and access to information

• Surging globalization, interconnectivity and competition for scare resources

• Dislocating climate, environmental and demographic trends

Having experienced—or vicariously learned—the cost of challenging the U.S. head-on, would-be adversaries are developing asymmetric approaches to attack vital levers of U.S. power. Their strategies seek to circumvent our core advantages, while undermining international support and domestic resolve.

Airpower’s unprecedented lethality and effectiveness deter opponents from massing on the battlefield, driving them to adopt distributed and dispersed operations. They find maneuver space and sanctuary in dense urban areas, ungoverned hinterlands and loosely regulated information and social networks.

I think Gen. Mosely exactly nails what the future holds for us. He's not quite courageous enough to actually name names (Islam, immigration), and his recommendations for the future are, in my humble opinion, not up to the challenge -- but then, most of the problems he names call for policy changes well beyond his reach.

Still, though, it's good to see a policy maker, especially from somewhere as pusillanimous as the military senior leadership, actually hinting that diversity, demographic change, and interconnectedness are VERY BAD for our national security.

Racial Integration in Chicago

Steve Sailer reviews There Goes the Neighborhood, and in the process tells the heartbreaking story of the effect that first desegregation and then immigration has had on Chicago's community life. He links to a Time article from 1983 about how Chicago's wealthy lakefront area has always been relatively liberal:

Holding the electoral balance [in the racially-charged election of Chicago's first black Mayor] were the city's six affluent "Lakefront Liberal" wards. Undecided until the very end, they finally gave Washington 40% of their vote, enough to assure his 51.8% majority.

Sailer explains:

Home prices are so high near Chicago’s main asset, Lake Michigan, that only upper-middle class people can afford to live there. Thus, race doesn’t much matter. In lower rent districts, however, race trumps class. As many Chicagoans testify in There Goes the Neighborhood, among working class people the traits that make a good neighbor—such as having children who don’t commit crimes and who aren’t disruptive in school—are most often found among whites, followed by Latinos, followed by African-Americans.

This reinforces the point I have made before about how facile it is for people (myself included) who, by virtue of wealth, education, and geography, have de-facto segregated themselves from underclass minorities to then preach the virtue of racial integration to poor whites who are required to actually live it in the real world.