Humanizing

I remember reading a little back about Sean Lennon needing to go to the hospital to repair damage to his ear drum after his father had screamed into it too loudly whilst disciplining him for some transgression. To his credit, John Lennon felt like an ass for having done it and was deeply upset with himself for having hurt his son. Upon reading it, I felt a couple of things run through my thoughts. One, that I could understand his frustration. Two, that I could understand how that frustration might give rise to actions that one would immediately regret and wish they could be undone. Three, that he must have had some damned loud pipes to tear an ear drum.

The reality of the combination of children, work, not enough decent sleep, not enough quality time with one's spouse, not enough quality time by oneself, not enough exercise and everything else that goes with children including the frustration of the never ending mess, the pain of stepping on sharp toys in darkened rooms and being unable to scream in pain because it would wake one or both sleeping boys, the nightmares that don't even wake the boy up just me, the love of climbing into our bed in the middle of the night and snuggling up to my wife while kicking me the rest of the night and all other myriad ways in which we are nibbled on, hassled, annoyed, frustrated, whatever.

Sometimes tops boil over and sometimes words come out. It doesn't make someone a bad person though it doesn't particularly make them a good person either. It makes them human, it makes them fallible.

There was something profound in learning that little bit about John and Sean Lennon and realizing that, up close, we're all human, we're all fallible.

A Curious Way To Circumvent a Stupid Law

Activists Want Chimp Declared a 'Person' because, in Austria, only people are allowed to recieve personal donations and this chimp, named Hiasl, is facing an uncertain future after his sanctuary has gone bankrupt.

The thought behind the drive is laudable but it seems to me that it would be less loophole-y and a smarter long term strategy to go after the law that says only people can accept personal donations in Austria.

Instead they are going to try and prove that a personality and the appearance of thoughtfulness (note, I'm not saying he ISN'T a person but I'm not quite prepared to say he is, not just yet) does a person make. And that can create a slippery slope, as the head of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Michael Antolini, thinks. If chimps are people and they can own property than what's to prevent the chimp from copyrighting his image? What's to prevent a chimp from obtaining real wealth? Heck, what's to stop a chimp from buying a business and having human employees?

We've all seen (the original, please) the Planet of the Apes and this is the start of that slippery slope down the evolutionary ladder. And yes, I am just kidding about that last bit.