Some residents of the Greek island of Lesbos are suing the LGBT-rights group “Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece” in an effort to reclaim the name “lesbian.” The BBC reports “The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.” He says it causes “daily problems” to the islanders’ social lives.

What’s next? Happy people suing to reclaim the word “gay”? Besides, haven’t copies of The L Word or Ellen made their way to Greece by now, at least via Internet video? Lesbians are beautiful, rich people with gorgeous homes and active social lives. Sometimes they tell jokes and dance. Where’s the disgrace in that?

Neither my son nor this blog would be here without the benefit of modern technology, and for that (mostly the former), I am grateful. I’m a minimalist when it comes to childcare technology, however, although I’ve found a baby monitor to be a useful gadget. The New York Times, however, takes a look at several new “babytronics” designed to make life easier for new parents and better for their children.

Most had me rolling my eyes. I think a battery-operated nasal aspirator would have freaked out my son to no end. I don’t think an electronic device that helps me track “how long it has been since the baby has gone to sleep, been fed, had her diaper changed or taken her medicine” has much advantage over the pencil and paper I used to track the last of the four. My son was more than willing to inform me when sufficient time had passed since the first three.

My winning pick for the “Most Useless Gadget” award is the LENA System (only $399!), a credit-card sized “language measurement tool” that slips into the front pocket of a specially designed outfit for your child. Several days a month, you use it to record conversation between parent(s) and child, then plug it into your computer so the special software can analyze “how many words you have spoken to your baby, how often your baby responds, and where you match up against the rest of the American population, to ensure your infant is getting that all-important verbal edge on other infants.” Apparently, the system is based on “research demonstrating a correlation between the amount parents talk to their babies during their first three years and their professional success later in life.”

“Yes, I know little Bessie’s going to get into Überelite Nursery Academy. I said 1287 words to her today but Sally only said 1123 to her Johnnie. Too bad he won’t be going to Harvard with her. Maybe he can stuff envelopes for her presidential campaign.”

What are your contenders for most-useless baby products? What are some gadgets you’d like to see invented that would in fact be useful for parents?

And Tango Makes Three, the children’s book based on a true story about two male penguins who adopt an abandoned egg, tops the American Library Association’s list of “10 Most Challenged Books of 2006,” “for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group.” A challenge, according to the ALA, is “a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.” Other books on the list include Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved, based on “sexual content and offensive language.”

As I’ve said before, it seems the right has felt particularly sensitive about penguins ever since they claimed March of the Penguins as an example of “traditional family values.”

Personally, I think it’s time for a March of the Penguins on Washington.

What’s your favorite book from the ALA list, this year or in the past?

Proving the importance of a good copyeditor, lawmakers in Arkansas passed a law this year that mistakenly allows state residents of any age—even babies—to marry with parental permission, as long as they are not pregnant. The bill says: “In order for a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age and who is not pregnant to obtain a marriage license, the person must provide the county clerk with evidence of parental consent to the marriage.”

The law was intended to set 18 as the minimum age for marriage, but provide an exception for pregnant teenagers. Same-sex couples, even those over 18, are still prohibited from marriage by a state constitutional amendment. Now, of course, those with children can at least marry off their straight toddlers and get back to the business of destroying the foundations of society.

The governor may have to call a special session to correct the bill. While he’s at it, about that amendment . . . .

The “99 Cents Only” store in Lewisville, Texas, will be hosting a licensed minister on June 30 who will perform ceremonies at the store for—you guessed it—99 cents.

Shouldn’t someone be defending against this sort of thing?

James C. Dobson, founder and chairman of the ultra-conservative group Focus on the Family, broadcast and endorsed a sermon on his radio show in which the speaker asserted: “You know a society has been abandoned by God when it celebrates lesbian sex.” He then claimed that as a result of this abandonment, a major U.S. city could be destroyed and that “God would be just in any calamity he brought upon us.” (Reported by Media Matters for America.)

One might assume the flip side of this: that lesbian bed death could save us all from destruction. Good thing so many of us are starting families—heaven knows kids exacerbate the syndrome.

Still, I think I’ll risk a few locusts . . . .

A spokesperson for Ewa Sowinska, Poland’s ombudsman for children’s rights, has said Sowinska won’t pursue a proposed investigation into whether the Teletubbie Tinky Winky “promotes homosexuality” because he carries a purse.

