Last night I helped A with her homework; refining an essay that compares issues raised in the Scarlet Letter to a current event. She chose an op/ed article about women getting the death penalty. She's in 10th grade, and the teacher had written a critique that said things like "You might want to talk about the paradox inherent in privilege, how it both provides and excludes" that A needed help understanding. No kidding. I didn't get comments like that until college. She only needed help with her closing paragraph, as she had already made her argument: that the punishment for Hester might have been death had she been a man, though it's because she was a woman that she was punished at all; and the public still sees women as incapable of true evil, and is uncomfortable putting them to death, yet the public also doesn't want to be sexist, so they do want to put women to death. Complicated stuff. I had to explain to her what a paradox was, and I got so into it I ended up just flat out writing a key sentence; something about how Chivalry both helps women and confines them. "See? That's a paradox! Doors being held open for you can be nice, but it also means that you're seen as too gentle to handle powerful jobs and shit like that! It's both good and bad combined in one thing! A paradox!"

Hmm. That's sort of how I felt about the season premiere of 24 last night. [warning: spoilers ahead.] On the one hand, I liked it being commercial-free, and on the other I had to sit through a minutes-long mega commercials for a car manufacturer I refuse to name, an ad so obnoxious that muting the sound wasn't enough to protect me from the crap, before the show began. On the one hand, I'm happy 24 is back on the air, and the first episode was exciting and intriguing, on the other... well I have some problems with it. The first series took a few episodes to build up to the truly unbelievable, far-fetched turn-of-events, and this time we get several of these in the first ep. (What are the chances Kim would end up nannying for a crazy gun-toting wife-beater? Why did Jack kill the witness? And how in the hell did Palmer get back to his office from his Oregon fishing trip in five minutes?) I didn't like the clumsy exposition but I understand why it's necessary and hope it's all done now. I'll definitely keep watching, mainly because I have a case of Keifer-love (and man did he look fine after shaving off that beard) and I like Palmer (yet another TV president who I wish was the real president). I just hope the show doesn't make a fool of me.