Let's Light This Candle

A quick note, one I've probably made before, but it bears repeating: in the modern age of obstetrics and gynecological medicine (or at least what passed for modern at the turn of the millennium), a spontaneous, natural childbirth can happen, sure, but at some point an aggregation of techniques developed that gave OB/GYNs the option of building a predictable schedule for themselves out of what had been a roiling sea of amniotic fluid spray and thundering perineal ruptures. The very forward-thinking process of labor induction arrived, meaning while they could not exactly predict when they had to be around for the actual humanectomy, they could certainly affirmatively determine the beginning of the birth process by administering the right synthetic hormones to artificially kickstart the worst/best thing that's ever happened to you ladies.

On the parent side, that means, within a day or so, labor-length willing, you get to pick your baby's birthday! It's not quite the guaranteed dystopia trigger that will be designer babies when they arrive in earnest, but it does begin to satisfy the deep, starving desire (especially among upper middle class white people) to micromanage something nature has taken literally all of evolution to work out just fine with zero input from us thus far.

We were young when our kids were born, so we just did what we were told. That was easy with the first one as he decided to show up about 15 days before we were told to expect him. Our doctor missed out on some REM sleep, but he was careful not to make the same mistake with Kid #2. We had the grand luxury of choosing the date that kid would be born. The calculations we made I know were dictated by the doctor's availability and also some incredibly short-term tactical thinking about how to cover care for our extant toddler, so we chose our day. It wasn't until a few years later that we realized we'd picked the day that is both International Jokes About Weed And Stoners Day AND ALSO LET US NOT FORGET the birthday of one Adolf Hitler. Woo, 4-20. That was 16 years ago today for us and our (so far) non-stoner, non-alt-right boy. But he is a middle child, so we expect one or both developments to be announced at any minute.

* * *

A second quick note:

For me, so far this is the Platonic ideal of Trump stories, the perfect encapsulation of the entire enterprise:

Aircraft Carrier Wasn't Sailing to Deter North Korea, as U.S. Suggested

It's got everything:

1) A bold, unapologetic announcement of policy designed to fly in the face of all previous candy-ass policy

2) that turns out to ONLY be either an outright lie or evidence of complete disinterest in how a specific aspect of governance (in this case, the United States Navy) actually functions, and

3) Makes America, its allies and the rest of the world less settled, less safe AND

4) Followed by a nonsensical attempt to spin or soften or cover up, basically by suggesting that anyone who doubts the official version is either stupid or a giant pussy

Not only was the thing announced by Trump not true, it turned out to be the literal opposite of true as Carrier Strike Group 1, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), was steaming along directly away from the place Trump himself had said it was going. So by actually not doing anything at all because he is either a liar or doesn't understand enough about how the government he heads works to even formulate a clarifying question for those who might know, he pushed us uncomfortably close to armed conflict with North Korea and possibly China using warships that were not even present.

On the one hand I guess, wow: efficient.

On the other hand: AAAAAaaaaaAAaaaaAAaaAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAGGGgghhhnn...!