I’m rather disappointed. While I don’t really believe same-sex attraction can be “promoted” (despite the free toasters), I do think it is good for our families and our children to see ourselves represented in media and merchandise. In addition to buying your child a Tinky Winky doll for Pride Month, therefore, I offer you the following suggestions:

• A set of Bristle Blocks that includes one rather androgynous parental figure in the pair. Could easily pass for Mommy and Mama.
• Fisher-Price Rescue Heroes. They just remind me of the Village People. Besides, with names like Billy Blazes, Jack Hammer, Rocky Canyon, and Seymour Wild, they sound like a gay burlesque troupe.

An article in the Mail & Guardian newspaper of South Africa asked this week, “Why are pregnant lesbians scary?”

Umm . . . because we’re hormonal and know how to use power tools?

The article itself is a rehash of the Mary Cheney pregnancy and why gay and lesbian parents are as good as any others. Nothing particularly new for regular readers of this blog. It does bring up the point, though, that part of the reason for people’s fear of lesbians is “that they are out of the control of men and are therefore perceived as ‘unfeminine. . . .’ In general, we lesbians are not seen as ‘real women’, we are not actually expected to have wombs, or the ability to produce breast milk. And, obviously, we have rough hands, from constantly tinkering with our motorbikes—certainly no good for nappy changing.”

Again, this is not a new argument, but it bears repeating. I find it endlessly baffling that people fear lesbians’ lack of femininity (real or perceived), and yet bemoan the lack of “masculine” influence in lesbian families. Whatever the truth—about our gender identities and the need for both “feminine” and “masculine” role models—it is varied and subtle, and not served by such contradictory generalizations.

Two items of news today caught my eye:

• Pope Benedict XVI referred to arguments for recognition of same-sex relationships as “dismal theories.”
• The New York Blade recapped a UCLA study (cited in my Weekly Political Roundup last week) claiming “New Jersey florists, caterers, hotels and other businesses would bring in more than $100 million in additional revenue per year if the state allowed gay couples to marry there.”

I was going make a crack that economics being “the dismal science,” this would seem to indicate the pope is right, what with recognition of same-sex relationships stimulating the economy.

I discovered, however, that “dismal science” was first used by nineteenth-century historian Thomas Carlyle to denigrate the views of those who supported the emancipation of slaves. As two modern professors of economics explain: “It was this fact—that economics assumed that people were basically all the same, and thus all entitled to liberty—that led Carlyle to label economics ‘the dismal science.’” Maybe, therefore, the pope is closer in spirit to Carlyle when he refers to “dismal theories.”

What made me really laugh, however, was the sentence in which Carlyle first used his famous phrase: “Not a ‘gay science,’ I should say, like some we have heard of; no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.”

This means we have the pope equating things “gay” and “dismal,” and Carlyle, similarly arguing against the idea of liberty for all, contrasting them. Carlyle means “gay” in a different sense, of course—but the juxtaposition of the two terms again gave me a chuckle. (It’s possible that doing last-minute holiday shopping with a three-year-old has addled my brain.)

With that, I’ll leave you to don your gay apparel for the holidays.

Just when I think I can’t get any more exasperated at educational policy after President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program, along comes his brother.

Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature are embracing the victor’s privilege of dictating history. Last month, Jeb signed a bill stating that “American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed,” and this history should be “knowable, teachable and testable.”

As any true historian will tell you, however, “constructed’ history is the only kind there is. (I have a postgraduate degree in history from Oxford University, so I claim some expertise in this matter.) Yes, most people will agree that certain people existed and certain events occurred, but it is the interpretation of these events that forms the heart of what history is. Otherwise, it’s just a memorized string of events and dates—and even the “facts” of events happening on particular dates get fuzzy as we move further back in time.

By claiming that history should not be constructed, however, Jeb and his Floridian supporters are hoping no one will notice there’s naturally some interpretation going on—and it comes from Jeb & Co.’s perspective. As Robert Jensen of the University of Texas says:

Florida’s lawmakers are not only prescribing a specific view of U.S. history that must be taught (my favorite among the specific commands in the law is the one about instructing students on “the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy”), but are trying to legislate out of existence any ideas to the contrary. They are not just saying that their history is the best history, but that it is beyond interpretation. In fact, the law attempts to suppress discussion of the very idea that history is interpretation.

Napolean Bonaparte, a man keenly aware of the importance of history, once said “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon” (or, as it is sometimes quoted, “History is a set of lies agreed upon”).

Jeb would be wise to remember that. In the meantime, all the more reason for us to remember that education—real education—begins and ends at home, whether one uses public schools, private schools, or homeschooling. If you don’t know anything about a particular subject, find a friend who does. Share your own knowledge in return. Create a community of learning that goes beyond the classroom, especially when the classroom and the statehouse are so intertwined.