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One problem with being a parent is that you occasionally find yourself semi-responsible for the acts of other people’s children. When your kid plays, he tends to play with other kids, whose parents may not be as…attentive as you are. You’re just trying to keep your kid from eating mulch, and suddnely a bunch of other halfwit rugrats are digging through trash cans and throwing old “forty” bottles at each other.

A few weeks ago, I took Charles to the park near our house, which has a nice little jungle gym with a couple slides. It’s usually a nice place to go because he gets bored with it quickly and wants to go home. On this occasion, while we were playing, we were descended upon by about a dozen children, ranging from a few months to 9 or 10 years old, and their grandmother, who was very friendly and nice but clearly overwhelmed. She focused mostly on the baby, while the rest of the terrors ran around injuring themselves and each other. One odd child decided the fun thing to do was to wait until my back was turned and throw a frisbee at my head. It was a pity that Granny was there, as I would have enjoyed dropping the kid out of a tree.

Charles played nicely, as is his usual wont, aside from occasionally trying to “borrow” toys from other children, which I corrected as needed. At one point, however, the older kids wandered to some nearby trees and started climbing them. Fine by me, they were 9 or 10, I was climbing trees when I was younger than that. Peer dynamics being what they are, however, most of the other kids wandered over to see what was going on. I convinced Charles that he was too small to climb trees, but by then the kids were picking up sticks off the ground and swinging them haphazardly. Hey, not my kids, not my problem, unless they came near Charles, in which case I’d start kicking butt and taking names. They didn’t, so I didn’t interfere.

This, of course, was when Granny swooped in, yelling at the kids to stop beating each other with flora, and giving me a nasty look for, I assume, having permitted her malignant seed to do such dangerous things. Because it’s my fault she showed up to a park with a plethora of idiots she couldn’t control.

I dislike other people.

Yesterday’s murder of an abortion doctor has thrust the debate back into the national headlines. (One wonders whether the killer did so to affect the confirmation process of Sonia Sotomayor, but given the fact that he chose to advance his pro-life agenda by taking a life doesn’t seem to indicate a lot of intellectual depth.) Andrew Sullivan has been all over it, posting reader responses and emotionally draining stories about couples who have chosen to end a pregnancy despite their personal misgivings. One such story can be found here: Catholic Doctrine and Merciful Choice.

At 17 weeks gestation our baby had been diagnosed with major heart defects requiring a minimum of three risky open-heart surgeries beginning at birth, and would later require a heart transplant. At 19 weeks we were finally given our amnio results which revealed our baby also had Trisomy 21. A surgeon at the major teaching hospital where we’d had our fetal echocardiogram informed us that even if our baby somehow survived his palliative surgeries, this latest diagnosis meant he would not ever be eligible for a heart transplant.

As we sat talking quietly in our living room, our priest shared with us that he’d spent time at the same hospital where we’d had our fetal echocardiogram and where our son would have had surgery. He was there to support the family of a three-month-old who was having heart surgery. In the three weeks or so that he tended to this family, he also met 10 other families in the waiting room, each of whom also had young babies undergoing heart surgery. Sadly, within the short space of time our priest was there, every single one of those babies died.

Our priest came away from that experience feeling that this world-renowned children’s hospital was basically experimenting on babies. He saw their futile suffering and likened it to being crucified. The family he had gone there to support later told him that if they had only known what their baby would be forced to go through before dying, they would never have chosen surgery.

Our priest told us that he believed we were not choosing our son’s death, only choosing the timing of his death in order to spare him a great deal of suffering. Something he said that brought us great comfort was “God knows what is in your hearts.” God knows our choice was based on mercy and compassion. Who would better understand our hearts than God, who made the choice for His own Son to die?

I’ve made about a 105-degree turn on the topic of abortion, caused mainly by the births of my own kids. I had always believed that a fetus was little more than an organ, part of a woman’s body, to be discarded at her whim and without my or my government’s interference. But once you feel your baby move inside your wife’s belly, there’s no way to consider that as anything but a child. (Interestingly, I’m told that historically, the Jewish standard for “life” was when the fetus could be felt moving.)

I still think abortion should be legal in almost all situations (although I’m very, very squeamish about late-term abortions).

This contradiction stems from the fact that in the end, it’s both a woman’s body and a child. If I were a woman, I couldn’t end my own pregnancy (unless, perhaps, I was faced with the above situation). But I have no business forcing that position on a woman than someone else would have telling me I can’t eat meat on Fridays. Each person has to have their own conscience on the subject.

I pose the following query: which is the more compassionate action? Ending a pregnancy, or subjecting an infant to a month of suffering before letting it die on its own?

It’s hard to tell how accurate they are, considering I don’t know much about statistics (I barely passed that course) and I’m far too lazy to check any of the cited sources, but here are some interesting figures on divorce among Christian fundamentalists. It would be hypocritical of me to point out the hypocrisy of others, but I can at least allude to it, right? Right.

