Fight the CW

"Oh, everybody knows about fathers." Except that what everybody knows might not be true ... at least not always.

So, everybody knows that political families are close — at least during election times. But not in the case of the race for cheatin' Vito's Staten Island seat in congress. [Earlier: Happy MD, Daddy Do Wrong] In that race, the Conservative/Republican candidate will be retired financier Frank Powers, 68. In addition to others, he is likely to face a challenge — and probably not for the first nor last time — from Fran Powers, his 47-year-old potential rock-star son, who lost the libertarian parties endorsement, but is trying to pull things together for his own anarchist party ticket.

There is a conventional aspect to the challenge, of course. Including, the father having reportedly instructed the eldest son of his first marriage — a father himself with two kids — "to to wise up and straighten out his life."

There is a conventional aspect to the unconventional situation of "model father" Darryl Woods Sr. Junior says, "He's a great leader."

While father chimes in, "Just knowing I can influence my son is remarkable. My worst nightmare is that he would repeat my mistakes."

But that conversation and the respect between both has taken place in prison. It is at the Detroit's Ryan Correctional Facility, where almost all the lessons of the father have been passed to son, since the elder's incarceration beginning when the younger was 1.

And, finally, comes news of an extremely unconventional birth expected in mid-July. The stork will be dropping newborn weedy sea dragons into a puddle at Georgia Aquarium. Which would be less strange to many people than the reality of a father giving birth. In this case (and with seahorses and pipefish) the seadragon daddy does the heavy lifting with the babies.

** Daddies are most always the dialectic of the (un)conventional. **