Let me start this post by saying that it’s not supposed to be 97 degrees in Camarillo in April. It’s especially not supposed to be 97 degrees on a day where DG performs outside at our local Celtic festival in full costume, with only two other backup dancers. AND…when she has a competition the next day.

This competition meant a lot to her. After the last one, she has been practicing, working, practicing. Beyond the obvious desire to do well and finish in the money, Nationals looms large on the horizon, and is the next big goal ahead of her dance-wise. Like our presidential candidates, momentum means a lot. This competition was DG’s Pennsylvania primary. She didn’t have to finish first, but she did need to close the gap and finish strong.

She did, too! Jumped up 7 or so places to 8th. Unfortunately they only gave trophies to the top 7, but it’s the first time I had to fight back happy tears over a non-trophy finish, because she was, in this biased parent’s estimation, brilliant.

Here’s a little excerpt of what we call Irish dancing in hell….full costume, 98 degrees outside, dancing in the sun. Yowsa. Didn’t she do a great job? This is a new dance for her — she’s working on polishing it up for her set dance at Nationals.

I have had at least three decent, if not inspired, ideas for blog posts this weekend. Every time I start to write them, I have to turn off the wireless modem so Sticks will give up on what he’s doing and go to bed. This is because he likes to stay up till 4 and then drag himself out of bed in the morning and drive the 35 miles to school in a sleep-deprived and groggy state. Obviously, this doesn’t work for us, so cutting off the network is the only way to keep him from being a danger to others when he drives.

That means that if I don’t get it done by midnight it might not get done at all, which is what has happened. If I actually could stop obsessing on the Pennsylvania primary and the reports around it and think about other things, I could open up all the articles I want to open before turning things off, but no…I don’t do that either.

Instead, I will say congratulations to Steve Gillmor for his new partnership with Techcrunch and the re-launch of the Gillmor Gang. Despite the relatively chaotic first show, there are golden moments, and the end is definitely causing a blog post to ferment for me. Think communities, open and closed, vibrant and dormant, online and offline. Lots of thoughts rolling around on that.

In other news, I bought a webcam and am slowly sticking my toe into trying real-time video chats and some other experiments. To that end, I spent some time tonight learning by visiting QueenofSpain’s (aka Erin) show tonight on Stickam, which is a very cool site for real-time video chat (as long as you use IE — can’t get Firefox to work right). The topics? Zappos and politics.

Still, I blame the kids for everything. It’s only right when they insist on causing me grief. It’s either that, or the fact that gas has now hit $4/gallon and I’m walking everywhere.

Technorati Tags: zappos, gillmor gang, techcrunch, rambles

Melanie Bowers and her family need some re-education on immigration and prejudice, I think.

Earlier this week, Melanie Bowers brought a poster to school protesting illegal immigration, then claimed that it was taken away from her by a gang of students who beat and threatened her. The poster was assigned as homework and her protest read “If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration.”

When school administrators went back and reviewed surveillance tapes, they found a different story. It seems that while the poster was taken from her, no one touched her.

After Melanie’s accusations, administrators reviewed school survellience videotape of the incident - which, instead of showing students beating or attacking her, showed Bowers scratching herself on her arms, face, and neck, and walking through the halls of the school calmly long after she claimed the incident happened.

It doesn’t surprise me all that much to hear that a 13-year old girl with some pretty heavy-handed opinions on illegal immigration might make much more of a small incident than it was, but I give kudos to parents’ response.

Bowers’ parents have apologized to school administrators for their daughter, and Bowers’ father, Gary Bower Jr., is agreeing with the charges against her. “I have reviewed the recording and agree with the charges that will need to be filed,” he has said today.

Melanie’s mother, Shera Bowers, released a statement which reads, “I see my daughter was not assaulted, and put the marks on her body. No gang violence as witnessed. She filed a false report.”

No excuse-making. No blaming of the school authorities. No backhanded efforts to blame anyone but the one who should shoulder the blame. Credit where credit is due to them, and good for the school for following through and getting to the truth.

Seriously, this could have been a colossal mess. Blaming, angry parents on both sides, showdowns at the school board, op-eds written about how dangerous our middle schools are, and so on. If I were one of the parents of the students accused, I’d be furious, and honestly the only thing that might have been left out of the Bowers’ statements was an apology to the kids unfairly accused. That, and an acknowledgment that their own racism has been transferred to their daughter quite efficiently.

