The house I live in is a small twin. We're renting this house as are the people who live next door. We share a set of steps and a party wall.
I grew up in a twin and lived in rowhomes my whole life. Having a whole different family on the other side of the wall is not new to me, but there seems to be a serious lack of insulation in this particular house.
Sitting here at my computer I can hear the family next door as though they were standing right next to me.
This would be okay except the father is not a nice guy.
In some ways I can give the guy some slack because on the day they were moving into the house, he fell down the front lawn and broke his leg. So he was pretty cranky the first several weeks, and understandably so.
His attitude is also somewhat understandable because there are too many people in the family to be living in this house comfortably. It's a small, very small, twin rancher style house. They have 3 children. Mother and Father have the main bedroom in the back of the house, and the three kids sleep in some sort of arrangement in the finished basement.
The living room/kitchen area is quite small. In my house, two adults in the kitchen is one too many. One adult and the dog in the kitchen is one too many. Put three adults in the living room, and it's full. How they manage to squeeze two adults and three kids and a cat in there is a mystery to me.
Given the lack of space, the stress of a temporarily disabled parent, and a new move, I am not unsympathetic to the fact that people are going to get short-tempered with each other.
Even so, it also not hard to miss what is standard behavior for this family. They could be living in a mansion with plenty of personal space and comfort, and there are certain things that would not change.
For example, fathers who regularly call their children (including the four year old) "moron" and "stupid" and "*#$*(@ idiot" and who daily threaten to "kick your #$#(@ ass" don't change. There is a fundamental dysfunction that cannot be fixed with money or space when days begin reasonably pleasantly, but deteriorate within the first 60 minutes of waking into episodes of crying, shouting, cursing, and insults.
I've seen this before (unfortunately). I lived in a small Fishtown rowhome for 5 years before the neighborhood allegedly began to "gentrify". The realtors might be able to sell it as an "up and coming" place to live, but I can tell you from personal experience there's a lot to overcome.
There is no such thing as worrying about a child's self-esteem or development. Their future will be determined in 30 minute intervals, and if they can get through those next 30 minutes without being hit, belittled, or threatened, then life is good.
So it is with the kids next door. I have not, thankfully, heard anyone being physically abused, but the emotional and mental abuse is staggering.
This is when I realize there are precious few options to combat this tide of psychic destruction. I introduced myself when they moved in, and offered assistance because of the father's broken leg. I offered to baby-sit the youngest child if they needed help. I offered to pick things up from the store for them. I offered to cook for the kids if the mother had to work late. All of it was refused, and I can understand that. They don't know me. They have no reason to trust me. And they certainly don't want a stranger in their business. But I made the offer anyway because I thought even if they accept help just one time, maybe it will lead them to consider getting even more help, like maybe some family counseling would be nice.
Beyond making the offers, there isn't anything I can do. They're not doing anything illegal. Their crime is being less than stellar parents and the father especially is a bully. All that can be done is be as friendly and supportive of the children as I can be when I see them and hope they learn that not all adults are jerks and that they don't own guns.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
A nice thing happened at church yesterday
Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Advent and for the fourth week in a row we sang a communion antiphon (or song, if you prefer) that was set to the same music every week. Only the words would change and the melody remained the same.
When it comes to getting a congregation to sing, simple, memorable melodies that can be used repeatedly are ideal because it means the vast majority of people sitting in the pews will catch on and sing along. It's the same rule of thumb applied to commercial jingles and TV show themes, and church singing is where they got the idea.
Anyway, for four weeks we've been singing the same melody at communion time with the words changing each week to reflect what was being read in the gospel and the readings for that particular week. The director of music at the Abbey wrote the music and set the text accordingly. The result was a large congregation of several hundred people singing along with us, and in the acoustically sublime space that is the Abbey, the sound was joyously uplifting.
