I regularly receive emails in my bulk mail folder counting down to the November election: “36 days ’till November 2nd!” “35 days ’till regime change!” I used to read them religiously, moving them into my Inbox and forwarding them to friends, signing petitions and (occasionally) giving money. But now, as the election grows closer, my fervor has slackened.  I won’t be voting in November.

It’s not that I’ve taken a principled stand against the electoral process. It’s that my country has made it nearly impossible for me to vote while abroad. As the New York Times reported, the overseas voting process is mired in a complicated and contradictory bureaucracy, and effectively disenfranchises the 3.9 million civilians abroad.

I moved overseas with every intention of continuing to fully participate in the political process and vote via absentee ballot. You can’t request an absentee ballot before being out of the state, so I had to wait ‘till moving to acquire one. The United States embassy sent out a convoluted memo directing citizens in Egypt to request absentee ballots by mail, but didn’t explain how. A friend pointed me towards this website, run by Kerry supporters, but I’ve received neither absentee ballot nor confirmation that Philadelphia City Hall ever received my request. Even if city hall did receive the request, there’s no guarantee I’ll ever get the ballot; Egypt’s mail isn’t known for its consistency. I’ll attempt to request yet another by fax today, but if that doesn’t work, my only remaining option is pick up a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot at the consulate – and the American consulate is only open in Cairo four days a week, all work days.

To be fair, it may not be the federal government’s fault; the Times’ article reports that 18 states did not have systems in place to mail ballots at least 45 days before the election. The government has designed and activated a system for voters to receive ballots instantly via the Internet — but access to the site is limited to military personnel and their families. In a time of war, it’s difficult to see this move as anything but partisan, despite the Pentagon’s claims to the contrary. While there’s relatively little polling of military personnel or civilians living abroad, a Zogby poll found that 58 percent of Americans with passports supported Kerry. Both parties have made a concerted effort to attract overseas voters, insisting that the registration and voting process are not as complicated as the media has reported.  

I’ve been repeatedly reassured that “they don’t count those ballots anyway”, but that’s inadequate consolation, knowing as I do that the overseas vote may be essential in a swing state like Pennsylvania. After all, “…four years ago in Florida, absentee votes from Americans living overseas turned a 202 majority for Al Gore into a 537 majority for George Bush…” It’s frustrating to find that four years after the debacle of that election, the United States has failed to address the flaws in its electoral system, even as we attempt to “bring democracy” to Afghanistan and Iraq.  

llouison

My girlfriends sometimes complain about their mothers and how they get on their nerves or try to instruct them on how to discipline “their” grandchildren.  Somehow the rules seemed to have changed when it came to the new spawn.  I actually miss those encounters with my mom now.  She was a single parent and that was synonymous with being a no-nonsense parent.  My mom worked two jobs and did not have a lot of time for foolishness from her children.  I remember vividly how my mother believed that anytime a teacher sent a note home or made a phone call to her about my or my siblings’ comportment, the teacher was always right and we were always wrong.

Now mind you, my mom’s full-time job was as a social worker.  But that did not stop her from popping me upside my head if I got out of line in school or sassed her at home.  And, she made sure we all knew that she was willing to go to jail for what she believed in.  And to our chagrin, she believed in thrashing her kids.  As I look back on the many times I tested that concept, she held firm to her belief system.  Once she even gave me a number to call if I felt I wanted to go into a foster home.  Upon reflection, being the child of a social worker and knowing the truth about foster care, beat-downs and all, my house was still the best deal in town.

As an adult, I was fortunate enough to have my mother’s first grandchild.  It was a sight to behold while I was in labor, as she questioned the doctors and nurses.  When my labor wasn’t progressing as they had hoped, they ordered a drug for me called Pitocin.  My mother frowned and said, “Ya’ll still use that?”  But nothing compared to when my daughter actually made her entrance into the world.  I remember my mother telling me that having her was the best thing I had ever done until that point in my life.  I think what she was really telling me was that children were the most precious gift I’d ever receive.  It was then that I realized that she believed we were gifts even when she was whipping the snot out of us.  I also remember that moment being the first time she ever told me – at least in words – that she loved me.  It was an awkward moment, but it marked a dramatic shift in our relationship.

