Since I totally panned the newest album by my all-time favorite band, I’ve been ravaged by feelings of guilt and disloyalty. So I’m taking this opportunity to make it up to them. (As if they care. Oh well.)

In what can only be described as a moment of insanity, my husband and I decided to buy tickets for Duran’s Chicago show. Not that there’s anything crazy about buying concert tickets, especially for one’s favorite band. It’s just that this particular concert was taking place on a Wednesday night, 200 miles from our home, and we had to be back by Thursday morning for work and school. We raced home from work yesterday, changed clothes and jumped into our car. We braved a 7-hour round trip, Chicago rush hour traffic, the Indiana toll road and $4.00/gallon gas to go see Simon, Nick, John and Roger yet again.

This was my 8^th time seeing them over the past 21 years. I’ve seen them in 5 different cities with 5 different line-ups now. They always put on a great show, but last night was truly the best one I’ve seen from my guys. Not only is Dom Brown (the guitarist who replaced original member Andy Taylor) a cleaner guitar player than Andy, he also is more fun to watch. And the remaining four original members seem worlds happier than I’ve ever seen them.

All the guys were smiling all night. Simon was cracking jokes in a way I’ve never seen. They were laughing at each other’s antics as well as each other’s mistakes and their own. When Simon tossed his tambourine up to the ceiling, then missed it when it came down, it hit his leg and snapped. It had to have hurt, but he didn’t miss a beat. He made a hilariously surprised and sheepish face, showed the broken tambourine to the crowd, pointed to his crotch, and told us (in Maxwell-Smart style), “Missed it by that much.” When Roger spun his drumsticks at the end of one song and failed to catch one of them, he and John burst out laughing and shaking their heads. It was obvious they were having fun, and it made me smile just that much more.

Of course, the music was great. Even the few songs they did off the plastic-sounding new album were better when they rocked them out live. But the crowd went berserk for the older stuff – “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “The Reflex,” and “Girls on Film.”

And of course, they still look fantastic. John Taylor’s smile makes me melt. When he told the audience to put their hands in the air, I told my ever-indulgent husband that JT could ask me to jump off a cliff, and I would. (I’m very lucky that Sean’s not the jealous type!) And this tall, gorgeous, talented bass player was even wearing an Obama t-shirt during the encore! Could he be more perfect?!

So after 2 ½ hours, our ears ringing, our throats sore, and our feet aching, Sean and I began the long trek home. I drove so he could sleep. We pulled into our driveway at 3:30am. Sean had to be at work at 6. I had to get up at 7:30 to get the kids to school. So would I do it again? To see my guys happy and rockin’ a sold-out crowd? You bet.

Just maybe not on a Wednesday.

Christmas used to be my favorite holiday.  Nowadays, I think it’s so commercialized, it’s hard to enjoy it. So I find it strange that conservative Christians get upset that Christ isn’t in more stores, schools, and government offices. Every year around this time, the Spanish Inquisition is renewed. The Christian Right gets all upset about “the attack on Christmas,” and TV pundits, radio heads, bloggers and e-mailers start insisting that EVERYONE should celebrate Christmas and do it properly. Talk about insensitive ethnocentricity.

I’m a Christian, and I love my Christmas. But I have friends who aren’t Christians. I’m not going to shove my religion in their faces. I don’t want them to shove their religion in mine. They don’t anyway, so I’m not sure why my fellow Christians on the right get so upset. “The attack on Christmas” is fiction.

Still, the e-mails keep coming. Here is a poem I received this morning:

T’was the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a ” Holiday “.

Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe’s the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears
You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.

Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace  

The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate “Winter Break” under your “Dream Tree”
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say

Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, 

not  Happy  Holiday!

Argh!

·          Christmas is not in any danger. If anything, it’s taking over the world. Ramadan passed several weeks ago without much notice in the United States. Hanukkah’s going on right now. Did you know? Hard to tell around here, I assure you. But EVERYONE (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and atheists alike) knows that Christmas is coming in exactly 20 days. You can’t miss it.

·          The stores may not be using the word “Christmas” outright as much as they used to, although I don’t really see much difference from when I was a child. Still, is there any mistaking all those decorated trees, the big guy with the white beard and red clothes, and the shepherds gathered around a baby in a manger as anything other than Christmas décor?

·          I’m always amused by the conservatives who get irritated by what retailers do during the holidays anyway. Aren’t conservatives all about letting the “free market” regulate itself? Well, isn’t that what the retailers are doing? They’re just following the needs and wants of their customers. You want a free market, folks, this is what you get.

