Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008

by John Scalzi

  I don’t think it’s that Gen-Xers are asshole parents because they have issues with their own parents anymore, I think they’re asshole parents because they have issues with each other. Allow me to posit a central truth regarding Gen-Xers: We don’t much like other Gen-Xers. It should be obvious: We’re all witty and smart, in that casual, pop culture-y way that makes for amusingly light banter at get-togethers that cleverly disguises the true purpose of Gen-X communication, which is to find that weak link in someone else’s intellectual defenses that exposes them as a fraud, confirming that they’re not really your equal no matter how much money, sex or prestige they have, relative to you. It’s a generation of defensive egalitarians—it’s not “we’re all equal,” it’s “none of you is better than me.” And that’s no way to run a railroad. As Gen-Xers get older, this approach to their cohort has expanded to deal with people who are older than they (because we’re all adults now), and adults younger as well (because they don’t know much).

  How does this liberal (and, coming as it does from a Gen-Xer, self-incriminating) beating on Gen-Xers relate to parenting? In relation to the parents having issues with the teachers, simply enough: When a teacher suggests your kid is something other than your own personal conception of your kid, it’s an implicit criticism of you, and that’s not to be borne, because what does the teacher know? If the teacher were actually someone important enough to be listened to, they wouldn’t be a teacher, now would they? Fucking teachers, man. The problem lies not in you—it couldn’t—therefore, the problem is the teacher, or the school, or the damn No Child Left Behind act that all those red state bastards rammed through Congress. And out come the knives and out comes the attack. Meanwhile, little Jimmy is over there eating his crayons and not actually learning much. But this is the point: It’s not about the kid, it’s about the parent. The poor kid, in this instance, is an extension of the parent’s twitchiness in dealing with the world in general.

  (This also goes back to the childfree folks’ complain about parents in a general sense—they’ve got these children completely off the hook in a public space and when someone calls them on it, the parents get monstrously defensive. But they’re not reacting to the criticism of their children’s behavior—they’re reacting to the criticism of them as a person. Again, the kid enters into the equation only as a tangential.)

  With the “perfect mother” issue the “Gen-X self-dislike” factor is somewhat more muted simply because the expectations of mothers in general are rather more complicated, and I think that in this situation there’s a lot more concern for the actual children involved. At the risk of sounding sexist, I think “motherhood” is more child-oriented than “parenthood”; “Parenthood” is a slightly more dispassionate state that acknowledges the rest of the world, whereas “motherhood” is about what happens between you and your kid (“fatherhood,” ideally, has the same dynamic). But naturally we compare how we handle out relationship with our child with how others like us handle theirs, and in the Gen-X, with its implicit undercurrent of antagonism, this is fraught with issues.

  What to do? Well, naturally, I think the first thing for Gen-X parents to do is to get over themselves and whatever festering defensiveness they have regarding other people. Gen-Xers are capable of liking people their own age, of course: We all have close friends. It’d be nice if we didn’t automatically question the competence and/or worthiness of everyone else we meet. In other words, try to reset our defaults to actually like people until and unless they go out of their way to prove they are, in fact, generally unlikeable. It’s a thought, anyway. The end result of this is that parents then might be able to listen to teachers and others without feeling like it’s a referendum on them as a person. It’s not (generally). It’s about your kid, and what your kid needs.

  Which is the second thing. Your kid: A little person who is probably like you in a lot of ways and yet is not you at all. Despite your best efforts, your kids will turn out as someone who is not you, and who has their own agenda in the world. In my opinion, the goal of parenthood is to teach your kid how to explore the world and find himself or herself in it; this naturally requires that the focus is on the kid, and not the parent. The parent who is leaping in and mud-wrestling a teacher over a “B” or bribing the local daycare center staff to get their kid in is probably not focused on what the kid needs so much as what the parent thinks he needs to prove. The parent who gets her hackles up about someone complaining her kid is acting like a hopped-up monkey in a public place isn’t actually doing her kid a favor if the kid is, in fact, acting like a hopped-up monkey.

  What it comes down to is that when parents act like assholes, it’s usually because they’re thinking about themselves more than they’re thinking about their kids. As parents, it’s time to get over ourselves. It’s probably better for our kids, and it’s certainly better for how the rest of the world sees us as parents.

  THE ELECTION

  AND KERRY’S

  SHOES

  I want to be clear on this, so that there’s no confusion. If John Kerry cannot beat George W. Bush in this election, he should be taken out and beaten to death with his own shoes. How can any major party candidate not beat a sitting president who is the first since Hoover to have the economy lose jobs on his watch? How can any candidate not beat a sitting president whose economic policies took the federal budget from massive surpluses to massive deficits in such an alarmingly short time? How can any candidate not beat a sitting president whose rationales for a war of choice have been shown over and over again to be false and reckless—and because of that 1000 members of the US armed forces have no better reason for their mortal sacrifice than “presidential misadventure”? How can any candidate lose to the most incompetent man in living memory to hold the office of president?

