MTV: Are You Kidding Me?

Classes ended on the 6th and I took off for Downeast Maine. It was beautiful, not that cold, and very restful.

While I was gone, young son Ben was busy. He applied to be on an MTV show about kids with gay parents. You know, MTV, which started when I was in college and ran the same three Michael Jackson videos over and over. Oh, and the Flying Seagulls, "I ran..." The one that has no music videos anymore, just television shows.

Reality television shows. Not my favorite form of television, although I did watch some of Mob Wives last night with Ben. Pretty boring.

It's a little odd. All my kids are on my case about talking about gay stuff too much.

MOM! All gay, all the time. Everything isn't about gay people.

And they are right. I've learned, especially in my class, to cool it. There, I talk about politics all the time.

Now I find out, while I was in the woods, communing with nature, he applied for the MTV show.

Guess what? They called him back for a second casting call.

Oh my.

Now, I think I need to find out what he sent in that email he sent in said. Yesterday, all he said was he described me as "blond."

Um... okay. Not sure that really encompasses all of my personality, but I'll go with it.

Here's the deal: they see him on camera? Good looking kid, with a sassy mouth? They'll pick him.

Oh my. Oh my, oh my, oh my.

Bin Laden: Many More Lives Yet to be Lost

I'm disappointed and a little disgusted.

I find it incredibly hard to be happy or excited today about Bin Laden's death. Of course I am glad that chapter has been closed. Bin Laden was a fugitive of justice. He was a criminal, and now he's dead.

Great. Excellent work by all those involved. Thank you for your efforts. I mean that sincerely.

However, when I scroll through the photos posted on the New York Times, I'm horrified to see some of the images. Flags waving, young men shouting, fists in the air. A widow holding the picture of her dead loved one. The appropriate reaction from American Arabs.

Tell me, how is this different from pictures we see of people in say... the Middle East?

Oh, wait, we're the "good guys," right? Those faces are familiar, therefore patriotic.

Excuse me if I don't want to walk through the streets with sparklers and a flag cheering. My friend who lost her brother in the September 11th attacks isn't doing that either. Death isn't really anything to celebrate.

It's a sad day. A sober reminder of all the lives lost. Civilians, soldiers... so many dead.

Obama declares the world safer. Is it? Why did I see cops on streets in Boston today, where they never usually are? Why was there an ominous report about Pakistan being the bad guy- we think. Maybe.

Bin Laden, once thought skulking around in dank caves, was actually in a house in a compound, next to a training camp. Maybe he was dead for a few days, maybe the other night, either way, he was buried at sea.

Um, on NCIS they put the body in the freezer and took the ice cream out. Would it have been that hard to keep it around? Because now we will add to the list of conspiracy theories; Bin Laden, aside from being given martyr status for his death, will be hanging out with JFK's real assassin, the space aliens at Roswell, and Jimmy Hoffa.

Of course, I'm a little afraid of how we in this country would have behaved with his dead body. But of course we're better than all those heathens who would put a head on a stick and parade it around with young men waving flags, fists in the air, and the widow with the picture of her dead loved one...

Or are we?

For me, today is a day of closure. Sadness. Mourning. And some relief.

I am aware this was only the end of a chapter in a long, long book with many more pages yet to be written.

And many more lives yet to be lost.