As the years went on and we became closer, my daughter became the apple of grandma’s eye.  I realized what lengths she would go to to protect her gene pool.  Mom, my daughter, and I were at a department store one Saturday afternoon.  My daughter was about four years old at the time and very inquisitive.  We were pushing her around in her stroller and she would take hold of things that were situated within her grasp.  As much as we tried to keep her from swiping things off the racks and hangers, she seemed to get a kick out of destroying everything in her path.  On our way out, the alarms sounded.  It seems that my daughter managed to grab a toboggan hat and slipped it under her bottom without our seeing it.  The security guard came up to us and demanded that we empty our bags and “lift the kid out of the stroller.”  Of course, that’s where we found the hat.  He started yelling at us and scolded us to be more careful.  His demeanor made my daughter cry.  My mother had had enough of his foolishness and proceeded to give him a piece of her mind.  She snapped, “If you had done everything your mother had told you to do, you wouldn’t be a security guard at a department store.  You’d be a doctor by now.  Think about that the next time you start yelling at other people’s children.”  Needless to say, we were permitted to leave without further incident.  My mother picked up my daughter and consoled her until she had put the unfortunate confrontation out of her mind.

As I look back on those and many other moments with my mom, the whippings seem so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.  There are many in my generation who blame their parents for their shortcomings and failures in life.  Some would even have the gall to say that I was adversely impacted because I was spanked as a child.   I say I was loved beyond measure.  My mom loved me enough to get my attention long before I had a chance to become a burden to society.  I actually cared about her opinion of me and didn’t want to disappoint her.  Sure I’ve spanked my kids every now and then.  I’m not saying I black their eyes or break their bones, but a pop on their behinds to get their attention has made a difference, just as it did for me.  And even though my mom would have cut her arm off before ever laying a hand on my daughter, I’m glad that my little girl, who’s now 22 years old, got a chance to experience the security of being loved beyond measure before her grandmother went to sing with the angels.

In The Fray Contributor

There is a four-year-old girl in upstate New York who has painted and sold two dozen paintings and, from these sales, earned about $40,000. She’s had a gallery show in her hometown of Binghamton, and The New York Times reports that she has her critics and admirers. Putting the question of her popularity aside, consider for a moment that she even has critics and admirers. She is, after all, four years old.

Painting is one of those fields in which you imagine there are countless numbers of people toiling away while never really finding any recognition or satisfaction even. (Admittedly, that is a somewhat dour perspective.) So to see a four-year-old, a child who is in preschool, already considered a success sort of makes you either want to pull out your hair maybe, if you’re the self-pitying, aspiring-artist type, or makes you want to smile — at the oddity of a four-year-old who can make paintings that people find emotionally moving.

This young artist, Marla Olmstead, who did I mention is four, has a waiting list for her paintings, for which the going rate is now about $6,000. My favorite part of this story is when her mother talks about the money and Marla’s inability to understand what it means to have $40,000. Her mother said in the Times, “She has no concept of money. She was really into lip gloss, so I told her it was enough money to buy a whole room of lip gloss.”

You do understand she’s four years old, right?

Vinnee Tong

“It would impose on society a virus, something false, which will have negative consequences for social life.” — Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, Secretary and Spokesman for the Bishops Conference of Spain, commenting on the Spanish government’s plans to pass a bill that would allow same-sex marriage.  

In contrast, the socialist Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has stated his belief that same-sex marriage is a feature of a “modern and tolerant society,” and the bill permitting such marriages is likely to be passed by the cabinet this week.  