  Don’t talk to me about the Republican smear machine, or stupid voters, or a complicit media. This is a candidate’s job, to make his case to the American voters. John Kerry has been blessed with an opponent who makes Warren Harding look like a sharp tack, whose major policies have uniformly been one fat disgusting disaster after another, and who by most polls has lead the country in what most Americans view to be in the wrong direction. And here it is, 25 days before election day, and Bush and Kerry are still more or less statistically tied; Kerry’s up today, but not enough that he won’t be behind tomorrow if he doesn’t ace tonight’s debate.

  This is appalling. It is unfathomable to me that at this late date in the campaign that Kerry is not more than a percentage point or two—at best—beyond the statistical error of the polls. I am reasonably confident that Kerry will be a perfectly acceptable president, certainly by comparison to his predecessor if nothing else. But as a candidate, he gives me the smacky shakes. I understand that this is his modus operandi in campaigns: to come up fast in the final quarter, just like he did in his senate campaign against William Weld in 1996. But look, Dubya ain’t no William Weld. Bush doesn’t have the 70% approval ratings Weld had. Dubya doesn’t have the successful executive track record Weld had. That race deserved to be close. This one doesn’t.

  And let’s also be clear on this: Kerry needs to win outside the margin of error. Bush got into the White House in 2000 because Gore, that stupid, stupid man, let the race get close; he lost his own home state, for God’s sake, and then it all came down to Florida, where Dubya’s brother was governor, and then got kicked upstairs to the Supreme Court. If it all comes down to Florida again, there will be riots and Disney World will burn, baby, burn, but it’ll go to Bush again. Or what if it comes down to Ohio, home of Diebold and a Republican Secretary of State who attempted to disallow voter registration cards because of the weight of the paper until he was shamed into backing up? Come on, people. Do you really think if it’s close that the Republicans will let it get away? When it comes to elections, you don’t let the GOP get close. Letting them get close just means you can’t see where they’re planning to jam in the knife.

  And you know what—I total
ly respect that. In 2000, I enraged a rabidly liberal friend of mine by saying, basically, that the reason Bush was in the White House was quite simply that the GOP wanted it more. The Florida recount was a dirty business all the way around, and the GOP, rabid little powermongers that they were, were like the poor schmucks at a radio contest who were willing to dive headfirst into a vat of pig shit to get the sparkly prize, while the Democrats were only willing to get in to their knees and half-heartedly pick around, and complain that they shouldn’t have to wallow in pork crap in the first place. Well, you know. That was the game at that point. If it comes to that again, you know the GOP has got the snorkels at ready.

  This is why Kerry needs two have a two or three state margin (at least!) at the end of the day. This election needs to be incontestable; on elefiction night, Dubya and the GOP have to look at the tally board and know that short of a military coup they’ve only got a few more weeks to enjoy the use of the Air Force One snack bar. Otherwise it will never end. I have entirely too much respect for the GOP’s ability to pull an electoral rabbit out of the hat to be anything less than totally paranoid if Kerry continues to let Bush and his buddies keep it close.

  And what if—as is entirely possible—Bush actually wins? Not by leaning on Jeb or his pals at Diebold, but definitively, by two or three states worth of electoral votes? Ach, the reckoning there will be then, my friends. Because then the only thing that Bush and the GOP will have learned from all of this is that competence simply doesn’t matter, and if it doesn’t matter, then why bother. As for the Democrats, the best they can hope for is that they manage to get 50 seats in the Senate and hold on for dear life until 2008, and I wouldn’t count on either. And while the rest of us don’t necessarily have to start stocking dry goods in the cellar, we should at the very least know where we can get our hands on a 55-gallon drum of beans when the time comes.

  As for Kerry, I imagine he’ll become one of the most reviled men in the country. He’s already reviled by the folks on the right, simply as a reflex, so that much is taken care of. But the ones in the left and in the center will revile him too, because he couldn’t close the deal against the manifestly worst sitting president in decades. And as I’ve said before, yes, George Bush is an utter incompetent. But think how much more incompetent you have to be to lose to him. Death by his own shoes would not be too fine a punishment for such an act.

  CHRISTOPHER

  ROBIN IS

  OUT THERE

  IN THE WOODS

  As part of a barrel-full of Winnie the Pooh anniversary events, Disney is working on a new animated series that will replace Christopher Robin with a 6-year-old girl.

  “We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide,” says Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel.

  “Christopher Robin is still out there in the woods, playing,” she says.

  “One thing I had never noticed before,” said Christopher Robin, “is how very large the Hundred Acre Wood is for such a very small boy.”

  Christopher Robin had been walking in the woods for quite some time. On his way to visit Pooh, he had the idea to go a new way. The idea came into his head—plop!— and so with a left where there was usually a right, Christopher Robin walked into the woods he’d known all his life, stepping high like a military drummer on the march.

  For a happy time he explored through the woods, climbing trees, meeting squirrels and kicking leaves, all the while walking, or so he thought, toward the House on Pooh Corner. But as the wind took on just a bit of a chill, Christopher Robin stopped.

  “What an odd thing,” he said, to no one in particular. “I’ve been walking all this time, but I don’t seem to have gotten closer to Pooh at all!”

