Covington Sucks

Well, as if my last post didn't already convey a certain level of frustration with Covington, today we awakened to find C's passenger car window smashed in, his car ransacked, and, of course, his radio stolen.

Mind you, we live on one of the most busy streets in this suckville town. Mind you, there is a street light and a bus stop right at the corner where he was parked. Never mind, they still robbed him.

The neighbors have been sympathetic and actually seem surprised. The really truly sad part is I'm not surprised at all. I am actually more surprised that in the week or so both of us have been parking on the street that it's taken this long for one of our cars to be broken into.

Yeah, "it's happening" in Covington alright. I'm ready to start a countdown to move out of this shit town.

Love Thy Neighbor - So I'm Going to Hell, Right?

Some of you have heard about my recent neighbor troubles. Long story short - my next door neighbor kept partially blocking my garage door. After having a "conversation" about this, my house was pelted with some dirty diapers and lots of miscellaneous trash began appearing in my backyard. Also, and perhaps coincidentally, my garage door opens and closes on occasion. One might wonder about karma in this situation, I suppose. So while I am one of the few residents in Covington with a garage, I am finding myself parking on the street more and more these days to avoid having my car stuck in my garage.

I've given this whole situation inordinate amounts of thought, and I've tried lately to push it out of mind. After all, in an equal act of karma for those who believe, my neighbor's car (with which he was blocking my garage) 'exploded' according to another neighbor and is no longer blocking anything, anywhere, including my garage. But something my neighbor yelled at me during our "conversation" has stuck in my mind. He said, "Just because you're a homeowner, you think you're better than me, don't you?".

I found myself reminded of this issue this week, while in lovely Springfield, OH, where I was watching "Good Morning America" in the Hampton Inn. Apparently in Lake Forest, IL, neighbors are upset because a woman has 3 potbelly pigs as pets in this affluent neighborhood. The neighbors who have complained say they can smell the pigs and they've (horror of horrors!) seen the pigs eat which means at some point those pigs will actually excrete too! Never mind the pig owner does not walk them around the neighborhood and doesn't chase after them with pig-doo bags around with her the way the dog owners in that neighborhood surely do. So it seemed to me the whole issue could be reduced down to snobbery or some sort of classism on the part of the pig-hater neighbors.

And it again made me wonder, as I have many times in my issues with my neighbor, how many neighbor conflicts are based on some sort of inherent snobbery or distaste for the 'type' of person who lives near you? Could I really be as upset with and angered by this guy because of who he is? If he had been the sort of guy who didn't wander around with no shirt, who played AC/DC at all hours and at all decibels, and who spoke English like his schooling hadn't surpassed the 4th grade, would I be less upset?

For all my democratic, open-minded claims, am I a hypocrite when it comes to my neighbor?

Me? Food? Who'da Thunk It?

As I mentioned previously, I have wanted to write a separate blog about food in the Greater Cincinnati area. Finally, I have actually set up that separate blog and have begun posting to it.

Hopefully, the commentaries I write will get more interesting (and less wordy!) the more I write, and I'll even try to incorporate pictures as I can (will it be weird to be taking pictures of my food at restaurants? probably so...).

So feel free to peruse the new blog and add comments or make suggestions for places to try:

http://notjustchili.blogspot.com/

Happy Reading/Eating!
SBB

The New Roe v Wade: Or, Is Forcing Fatherhood a Good Thing?

I'm enjoying a few days off this week courtesy of my company's new harsher 'use it or lose it' vacation policy for those of us who've spent years hoarding vacation days.

So while having some time off with nothing more to do with my time than repair bricks on my front porch, hang new mail boxes, and plant ground cover in my mini-backyard (really!), I found myself watching a rerun of "Dr. Phil" this morning while waiting for my appointment with my trainer. The show was about parents who have different ideas about how parenting should be done...and it seemed like a basic snooze-fest discussion of how to make kids go to bed on time or whether or not to let babies sleep in the bed with you.

But the first segment actually proved fairly interesting as it chronicled the story of a young man in Michigan (Matthew Dubay) who says his girlfriend claimed infertility and claimed to be on birth control for other medical reason but still turned up pregnant. Because Dubay claimed to have been duped and unready for parenthood, he has refused her claims for child support. It's important to note that Dubay says he was quite clear with his girlfriend about his lack of interest in and readiness for parenthood. The resulting unplanned pregnancy led to the current legal case. See here for the Michigan Attorney General's page about the case (interesting, if for no other reason than his over-the-top political rhetoric): http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,7-164--146339--,00.html

The issue is an interesting one, to be sure, and even the basic premise of a 'right to choice' seems fairly apt. The lawyer appearing with Dubay on "Dr. Phil" was pushing the right to privacy aspect of Roe v. Wade moreso than the choice aspect, and in either of those two respects, I can certainly see Dubay's point. But it does seem a bit of a slippery slope. Having grown up being supported (financially and emotionally) by a man who was not my biological father has shown me that biology can mean very little in the whole scheme of fatherhood. So should biological fathers be compelled to be a part of their child's life - even if that part is strictly financial?

Maybe the whole argument eludes me to some extent because I've always been someone who did not believe in alimony and has some Gloria Gaynor-ish notion that if a relationship fails, it is the woman's duty to carry on on her own, as an autonomous, independent, self-supporting woman. And to take money from a person with whom you could not sustain a relationship strikes me as a bit on the needy, desparate side. But I am not so naive as to believe supporting yourself is the same as supporting a child (or children), so I suppose while I might not believe in alimony, it would be foolish (and possibly harmful to the child(ren)) not to believe in child support.

And as a staunch believer in a woman's right to choose, I can't help but wonder, does the right to having the right to choose also mean you must bear the results of that choice alone? Another slippery slope of this issue, it seems to me, is that a woman ultimately has the right to choose whether or not she carries a fetus to term; even if her husband/boyfriend/one night stand steadfastly insisted he wanted to father the child, a woman could still choose to terminate the pregnancy, and most pro-choicers argue that that is precisely her right with her body. So does choosing to have the baby mean that that woman really, ultimately, bears the responsibility for that child alone?

I brought this issue up with a friend of mine today; I should mention this friend has two children and goes to great lengths to provide for them, even though he is not the custodial parent. He seemed utterly disgusted that a man would ever not provide for his child, whether he wanted the child or not. His reaction made me think that perhaps the issue here, for me at least, is even more squiggly than I first thought.

Having said all that (and saying very little in the process), I'm curious as to what others think of this issue/issues.

Ok, back to my vacay.