Weekly BlogScan: Dad Day Afternoon

Hero. Competitor. Protector. Queller-with-a-glance of teenage pretensions. Model of manliness. Woodshed punisher. Father, Papa, Daddy, Pop, Dad. Sunday is Father's Day, and many of us in the blogosphere are making plans to honor or placate the Big Guy.

I start with Rebel Dad, whose blog "puts the stay-at-home dad trend under the microscope." He has recently inveighed against the reality show Meet Mr. Mom, because it presents such a twisted version of Dads. R.D.'s top two assumptions the show makes, which doom it to fail:

1. It assumes that raising kids is a terrible job. But most of the working dads I know would see a week alone with their children as a good (if exhausting) opportunity.
2. It assumes that men suck at caregiving...

Another at-home Dad is Mike, the TruckinDaddy, who gloats over his score in a junkyard search that replaced his "To Do" list of home chores on his other blog, AtHomeDaddy.

Daddy, make a picture sings the praises of a wise life-partner in Why I'm glad I married you—reason number 7,543,234:

Me: You do have batteries.
     Big Brother: I do NOT!
Me: Do so!!!
     BB: DO NOT!!!
Me (yelling upstairs): Mommy…..
     Mommy (yelling downstairs): Yes?
Me: Do the kids have batteries?
     Mommy (after thinking it through): Yes. And take his out.

    Luke, I have formatted your hard disk. (NOo-o!)

Father doesn't always know best. The computer-deficient Dad is a stereotype, perhaps because his number is Legion. According to Computer Stupidities, letting Dad play with your computer is dangerous, but hilarious. "My Dad: 'Ok, so I go into the Microsoft...' It usually takes two or three guesses to determine which Microsoft application he's in." (Mincing Words) And: "My best friend's family recently bought a new computer. They had all the hardware set up and the software ready to be installed when the stepdad picks up the Windows 95 box and says to his wife: 'How do they get the box into the computer?'... Apparently he thought that to install software you had to get the box in there somehow." (The Bleeding Obvious)

In Jon's Jail Journal, the blog of "a celled-up counter culture leader fighting science fiction facism," Jon interviewed the son of Sammy the Bull ("Junior Bull" Gravano) about his dad's involvement with mobster John Gotti:

"Did you know what John and your dad were up to?"
"I saw money and guns. I didn’t know that it wasn't legit. My dad had a construction business. People were always visiting, paying respect. I didn't realise what the mob was until I was sixteen, after the government got him... My dad was a mobster’s mobster."

For Anonymous Lawyer, the knowledge that he is a "bad father and a worse husband" helps innoculate him against Life Coaches, a career-group of people who promise to help A.L. resolve his life issues.

...it gave me an entirely new sense for what people do after they realize they can't function in the high-pressure world of corporate law. The irony is that these people, claiming they can help people like me manage my life and deal with the stress and figure out how to reach my goals are the people who couldn't hack it themselves.

Waiter Rants had a profitable encounter with a father tired of his son's long hair. But coturnix of Science and Politics is concerned about the Lakoffian Strict Father model of parenting, and its extension to universities.

It is no coincidence that The University is a metaphor for a Nurturant Parent model of a community... It is also no coincidence that The University is the seeding place for progress of the society... Of course most of the faculty are liberal...

The Empress at Query Letters I Love shares with us a query about a script submitted in Hollywood. "I have daddy issues," complains the writer. "Please validate me." One of the comments:

"This script deals with the dark comedic lives of an upper Midwest family." Next to monkeys, time travel, Hitler, and sharks, I would like to add the phrase "Dark comedy" as an indicator the script will inevitably suck.

Father Jake Stops the World is the blog of a "sometimes heretical Episcopal priest." Jake got tagged by a Book Meme, but owns only about 300 books. He blames a recent "mad dash across the US, taking with me only what would fit in my car; my dog, my clothes, and 14 boxes of books."

The posts of isabel at She's a Flight Risk tend toward the poetic, and her father is a constant theme:

Teetering on the twilit threshold between sleep and consciousness, I drift in and out of a proto-phantasm. Images of my family, friends and father beckon me to return from my miasmic state to the overly-bright clarity, sharp edges and blunt surfaces of wakefulness... I wake to jungle darkness, all insects and reptiles, and in the corner of my room—the bit of movement catching my eye in the shadow amidst the cornerbound shadows... Just barely escaping as I wake and seek to lay eyes on it.

I sleep so lightly even the dead cannot pass undetected.

I do not have such poetry in me. Fortunately, my father is living, and I only need to call him on Sunday. Happy Father's Day, Dad!

And thanks for everything...
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