Melanie’s lie played up to the deepest fears in all parents — the idea that by sending their child to a school with a diverse population of students, she was at risk for beatings and gang threats (that’s implicit in Ms. Bowers’ statement) and all manner of other unspeakable and unimaginable dangers. Of course, the local news media played right into it with their sensational headline and sound bites from the father, who made the following statement after the initial report, but before the facts were known:

“They handled this wrong, you know, they put a child back in danger,” said J.R. Bowers. “It was a very racially motivated crime.”

He went on to say this:

“I won’t be happy until the kids that did this are out of school,” Bowers said.

If any good comes of this, let it be that the Bowers look at their own knee-jerk response against the truth and understand that they reaped what they sowed. What their daughter believes about immigrants, legal or otherwise, and about people who are different from her reflects what they believe.

If their apology is to have any meaning at all to the falsely accused students, it should come with a resolve on their part to change those racist views and begin to understand that speaking a different language and looking different doesn’t equal evil or violence. If that were to happen, real good could come from an otherwise pathetic incident.

Technorati Tags: Melanie Bowers, racism, school attack, illegal immigration

That’s the question Alison Rose Levy poses on the Huffington Post. Here’s my answer.

Dear Alison,

We’re passionate because we love our kids, too, and don’t want them placed at risk for horrible diseases like polio, mumps, and measles that can blind them, render our boys sterile, or cripple them for life. We’re passionate because of the selfish insistence of the anti-vaccination crowd that vaccines cause autism, despite the lack of science behind the assertion, the utter lack of proof beyond anecdotes, and the self-indulgence of people like Jenny McCarthy who claim that not only can vaccines cause autism, but that autism is “curable”, again with no proof.

Anecdotes are not evidence. Anecdotes are like eyewitness identifications in criminal trials, unreliable, unfair, and filtered through the individual bias of the beholder. I repeat, anecdotes are not evidence. On the other hand, measles epidemics are real. And preventable.

Because we live in a society that requires us to interact with others, the refusal to vaccinate children imposes YOUR values on MY community. You devalue the benefit of vaccinations, putting us all at risk.

Now excuse me while I go make an appointment to get a measles booster since I had one of the early vaccinations, and grant me my passion, because until you can prove what you preach, I consider you a danger to society.

Technorati Tags: vaccines, autism, measles, mumps, polio, passion

Ashley Grills was always the silent player in the Megan Meier story. An ‘employee’ of Lori Drew, she was conveniently hospitalized when the story blew up on the Internet last year and unavailable for comment. Yesterday, she was interviewed on Good Morning America. Per Wired:

But this morning Grills, in an interview with Good Morning America, disclosed that she and Lori Drew’s daughter created the account with Lori Drew’s approval, and that Drew actively participated in the ruse by writing some of the messages that Megan Meier received on her MySpace page.

Drew, of course, denies it, standing by their December statement that she did not create or direct anyone to create the Josh Evans MySpace account.

Other quotes from the interview:

Grills admitted for the first time publicly that she created the profile of Josh Evans, and she told Roberts that she wrote the cruel words, “the world would be a better place without you,” that may have pushed Meier over the edge.

Grills said that she was trying to end the “relationship” because she felt that the joke had gone too far.

The reason I believe Ashley Grills is telling the truth: because she didn’t try to hide the fact that the original idea to create the MySpace account was hers, not Lori Drew’s. However, Drew approved it and ultimately tried to cover it up.

“She was wanting to meet him … and me and Lori’s daughter were both telling Lori that we thought it was going too far ’cause none of us can meet her, none of us are guys,” Grills said.

“And she [Lori Drew] was like, it’s fine, you know, we can set her up. We can have her go meet him at the mall and go there and just laugh at her, and I thought that was wrong,” Grills continued.

I stand by what I said before: Lori Drew had the option to stand up and put an end to all of this honestly and forthrightly. Instead she chose the coward’s way out, and ultimately, Megan Meier went into the closet, crafted a noose, and hung herself with it. She chose that pathway even though she knew that Megan was depressed and maybe suicidal. That knowledge, combined with her tacit approval and coverup of the stupidity that was Josh Evans should have merited consequences instead of the lame outcomes she got in Missouri.

The Los Angeles DA’s office is still investigating and pressing forward with the possibility of charging Drew with fraud. It would at least be a small way to tip the scales back, even though Drew’s choice to behave like a child resulted in the death of a child.

