When I first heard about the Gloucester, Massachusetts high school girls who made a pact to become pregnant and to raise their children together, I wasn’t surprised by the media reaction to this Time story. Some reporters pulled a knee-jerk response that called for more birth control and sex education. The reaction from other writers is to criticize the previous reactions and to call for more discipline, a stronger sense of responsibility, and no public funds used to support any of the girls. As one article stated bluntly, “They made their ‘choice,’ and they can live with the consequences.”
My initial reaction to the Time story was, “It takes a village.” While a few friends thought my reaction was funny, I didn’t intend it as a joke. In fact, this pact reminded me of my time spent in a little town in Colorado, where I belonged to a group of families that took this philosophy seriously. Kids were dropped off at one family’s house, sometimes for days at a time while their parents went to Denver or off to some remote mountain top. In exchange, the host parents felt free to leave their children with other families to go off for a few days. The kids felt at home in over a dozen residences in that town. And, they knew that love - as well as discipline - was the same across the board. No manipulation allowed!
So, when I read the Time article and the subsequent media fallout, I wondered what prompted these seventeen teens to initiate this pact. Where they trying to build community? Or, was this decision a result of delusional and immature thinking? The teens and their parents decline to be interviewed. Instead, psychologists, school officials and other authority figures feel obligated to express their reasons for the pact. The high school clinic nurse, Kim Daly, stated that, “This is a community that is very much struggling…Some probably see this as something to do…Having a baby gives them an identity.” And, from the same story, Superintendent Christopher Farmer told the Gloucester School Committee that, “This is a community problem.”
But, what is this community like, and what, exactly, is the problem?
Read on, mon cher! »
Posted by Linda at 3:47 AM PDT
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The image above is from National Geographic, photographed by Ken Geiger. His rose-colored perspective on Stonehenge appeals to my heart, as I’ve been enamored with this pagan monument since I was a child. Now, the news is that this monument marks a burial ground that’s been around since 3000 BCE. This means that cremation (the bodies were burned, according to National Geographic) and burial was common - at least for the elite - at least 250-500 years before the first “novel,” Gilgamesh, was writtten.
Now this…
The above photo was taken from 100 Word Minimum, and it shows a replica of Stonehenge made from styrofoam (I don’t have a photo as every time I pass this structure it’s raining…). This is Foamhenge, created by Mark Cline and erected on property owned by Natural Bridge along Hwy 11 in Virginia. What I think is sort of serendipitous is that this structure may be sitting on land that once belonged to one of my fifth great-grandfathers, a man who had two wives and about 13 kids, all of whom are buried nearby (ooh-wee-oooh).
Posted by Linda at 12:55 AM PDT
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I was shocked to learn this morning that Russell Shaw had died on 14 March 2008 in a hotel room on his way to cover the Emerging Technologies Conference and VON. Shaw was a fanatical blogger at the ZDNet family of publications. More than once he was kind enough to mention my writing with enthusiasm and kind words over the years, and I was, in turn, was a huge fan of his blog and of his writing in other publications.
Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic, stated this morning that it’s unclear how Russell died. The last word was that this 60-year-old man wasn’t feeling well and that he was going to try to “sleep it off [the unwell feeling]” before the conference. Shaw’s funeral will be held on Monday, 23 March, in Florida.
Stay tuned to ZDNet and Dignan’s column to learn more.
Posted by Linda at 11:12 AM PDT
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I find it ironic that the New York Governor apologizes over allegations that he’s been consorting with a prostitution ring at the same time the Pope delivers new parameters for sinful behaviors. Did the right hand know what the left hand was doing? “There are many other sins that are perhaps much more grave that don’t have anything to do with sex - that have to do with life, that have to do with the environment, that have to do with justice.” Gov. Eliot Spitzer should lift his head from the muck of everyday sin and deal with something larger, perhaps?
Posted by Linda at 3:26 PM PDT
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