The really nice thing that happened was when the head of the Norbertines (who reside at this Abbey) stood in front of the congregation and explained how the words they had sung at communion each week tied back to the readings and to the gospel. He then publicly thanked the music director who is one of the few in the area able to compose pieces and set text according to the rules of the liturgy. There have been new guidelines circulating and this emphasis on singing text specifically reflective of the gospel is one of the new guidelines. The Abbey, due to our director's considerable talents, is one of the first churches in the area to accomplish this.
It was a good moment for two reasons:
1) it is a rare - sadly rare - thing for the priest to give the congregation a solid explanation for why we do or sing what we do or sing at Mass. Things happen for a reason and nothing in liturgy happens by accident. Every word, every action, every song has meaning, and unfortunately, many people are not aware of those meanings. It felt good to have someone explain at least part of it because I think the more you know WHY something happens, the more you can appreciate it.
2) it is also rare - sadly rare - to hear the person directing the liturgical music recognized publicly beyond a "thanks for all your hard work". In this instance, the priest took the time to explain that the liturgical music director does more than pick songs and rehearse with the choir once a week. I directed a liturgical music group, and it's a job that takes hours and hours every week if it's going to be done well at all. The music director has to read the readings and the gospel beforehand, reflect on them, understand them, know the Vatican guidelines for liturgy, select music that is not only appropriate, but is also within the choir's ability and within reach of the congregation. I had one group that was responsible for one Mass each week. The director at the Abbey has the choir and the folk ensemble and assorted musicians to coordinate. Then there's Sunday Mass, daily prayer services, and assorted special services througout the year. In other churches, there may be as many as 5 Masses per Sunday plus one on Saturday night with different groups and cantors providing the music for each one.
It's a tremendous amount of work and it was a pleasure to hear the church acknowledge not only the effort, but the expertise required to do it well.
When it comes to getting a congregation to sing, simple, memorable melodies that can be used repeatedly are ideal because it means the vast majority of people sitting in the pews will catch on and sing along. It's the same rule of thumb applied to commercial jingles and TV show themes, and church singing is where they got the idea.
Anyway, for four weeks we've been singing the same melody at communion time with the words changing each week to reflect what was being read in the gospel and the readings for that particular week. The director of music at the Abbey wrote the music and set the text accordingly. The result was a large congregation of several hundred people singing along with us, and in the acoustically sublime space that is the Abbey, the sound was joyously uplifting.
The really nice thing that happened was when the head of the Norbertines (who reside at this Abbey) stood in front of the congregation and explained how the words they had sung at communion each week tied back to the readings and to the gospel. He then publicly thanked the music director who is one of the few in the area able to compose pieces and set text according to the rules of the liturgy. There have been new guidelines circulating and this emphasis on singing text specifically reflective of the gospel is one of the new guidelines. The Abbey, due to our director's considerable talents, is one of the first churches in the area to accomplish this.
It was a good moment for two reasons:
1) it is a rare - sadly rare - thing for the priest to give the congregation a solid explanation for why we do or sing what we do or sing at Mass. Things happen for a reason and nothing in liturgy happens by accident. Every word, every action, every song has meaning, and unfortunately, many people are not aware of those meanings. It felt good to have someone explain at least part of it because I think the more you know WHY something happens, the more you can appreciate it.
2) it is also rare - sadly rare - to hear the person directing the liturgical music recognized publicly beyond a "thanks for all your hard work". In this instance, the priest took the time to explain that the liturgical music director does more than pick songs and rehearse with the choir once a week. I directed a liturgical music group, and it's a job that takes hours and hours every week if it's going to be done well at all. The music director has to read the readings and the gospel beforehand, reflect on them, understand them, know the Vatican guidelines for liturgy, select music that is not only appropriate, but is also within the choir's ability and within reach of the congregation. I had one group that was responsible for one Mass each week. The director at the Abbey has the choir and the folk ensemble and assorted musicians to coordinate. Then there's Sunday Mass, daily prayer services, and assorted special services througout the year. In other churches, there may be as many as 5 Masses per Sunday plus one on Saturday night with different groups and cantors providing the music for each one.
It's a tremendous amount of work and it was a pleasure to hear the church acknowledge not only the effort, but the expertise required to do it well.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
And so this is Christmas.