Mimi Hanaoka

“Imagine a fairly drunk housewife stuck in front of CNN, growing hornier as the day wears on. The Wonkette reads like a diary of that day,” is how Matthew Klam of The New York Times Magazine describes one of the most widely read policy blogs in this week’s cover story.

The catchiness or the sluttishness of Wonkette aside, blogs are now highly visible, influential (apparently James P. Rubin, John Kerry’s foreign-policy adviser, begins and ends each day by trawling through blogs), and seemingly everywhere. While blogs have some critics lamenting the demise of journalistic integrity, a large number of political blogs are both effective and popular precisely because they are explicitly partisan. Only a handful of people make their living blogging (Nick Denton, who owns both blogs and a porn site, leads the pack); freed from the pressure and obligations of generating advertisement revenues and increasing traffic to their sites, almost all blogs are fueled by passion, personal commitment, and, if we are to believe the NYT Magazine article, terrifying amounts of caffeine.  

The popularity and effectiveness of blogs, however, does not sound the death knell of more traditional forms of journalism. Avid blogger and former editor of The New Republic Andrew Sullivan writes in this week’s Time magazine:

Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable — ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available.

The democratization of journalism need not be synonymous with the watering down of credibility, whatever that problematic term may mean. Indeed, with fabulists like Jayson Blair, formerly of the NYT, and Stephen Glass, formerly of The New Republic, the efficacy of the current system of internal editorial oversight at major media organizations has been called into question. While individual blogs are not held to uniform standards of accuracy or non-partisanship, the community of bloggers and their readers functions as a team of driven, curious, and personally invested fact-checkers for both the high-profile and overlooked stories.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Today California state Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill which will make the names, photos, and home addresses of “serious” and “high-risk” sex offenders available on the Internet. Supporters of the bill believe it will “enable concerned parents and other citizens to better protect themselves and their children from sex offenders.” Opponents are concerned that hate crimes will be directed toward reformed sex offenders, their families, and their property.

According to Schwarzenegger’s website, www.schwarzenegger.com, Governor Schwarzenegger cited information as “the most valuable tool we can give to parents to protect their children” and compared California with the 44 other states which have already made this information accessible to anyone who knows how to surf the Web. The website concludes the green-light announcement with a warning that “serious and high-risk sex offenders pose a significant danger to society” and “information … is only as effective as its accessibility to the public.”

An article in Contracostatimes.com by Kim Curtis is unique for the amount of space Curtis devotes to opponents of the bill. Curtis reports that the push to publish the information on the Internet was spurred by an AP investigation of the sex offender database, which revealed an embarrassingly high rate of inaccuracies. Executive Director of the New York-based Parents for Megan’s Law, Laura Ahearn, is quoted as stating, “When you don’t have an Internet sex offender registry … the community can’t be the eyes and ears for law enforcement.”

A July 1997 piece in the Sonoma County Independent by Paula Harris describes the darker side of an overactive, involved public. At times, public response to the presence of local sex offenders leads them to seek other places to live. Kelli Evans, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, confronts the paradox of allowing high-visibility public access to personal information like home addresses:

“On the one hand,” says Evans, “we want offenders to reform, but on the other, we make it impossible for them to live in a community and hold down a job … So people are going underground and moving from town to town, which also disrupts any treatment plan they may be undergoing.”

Harris also cites Katherine Sher, legislative advocate with the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice:

“People are becoming the subjects of increased community pressure and harassment. Th[e Markvardsen] case illustrates not only the harm to the offender, who has served his sentence and is trying to get his life back together, but also illustrates problems for the community.”

Evans says that in some communities, Megan’s Law has caused sex offenders to become targets for vigilantes. A 66-year-old mother of a sex offender, who asked to remain unidentified, fears the bill will lead to potential threats toward her son and his family, despite the fact he has never committed another crime:

“‘You know how people act when they find out there’s a sex offender in the neighborhood … Don’t they realize what’s going to happen when they do this?’”

