Fan

Dear Dominic,

I'm sorry I'm not that mom at the basketball court, the one on the sidelines, wearing your team colors and clanging a cowbell, the one who yells out your name, who yells at the ref, who scribbles out efficient plays on my clipboard.

I'll go to some games, I promise.

But I won't love you because you like sports. I'll love you in spite of it.

--Mommy

Chasm

Is it possible that the things which separate classes of kids is as simple as braces, the ability to play a musical instrument, and what they do with their spring break?

Chance at Free Books!

Shannon O'Donnell over at Book Dreaming came up with this crafty contest.

Check out http://shannonkodonnell.blogspot.com/2009/12/hear-ye-hear-ye.html to enter.

Good luck!

Not So Silent Night

It was a typical Englund Christmas. 33 people at my dad's house in California. We played a Rock Band tournament of "Don't Stop Believin'." Ryan brought his famous eggplant parmesan. Someone tracked deodorant down the whole hallway. A light fell on Pregnant Rachel. The kids opened Nerf swords, Lego pirate ships, and the 2009 version of inchworm. Elf salt-and-pepper shakers on the table were very inappropriate. And Wayne and Garth (Daniel and Steven) delivered their top 10 Christmas Hotties list, with God's baby mama at the top.

Innovation

"Can you make 100 copies of this?" Dominic asked me. He thrust a paper into my hands on his way to school.

I scanned it. It was an invitation to a new monthly Lego club. At our house.

"Hold on!" I called, as he was halfway down the driveway. "What are you going to do with all these?"

When Dominic said he was planning on posting them around the middle school, I tweaked the plan. I told him I'd make 10 copies, and he could invite that many kids one time.

Ten kids turned into 22 today. The best friends weren't even invited to this one. This one was all about Lego fanatics. If you were a kid, and you spoke Lego, you were in. There were girls and boys, between two and twelve, from eight different schools. And they were all hunched over the World's Biggest Lego pile, constructing castles, inventing airplanes, building bridges.

It was magical.

The kids were teachers. Today was a welcome reminder to be accepting, to be encouraging, to be creative and cooperative, to just get together and have a great time.

The Answers

Tartt claims that man's desire is to live forever, and that the attempt of doing so proves his innate evil.

Maslow would say that man's basic needs for survival -- breath, food, water, and sex (this last one is what "Community" was getting at -- define him.

My friend Wendi tells me that people are good, that it comes down to the choices they make, most of which are right.

My husband, the criminologist, is matter-of-fact: People are good. Statistically, there are less bad people, maybe 2 out of a hundred, he guesses.

Me, I see a lot of greed. But there's also a fair share of hope.

I like to trust the other people on the planet. I'm hoping I'm raising kind kids.

It's the perfect time of year to believe in humanity's goodness.

The Essence of Everything

"'Are people born wicked?'" wonders Glinda The Good of the North in the opening song from Wicked. "'Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?'"

Thus begins a fantastical exploration of an age-old debate:

Are humans inherently good or evil? Is personality created through nature or nurture?

From Paradise Lost to Star Wars, art has attempted to provoke answers.

Wicked claims that people are evil, but that it's no doing of their own. To assuage her guilt at being a mean roommate, Glinda befriends the unattractive, hence unpopular, Ephalba. She tries to convince the green girl that the circumstances of her birth were not her fault.

And here's a thought-provoking excerpt from NBC's sitcom, "Community":

http://www.hulu.com/watch/108709/community-greendale-vs-city-college#x-4,vclip,1,0

Are we really driven by sex? If so, does that make us more evil than good?

Then, there's Donna Tartt's murder mystery, The Secret History, in which the reader considers the true nature of man; a group of elite college students plots a homicide against one of their own. When the group unravels, the question becomes whether the absence of reason is insanity, and if evil breeds evil.

Is the essence of humanity defined by what we want? Or to the extent we'll go to achieve it?

"'...What is desire?'" Tartt writes. "'We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?'"

What is it? And how does it clarify whether man is good or evil?

Do you know?