Weekend Roundup

Thanks all for the birthday wishes. I had a great time. Low key - just the way I like it in my old age.

• Scenes from the mall - Make fun if you want, but I spent the bulk of my actual birthday, Saturday, in a mall. I wanted to treat Mrs. B, whose steadily increasing mom-to-be-induced roundness makes a lot of new clothes necessary. And the truth is I needed a few things too. My game's not complete if my gear isn't complete. Trousers, here, shoes there, a new pocket square here or there. Voila. My wardrobe is whole again. Anyway, I noticed something curious - to me, anyway. There were a lot of dudes walking around the mall wearing tiny shirts. I mean cut off-your-circulation, show-your-navel shirts, the kind the guys in A Night at the Roxbury wore, the kind, in fact, that you used to only see on slicked-back guys in a nightclub. Everywhere Mrs. B and I looked there were grown men walking around in t-shirts and Polos that they must've gotten at Baby Gap or Oshkosh B'Gosh. Did I miss the memo? I guess if I'm gonna keep up with the times I'll have to wash all my tees in scalding hot water and dry 'em on high heat. Following the next laundry cycle (tomorrow), I should be stylish again.
• Stellar examples - I don't have any yet, 'cause I'm not a parent yet. But another thing I noticed in the mall was a huge number of parents cussing at or around their kids. I wanted to choke one woman who was snapping at her boy, who appeared to be about 4- or 5-years-old, telling him to "bring your ass over here," and "don't make me smack the (expletive beginning with SH) out of you!" I've seen this before, but as my day fast approaches I find myself focusing my people-watching on parents w/small kids. I'm no prude, but that can't be good for the kids. I can think of a million bad or embarrassing scenarios that will one day blow up in a parent's face if they walk around swearing cavalierly at/around their kids. What are you gonna say when the neighbor lady says hello and asks your kid how school was and Junior answers "It was effen great!" Is it really necessary? I remember my folks used to get pretty ticked off at me when I was a kid, 'cause like a lot of young kids I was hyper and didn't listen. But they never swore at me. In fact, I don't believe I ever heard them swear, even when they were angry, stressed out, etc. I'm not saying that if they had dropped an F-bomb around me it would have altered my life path and turned me into a criminal. But I can't imagine it would have helped in the civility and character-building areas. I'm just sayin'.
• Pleasantville exists - Seriously, we found the real Pleasantville...in a grocery store, of all places. If you've read this blog before you know I have a love/hate relationship with South Florida. In the two years I've been here, I've grown to love the beaches and the palm trees, the sunshine, and the diverse ethnic and cultural food offerings. Love my job. And I'm not just saying that for management. When I was interviewing for this gig, one editor kept telling me that finding a good story to report down here is like picking ripe fruit, 'cause there's always something going on involving over-the-top personalities. He was right. I could be blind and deaf, and I would still stumble onto a regular flow of good stories. If you've ever read a Carl Hiaasen novel, believe it. People down here are crazy...like that glue. And I mean that in a good way too. I even like that I could wear sandals year-round if I wanted to. But I hate the overcrowding. This entire region is like a cage of horny rabbits. The warm bodies multiply seemingly overnight. Or as Kingfish used to say to Andy (if you're not a nerd like me, or over the age of 45, you might not know the relevance of those two names together) South Florida is like "10 pounds of lard in a five-pound bucket." You can't drive down the street without elderly women wanting to play bumper cars with you. There are so many children, you could lay them down like floor mats and walk on their backs from one end of a block to the other without your feet touching the ground. "Reach out and touch someone" is not an advertising slogan here. It's as easy as lifting your arm and extending a finger. And the crowding is worst in places that everyone needs to be, like the grocery store. Mrs. B and I usually dread going to the grocery. The two closest to us - one regular store and one hippie store - are always packed, from early morning to late evening. Angry people jostling for position, snatching things off shelves like the next hurricane is gonna strike any minute, people ramming you with their carts and then giving you that "What? You were in my way" look. So on a whim we decided to try another grocery that's just as close to our house as our regular spot, but in an inconvenient direction. We drove the extra few minutes to the "new" store, and the clouds parted, and the heavens opened, and sexy angels danced and sang and rolled out a red carpet for us, and pastel-colored unicorns farted pixie dust in the form of flowery perfume. It was perfect! Well, it seemed like that anyway. What made this place great was that it was not crowded. The employees were helpful. And the patrons were considerate. I'm not kidding when I say that every two or three minutes, an employee smiling ear-to-ear would approach, ask how we were doing and ask if we needed help. Someone would accidentally bump our cart and then say "pardon me," or "excuse me," or "I'm sorry." And they'd utter these words while smiling. We'd move to squeeze through a narrow space at the same time as another patron, and that person would say "No, no, you first. I insist!" And then they'd smile and nod and walk on. I swear, people were whistling. All that pleasantness should have felt normal. But we're so used to the opposite, that we thought at first that either the grocery store was a front for a brain-washing cult, or everyone in there was on crack. Turns out folks in there were just really, really nice, and pleasant. I wanted to board up our house and come back with sleeping bags and camping gear and live at the store. The manager probably would have let us. We will be going back to the "Pleasantville" store regularly from now on. And no, I'm not giving you the address.

Killer logic

In the midst of all that's right with the world...and all that's wrong that I've grown accustomed, calloused, or numb to, I've been reeling for the past couple of weeks over the murders of three young people and the attempted murder of one in Newark, NJ. Three were college students, and one had just enrolled. By all accounts they were good kids, not criminals, and not violent or bad people.

