Daddy, Papa and Me

So, Emma and I are taking violin lessons. She started in first grade and is doing so not-quite-enthusiastically. She loves the idea of playing the violin, but not the practice. This year I told her I’d pick up the violin again (after a 25 year hiatus) and practice with her if she continued.

So many adults I’ve talked to (including myself, yes, I talk to myself) either wishes their parent pushed/encouraged them to continue with music lessons or were grateful they did even when they were not enthusiastic.

So, we aren’t forcing her, but I am encouraging, cajoling and otherwise bribing her to . They say that music helps with math. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it helps with life, so, hey… if it helps with math too, all the better.

So, she has lessons on Monday afternoons which I sit in on and then the teacher takes the last 10 minutes and goes through the things she went through with Emma (and Emma gets to correct my stance and bow holding, which she thoroughly enjoys).

I also take lessons on Wednesday with a talented (and impossibly good-looking) twenty-something man. A little side note, he asked me when the last time I played was and I told him “probably before you were born” and his answer was basically “yes, a possibility. Ok, so what he lacks in tact, he makes up for in good looks and talent LOL.

I am enjoying it. Though I’m learning that I have forgotten more than I thought and that I remembered more than I thought. Music theory, notation, etc are all from scratch, but the memory of holding and playing the violin remains (muscle memory good, brain memory bad . So, I found a great site to remind me of the brain stuff:

teoría – Music Theory Web – Espacio dedicado a la teoría musical.

Btw, Emma is doing the Suzuki method for violin at the school’s after-school program. During school the music program uses the “Orff” method, which I really like the idea of  (and seems different from Suzuki in many ways, but they have different goals in mind too… so however you slice it, Emma’s music education is going to be stellar . This has gotten me interested in music education (what are the Orff and Suzuki exactly, what other theories are there? etc)… but for now.. just learn the violin.

I’m enjoying it more than she is, though I’ve found when we play pieces together she lights up and wants to continue. In fact, the last few times we’ve practiced, she did so without fuss and seemed to enjoy it.

Good News:

Scholastic Reverses Decision to Exclude Gay Friendly Book from Fairs

And ask the schools in our area not to have Scholastic Book fairs since they don’t meet the ‘norms of our community:

Time to boycott Scholastic Books? Lauren Myracle’s ‘Luv Ya Bunches’ banned from school book fairs.

I’m going to buy the book because they decided to ban it. You too can buy this book:

A new bill has been introduced in Uganda that among other things calls for life sentence for the conviction of homosexuality, the death penalty for repeat ‘offenders’, criminalizes speech for talking about homsexuality, calls for  a life sentence for obtaining a same-sex marriage outside of Uganda AND makes it criminally punishable for not reporting a friend or family member who you know to be gay: Uganda Civil Rights Coalition Denounces Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

I didn’t know it was getting so bad in Uganda that such a horrific law would even be considered. But what is really sad from an American point of view, is that American anti-gay activists have been instrumental in helping foment a lot of the anti-gay hatred in Uganda and this legislation.

I suspect there are a lot of other American anti-gay activists who secretly (or not-so-secretly) yearn for such a law in the U.S., or at least a return to anti-sodomy laws directed against gay and lesbian citizens. The FRC isn’t particularly nor directly involved in this Ugandan mess (that ‘honor’ goes to Exodus), but given their long long history of blatant gay fear and hate-mongering, one would have to wonder if some in that organization would support at least some version of that law here.

I know I haven’t blogged much, if any, about our second adoption process. We started it nearly 4 years ago, had to take a break and then retrained last year. We’ve been in the matching process for a year now.

This is a public ‘fostadopt’ program. The children are those in foster care, but they are in ‘concurrent’ planning (adoption is another avenue possibility because reunification has a low chance) or are legally unattached to their birth parents. The process for the adoptive parents:

1. Training (2-4 months)
2. Paperwork and Homestudy (2-4 months), when done…
3. Matching (parents look at prospective children, choose possibilities, social workers for parents and children decide if they might be good matches). (1 day to years). If there is a match…
4. Disclosure. A meeting between parents, all concerned social workers, others to look over all the history, issues and paperwork for the child. Parents then decide if they are interested and instigate..
5. Meetings. Parents meet child/ren in several meetings of increasing duration and seriousness (1st meeting might be short, without other children, later meetings can be overnights and potential siblings meet prospective adoptee). (couple weeks to couple months) At any point, any party can change their mind, but if decided it’s a good match then..
6. Fostercare. Child/ren enter home of adoptive parents as foster children. Adoption proceeding commence, court hearings, birth parents (if in the picture) might have continued possible contact, reunification might still be a possibility (with varying levels of possibility to not-at-all to a slim chance). (about 6 months to 1year+) After hearings and paperwork..
7. Adoption.

We have reached step 4…

Nate Silver, as always, has a great statistical rundown of where the ‘compromise’ space is on healthcare reform using positions and polling: FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Public Option Playing Field, in Two Dimensions.

Given the extremes of a universal, single-payer, federally run program and a ‘do-nothing’ default GOP position,

the compromise position seems to be one of these choices:

Federal Program, negotiated rates (public option), states opt in.
State-run programs, states opt in or out.

I kind of like the Federal Program, negotiated rates (public option), states opt OUT choice, but that is barely within the compromise space. I think the Federal Program, negotiated rates (public option), states opt IN would probably work though.

She’s right, ya know.

Debunking the “million to one,” “black and white twins” obsession | Love Isn’t Enough – on raising a family in a colorstruck world.

Andrew Sullivan has a series of posts that started with a response to Pat Buchanan (I linked to it in a brief post here).

I don’t write many emails to bloggers, but I wrote an email to  Andrew Sullivan because I felt my experience, our family’s experience, illustrates a lot of what he’s bringing up in that series. He was kind enough to post my email. Someday, I will need to write up that experience more fully.

This looks interesting from Luigi at Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog: In which our blogger decides not to quibble about the One Acre Fund.

The One Acre Fund trains small farmers in Africa in better farming practices and then sets them up with a ’starter kit’ of better seed, fertilizer, etc.

I too like the idea for the same reason I like Kiva, it gives power and, importantly, capital to the people directly. Luigi quibble would be, if he quibbled , would be that he’d add the “add the canonical ‘at least for a while’ qualifier, and bring up sustainability and resilience”

I wouldn’t quibble either. The need is too great to quibble, and frankly, it’s a huge step towards sustainability. Instead of importing large amounts of grain and foodstuffs from far away places in times of famine, local farmers producing food locally on a regular basis seems a huge step towards sustainability.

and Anglo and Native and Asian….

Andrew Sullivan makes a point:

But this axiom, while useful as a myth, has a problem. It is untrue. And this “country” that white Americans are allegedly losing is not, in fact, a country. It is merely a self-serving and solipsistic illusion of a country that some white Americans feel they are losing.

From its very beginning, after all, America was a profoundly black country as well.

Our nation has never been a White Anglo nation, Pat Buchanan and Glenn Beck’s absurd opinions notwithstanding. African culture has influenced, imbued and otherwise been a huge part of our culture since it’s beginnings as a nation. Our culture is so intertwined and influenced by the contributions of African-Americans as to be inseparable. The mythical ‘white culture’ that Pat Buchanan and his ilk so fear losing has never been.

The more I reflect on my own family (married, biological and adopted), with it’s ancestry steeped in Anglo, African, Spanish-Mexican, Native-American and other contributions, the more I realize that they are all inseparable. Like our genetics, one isn’t ‘half’ Anglo and ‘half’ Native, one is both. At the same time.

We are.