Almost. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. My shopping is done. I'm wrapping gifts. My house is messier than I'd like and I hope to correct that problem before the New Year begins. I played flute for the last Sunday of Advent and will play at the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to it. There were some marathon rehearsals involved, but the music deserves that kind of attention and it will pay off in the end.
Spiritually though, I am a bit more sad than I'd anticipated and there is no one else responsible for that sadness except myself. Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.
Friday afternoon I sent an e-mail to a colleague in another office. Copied on that e-mail were at least 5 or 6 other people from the same office. I knew what I wanted to say. I was fully confident that I was going to be found justified in everything I said, but I managed to say everything in an offensive, arrogant, and belligerent tone.
It was not until I received a hotly worded e-mail back from one of the recipients that my eyes were even opened to how badly I had worded the message. I read and re-read that e-mail several times before hitting the send button, and not once did it occur to me that someone might consider it to be rude.
Adding to the injury is the fact that there is a misunderstanding of what I was actually referring to in my message. I wrote my words with a very clear vision in my mind and every word was relative to that vision. Unfortunately, the people in the other office read those same words with a completely different vision in mind and their vision cast my words in an even worse light than had our visions been the same.
Consequently, there are some very angry people in the other office who immediately brought it to the attention of my boss who is now also very angry because I have unwittingly damaged some very important relationships.
Then because of the impending holiday, everyone left early on Friday and there was no opportunity for me to correct any of the mistakes I made or to smooth out the ruffled feathers or to offer any kind of relief to the injured feelings. Friday ended, for the 7 or 8 people involved, on a very bad note that will no doubt carry over into the holiday. Perhaps not for all, but for some, and for me.
Spiritually though, I am a bit more sad than I'd anticipated and there is no one else responsible for that sadness except myself. Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.
Friday afternoon I sent an e-mail to a colleague in another office. Copied on that e-mail were at least 5 or 6 other people from the same office. I knew what I wanted to say. I was fully confident that I was going to be found justified in everything I said, but I managed to say everything in an offensive, arrogant, and belligerent tone.
It was not until I received a hotly worded e-mail back from one of the recipients that my eyes were even opened to how badly I had worded the message. I read and re-read that e-mail several times before hitting the send button, and not once did it occur to me that someone might consider it to be rude.
Adding to the injury is the fact that there is a misunderstanding of what I was actually referring to in my message. I wrote my words with a very clear vision in my mind and every word was relative to that vision. Unfortunately, the people in the other office read those same words with a completely different vision in mind and their vision cast my words in an even worse light than had our visions been the same.
Consequently, there are some very angry people in the other office who immediately brought it to the attention of my boss who is now also very angry because I have unwittingly damaged some very important relationships.
Then because of the impending holiday, everyone left early on Friday and there was no opportunity for me to correct any of the mistakes I made or to smooth out the ruffled feathers or to offer any kind of relief to the injured feelings. Friday ended, for the 7 or 8 people involved, on a very bad note that will no doubt carry over into the holiday. Perhaps not for all, but for some, and for me.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I'm supposed to be working
I have a lot to do. I've fallen behind on some things and deadlines are looming. But I can't work right now. The work will have to wait a little longer.
I received word that my best friend's father passed away this morning. It was a long hard fight consisting of various illnesses, debilitating treatments, nasty hospital food, and invasive procedures.
Mr. Walsh was diagnosed with multiple myeloma last year after his kidneys had already started to fail. He was put on dialysis three times a week, started chemotherapy, had some good days and some bad days, but still the deterioration was unrelenting.
Slight of build, Mr. Walsh was a mail carrier for almost his entire working life after getting out of the service. He hauled sacks of mail up and down his route in the hills of the Far NE of Philadelphia every day in all kinds of weather. He was a congenial and gentle soul to all the people on his route and during the Christmas season he would be swamped with gifts.
By the end of his life, he became an even smaller frail person whose body was so weakened by his illnesses that he could have disappeared in front of our very eyes and no one would have been surprised. His spirit, on the other hand, was superhuman in its power and he defied the doctors' prognosis of death again and again and again and yet again until he finally had to let go of his beloved family.
