The culture war

The gathering of college students was moving from the patio to the basement when the first scream pierced the air and echoed in the stairwell. You'd have thought there was a dead body slumped in the landing. It was a mouse.

More accurately, it turned out to be a litter of baby mice — five, to be exact — that apparently made its way undetected into the storage room when my husband brought in a bag that had been out in our garage.

Baby mice don't scurry like adults. They pop like popcorn. But soon enough, four of them had been caught under serving bowls, and the question was resolved: How many college students does it take to capture a litter of mice? (Two, with four standing on chairs to tell them where to look, and three who suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be.)

The next morning, I called Bert, my pest control guy. In no time, he tossed out the last (dead) mouse, set traps in case there were more, and while he was at it, performed his monthly bug service.

This seems like a good time to admit a personal bias: I'm prejudiced against daytime TV.

I realize this is irrational. It's just that where I come from, watching daytime TV is something you do when you have the flu or it's raining on a Saturday or a boyfriend has dumped you and there happens to be a "You've Got Mail" marathon on cable.

Turning on the TV during the day, especially to watch talk shows, has always struck me as an indulgence that comes with the urge to change into sweatpants and reach for a bag of Cheetos.

Consequently, I've missed some important moments in American pop culture. I didn't see Tom Cruise jump on Oprah's sofa or Dr. Phil's attempt to rescue Britney Spears. And I've never seen an entire episode of "The View."

Until now.

President Obama's appearance Thursday with the five co-hosts of "The View" struck me as such an incongruous idea that I had to watch it. Thankfully, I did this online rather than on the network when it aired last week, so I was able to skip the commercial breaks. I'm sure I would become despondent watching segments of conversation with the leader of the free world interspersed with ads for laundry soap and birth-control pills.

The appearance once again raised questions about what it means to be "presidential" in our celebrity-obsessed culture.

Several years ago, while unloading groceries, my son picked up a head of cauliflower and asked, "What's this?" For the record, no one ever pointed to boxed macaroni and cheese and asked about the contents. I'm embarrassed to admit the mac and cheese was a staple around our house for too long.

Sometimes, lessons in parenting come in subtle but significant moments. "What is cauliflower?" was the moment I realized I hadn't done enough to incorporate a variety of fruits and vegetables into our family's diet.

I'd been under the misguided impression that children simply wouldn't eat Brussels sprouts or edamame or hummus. When I started buying those things, sure enough I proved myself wrong. Children will eat anything, especially if they're hungry.

 Every so often, I like to switch the radio in my minivan to a pop or rock station and sing along with whatever is playing, just to impress my teenagers. This isn't difficult, considering how many songs from the 1970s and '80s still populate radio playlists. (Please, someone, recognize that Boston's "More Than a Feeling" was a bad song back in 1976 when it first came out.)

Of course, today's pop songs have only one or two lyrical phrases that you can pick up within seconds, so in the span of a stoplight, you belt the chorus as though you really know it.

You could say it's a little parenting mind game — a parlor trick to dispel the myth that moms are hopelessly uncool.

But I don't do this to flaunt that I'm a middle-aged hipster. Instead, I like to remind my children that I'm paying attention to what's out there.

I won't lie — staying on top of pop culture, especially music and lyrics, gets more difficult as I get older. For one thing, much of it just sounds like noise.

One of these days, someone is going to conduct some scientific research and discover that billions of dollars could be saved by not doing so much scientific research.

For example, the New York Times last week carried an interesting story by Randall Stross titled, "Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality," in which the author previews an upcoming scientific paper on the effects of home computers on the educational outcomes of low-income students.

The study's authors — professors from the University of Chicago and Columbia University — used fieldwork from a Romanian computer voucher program to prove that low-income students who received home computers actually achieved lower test scores than students who applied for, but did not receive, the vouchers.

Here's the part where we could pocket some research grant money: Mr. Stross quotes researcher Ofer Malamud as saying, "We found a negative effect on academic achievement. I was surprised, but as we presented our findings at various seminars, people in the audience said they werent surprised, given their experiences with their school-aged children."

