Inappropriate Teaching

My latest read is Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor". I grabbed it off Audible because it was under $10 and I needed something to pass a couple of Cleveland and Akron commutes. It has captured my interest, but not in a can't-put-it-down way. More in a what-outrageous-thing-is-he-going-to-say-next way.

When one observes parents teaching their children the basic facts of life—"that's a 'tree', that's a 'book', that's a 'dog'—one sometimes wonders, "what if we mixed up the words?". Admit it. You've thought this at least once, right?

What if I said a cat was a koala and an acorn was an ant. What if you totally messed with your kid's mind? I'm thankful never to have run across someone so perverse, but it could happen ….

Mr. Palahniuk's protagonist is the sole survivor of a religious cult (think Mormon and Mennonite and Heaven's Gate, all rolled up into one community). A suicide hotline in his community posts a flyer with the digits in the phone number reversed. The incorrect phone number is his. He gets a couple of phone calls from people contemplating suicide. He handles the calls deftly. Then when the flyer with the error is corrected, he creates his own flyer with his phone number. People considering suicide call, he answers, and he tells them, "Just kill yourself."

It's the act of someone whose conscience has been eradicated by his early drink-the-Kool-Aid training.

He works as a housekeeper/valet for a nouveau riche couple. Each time they're going to a dinner party, he has to find out ahead of time what the menu will be, then teach them how to eat anything they're unfamiliar with.

The day he quits the job, he tells the man that a hearts of palm salad is eaten by spearing the heart with a fork, sucking the juice out of it, and then tucking the heart into his breast pocket.

The employer believes everything he says.

I'm not loving the book, but I am forging ahead as I really do want to see how it ends.

<Taking a Fork in the Mental Process>
I'm writing this the morning after President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. I see the people cheering in the streets. My daughter-in-law drove to D.C. yesterday to do an engagement shoot with clients who had gotten all the necessary permissions to have their photo session in front of the White House. And now this: all creativity must be brought to play in making this shoot happen.

I see on the news people standing and chanting, "USA. USA." I see people en masse at the White House and at Ground Zero, cheering, crying, shouting, dancing.

People! It's not over. This evil, demented man (bin Laden) poisoned the minds of hundreds, thousands, who knows how many people. You think just because he died they're going to change their ways of thinking? No. They're not!

This does not mean we can send all the full-body scanners to the scrap yard. This does not mean the military presence in the mideast can cease to exist. This does not mean we can relax. Alas, this does not mean we can relax.

What do I feel? Not giddiness. Not happiness. Not a competitive "Woo. Woo. We got him. We won."

Relief. Just relief. Post-partum relief.

That's over. Now we can move to the next stage, while we discover what the next stage really is


And my mind is with the families of those who died at the Pentagon and in Manhattan and in Pennsylvania. May they feel a measure of relief today.

<Returning from the Fork>

I guess the message of both the book and bin Laden's capture/death is this: Be vigilant.

1. Think for yourself.


2. Don't believe everything you've been told.


3. It ain't over until the fat lady sings, and we don't have any idea who the fat lady is!

Think peace!