One way or another, the 6th of October will fan the flames of the debate as to how to handle the identity of Muslims in Europe. The release date for the report detailing the extent of Turkey’s compliance with EU membership criteria marks a milestone on the road Turkey hopes will lead to its eventual inclusion as the first Muslim nation in the European Union. EUObserver reporter Lisbeth Kirk notes that the Dutch government will “play a central role” in the handling of negotiations preceding the December decision as to whether accession talks will begin with Ankara. The Dutch government currently holds the presidency of the European Union through the end of this year.

John Vinocur’s article today in the International Herald Tribune criticizes the lack of a “coherent, pan-European debate” regarding the “parameters for Islam’s possible integration” in Europe. At a time when Islam’s growing presence in Europe is viewed by many as a threat to European stability, Turkey’s current position in the spotlight presents a new and immediate opportunity for Europeans to address ways to integrate a culture which has been projected to dominate Europe by the end of the century. According to Princeton professor Bernard Lewis,

“Europe will be a part of the Arab West or Maghreb. Migration and demography indicate this. Europeans marry late and have few or no children. But there’s strong immigration: Turks in Germany, Arabs in France and Pakistanis in England. At the latest, following current trends, Europe will have Muslim majorities in the population by the end of the 21st century.”

In the cover story for the Religion and Ethics Newsweekly for PBS, reporter Saul Gonzalez describes some of the concerns raised by Islam in Holland, a nation noted for its “reputation for tolerance.” The increasing visibility of Muslims in Holland, paired with growing hostilities and misunderstandings between Muslims and non-Muslims, indicates the need to address the presence of Islam with an aim toward integration, though Rotterdam City Councilman Barry Madlener voices a common protest that often, immigrants resist assimilation to their host culture:

“[Many Muslims living in Europe] really reject a western lifestyle and we think that is very strange, because if you don’t want to have a western lifestyle, you shouldn’t come here. So they come here and they want to claim their lifestyle and we are of course a liberal society. But when the children of these people cannot fit into our society, then the problems will grow.”

Social commentator Samira Abbos echoes Madlener’s concern, though she hails from the opposite perspective:

“I don’t want to be tolerated in this country. I have lived here for 32 years. I’m a citizen of Holland. I want to be accepted … What I see here in Holland that is very important is that a generation of Dutch Muslims is coming up. Dutch Muslims who say, ‘I want to be Dutch and Muslim here in Holland. Give us the freedom!’”

Mirjam Dittrich, writer for the European Policy Centre, describes a proposal by Tariq Ramadan for the integration of Muslims into European society by “breaking down the ‘us versus them’ mentality” in favor of a ‘third way’ which allows Muslims to be “at the same time fully Muslim and fully Western.” Essential to this “Euro-Islam” is that Muslims “should view western democracy as ‘a model respecting [their] principles rather than seeing it as anti-Islamic.’”

Is European identity in jeopardy, or will it be responsible for promoting tolerance of a culture which continues to be commonly misunderstood despite its uninterrupted presence in world media? When Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man, spoke in Germany two weeks ago, he urged Europe to “stop being intimidated about using its right to defend its own humanist culture,” stating: “There is a European culture. It’s subscribing to a broader culture of tolerance. It’s not unreasonable for European culture to say, ‘You have to accept this.’”

With the Bush administration’s lingering hysteria over those elusive weapons of mass destruction, it is both timely and prudent to revisit the original weapon of mass destruction pioneered in the 20th century: The atomic bomb.

Original Child Bomb is a documentary — a mélange of declassified footage, animation, spoken word, media clips, still footage, statistics, interviews with current high school students, and assorted contemporary footage — that takes its inspiration and its name from the Thomas Merton poem of the same title.  

