When should a step-father just keep his mouth shut

It?s 13:30 hours and I?m sitting here after eating "almoço," which is the primary meal of the day in Brazil, before "janta," which occurs sometime in evening, around 19:00 hours.

I?m reading a New York Times article about the Obama?s marriage, wondering if there is anything I can learn that I don?t already know, and also whether I am inappropriately peeping through a media-created window to see things that ought to remain private. However, the Obama?s have clearly participated in this ten-page positive article and made their social and political network available for interviews and so, as I read, I become more comfortable with its contents, but not more eager.

Meanwhile, my wife is obliging my older step-daughter to tear herself away from Brazil?s version of Facebook, called ?Orkut?, developed by Google, in order to eat lunch. Once she is at the kitchen table, a three-way argument begins between my wife and two step-daughters debating over who put a video in the DVD and failed to take it out. One step-daughter calls the other a ?liar?, which perhaps USA politics has conditioned me to see as a nuclear attack in a post-nuclear work.

What difference does it make who put the video in the DVD? And, since I don?t understand the basis or meaning of the argument, what contribution can I possibly make by saying anything at all? And so I keep my mouth shut and the argument passes like a light rain, after which the sun comes out, with no obvious reason for going or coming, coming and going.

Meanwhile the Varnier company is selling a hair-straightening cream that promises to maintain hair twice as straight, twice as long. I wish I could find the website for this Varnier, so that I could research whether in addition to ?twice and twice,? it also has twice as much formaldehyde.

Yes, if you thought I was obsessed with the task of informing white and Black America that ?race? does not exist, you must now follow me into the hair salons, bathrooms and living rooms from Wisconsin to Chiloé, and East to Great Britain, to see just what poisons women and men are putting in their hair, and that of their children, to make their hair straighter and, hence, ?whitelier.?

Like the US Supreme Court, that only intervenes in cases where the Court has jurisdiction (even when minding its own business); and cases where there is a clear "case or controversy"; and one that is "ripe" for decision; and where the Court's decision can contribute some clarity that has not been provided in lower courts; I think I need to add value to my observations and opinions in this blendered family by expressing what I have to say only when it meets the above criteria and more; and only when a person with "standing" has brought the case to my attention (rather my suddenly opening my mouth and expressing myself about something whereupon no one has requested my review or opinion. Applying all of these tests and criteria, and more, obviously takes some deliberate analysis and wisdom which may be strengthened like muscles by the exercise deliberation and wisdom.

A step-father should keep his mouth shut unless, after all due consideration and analysis, there is a "case or controversy" that presents a clear matter where a rule can be decided and will practicably applied, by the responsible authority (the children's mother), and so on and so forth. In other words, a step father should learn to refrain from involving himself in intra-biological family arguments virtually all of the time.

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