·          I still say “Merry Christmas” to lots of people. And I hear it back from a lot of people. There is no law against saying “Merry Christmas,” and there never should be; however, I would no sooner wish my Muslim students a “Merry Christmas” than they would have wished me a “Happy Ramadan.” To do so would be insensitive and rude, not to mention downright stupid. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with common courtesy.

·          Government offices have to be sensitive because they deal with ALL citizens. In addition, we have this pesky Constitution in the United States that is supposed to separate church and state. It was written by Christian men because they were worried about protecting Christianity. Christians seem to forget that, though, whenever the Constitution keeps them from getting what they want. Like a Nativity on the statehouse lawn. Can you imagine the uproar if someone tried to put a copy of the Koran or the Talmud on the statehouse lawn? To keep things fair, we just don’t allow any religious holiday décor in our government offices. Just like kindergarten, folks. If there’s not enough for everyone, no one should have any.

·          As for the schools, I can’t speak for all of them. But my son’s school is doing all sorts of activities for the Christmas season. They’re going on a field trip to our Children’s Museum which is celebrating winter holidays. They’re having a party the day before the break. They didn’t do any of that during Ramadan. Hanukkah will be over by the time the school celebrates. Maybe they don’t call these events “Christmas” activities, but who’s fooling who? I like the approach our school system is taking. They are using the winter holidays as an opportunity to teach students about different cultures and traditions. They’re talking about all the holidays, and they’re studying the way people in other countries celebrate them. It is a school after all, not a church. I’ll teach my children the meaning of Christmas at home or in Sunday School, thank you very much!

·          These people who get all in a tizzy about what they perceive as an “attack on Christmas” seem to me to be extremely self-absorbed and negative. Have they really looked around? Christmas is everywhere. Maybe we don’t say the downtown monument is decorated in Christmas lights, but those lights would NOT be there if it weren’t for Christmas. The Jewish residents of Indianapolis aren’t complaining about the holly and tinsel and twinkle lights. What do Christians have to complain about? Do Christians have to advertise their faith as well as their holiday trappings? For me, faith is a personal thing. I don’t feel the need to run around shoving my personal religious convictions in other people’s faces. I have my nativities in my home. I read the scripture to my children in my home. We sing Christmas carols IN OUR HOME. Sense a theme? The true meaning of Christmas cannot and SHOULD NOT be institutionalized, commercialized, advertised. Personally, I don’t want to see it in a store window or on a courthouse lawn. In the words of Charles Dickens, keep Christmas in your heart.  That is its true place.

·          My favorite conservative Christian uproar, though, has to be over the use of “X-Mas.” The fact that they’re offended by it exposes their ignorance about the history of their own faith. X is the Greek letter chi. When early Christians wanted to celebrate Christmas, they had to be careful not to let the anti-Christian authorities know. They used X-mas as an abbreviation to disguise their holiday. In modern times, the English letter X has taken different meanings. Good Christians who know their history, though, should not be confused by the term.

·          According to the ultimate hardliner conservative Christian, Oliver Cromwell, Christmas should not be celebrated at all. It is a decadent, frivolous holiday with too many origins in Pagan celebrations. When he and his religious reformers took over England in the early 1600’s, they outlawed Christmas altogether (An Outlaw Christmas, history.com).

Christmas is a wonderful holiday, and I love it. Most of my family and friends celebrate it. Even my agnostic husband likes Christmas and does not object to our creches, the angel on our tree or the reading of the book of Luke. We keep Christ in Christmas in our home where He belongs. No, thanks, but I’d rather not see Him in Wal-Mart or at Starbucks. I prefer to keep Him close.

Cool title, huh? I wish it were mine, but I can’t take credit. It’s actually the title of the new album (oops, I mean CD) by Duran Duran.

I’ve been a “Duranie” for 25 years. I own every album, plus some bootlegs. I have the original Duran Duran, Rio, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, Arena, and Notorious on vinyl, cassette tape, CD and MP3. I’ve seen the band in its myriad incarnations in concert seven times in five different cities. I met them in 2005 after winning a backstage pass from the fan club. I went into labor with my daughter at their Indianapolis show later that same year. (It was the bass line in “Notorious” that did it.) We stayed for the end of the show. My laundry room is decorated with collages of their press clippings, ancient posters that were once taped to the walls of my childhood bedroom, and a calendar I got off their website which I check religiously. I’ve stuck with them through thick (the Rio - A View to a Kill days) and thin (1990’s Liberty - a flop of an album).

I’m a true Duranie.

So I cannot believe that I’m betraying my favorite band by admitting that I’m disappointed in the new album. I’ve been waiting for it for two years. As soon as I got out of work last night, I rushed to buy the CD. In the past 12 hours, I’ve listened to all 12 tracks twice, and some of them more than once.