Related Posts:

• Megan Meier’s Tragic Death - Charge Lori Drew with Child Abuse
• Lori Drew Gets Out of Jail Free
• LA Grand Jury Investigating Lori Drew

Technorati Tags: Lori Drew, Megan Meier, Ashley Grills, MySpace, suicide, crime, child abuse, fraud

Tell me honestly — would you seriously take your 8-year old daughter for a bikini wax? Seriously?

To those moms who do, let me suggest something more productive, like a day in the park, or a bike ride, or some fun community project.

Don’t make life all about them. They’ll hate you for it.

Technorati Tags: parenting, daughters, mothers, bikini wax, BlogHer

I suppose you’d like one for all those pictures I threw up here — pictures from the Blackberry because I was stupid and forgot the good camera for which I am kicking myself.

A long, long time ago my high school sweetheart and I broke up over his roommate, who I subsequently married. Said roommate had a sister who I became (and remain) great friends with. About 26 years ago, ex-boyfriend called heartbroken because he’d been dumped. The wheels of my plot were set in motion that night.

Sister-in-law was living with us at the time, with her young son. I invited ex-boyfriend over to the house to drown his sorrows, then left for the market. A year later, I stood up at their wedding.

It’s 25 years later, their son is married, a business owner and their daughter is a (very tall) lovely college graduate who has a lovely boyfriend with a great sense of humor. They threw a party for their parents. A vow renewal. I thought it would be pretty straight up, but when Elvis came out to do the ceremony, everything changed into a great celebration of a couple who, through thick and thin, has stayed together and remains committed.

I take no credit for anything beyond introducing them. As incompatible as I may have been with my ex-husband, I truly love his sister and regard her as the salt of the earth, and let’s face it — that first boyfriend always has a special place, so it was only natural to play matchmaker where it seemed so — necessary. She’s the kind of person who keeps everything glued together no matter what, that reliable, steady type who just really loves her life and those in it. The folks at the party tonight reflect the strength of their partnership.

The party was grand, from the appetizers, to the soup, to the salad, to the filet and fish. But seeing their daughter’s boyfriend marry them (having been ordained in the Dudeist church) — that was something special. Hence, the spatter of photos.

I loved sitting at a table of strangers half my age and extolling the virtues of the Blackberry over the iPhone. Technology is the great equalizer — there were things they knew that I didn’t, and vice versa. What fun it was to hang out and not feel old or intrusive! Hearing their kids talk about how cool it was to have parents that stayed together and talk about how they wanted to honor that — also very cool.

Perspective and nostalgia, all in one evening. Merging my past into my present, seeing the next new generation admiring the older while forming the newer, all wrapped up in Elvis priest.

A night to remember.

Not a darn thing, unless you were where DG and I were today. It’s the kickoff of the week-long marathon of irish dance shows leading into St. Patrick’s Day. The first show was today, and it was for the “halftime” (or whatever it’s called) of a local Roller Derby contest. As we walked up to the roller hockey rink, we heard the names of the players being called, and I was tempted to put my hands over DG’s ears (even if she’s heard it all before). Women in pink, purple and black punching each other out in the middle of an oval-shaped concrete surface, women shoving and pushing and moving fast on their skates with an obese, red-faced ref in the middle shouting them all down.

I felt like I’d been transported to a different planet. Or back in time, to the days where roller derby was the Saturday afternoon sport on TV when I was a kid. Roller derby and bowling. Those were the days.

As the other parents arrived with their little cute 8-year olds I thought to myself…what on earth am I thinking, bringing my daughter to this place with bikers and tough women shoving each other around on roller skates? My other thought was that some of these other moms had to be thinking the same thing, with an added finger wave at our teacher. I really like our teacher, so I kept my mouth shut and a smile pasted on my face even though I was pissed off at a number of things today and didn’t want to be there at all. When they introduced “kitty titty” I cringed, but it was almost show time.

Surprise for me! This had to be the very best ever audience these girls have ever had. The skaters and spectators alike were completely into their performance, giving them serious respect, applause and attention. Afterwards, they were so kind to all the girls, encouraging and high-fiving, telling them how great they thought they were. As a parent who sees how hard her daughter is working, it’s truly gratifying to see her get some recognition for that, and suddenly I felt small and stupid for prejudging this group as somehow being not kid-friendly.

I learned something today, and so did DG. She says “It’s completely weird, but it’s weird and strange, and wonderful…”

It was weird. It was strange, but more than that, it reminded me that appearances deceive, and sometimes the most wonderful people can be found in the most interesting places.

Technorati Tags: roller derby, irish dance, fun, good people, community