Why Scrapbooking Moms are the Secret Weapon in the War on Terror

There is a front line and a back end to every successful war effort. Rosie the Riveter was an icon during World War II and she was symbolic of the strong American woman who took command of the US economy and war manufacturing; without her there would have been no Allied victory.

We are once again embroiled in a bitter war and just like those times in the 1940s, the time of ending is uncertain. There is one thing that is different--women are involved in both the front lines and the back end and this can only be a good thing for America.

Regardless of which side of the political fence you stand upon in regards to the current war--you cannot disregard the sacrifices made by soldiers and the loved ones who bear the burden of their absence and, God forbid, their loss. But we must ask ourselves what is all of this sacrifice for?

There are many possible answers to this but here is what I think--the purpose of life is to constantly renew itself. This hypothesis is evidenced by the cycles of nature that occur around each of us every minute of every day we live. If this assumption is correct then it is our children and our children's children that are the vehicle of human renewal and are therefore the objects of our protection.

If it were gold we were protecting then the keepers of the gold would be the most valuable asset we would have--the ones who secured the bars with guns, who weighed each gram to the ounce, and who kept accurate figures that tallied the sum value of the entire gold reserve.

If it were gasoline we were protecting then the attendants who stand watch with squeegee in hand at the pumps would be our guardians of the cycle of the future of humanity.

But that's not the case because if children are the ultimate objects of value that we are protecting with the life's blood of our young men and women then it is the guardian of children who are our most valuable asset.

Now, if gasoline or gold bars were the object of ultimate importance, then which guardian would you choose: the one who just stood by with a weapon and ignored the gold or let the pump rust? Likewise, which guardian of our precious little resources of the future would you prefer: the one who passes out lunch money with no care of what nutritional value the child receives and who moves the child's head out of the way of the television set when they are begging for attention or the guardian who worships their child and treats them like a living project that can only compound in value over time with the attention paid to them today?

Obviously the doting mother is the preferred guardian for our little golden bib spoilers but what is it about the scrapbooking moms that separate them from the rest of the crowd? It is the action of taking their feelings, their memories, their love, their skills and their talents and creating something that truly turns common memories into works of art--keepsakes that can be handed down for generations.

This love for family, for community, for social order and the righteous zeal for living a good and happy life is what puts the bomp in the bomp shh bomp shh bomp. The scissor wielding, glue stick stamping divas are the colonels of the home front battles that take place every morning between thrown Cheerios and every evening between "one more drink of water" stalling techniques before bedtime.

We spend so much time protecting our children that we rarely give credit where it's due--to the guardians of those children--the ones who teach them to wipe their little bottoms and hold them when they are shrieking from 3 A.M. nightmares. Billie Holiday once sang, "God bless the child who can hold his own." I say we should also give praise and thanks to the monolithic mothers who stand guard over these children and, luck and heavy preparation provided, teach them to hold their own.

Joshua Minton is a father and husband as well as a writer. He is co-developer, along with his wife, of the Video Scrapbook Diva DVD system which teaches mothers and fathers how to take their family films, transfer them to the PC and turn them into fantastic movies that can be shared with family and loved ones.

Josh has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. He has won several awards for his poetry and fiction, including the BGSU Alumni Book Award and was included in the 1999 edition of Who's Who in College America.

Josh’s professional background is in the health insurance industry where he has spent the last two years serving as Executive Business Analyst for the Executive Director of the nation's largest health insurer. He currently serves as President of Family Bliss Enterprise, Inc. ([http://www.familyblissenterprises.com]) and is webmaster of http://www.joshuaminton.com where you can view samples of his essays, poetry, fiction and much more.

You can contact Josh at josh@joshuaminton.com

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Secret Service Santa - An Embedded Teacher Reports From The War On Christmas

There are 8 million stories in the naked city, and not very many of them are about the War on Christmas, but this one is. Los Angeles is like that. People tend to live day to day without thinking about the fact that they are on the front lines of a War On Christmas. Or that they're naked. But I do. I have to. It's my job. Who am I? MaryC. I'm a public school teacher.