The film functions, as the original poem’s subtitle indicates, as “points for meditation,” about the nuclear age “to be scratched on the walls of a cave.” Director Carey Schonegevel’s film focuses on the bombs that America rained on Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost 60 years ago, and it examines how America has portrayed — through journalism, schooling, and the nebulous but powerful collective consciousness — America’s development of the atomic bomb and its lethal deployment in Japan.

Original Child Bomb also speaks to the lingering threat of nuclear armaments and the attendant misinformation that circulates around subject; it is, then, a heart-breakingly relevant reminder of and meditation on the nuclear age and the harrowing traumas of war.

Mimi Hanaoka

“Fox News. Fair and Balanced.”

If you have a hard time uttering the network’s catchphrase without laughing, get in line. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Robert Greenwald’s documentary, dissects the cable news channel notoriously heavy on conservative punditry that allows only nominal opposing viewpoints. Outfoxed is playing in rep
houses as well as house parties of members of Common Cause, True Majority, and MoveOn.Org (the latter is the film’s co-presenter). The DVD is also available for online purchase.

In response to Fox’s claim of being “fair and balanced” (Sean Hannity’s announcements of X number of days until George W. Bush secures a second term sounds awfully skewed), the activist groups urged members to write the Federal Trade Commission. The objective is to have the slogan declared false advertising as applied to Fox News (if you haven’t done so already, click on their sites and send
an email today).

If that campaign doesn’t deter Fox, here’s a plan B: they could still use the slogan, however, like the pharmaceutical companies’ ads for their meds, Fox must disclose the side effects of exposure and its recommendations. Below is my recommended advisory (Thanks to Al Franken for fearlessly satirizing “fair and balanced.” At least I won’t have to lawyer up).

WARNING: Entering the No-Spin Zone of “The O’Reilly Factor” may cause vertigo. Symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome, such as repeating “shut up,” may also occur.

Those with visual problems should avoid moving graphics like text crawls, as some say they may promote astigmatism.

Heavy bombardment of red, white, and blue images could cause blind patriotism. An aversion to things associated with France is likely to happen.

Risk of hearing loss can be diminished by turning down the volume whenever Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity are on.

Anxiety levels may vary depending on the actual importance of The Big Question or Fox News Alerts. Stories on celebrities cause the least detriment to mental health.

Fox News is highly repetitive. Prolonged exposure is recommended only for those with attention deficit disorder.

Dissociation from fact and commentary is known to occur during “Talking Points.”

Cognition problems are three times more likely in Fox News viewers than in those who get news from public broadcasting. Consult a physician immediately if you sight weapons of mass destruction or connections of terrorists to the Democratic Party.

In The Fray Contributor

Religious oppression and the communist party’s stranglehold on power may not sound like the ideal conditions for religious innovation, but it seems that some of the most remarkable innovations in Islam are coming from just such a place: The Ningxia province of China.  
  
The Islam that has developed in the Ningxia province of China is notable both because it has been isolated from the trends and developments of the wider Muslim world and because its historical and political position has made it an unusual space for social and religious innovation.

Richard Bulliet, in his book Islam: The View from the Edge, offers a remarkable social historian’s reading of Islamic history. Instead of relying on the “view from the center,” and understanding Islamic history by charting the course of the caliphal dynasties, Bulliet contends that we should also examine the “view from the edge,” and ask how and why Islam became woven into the social structure of the citizens who were neither literally nor figuratively at the political center of the Islamic empire. The Ningxia province of China lies on the literal and figurative edges of Islam, and it provides just such a “view from the edge.”

Jin Meihua is 40, a mother, and, extraordinarily, a female imam. While her mosque is attached to a more traditional male mosque, other women have established independent women-only mosques.

Noting the uniqueness of Islam in Ningxia, Maria Jaschok, Ph.D., research scholar at the Institute for Chinese Studies and member of the International Gender Studies Center at Oxford University, states that “these are sites led by women for women, not overseen by male religious leaders … they’re independent, even autonomous. This is simply not the case anywhere else in Muslim countries.”