On the slight, slight chance that you don't know about these killings, these victims were apparently hanging out, listening to music in a school parking lot when they were accosted by four to five young men, lined up against the rear wall of the school, forced to kneel, and shot execution style. One young woman survived and is recovering in a Newark hospital. Police say robbery was the apparent motive.

And when the requisite blame was assigned by some justifiably outraged, outspoken Newark residents, who do you think was the first person blamed? Newark Mayor Cory Booker, of course. Apparently the murders were indirectly caused by Booker not doing more to stop violent crime.

Wait. Don't tell me you actually guessed the killers were blamed? And, puhleaaaaase tell me you didn't dare question how the killers might have been raised?

Rookies.

I understand that among their many duties as custodians of our tax dollars, elected officials have a responsibility to field the best police forces money can buy.

But how many times do I have to say police work is only half preventative? Seriously, cops can prevent things like burglaries when alarms tip them off. They can prevent a few things like drug deals when surveillance or instinct tips them off to shady behavior. They can prevent a few crimes by pure luck - stumbling on a crime about to happen or in progress. The other half of police work? Reactionary. It has to be, unless cops become psychics or Minority Report actually comes true some day.

So what is the best solution to violent, outrageous criminal behavior, the stuff that stokes the strongest reaction from police? It's simple. You change the way violent people think. You change the way they think, and you will change the way they act. If they think that robbery is an acceptable way to make money they will act on it. If they think that murder is an acceptable way to clean up the robbery they will act on it.

Before you react with "easier said than done," consider that most psych and sociological experts agree that the moral standards we live by most of our lives are established during our childhoods.

So if you think about it, parents really can shape the way their kids think. Sure there are exceptions. The occasional birth of a Jeffrey Dahmer is proof of that. But a strong parent that keeps a kid in check and doesn't take crap from a kid, and makes a kid study and do homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour, and tells a kid no sometimes, and regulates the music and movies the kid listens to and watches, and regulates the kid's friends, and reacts swiftly and consistently when the kid hits another person for any reason but self defense, can usually shape that kid into a reasonably decent person, a person with enough common sense to not ever consider cold-blooded murder as an option.

You know I spent most of last week in Las Vegas. One evening while waiting in the lobby of my hotel to rendezvous for dinner with a few friends from other newspapers, I observed a family - mom, dad, two kids (boy and girl), and someone I'm guessing was grandma. The boy was cracked up, yelling, stomping, hitting his sister, screaming "no!" to his mother, brushing grandma's hand away as she tried to soothe him. The worse he acted, the more his folks and grandma shrank away. He won. I'm not saying that a temper tantrum by a kid who appeared to be somewhere between 9 and 11 translates to him becoming a murderer. But 10 years from now if that kid ever finds himself in a tough, desperate situation, or a hopeless dead-end lifestyle, I guarantee you he'll have fewer reservations about doing something stupid, and maybe violent to "fix" his situation than the kid whose parents would have checked him hard and shut him down the minute that tantrum started. Substitute the tantrum with refusals to do homework, go to bed on time, stop hitting, etc., and parents who let those things slide too, and you have the same result.

When reached by the media, James Harvey, the father of Newark victim Dashon Harvey, said "To have our kids nowadays act the way they act, I don't blame Mayor Booker. It's not on Mayor Booker. It's on you guys. It's on the parents of the city of Newark, or whoever you are in the world. It's on the parents. When you raise your kids up you teach 'em right from wrong...Innocent people are dying needlessly, unnecessarily and for what? I blame you guys, the parents of America. If you raised your kids better this world would be a better place to live."

Today's reading material

Gonna be swamped this morning - actually probably most of the day - trying to make progress on a story, so here is a link to the article I had in Sunday's paper about former heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis reinventing himself since retiring from the sport.

Will post more this evening.

Attention parents, I need to know something

First, my disclaimer: I swear I'm not clowning. I have nothing but respect and admiration for any and all responsible parents.

But Mrs. B and I are working on creating the next generation of James or Jill (that's Mrs. B). So I have to know from you parents, particularly those parents of children under the age of 3, do you base all your decisions on what to do on the status of your kids?

What I mean by status is whether they're hungry or full, how long till their next meal, whether they're wide awake or sleepy or likely to become sleepy anytime soon, whether something entertaining or relaxing will interest them as much or more than you or whether it's something only you would enjoy as an adult.

I watched with great interest my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law all last week and over the weekend with their kids. They're all great parents. Very attentive, etc.

But I noticed, as much as they all love being parents (of a couple of 2-year-olds, an 8-month-old, and a 7-year-old), they are literally hamstrung depending on the kids' status.

There is no just waking up and going to the mall. There is waking up and deciding whether or not the mall is viable based on when the baby's is next likely to nap.

There is no just waking up and going to the beach, or the museum, or the zoo (substitute wherever you might take your kids here). There is waking up and deciding whether you go to the beach for one hour or four, to the museum for one hour or two, and so on and so forth, depending on when the kids are likely to want to sleep/eat/poop.

Again, I'm impressed as hell with how my bros and sis's-in-law handle their business. Still, I'm guessing I'm a little naive. I always figured regardless of whether you were at the mall or the park or the museum or the grocery, or wherever, you just toss kids in strollers and if they hafta poop they can do it in the stroller (not literally in the stroller, but you know what I mean), if they have to eat they can eat in the stroller, if they have to sleep...

But is this what I have to look forward to, my life being put on a round-the-clock schedule based on what my infants-to-toddlers want/need? I mean I understand over night sleep being an issue. You have to get them in a pattern and stick with it, right? But everything, round-the-clock?

Very disturbing. I think I'll just adopt an 18-year-old with a job, maybe.