Peter Flom Reviews "Moranthology"

Peter Flom has just added Caitlin Moran's Moranthology to my Christmas wish list:

http://voices.yahoo.com/book-review-moranthology-caitlin-moran-11907918.html?cat=38

Moran "was raised on benefits"? And she's going to defend this as a plan for raising children? I have a feeling that I'm going to disagree with her there.

I'm not denying that life's vicissitudes may make it necessary for parents to fall into the welfare safety net, but I would say to those parents, "Don't get comfortable there! A safety net is not a hammock. Share, not necessarily with little children but definitely with teenagers, how degrading and demeaning it is to have to prove your 'need' for things you ought to be able to earn and own with no questions asked. And even if your children have to move in with someone else in order to do jobs without cutting into their parents' and younger siblings' 'benefits,' NEVER NEVER NEVER let a child feel that sitting around collecting 'benefits' is in any way an alternative to doing something that helps you earn some 'benefits' from your own work, thought, and creative soul." I feel so strongly about this that I'm going to post it, here, today, for the record.

Does this intense disagreement mean that I don't want to read, or don't want youall to read, Moranthology? By no means. This web site is all about hearing and understanding people even when we disagree with them.

Here's a bonus memory: In the early 1980s, when I lived in Takoma Park, Maryland, I went to a meeting at the town hall. For those who don't remember, Takoma Park's town hall used to be a sort of neighborhood party site. Everybody went to meetings; everybody gathered in the town hall to watch real must-sees, like election results and the Redskins in the Super Bowl, on TV; many town meetings featured children, guitars, and food. But once in a while there was a real adults-only debate, and this was that kind of meeting. Highlights included loud protest songs and the newly retired ex-mayor wailing at a student reporter, "Is there a God?"

I'd gone in with the protesters. Someone claimed that we were a "rehearsed mob." Mobs, by definition, are not rehearsed; those who thought Takoma Park should oppose a Montgomery County policy had been handed a printed sheet of lyrics to a protest song, but the protesters got so carried away with their 1960s memories/fantasies that they never even sang those lyrics. We sang a few choruses. One of the councilmen who agreed with us, or at least with me, rose to speak. A protester barged onto the stage and grabbed the microphone away from him. Clamor erupted. I remember standing up, shouting, and even trying my pidgin sign language to convey to that protester, "Hear the man out! What do you think you're doing?" Useless. That protester's probably alcohol-fuelled rudeness, and the rest of our confusion between loyalty to her, our own actual views, and our sense of decency, ended up costing our side everything; convincing what had been a divided town council that the protesters were nuisances, pure and simple, and if endorsing the county policy caused them to leave Takoma Park, it'd be a good thing.

As I walked disgustedly away from the town hall, a nice older couple called, "Wait." The man said, "You made a good point there." The woman said, "Can we offer you a lift home?" So I was quite surprised when they identified themselves with the pro-county-policy faction.

"You know I'm the opposition," I said.

"It never hurts to make friends with the opposition," she said.

And he said, "We may be on the same side of the next big conflict."

Words to live by. I don't remember another big conflict in Takoma Park; what broke up the community I remember was a weather disaster, and we were all on the same side during that, although a lot of us ended up in different neighborhoods afterward. But I've found those neighbors' approach to politics valuable throughout the rest of my life. No matter how intensely we disagree about some things, we may agree about some other things.

I expect that I'd find many things in Moranthology with which I would agree...and in any case I'd be interested in Moran's stories.