More responding

Perhaps because more people come across sanctimommies than homeless vets? I agree-we'll never have the numbers on either. Lost in all this are all the genuinely smug-- investment bankers, etc. They've been smug for years. Anne Applebaum wrote the other day, in reference to the British MP expense scandal, about "[t]hat feeling, so palpable in London -- and in New York, and in Washington -- that "I'm clever, I work hard, so I deserve to be richer, even at someone else's expense"" and how it "helped bring down Lehman Brothers." My views on this, as I touched on in the Emergency Masters of Ceremony post, is that no one profession has a monopoly on service to society; there is no need to be smug, which I suppose is understood in the definition of smug and in the negative connotation of the word. And for the purposes of this post, we'll count motherhood as a profession (there's a debate that's needlessly full of smug).

Anyway, I agree there is a social sensitivity about most things military that blocks open debate. Consider some people's defense of Abu Ghraib, and even the controversy that Wesley Clark stepped into when he suggested that McCain's having been a POW hadn't necessarily prepared him to be Commander in Chief. Again, though, in my experience, it is not the people in the military who are perpetuating the "protective" shield. So, yes, there would be controversy and acrimony if a similar video were made about vets, and I wouldn't find said video funny, mostly because it wouldn't resonate. We don't know whether the proportion of bad apples among either mothers or vets justifies satire or lack thereof about either.

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Martha observed that RM seemed sort of childlike -- a very polite child, but a needy one. What's crazy about that, for those of you familiar with military jargon, is that he's an 06. How much more insane is it, in the context of that information, that he's acting all hurt-child when I don't pay enough attention to him?

So, the laptop has moved upstairs, and I'm now operating from my office. It wasn't a calculated move, since he hadn't done anything to merit an escalation on my part; it sort of happened in the process of having visitors-- I was leaving less stuff around downstairs. I do like it better this way, and probably would even if he weren't there-- but I've noticed some additional pouting as a result, and what is going to upset me is having to have another "are you mad at me" conversation with RM. While I don't mind doing whatever additional home improvement/repair stuff the renter requires, I don't need the interpersonal aspect of the arrangement to be high maintenance. We'll see.