Additionally, as Dr. Khaled Abou el Fadl from UCLA notes, “the Wahhabi and Salafis have not been able to penetrate areas like China and establish their puritanical creed there … that’s a good thing, as it means that perhaps from the margins of Islam the great tradition of women jurists might be rekindled.”

Religious oppression coupled with communism may not sound the death knell for religious development, after all; such a place is, in fact, one of the very significant edges of Islam. The Ningxia province will be a region to observe both for the innovative interpretations of Islam it will provide and because it will be a window into a changing China’s experiment with Islam and with its 20 million Chinese Muslims.

Mimi Hanaoka

Since I was not able to attend synagogue this Rosh Hashanah I thought I might take the opportunity to reflect on an aspect of the High Holiday liturgy that I find especially relevant in these times. In nine days I will be observing Yom Kippur, the “Day of Attonement.” On that day, observant Jews recite what is known as the “al Cheyt.”  

Ve-al kulam Eloha selachol, selach lanu, mechal lanu, kuper lanu.
For all our sins, may the Force that makes forgiveness possible forgive us, pardon us, and make atonement possible.

The sins in this prayer are not individual sins, but rather the collective sins of the community. It is a group confession because, though you may not have personally committed the offense, you are a part of the whole, and bear some measure of responsibility.

In recent years the traditional list of transgressions (sins) has been adapted for various social causes like this environmental confession. Today I came across the “High Holiday Confessional by George W. Bush.”

For the sin I have committed before you by promising to be a compassionate conservative, but showing no compassion.

For the sin I have committed before you by waging an unjust war in Iraq in the false name of fighting terrorism.

For the sin I have committed before you by waging a political campaign built on fear, not hope.

For the sin I have committed before you by cynically exploiting the horrors of 9/11 for political gain.

For the sin I have committed before you by ignoring the plight of the poorest and weakest among our citizens.

For the sin I have committed before you by the unnecessary deaths of 1,000 young Americans, the injuries to thousands more, and the deaths and injuries to untold numbers of Iraqis.

For the sin I have committed before you by lying about my record of service in the National Guard.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

For the sin I have committed before you by dividing rather than uniting our people.

No doubt the author of this modern, satirical prayer intended it to place heaps of blame squarely on President Bush. It is in the nature of this prayer and this High Holiday season however to spread the blame … and the responsibility. No matter if we voted for Bush or Gore, it is our unjust war, it is our exploitation of 9/11, they are our lies … and it is our duty to take on the responsibility to ameliorate our collective wrongs.          

For the sin I have committed before you by ignoring the loss of over one million jobs in the U.S.

For the sin I have committed before you by doing nothing to provide health insurance to millions of Americans, and to stem rapidly rising prescription medicine and other health care costs.

For the sin I have committed before you by systematically weakening environmental and pollution regulations, thereby endangering public health and destroying precious wilderness resources.

For the sin I have committed before you by promising to leave no child behind, and then failing to adequately fund educational programs.

For the sin I have committed before you by allowing the assault weapons ban to die, allowing these grotesque weapons to return to our streets.

For the sin I have committed before you by bearing false witness about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.

For the sin I have committed before you by perpetuating the falsehood that increasing homeland security requires a weakening of civil rights.

For the sin I have committed before you by imposing a veil of secrecy on government decision making processes.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

–

For the sin I have committed before you by allowing the ends to justify any means.

For the sin I have committed before you by lowering taxes for only the very wealthiest Americans, enriching the few at the expense of the many.

For the sin I have committed before you by running a cynical and destructive presidential campaign, designed to destroy rather than just defeat my opponent.

For the sin I have committed before you by fighting a war in Iraq to divert attention from failures in the just war on terrorists, and from failing to act against the looming nuclear threat from Iran and North Korea.

For the sin I have committed before you by failing to make any progress in achieving a just peace between Israel and the Arabs.

