For those of us who communicate online on contentious subjects, debates often degenerate.

This is well known. Flame wars discredit those who lose their tempers, blah blah. But what bugs me today is another type of offensive participant: the father figure. You know the type. This is a well-respected and knowledgeable person who usually sits above the fray, lobbing only an occasional comment.

So far so good, but sometimes this can go to their heads, and allow themselves to start making meta-commentary. This is a kind of putdown that pretends to be just short of ad hominem. “This debate is degenerating due to the tone.” “Your technical points are being obscured by the degree to which others are annoyed by it.” “You cannot expect an answer until the discussion returns to a calm state.”

The trouble with all these observations, while to some extent true, is that they are condescending. Everyone knows that people should stay calm as much as possible. By chiding people like that in public, one treats the people accused like children and gives oneself and others an excuse to avoid addressing the underlying technical dispute.

Please cut down on the meta-commentary. Bad tone speaks for itself – you don’t have to be its spokesperson.

Small town crime.

Day of construction:

Night of vigilance:

Morning of disappointment:

Afternoon of objection:

Eric, aged 3.1, and Stuart, aged 1.0, are getting along better by the day.

Stuart is starting to recognize a few written words and numbers, so we’re turning up the complexity of the baby puzzles during play time. Yesterday, surrounded by dozens of little toy vehicles, Juimiin asked Stuart to give her two cars. Stuart thought about it, and handed over one, then got confused. (It must have been coffee time or something.) Anyway, Eric saw that Stuart was having trouble, so he sneaked over, put another toy car into Stuart’s hand, and sort of gently pushed the charged hand toward Juimiin. Stuart was still confused (note to self: baby esperesso tomorrow).

Stuart’s current favorite book is Dig dig digging, and brings the book to me or Juimiin regularly to have it read to him. This morning, it was reading practice time, and Eric was also interested. So, we killed two birds with one stone: I asked Eric to read to Stuart. He did – and not only that – he traced the words one by one, to help his little brother keep track.

Oh yeah, and Eric is teaching Stuart how to pee on a toilet. Raising kid #2 looks to be a piece of cake, with three of us sharing the load.

People like these make me wish to be younger and more American.

One day I will be sad to remind Stuart (age 1.1) that his very first kiss with a girl was with … his cousin Leigh.
To his credit, Leigh (age 1.0) forced herself on him. Repeatedly.