(cue Dragnet music)

December 14. A perfect winter day in southern California. Only 11 days before

Christmas, and the good people of Los Angeles were going about their ordinary lives: in the downtown office buildings, disgruntled temps put cover sheets on TPS reports, at the Farmers Market, housewives dickered with greengrocers over the price of Bartlett pears, while in West Hollywood, apple-cheeked young women with a stars in their eyes and dreams in their hearts searched for someone cosign the financing for their breast enhancement. Pretty typical. But beneath the comforting rhythms of everyday life, this day was anything but typical and the students at my school knew it. We all knew it. We had a special visitor coming that day. A man many know as Santa Claus. Alias St. Nicholas. Alias Kris Kringle. No distinguishing marks or scars.

He was coming to deliver toys to the children of our "inner-city" school. A dangerous assignment, but he was ready, and so were our men in blue, khaki and suits. Yes, Santa Claus was coming to town, with a Secret Service escort. Tall, broad-shouldered men with sunglasses and radio earpieces, any one of which was ready to take a bullet for Santa. More importantly, they were ready to kill for Santa. So I warned my first graders against making any sudden movements or rushing to Santa to give him a hug, lest that roly-poly belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly was the last thing they ever saw.

9:30 am. We marched out to the playground. The students were happy and excited. I was tense and worried, and constantly scanned the crowd of children and adults. I'd been warned by battle-scarred veterans of the War on Primary Colored Napkins that we were under attack. Would one of these people try to stop Christmas from happening at a public school? Could the Secret Service agents hold off an assault of pro-Happy Holiday sentiments until Bill O'Reilly arrived with his bag full of horror?

Sirens began to sound in the distance, and an armored limousine came roaring onto the playground. Screams of delight rose from the crowd as Santa himself exited the vehicle, surrounded by a crack team of grim-faced security elves.

Carols were sung, and the Bomb Squad truck arrived with the presents. Yes, even Santa's presents had become potential weapons in this Yuletide Battle, but these gifts had been screened for explosives and deemed safe to hand out.

The students lined up and waited patiently for their turn. That's when HE showed up. The villain who's tried to steal Christmas EVERY YEAR since 1966. It was the Grinch. The kids noticed him right away, and screamed for the surrounding agents to DO something. But like George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, the Feds apparently just weren't that concerned about the Grinch.

But our students eyed the green monster warily, shouting each time he crept closer to Santa. That's when we spotted it. The gun. The Grinch was strapped, and he'd come to waste Father Christmas (better known by his hip hop name, Malcolm Xmas). Suddenly, everything seemed to move in slow motion: The Grinch's paw going to his belt to retrieve the weapon. The children's shouts of terror, fingers pointing to the danger. The gun was out of the belt. It was aiming. But not at Santa! At the children! The fiend! Water sprayed forth in a deadly (well...a moist) fountain. Students ducked and covered! And that's when the agents reacted.

The Grinch was wrestled to the ground. Nightsticks disguised as candy canes where whipped out and used to bludgeon the monster. His hands were cuffed, and the children cheered as the verdant fiend was frog marched off the playground. I saw one agent rip open a package of glow sticks, and follow the entourage off to a waiting van. Someone was going to get some pretty interesting Holiday Photos in their Christmas card this year.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I lined my students up to return to our room. The class wrote their names on their presents and happily lined up for lunch. They didn't seem affected by their near extinction (or collateral drenching) at the hands of anti-Christmas insurgents from the ACLU and Media Matters. Or a Treasury agent who drew the short stick and had to wear the goofy green felt costume. But we survived. We had been on the front lines and lived to tell about it. I thought the danger was over. I was wrong.

A "runner" came to my classroom later that afternoon. She handed me a note which read: Don't forget! The Holiday Program is tomorrow! Be at the auditorium at 1:00!

Holiday Program. I smiled grimly at my class of brave 6 and 7 year olds. "All right, saddle up, you candyasses. Let's get back in the War!"

If you enjoyed this tongue in cheek look at "The War On Christmas", enjoy more political and pop cultural comedy at World O Crap [http://www.world-o-crap.com/blog]!

Mary Clevenger is a Los Angeles based writer. When she's not fighting in the "War on Christmas", she is writing the next great American Novel.

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