This has obvious ramifications in light of the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding Proposition 8. (Those of you who are completely incensed by it, by the way, read John Scalzi on the subject; if the decision is a setback at all, it’s a pretty minor one. Andrew Sullivan, somewhat an authority, believes that seeking to affirm gay marriage rights through the courts is a mistake: it’s too easy for the conservative pundits to shout “activist judges!” Let each state, and the federal government in turn, see the light on its own. It’s better to wait 3 or 4 years and either convince enough people that gay marriage is a good thing, or wait for the bigots to die off, as they inevitably will. When the courts get involved, the conservative base tends to get riled up and do things like enact constitutional amendments, which are much harder to get rid of down the road. But back to the topic at hand.)

Does it matter if fundamentalist Christians are marginally more likely to get divorced than other demographics? Well…no. The only real bonus to it is that when someone rants about the “Death of the American Family” or some other bull, you can point out that Fundamentalism seems to be the greatest threat of all. That’s satisfying, but counter-productive: you don’t convince people that way.

In my opinion the easiest way to argue with someone who is against gay marriage is to demand specificity. When they say, “Gay marriage is bad,” ask why. When they say, “Well, because it damages the institution of marriage,” ask how. If they say “The bible says homosexuality is wrong,” ask what that has to do with secular policy. You probably won’t convince all of them, but you don’t have to: you just have to convince enough.

Go Maine!

If you ignore the fact that the federal government still refuses to recognize gay marriage, 5 out of 50 states now allow it (plus the District of Columbia). We’re getting there, people. We totally are. Sadly, Delaware may take a little while, but at least last month the General Assembly shot down a constitutional amendment to ban civil marriage, so my home state’s not entirely bass ackwards.

Even if you don’t care much for basketball, this article by the inimitable Malcolm Gladwell is worth a read. The basic gist of the story is: even if you aren’t particularly good at something, you will be more successful than those who are by simple effort. This is something we tell our kids but tend not to believe ourselves; it’s nice to see it examined and proved.

Great job, “fans.”

Here’s the rule I propose: if you’re at a home game, don’t mess with the opposing fans. They’re the insurgents; you’re the US Army. Screwing with them is just like torture. It just pisses them off.

Let’s face it: Mets fans aren’t that bright. If they were, they wouldn’t be Mets fans. (Ha ha! Just kidding, Mets fan who might be reading this! Please don’t torch my car!) Now we’ll have thousands of them showing up at the Vault all season, rolling 15-20 deep, just itching to beat the crap out of someone. And some poor guy in a Cole Hamels jersey who’s taking his daughter to her first baseball game, and asked an idiot in a cheap David Wright knockoff jersey to stop dropping F-bombs, is gonna end up in the hospital. That’s gonna be so…great.

Some schmuck “fan” just created a baseball environment in which somebody’s going to get maimed. Thanks, douchenozzle.

It really was, I tell you. We reorganized our pantry, people. Reorganized our pantry. Because that is how we roll.

Friday night I managed to fit in my last organ lesson for a few weeks, since we’re having a baby in four days and everything. Then I went home and entertained my existing offspring so my wife wouldn’t go all My Lai on the neighborhood (too soon?).

Saturday we spent the day, and I mean the entirety of the daylight hours, cleaning and organizing. Sarah’s homey Jeanmarie brought her daughter over, so she and Charles played while we cleaned up the nursery, ate donuts, did some yardwork, buried a hobo, and cleaned out my car. Major productivity, people.

Saturday night I sang in one of the better concerts I’ve ever done, with the Mastersingers of Wilmington. We performed a few old “chestnuts,” such as three selections from Randall Thompson’s Frostiana, along with some classic renaissance and baroque motets. We also did a lot of modern works, particularly some Italian madrigals by William Hawley (I hope and pray he owns a pet of some kind named “Smoot“), some fun anthems by Craig Phillips, and the pièce de résistance, “Cloth’d In Holy Robes” by Judith Bingham, one of the hardest pieces of music I’ve ever put in a folder. I actually had to bang out intervals at the piano to learn the piece, something I haven’t had to do in years due to my awesomeness (note: I am also the picture of modesty).

Sunday I had church per usual, followed by a trip to Infants Be We to pick up some little clips to make the infant carseat base fit in my whip. Then home for naps, more cleaning, and a complete and utter rebuild of our pantry, which, I swear to The Deity Of Your Choice, contained an item with an expiration date in the Clinton administration, which you may recall preceded the Eight Years Of Darkness covering most of this decade.

It was a box of rice, or something, and it had been moved, by us, from house to house, at least twice. Given the shelf-life of rice, it’s entirely possible I bought it when I lived in an apartment prior to our marriage. We hoped that just simply reorganizing things would make everything fit better, but you know what really did the job was throwing away two-thirds of the food on the shelves. The rice, or whatever it was, was not an isolated instance: the average expiration date of the stuff we threw out was mid-2007.

Just another wild and woolly weekend at Hearndom II. Keep on rockin’, Amurica.