For the sin I have committed before you by turning a massive government surplus into a massive deficit in less than four years, thereby burdening future generations with untold debt.

For the sin I have committed before you by unnecessarily damaging relations with American friends and allies throughout the world.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

–

For the sin I have committed before you by promoting a personal ideology rather than the interests of the people.

For the sin I have committed before you by arrogance and swagger, speaking with a forked tongue, and for the haughty exercise of power.

For the sin I have committed before you by appointing arch-conservative judges to the federal judiciary.

For the sin I have committed before you by irresponsibly damaging the reputation of the United States throughout the world.

For the sin I have committed before you by enriching my friends in the conduct of government and military affairs.

For the sin I have committed before you by encouraging xenophobia on the part of the American people.

For the sin I have committed before you by attempting to impose my extreme religious and moralistic values on the entire nation, and weakening the separation between church and state.

For the sin I have committed before you by characterizing all who oppose me as evil, and all who agree with me as good.

And for the sin I have committed before you by failing to acknowledge my responsibility for all these sins, for attempting to blame others for them, and for all the injury and damage they have caused to individuals, the Nation, and the future.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

AMEN

May 5765 be a year of peace, happiness and regime change!

Benjamin Helphand

I went shopping at the local mall on Saturday, as I do most every weekend. It’s just a way to relax and unwind after a busy week. Normally I end up buying things for my family and just browsing at things for myself. However, if there is one thing I’m weak for it’s shoes. And when I can’t decide which pair of shoes I like, there always seems to be a black pair calling my name. Today, though, I was able to resist the black suede pumps that were oddly similar to two other pairs I already have at home. The sales woman was getting a bit irritated because I couldn’t make up my mind after she had brought out the fifth pair.

For me, shopping is serious business. It requires a full stomach, a clear mind, and I must feel good about myself in order to see myself in the item I’m about to purchase. When I go shopping, I’m usually dressed pretty casually — jeans, blouse, and very little make-up, if any. I don’t go to malls to be a fashion plate, like many women do. And it’s not that I’m runway model gorgeous or that I don’t have to work hard at looking presentable or anything like that. In fact, I’m 44 years old, in pretty good shape, but rather average-looking on any ordinary day.

But it never fails that inevitably some guy will come on to me in one way or another.

Today, a guy with three kids was walking towards the shoe store as I was coming out. He motioned towards his children and said to me, “My babies need a mama.” I looked at him, trying to hide my utter disgust at a man who would pimp his children that way. I politely responded, “It looks like they need a father too.” It took him a while to catch on to the insult, and when he finally did, he yelled back, “Yo, that was cold-blooded!”

I was actually upset with myself after that exchange. It was obvious that I took the situation way too personally. He didn’t know me and what he saw of me in that split second didn’t give him much to go on. But he took a chance because who knows? Maybe I could have been looking for a man with three kids to be a mother to. The more I thought about it, I was really upset that he had more chutzpah than I could ever imagine having. All I could think of is, “I would never do anything like that.” Maybe that’s what my problem has been all my life. I have always been known to take the safe routes, the roads most often traveled because they were the ones that were tried, tested, and found true. This guy not only took a different road, he didn’t stop to ask for directions and he didn’t care who was watching. Oh, to be so free.

As I drifted through the mall observing the people and trying to figure out what their lives must be like based on their appearances, I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy with the three kids. I was gazing at some photographs outside a photography studio when another gentleman walked up to me and said, “I went to sleep last night hoping God would reveal the woman of my dreams to me and He did. It was you.” I told him that he was probably lactose intolerant and it was really a nightmare and that he might want to be more specific with God the next time he talked to Him because I was already taken. I walked away shaking my head incredulously and threw up my hands as I came to a critical decision. I went back to my favorite shoe store and bought those black suede pumps and threw in some black boots for good measure. God knows, after the day I’d had, I deserved them.

In The Fray Contributor