Honor and Dishonor

Fathers remembered and those possibly best forgotten are in the news on Memorial Day.

One of many honorable men remembered today is Joe Lippi, killed during the Battle of the Bulge, who left his days-old son behind. Lippi Jr. was the fortunate recipient of odd circumstances — an Army friend of his father was being treated by a nurse friend of the son 60-plus years and on an opposite coast from where Sr. last saw Jr. Thanks to that friend, Lippi Jr., along with his father's (now his, as well) friend Art Mahler, is spending the holiday visiting his dad's Belgium gravesite.

For reasons that should weigh on their conscience, executives at VH1 have done some counterprogramming to honor. The channel debuts Dad Camp this evening. Ostensibly it is all about the rehab and retracking of boys into the men capable of taking care of their baby mommas and offspring. In reality (as in reality tv) there are just six couples unprepared to do anything but be spectacle and a smarty pants whose job is to guide viewers into enjoying how much higher-planed their own lives are.

What a Long Strange Trip: Unavoidable Cliches

"Like father like son" cannot be much truer than in the case of Californian's Tom Pope, 55, and Jafar Thorne, 32. The two Deadheads connected through a chat site devoted to the band and its fans. And the connection turned out to be a bit more than the usual as they are father and son, with son conceived while mother and father grooved to a 7-inch reel-to-reel recording of the Dead's March 19, 1977, show.


The "parents" relationship didn't last much longer than the one night, but the connection between father and son has been forever (even if they didn't know it). Along with their GD devotion — including a readiness to dress up as Uncle Sam when attending concerts — they drive Harleys, play guitar and have done a bit of dabbling in similar drugs. "... Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin' on..."Keep on Truckin', boys.

Tech Today

In its march onward, technology is always giving to and taking from fathers.

On the one hand, Etendi is targeting divorced dads, among others, with their web-based suite (Etendi Bridge) of communication widgets to keep in touch with kids. (Admittedly, this is sometimes easier from a distance than face-to-face.) On the other hand, there is news from British researchers that one in 25 kids doesn't belong to the dad who thinks it's his, which is supposed to be good news since some thought the number was one in 10.

Joined together, the question does arise as to whether it might be possible for the biological fathers who are responsible for the five percent of kids who don't belong to their "dads" to use some secret communications technology to communicate and support their sons and daughters, without causing them too many problems at the same time. "Engineers, start your engines ..."

Judicial Mumbo Jumbo

Can a legal system really unmake a dad?

Soon enough, according to British law, Yohane Banda will no longer be David Banda's pop and Guy Ritchie will. The new dad, along with mum Madonna, felt compelled to search Malawi for a kid to adopt and Banda has now agreed that insanely rich Europeans can outcomfort a child beyond the means of a well meaning, caring, but dirt poor, Malwaian.

Also, according to the Kentucky Supreme Court, the husband of a woman who gives birth is the father of that child even when he contributed neither genes nor chromosomes (or anything else biological) to the newborn.

On the one hand we have love not being enough to make a father; and on the other we have biology not being enough to make a father. So, it must be on the third hand or maybe fourth that we have whatever it is that actually defines a dad.

** Very often the law is used as a bat to whack two balls. **