  Christopher Robin wasn’t worried, of course. The Hundred Acre Wood was big enough for many adventures, and here was another. He recalled many times where Pooh and Piglet would set out on a journey and lose their way, only to find their way home in time for tea and honey. If that silly old bear could find his way home, so could Christopher Robin find his way to his friends.

  But as the day wore on, Christopher Robin found that every part of the Hundred Acre Wood looked like a new part he’d never seen before. He went left and found a new stream filled with frogs who croaked their unconcern for Christopher Robin’s plight. He went right, back the way he came, but the trees seemed to have moved their places when he wasn’t looking. So Christopher Robin went back again, to the stream with the croaking frogs, only to find he’d lost the way.

  “This is a puzzle,” Christopher Robin said. “And now I’ve become quite hungry and cold.”

  And so Christopher Robin began to run, first one way and then the next, looking for a tree or stream or path he knew, so he could find his way to his friends. He called out to them—”Pooh! Piglet! Tigger! Rabbit! Owl!”—but none answered, or if they did Christopher Robin did not hear them. From time to time, however, it seemed to Christopher Robin that he could hear them, just over a small rise, all his friend’s voices, and a new voice he did not know. But when he ran that way he found nothing, just more trees and more leaves.

  It was in a small pile of leaves that Christopher Robin finally lay, covering himself with their little brittle hands to ward off the chill of the night in the Hundred Acre Wood. “It’s a simple thing, really,” he said, bravely. “I’ve been looking for all my friends, and they have been looking for me! If I stay in one place, they will find me. And then we will go to Pooh’s, where I will be warm and have something nice to eat.”

  And so Christopher Robin lay down in the leaves and went to sleep, shivering only a little, trusting in the love of his friends to find him and bring him home.

  I REFUSE TO BELIEVE

  9 OUT OF 10

  REPUBLICANS ARE

  COMPLETE TOOLS

  “Polls show that nine in 10 Republicans approve of [Bush’s] job performance—a level of partisan loyalty unmatched by any president.”

  —Howard Fineman, “Best advice for Kerry: Be invisible,” 6/16/04

  There’s no polite way to ask this: Are 90% of all Republicans really dumber than a dog drinking antifreeze? How can anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature actually believe Bush’s job performance is anything more than frog-puking sick? Just today the 9/11 Commission stated there was no credible evidence linking al Qaeda and Saddam, yanking down yet another pillar of Dubya’s justification for marching into Baghdad, to put into the pile along with those non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Bush’s response was instructive: He pointed to the possible presence of al Qaeda in Iraq today as proof.

  Well, Mr. President, not to get nit-picky or anything, but we’ve been in control of Iraq for well over a year now. Maybe you’ll want to have Condi brief you on that fact. The presence of al Qaeda in Iraq today says more about the US’s inability to keep them out than it says about their supposed—and now evidently mythical—relationship with Saddam. The fact that Bush is clueless enough to believe it doesn’t, or simply rather cynically believes if he says it, then people will believe it, should give everyone with the ability to think for themselves the cold shakes. Presumably most Republicans do have the capacity for self-directed thinking, even if they’ve been trained like button-pressing rats by Karl Rove against it.

  I know Republicans as individuals; I like Republicans as individuals. I’ve even voted for Republicans—more than once, even. And this is why I say, with all sincerity, that I find it absolutely impossible to believe that 90% of Republicans honestly believe that Bush is somehow doing a good job. Earlier in the year, I asked this, and I think it bears repeating:

  We all know why Democrats won’t vote for Bush. But let me ask the Republicans: Why on earth would you vote for a guy who wants to expand the size of the federal government, increase deficit government spending, curtail personal liberties, bring the government into your homes and churches and then sti
ck your children with the bill? With the exception of Bush’s mania for lower taxes, is there anything about the man that is in the least bit Republican? Or to put it in another way: If anyone but Bush were planning to expand the size of the federal government, increase deficit government spending, curtail personal liberties, bring the government into your homes and churches and then stick your children with the bill, would you vote for him?

  All we have to add to this litany is “and seems to think torture is just peachy keen” and I think we’re reasonably current.

  In an earlier entry talking about John Kerry’s “problem” with an unarticulated platform not actually being a problem, I got some blowback from folks who pointed out that merely not being the sitting President shouldn’t be enough to propel someone into the White House. And of course, normally I would heartily agree, but on the other hand the current Bush administration isn’t normal. It is, in fact, spectacularly bad, the sort of bad that’s the presidential equivalent of a 100-year flood. If nothing else, this administration is an object lesson in why presidents actually should be elected rather than appointed by the Supreme Court as a matter of political expediency. John Kerry does not arouse a swelling passion in my chest, but there’s really nothing in his political and personal history that suggests he would be a president of such monumental incompetence as the current office holder. Yes, I would agree that “probably not monumentally incompetent” is hardly a recommendation, but really, it’s come to that. If all a President Kerry does is not be as blindingly bad as Bush, his four-to-eight will be looked upon kindly.

  (For the record, I do imagine that Kerry would be better than “probably not monumentally incompetent,” but that’s for another time. For the purposes of this entry, “probably not monumentally incompetent” is good enough.)