Jewish World Review Dec. 27, 2001/ 12 Teves, 5762

Marianne M. Jennings

Marianne M. Jennings
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The Twelve Days of inconsistency


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- DURING the most wonderful time of the year folks laden with figgy pudding and dragged through river and wood let their guards down. The eggnog does talk. This season revealed philosophical inconsistencies.

The New York Times reported that losses at Cantor Fitzgerald, housed in the World Trade Center's top floors, have left 1,300 children fatherless. USA Today and Prime Time Live had features on 14 babies born fatherless because of September 11, "What the babies . . . . have in common are the fathers they will never know." The Today Show hauled fatherless tykes to meet Joe Torre and Michael Jordan. The Times noted, "No effort has been spared to ease the burden for parents going it alone."

Sacre bleu! A father is important? What happened to "I am woman"? Women choosing not to marry, women partnering with other women and David Crosby (a la Melissa Etheridge), women lifting buildings? Missing in these stories on fatherless tots was the usual dismissal of fathers. A woman who wants to have a child says at 8 weeks, "I'm having a baby." A woman who does not want the child says, "This tissue mass must go." A child growing up without a father when mom wants a father is tragic. A child growing up without a father because it is mom's choice is, well, a choice.

There are the stories of women going to war. Jaimie Strathmeyer, 22, called up by the Army Reserves, let the New York Times tell her gut-wrenching story of leaving behind 7-year-old Shaiyann and14-month-old Kody, "As a mother she is bereft, 'There's no way to explain this to Kody. . . . The worst part is imagining that by the time I get home, he'll be calling my mother Mommy and my father Daddy.'"

Missing were the female be-all-that-you-can-be platitudes. Combat duty involves extended travel, without daycare. NOW's demands for the next defense budget, " Food for camels in petting zoo at Kandahar day-care facility."

So long as we're trotting down the whining gender paths, the media outlets were up on the rooftops, elated, and shouting that Katie Couric is now the highest paid news personality in history. Missing were the "gender wage gap" discussions.

Kenneth Feinberg, victim relief fund czar, announced algebraic formulas for computing how much the September 11 victims would receive. Missing were discussions of evil capitalism. Missing also was "from each according to ability, to each according to need." Formerly, under media tax refund theories, those with more should get less. Those with Sting and Celine Dion telethon money should get nothing, but the media don't apply their class warfare theories here.

John Walker bin Laden Lindh benefited from good tidings as well. Within hours of Timothy McVeigh's arrest for the Oklahoma City bombings, the media had him tenuously tied to Rush Limbaugh and Hillary haters. Missing is traitor Walker's background: he spent his youth in a sixties hippies neighborhood and his childhood in Washington, D.C.

In a festive mood, Congress passed an education reform bill sans vouchers. Children stuck in dismal public schools can now transfer to the higher-grade poor public schools. But they can't take their public schools funds to private schools. Missing were discussions of Senator Ted. Kennedy's et al. children attending tony Sidwell Friends.

The twelve days of inconsistency reached crescendo with Kensington, Maryland nixing Santa Claus from its annual Christmas tree lighting festival. Not nixing the "Christmas" tree, not "winter break tree," or "holiday tree," seemed inconsistent. But town council member Glenn Cowan assured, "It's an entirely secular Christmas tree."

Missing was recognition that Santa is the secular part of Christmas. My youth with Bible-thumping Baptists and adulthood in church each Sunday never witnessed homage paid to Santa Claus. There are religious factions who put Kris Kringle right up there with Harry Potter and Halloween.

As Kensington felt the pain of Santa, New York City's chancellor of public schools permitted Muslim students to pray in school during Ramadan. A spokeswoman explained, "Students want to pray for the religious holiday. We want to accommodate them." Missing were discussions as to why prayers to Allah don't violate the establishment clause but prayers to G-d do. When the ADHD crowd gets rolling, moments of silence will offend too.

This season revealed innermost feelings unwittingly. That fathers matter. That women are doing awfully well. That women in combat is a bad idea. That some deserve more. That prayer might open a heart. And when the heart is open, intellectual postures seem to be missing something. When the missing heart is watching, sometimes even listening, things do seem inconsistent.


JWR contributor Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. Send your comments by clicking here.

Up

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02/15/00: Those chameleon 60s activists
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01/25/00: Stroke of the pen, law of the land: Clinton's Camelot
01/18/00: Off the Rocker Rorschach Test
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© 2000, Marianne M. Jennings