I just don’t get it.

This one’s a collaboration with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, both of whom I like very much. As a matter of fact, the three tracks on which their influence is most obvious are the ones I like most - “Falling Down,” “Skin Divers,” and “Nite Runner.” But even those three songs aren’t that great. They sound plastic, shallow, and empty, like stripped-down versions of Timberlake’s “Sexyback,” which I love. The rest of the album feels cold to me, kind of a downer.

I’m going to keep listening to it. Maybe it’ll grow on me. Maybe I’m getting old. Or maybe the band has finally re-invented itself in a shape I don’t understand. I’ve always felt like Duran Duran and I have grown up together. When I was a hormone-charged teenager, their music was dark and sexy and mysterious and fun. When I was a hard-partying-but- searching twentysomething, their music was heavier and a bit more introspective. When I got married and settled down a bit, the band seemed to be maturing too: 2004’s “Astronaut” was complex and lively, but had some depth to it. This CD feels like an experiment that didn’t quite pan out. And maybe I’m too busy now with family and career to spend time experimenting, risking, taking leaps.

Like I said, though, I’ll keep listening. I’m not giving up 25 years for one album that doesn’t appeal to me.

Besides, it’s still better than Liberty. With a much better title.

For many years now, it’s been trendy to blame television for all our woes. It makes our kids stupid. It makes our kids unimaginative. It makes our kids violent. It makes our kids materialistic. It makes our kids fat. I’ve read some interesting articles on the subject, mostly written by people who do not allow their children to watch television. Some of them don’t even have a television in their home. That’s their prerogative. But I’m done feeling like a bad mom because I do let my kids watch TV. I’m done being consumed by guilt every minute that my children spend in front of the small screen. I’m going to make an argument for reasonable TV watching. It may not be a trendy argument, but I think it’s a good one.

First, I disagree with people who argue that TV makes kids stupid. I was just brushing my teeth in the bathroom, and I heard my 2 ½-year-old in the other room speaking Spanish as she was watching Dora the Explorer. I was impressed. My toddler knows several words in a language I don’t know. Chances are, if she had not gotten to watch television, she would not have learned any Spanish until high school when our school district starts foreign language classes.

I’ve noticed that both my children have developed vocabulary they may not have been exposed to without television. My six-year-old son uses words like “rendez-vous,” “pedagogue” and “earnest.” Ask him where he heard them, and he’ll tell you it was from watching Disney movies on TV. Although my husband and I might have occasionally used these words, we don’t have the need to very often. Television exposes children to unusual situations, out-of-the-ordinary events that call for vocabulary we just don’t use in everyday speech.

Television gives children the opportunity to exercise math skills as well as reading. Most evenings, we’re too busy to have the TV on; however, if it’s on, we’re usually watching sports. My son’s practiced his math on baseball and football scores. He’s read the stats of Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning. He’s learned logic and strategy that he’ll be able to use to problem-solve.

Does television make children unimaginative? If it does, then maybe I should make my son watch more. Every year at parent conferences, his teachers’ only concern is that he tends to live in his own little imaginary world, peopled by Star Wars and Harry Potter characters, pirates and monsters that he gleans from movies, television and books. I hear anti-TV folks say that letting kids watch TV stifles their imaginations by stuffing their heads full of other peoples’ ideas. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t we beware of books too? I’m reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to my son, and he’s running around the house battling giant squid and sharks, much the same way he battles Transformers and Spiderman villains. The difference between TV and books may be more clearly delineated for adults than for kids – children seem to absorb the creativity in the same way, no matter what the medium.

As for violence, sure, if you let your kids watch violent shows, I’m sure they would be affected. I would no sooner let my children watch The Sopranos than I would read The Godfather to them as a bedtime story. Television is no more violent than literature. And some literature is far worse than ANYTHING you’ll see on TV.

As for television turning kids into materialistic brats, I think we need to keep it in perspective. As an anti-materialist myself, all those commercials for toys and fast food and candy do worry me, but my children’s materialism has been shaped far more by their grandparents’ indulgence than by advertisements. I find it’s pretty easy to counteract the influences of TV commercials anyway; my kids are more interested in what I have to say than what the boob tube says. On those rare occasions that my children talk about something they saw on TV, I simply say, “Yes, dear, that’s nice” and keep on moving. Now that my son’s older, I’ve actually talked to him directly about the dangers of advertisements. “Don’t believe everything salespeople say,” I tell him. “Sometimes they don’t tell the whole truth.” He’s only six, but he’s got the concept already. The other day, we were at the store and he saw a toy that had been advertised on TV. He looked at it carefully, then turned to me and said, “That doesn’t look as cool in person.” Kids aren’t as gullible as we (and Madison Avenue) like to think they are.