Who needs stark regression discontinuity to establish something that any competent, responsible parent can tell you over a cup of Starbucks?

There just isn't enough column space to describe the myriad dysfunctions of Detroit Public Schools, much less consider the system's options for improvement.

To wit: Acting Superintendent Teresa Gueyser recently filed a complaint against a former president of the board of education, Otis Mathis, saying he repeatedly fondled himself during private meetings with her.

The Rev. David Murray, a board member, said in response, "It happens to a lot of young men. They engage in behavior they feel is harmless and it's offensive to certain people." Mr. Mathis is 55, so you wonder how old one has to be before Mr. Murray expects him to outgrow his propensity for public lewdness.

Meanwhile, the board of education is at odds with Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb over the drastic measures he says are necessary to salvage what little seems to remain of a working public school infrastructure.

Just what drastic measures has he implemented?

There's a case to be made that a principal job of parents is to help our children toward an understanding of what is and is not possible.

Typically, the practical application of this notion sounds like this: "Sure, it's possible your iPod will still work after spending three months in a snowbank."

Or, "Make it onto 'American Idol' at 16? Um … sure … why not? Anything's possible."

I'm not one to crush a child's hopes with something as unreliable as mere reality.

Eventually, as they grow, children learn that possibilities can be manufactured with imagination, effort, planning and perseverance. In all four of our children, we've seen the spectrum of what is possible blossom into life goals that we secretly wonder how they'll ever accomplish.

Sexist as this will sound (read: please don't e-mail me to say I am sexist, because obviously I already know), when it comes to raising our only son, we think it's especially important to create two avenues of possibility for his future consideration:

It was a moment of weakness, and it didn't last long.

My college freshman almost had me convinced that I ought to change the house rules for her younger sister.

The logic sounded reasonable, the timing seemed right, and I could almost envision myself jumping into the minivan and driving to the cellular store to pick out an inexpensive cell phone for Amy, my 12-year-old.

Then, in a fit of common sense, I spent 20 minutes on one of those Mommy-blogger sites. Simply perusing the headlines reminded me of all the reasons why we don't get cell phones for our children until they hit high school. Ditto for Facebook.

"There's no 3 in texting," one story is headlined. "A new way to monitor kids on Facebook," is another. "How to REALLY talk to your kids about cyberbullying," offers another.

Not to mention all the stories about teens, tweens, technology and sex, an alarming connection in today's culture.

Now, before you get defensive and start telling me all the reasons why these things are safe and appropriate for our children, know that I'm not judging your house rules. We're just not changing ours.

This week, my eldest daughter began a summer internship in Washington. She is so enamored of our nation's capital that she even likes the humidity that leaves bus fumes hanging in midair like carcinogenic cotton candy.

For political science majors like her, Washington is Disneyland.

Flocking to the city with a few items of business attire and enough enthusiasm to light up our national monuments for two months, college students immerse themselves in the real world of politics that they usually can only dream about while struggling to write papers about political theory.

Suddenly, they're wandering the streets scoping out politicians like celebrities on the red carpet. But as two college students learned this week, politicians can be dangerous.

A priest, a rabbi and a duck walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "What is this? A joke?"

Ba dum ching.

Unfortunately, the folks at Comedy Central don't seem to know the difference between good-natured humor and vile insulting content that deliberately offends a huge segment of the population.

Last month, the network announced it is developing a new animated show titled "JC," featuring a hapless Jesus Christ living on his own in New York City.

The synopsis at Comedy Central's "Insider" website says, "A half-hour animated show about JC (Jesus Christ) wanting to escape his father's enormous shadow and to live life in NYC as a regular guy. A lot has changed in 2000 years and he is the ultimate fish out of water. Meanwhile his all-powerful yet apathetic father would rather be playing video games than listening to JC recount his life in the city. JC is a playful take on religion and society with a sprinkle of dumb."

Actually, based on previous depictions of Jesus on Comedy Central shows such as South Park, as well as the treatment of Christians and Christianity on shows across this network, the funniest part of that synopsis is the use of the word "playful."