let’s dance (to the song they’re playing on the radio)

I went to a wedding Saturday. It was small, very elegant, and in a lovely place. Beautiful meal and tasty cake.  But what struck me sharpest tonight was an older white couple, in their mid sixties maybe, who were dancing. They were fantastic, doing all sorts of dances that I vaguely recognized but didn’t know the names of. I kept watching them, even after I was busted by each of them (twice by the man). The bride and groom were good dancers too, but with people of our generation, it seems that if we know how to dance, it’s because we were raised by wealthy parents who forced us to attend cotillion or we took some lessons for our weddings. I fall into neither category. But the baby-boomers can really shake it. They move like they’re not counting the beats in their heads, like they’re not trying to remember where to place their feet and position their arms.

I’m not usually a traditionalist. I do NOT feel that simply doing something  because it’s the way it’s always been done is a valid argument. But yet, something makes me sad about my generation’s lack of rhythm; that’s at least the case when the music playing is not Sir Mix A Lot. Is it our faults for resisting learning from our parents and grandparents? Or is it their faults for not forcing us to learn? I fear that when the baby-boomers all need walkers and/or die, that kind of dancing will be largely lost in the United States. This may be how linguistic anthropologists feel knowing that indigenous languages are dying. Sure, we’ll have the internet to tell us what the Charleston was, but you can’t learn soul and fire on the internet. (Shoot, I can’t even figure out how to crochet from books or the internet. Make a baked mac-n-cheese, sure, but movements that rely upon heart and beat? Not as easy).

Before my Catholic wedding, there were classes. A weekend retreat, actually, which relied upon workshops of varying topics (budgeting, communications, natural family planning, stuff like that).  What I’d wished we’d had was a weekend of dancing, learning with the masters. And by masters, I don’t mean professionals, I just mean people from a generation that cared about dancing as an art. Or even better– I wish that elementary and middle schools (many of which are seeing their art and music budgets slashed or destroyed altogether, by the way) could work dancing in. How do Latin American countries teach each new generation to do that? Learning to jitterbug or swing dance would certainly have benefited me more than the natural family planning class, as the only nugget I remember is that the couple teaching it had four children. I’m not going to go so far as to say that more dancing would have saved our marriage, but you never know . . .

Barack Obama Came to South Bend, Indiana, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

President Obama is giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame on Sunday. How totally cool for those graduates, right? I have no idea who spoke at any of my graduations because the speakers (and, frankly, the events on the whole) were non-spectacular. Ninety-five percent of the students who’ve written into Notre Dame’s paper, The Observer, approve of the school’s choice of speaker. But, as is usually the case, a very radical and very vocal minority of students, combined with some obnoxious members of the community and many more visitors who have nothing at all to do with Notre Dame, are making a federal case about Obama speaking there. For example, Alan Keyes (along with over 20 others) was arrested for trespassing on campus.

And what’s the hubub?  Barack Obama is pro-choice.

As a woman who was raised Catholic, I understand how important the concept of Life is to Catholics, but most thoughtful Catholics I know (including myself in my younger days when I was a practicing Catholic), understand that this issue of Life is much more complicated than whether or not abortion is legal and who thinks it should be legal. (In fact, NPR’s All Things Considered today reported that Obama’s approval rating is several percentage points higher among Catholics than it is with the general population, which pushes it well into the sixties).

This catch phrase “the Culture of Life” that the Bush administration was so adept at tossing around is meaningless. A true culture of life is anti-war. A culture of life is against the death penalty. A culture of life believes in providing food and healthcare for post-birth fetuses. A culture of life supports scientific advancements to save lives and improve quality of life for the sick and injured. A culture of life cannot only care about American fetuses. Iraqis, after all, were once fetuses. So were undocumented immigrants. As was Saddam Hussein and every inmate at Guantanamo Bay.

I’m pro-choice, as are many of my friends and members of my family. We share some common beliefs, mainly that abortion is an unhappy, yucky thing. Everyone with whom I’ve discussed this issue agrees that abortions shoudn’t occur. But we understand that making abortion illegal will do nothing to prevent abortions. Those who can afford them will stil receive them safely. Those who cannot afford them will attempt to receive them, many of them unsafely or fatally. Others will have unwanted children. The way to prevent abortions is simple: prevent unwanted pregnancies. Pregnancies are prevented by comprehensive health and sex eduacation and access to affordable birth control. Even my favorite Republican, Meghan McCain, has expressed this view. (See her great article for the Daily Beast called The GOP Doesn’t Understand Sex.)

But I digress. My beef isn’t really about pro-lifers in general, it’s with the annoying people who are cluttering the streets of South Bend like they own the place that are pissing me off. Protesters are gathering to show their disapproval at Notre Dame’s choice of speaker.  An airplane has been flying over campus for the past few weeks, pulling a banner with an image of an aborted fetus. Students have called this plane annoying, and I don’t blame them. While the students of Notre Dame are trying to study and take finals, their environment is all atwitter. Students, already nervous and excited, deserve to enjoy their last weeks of college and graduation without having their lives disrupted even more by protesters. Geez, people, go home. Get lives. And if you really care about life, wouldn’t your time be better spent distibuting condoms to at-risk youths or volunteering to care for victims of domestic abuse?

And I can’t help but think that those few students who skip commencement to attend a prayer vigil elsewhere will one day regret missing their chance to hear an American President (one who can actually speak) give a speech. It’s like when my cousin invited me to Chicago to see the Grateful Dead at Soldier Field. I was never a deadhead, but I figured one day I’d be happy to tell my kids that I saw the Dead. I bonded with my cousin and everyone else there, and it’s a cherished memory. My mom skipped class when she was a freshman to hear Robert Frost at the University of Minnesota. My dad woudn’t skip class to hear Frost, and guess which one of my parents remembers that day?

I didn’t go to Notre Dame, but I worked at another prestigious Midwestern Catholic university, Marquette, for four years. And I can tell you that while Marquette’s Catholic foundation is important to the school, its academic reputation means more. And what kind of institution that wants to be taken seriously would construct a checklist of rules and voting stances, and only invite speakers whose history follows that criteria exactly? A school that doesn’t welcome discussion, critical thinking, or diverse viewpoints. And that’s the kind of school that offers its students a crap education. Notre Dame is not that kind of institution. Just the fact that their football coach (probably the best paid employee there) has a huge potty mouth is proof enough of that.

So well done, Notre Dame! Nice voice, and nice vision.

P.S. In your face, Arizona State! You wouldn’t give President Obama an honorary degree, but he’s getting a much cooler one from Notre Dame. Oh, which is also a reason the protestors are ticked. If I went through the list of people who’ve received honorary degrees from my alma maters, I’d probably be pissed too. Shoot, I got my master’s at FSU. It’s just best to leave it alone.