Here is why I don’t normally watch American Idol: because of hacks like Allison Whatsherbutt, who deafened me for a while last night. She sang “Someone To Watch Over Me,” one of the best songs ever put to lined paper, like a pig in an abattoir. Good job, Allison: you can song really frickin’ loud. Is that all you have to offer? Really?

Here’s the thing that, if you’re lucky, you’ll learn somewhere down the line: singing is often about subtlety. Loud is merely the first step in learning how to sing. I know literally dozens of people who can sing loud. I know a very limited number who can sing softly, and more importantly, know which to do at any given time.

“Someone To Watch Over Me” is wistful, almost a bedtime prayer. Belting it out at the top of your lungs is like playing a lullabye on a piccolo trumpet directly into your baby’s ear. It’s like a Frost poem through a megaphone. It’s like waking up your sleeping spouse by kneeing him in the testes.

Sadly, <SPOILER ALERT>you’ll be there after tonight</SPOILER ALERT>, so next week perhaps you can commit voice rape on a Norah Jones song, or something. Color me “not watching.”

Chris Hardwick over at nerdist.com has an interesting post on confidence. The gist: know how to do something that you love, really well. Even if you’re in a situation where that expertise doesn’t really apply, the simple fact that you’re really good at something can be a subconscious morale booster.

I’ve figured out the financial situation.

Well, that’s not true. What I’ve figured out is why a pure free market economy, with no regulation, has no hope of working. Or rather, I’ve figured out a way to explain it in terms that makes sense to me.

(I guess I haven’t figured out a damn thing, if I had to be honest. Still: this makes sense to me. It makes sense to me! That counts for something, right?)

Here’s how I break it down. The free market economy is like a car. Back in the 40s and 50s, cars were simple. Drum breaks, carburetors, rear-wheel drive, manual transmissions; anybody could work on ’em, and most folks did. Anybody could change the fluids, gap and replace spark plugs, tune the engine, etc. You might take it in for the really complicated stuff, but I think my father once told me he replaced the piston rings in an old Mustang he had, hardly a simple job.

Along the same lines, for most of history, investing was simple: you found somebody you trusted who needed money to start a business venture, and you gave ’em a few bucks and hoped to double your money. After a while, it was formalized into stocks and bonds, buying and selling. Pretty tame; you bought a stock, it paid dividends, the price went up or down. Hard to predict, but easy to understand, and over the long term, things tended to go up.

After a while, cars got complicated. Front-wheel drive, automatic transaxles, fuel injection, computer-controlled ignition. I’m pretty mechanical-minded, but all I can do with my Saab is change the oil and brakes. There’s something wrong with the turbo; don’t know how to fix that. Check engine light is on; I could probably get the code, but Lord knows it’s probably an oxygen sensor buried deep in the engine that I can’t get to.

Same deal with financial products: around the turn of the last century, people started “selling short,” which means betting on stocks to fall. This isn’t particularly dangerous on its face, but the problem is if you’re buying stocks, you can only buy as much as you have money for. When you’re selling short, you basically BORROW the stocks and then sell them to someone, and buy ’em back to return ’em to the guy you borrowed ’em from. (It’s slightly more complicated than that, but that’s the gist.) The problem is, unless there’s a regulation preventing it, there’s no limit to the amount you can short sell, because you don’t have to actually own the stock to do so. End result: October 1929. Stock market crash. Depression. Immediately after this, regulations were put in place such that you can only sell short a certain amount, based on how much cash you have laying around.

And then again, in 2008, after years of deregulation, banks are allowed to move money around in ways few people understand. Lenders are allowed to make loans to people who are high credit risks, because they can then turn around and sell the risk off to some investor in a credit default swap. No average person can be expected to understand all this himself, so he hands his money off to an investment professional, just as the average American takes his car back to the dealership for basic service.

Now here’s where the analogy breaks down: imagine you paid your mechanic and got your car back after service, and a few days later the entire car fell apart, Bluesmobile-style. You would, rightly, be very angry with the mechanic, right? You would expect him to repair your car, and probably get you a rental to drive around for your trouble, right? Of course you would.

Unfortunately, if you give your money to an investment professional, and he blows it all on credit default swaps, he can blame it on an economic downturn. All the while, he’s taking his usual commission.

If your car starts acting funny, you know it right away. The check engine light comes on, or the brakes squeal. Something like that. You know to get it fixed right away. With your investments, you mostly have to rely on our investment professionals to tell us, something that they are loathe to do because they know if we knew how incompetent they were, we’d take our money away. Sure, they send out quarterly “statements,” but most Americans throw them into the trash unread. Why would they worry? They’re years away from retirement! So most Americans had no idea what was going on until they watched the S&P 500 lose 50% of its value and called their money man to ask, “Hey, I’m doing okay, right?”

Um…no.

I guess what I’m saying is that giving money to unregulated investment professionals is like giving a Ferrari to these guys. I’m all for the free market, and whatnot, but perhaps maybe just a little government oversight? Maybe? You think?

[Disclaimer: I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Take all of the above with a grain of salt the size of my head.]