Then there’s the new thing – television must be to blame for our kids being fat. The anti-TV folks are winning this battle. But here’s the thing – kids cannot be running around every minute of the day. They have to have downtime. And whether they’re reading a book or watching a TV show, they’re not burning 100 calories a minute. Sure, if you let your kid watch four hours of television a day, he’s probably going to be fatter than a kid who watches one hour or no TV at all. But the biggest kid in my school was also the biggest nerd. He was home-schooled to 7^th grade, read voraciously, and he was ranked second in our class because he couldn’t pass Gym. He told me once he wasn’t allowed to watch TV at home. Hmm…

As far as I’m concerned, television gives my kids some opportunities they can’t always get from books. My little girl can’t read yet, so Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues are wonderful tools for developing her vocabulary. Watching sports on television shows my son athletes in action in a way he could not get from reading about them or listening to a radio broadcast. Now when he plays baseball, he tries to imitate Derek Jeter’s movements. TV is just like anything else in a child’s life – parents have to exercise control and caution. You don’t want to let your kids eat 20 Twinkies a day or let them read the Marquis de Sade at age 10, but you have to feed them and you want them to read. You can let them watch TV in good conscience, as long as you’re monitoring what they watch and how much. Television can be, in the words of Dora, muy bueno!

It’s been a tough summer for dogs. In Indianapolis, we’ve experienced a rash of dog attacks on children. Then, of course, we’ve had the Michael Vick dogfighting case, Ving Rhames’ caretaker mauled by dogs, and DMX’s maltreated dogs removed from his home. So I’ve been thinking a lot about dogs lately.

First, let me be honest. I like animals, but I’m NOT a dog person. I’m not necessarily a cat person either, but I have a cat I like very much. Generally, I’m picky about my pets, and no dog will ever make the cut. That’s not to say that I don’t like dogs. I liked my grandmother’s German shepherd mix, my aunt’s standard poodle, the service dog at the Writing Center, my friend’s Corgi and a few others. I just would never want to own one.

Dogs are just too high-maintenance for me. They have to be walked or let out all the time. They need attention. They whine; they howl; they bark; they bite; they lick; they jump on you. I like my pets quiet and fairly self-sufficient: cats, fish, the occasional hamster or parakeet.

The dogs, however, are not nearly annoying as some dog owners. You see a wide range of “dog people.” From the folks who dress their dogs, throw them birthday parties and buy them Christmas gifts to these girls who use them as fashion accessories to the people who have several dogs and pay little or no attention to them, just leave them outside to bark all day. It’s not the dogs’ fault, of course. The fault lies with the breeders who engineered certain breeds to be yippy and annoying dogs and with the dogs’ owners who let their dogs bark and whine at 7am on a Saturday.

I think what really drives me nuts, though, are the people who constantly talk about their dogs as if they were children and use their pet as an excuse. I hate it when I’m talking about my child, and someone has to interject with some story about Fido as if that’s an appropriate comparison. Even before I had kids, I would never inject my cat into a conversation in which people were talking about their children. And I think it’s pretty rude when people cut out of a get-together early to go let the dog out. When people say, “I have to go. Poor Fluffy needs to be let out,” I hear, “I’d rather be at home with my dog than here with you.” I have lots of friends with dogs who have never cut out early to tend to their pets, so I know it’s not necessarily true. Not all dog owners are like that, of course. I have some friends who are loving, responsible dog owners without ever letting the dog become an excuse or a creepy substitute for kids.

So I don’t care for dogs much, but I still cannot fathom what Michael Vick and his friends did. Animal cruelty is wrong whether the animal in question is a cute little bunny or a vicious cobra. If cruel and unusual punishment were not illegal, I’d say we should string Vick and company up in a puddle of water and give them a few shocks like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. As for DMX, Ving Rhames and the owners of the dogs who mauled the kids in Indianapolis, they need to be  tossed into a ring with some vicious pit bulls and see how they fare.

What’s a non-dog person to do? Well, I would support legislation to stop the breeding of aggressive dogs - pit bulls, Rottweilers, mastiffs - or of “purebred” dogs in general. One of my friends used to be a veterinary technician, and she told me all sorts of horror stories about pedigreed species who have been so inbred they are genetic nightmares even without being aggressive.

I would also encourage people to really think about why they want a dog before they go get one. Security is a lame reason because security systems are cheaper, safer, cleaner, and more reliable than a dog. Companionship is fine, I guess, but cats are easier.

And if your dog is the one that wakes me up on a Sunday morning, rest assured I’ll be on your doorstep. It won’t be pretty. Not only am I not a dog person, I’m not a morning person either!