Mr. and Mrs. Walsh were married for almost 50 years. Maybe more than 50. I've lost track over the years. Their oldest son is nearing 50, so it must be close. I've spent countless hours with this family and watched as Mr. and Mrs. Walsh went through good times and bad times together. They were a living testament in my life to the power of love and the value of commitment. There were years when they fought and bickered with each other, times when they perhaps weren't sure about how they felt about each other, but they considered the wedding promises they made to each other immovable objects and everything else had to be adjusted to fit around them. I remember seeing them through the years still holding hands when they walked together. Marriage was sacred in their eyes and as such, it would and could endure through every mortal problem. Mortal human problems are, after all, transient and temporary just like the mortal humans who create them. What is sacred is eternal.
I think many of us forget the value of holding something sacred in our lives. Too often we claim that "nothing is sacred!" as though that were an honorable phrase and a symbol of independent thinking. I suspect recognizing the sacred in ourselves and each other and having the courage to preserve it might be the far more honorable and independent thing to do.
Mr. and Mrs. Walsh had five children. I became friends with their oldest daughter, MaryRose, when we were in 7th grade and we were soon inseparable. This was two years after the death of my own father and within moments of our meeting I became part of their extended family. My home life was in as good an order as it could have been under the circumstances, but I found a stability and comfort in their midst that I did not have anywhere else. They included me in many family functions and family vacations. I've been to their weddings, their funerals, and was introduced many times as their "other" daughter.
Even so, it's a difficult relationship to describe. Mr. Walsh never sought to replace my father. He was not my surrogate parent, but he was easily one of the most influential male figures in my life. As I entered adulthood, he went beyond being a father figure and became a good friend. We didn't have nearly as many opportunities as I would have liked to really talk heart-to-heart, but those rare times when it was just me and him, I got to know him as a deeply faithful, moral, loving, and kind hearted man. There was not a shred of pretense in him anywhere and it was always the inside of a person that counted with him, and never the shallow trappings of money, prestige, or appearance.
He had a strong sense of justice, and I think it is in this regard that I felt closest to him. Slow to anger and even slower to show it, the one thing guaranteed to rile him up like a shaken hornets' nest was when he believed an injustice had been done. He was my hero.
I know he left this world without regret and without fear. He said so himself when he was diagnosed. The doctors did not spare him the truth and he knew that his illness was terminal. He had plenty of time to consider the prospect of leaving this world, and he told me, "I have no regrets. Sure, there are always things you might have done differently, but this is my life and I have no regrets about any of it."
He was a quiet and stalwart warrior for good, and I am honored to have known him.
I love you, Pop. Say hi to Daddy for me.
I received word that my best friend's father passed away this morning. It was a long hard fight consisting of various illnesses, debilitating treatments, nasty hospital food, and invasive procedures.
Mr. Walsh was diagnosed with multiple myeloma last year after his kidneys had already started to fail. He was put on dialysis three times a week, started chemotherapy, had some good days and some bad days, but still the deterioration was unrelenting.
Slight of build, Mr. Walsh was a mail carrier for almost his entire working life after getting out of the service. He hauled sacks of mail up and down his route in the hills of the Far NE of Philadelphia every day in all kinds of weather. He was a congenial and gentle soul to all the people on his route and during the Christmas season he would be swamped with gifts.
By the end of his life, he became an even smaller frail person whose body was so weakened by his illnesses that he could have disappeared in front of our very eyes and no one would have been surprised. His spirit, on the other hand, was superhuman in its power and he defied the doctors' prognosis of death again and again and again and yet again until he finally had to let go of his beloved family.
Mr. and Mrs. Walsh were married for almost 50 years. Maybe more than 50. I've lost track over the years. Their oldest son is nearing 50, so it must be close. I've spent countless hours with this family and watched as Mr. and Mrs. Walsh went through good times and bad times together. They were a living testament in my life to the power of love and the value of commitment. There were years when they fought and bickered with each other, times when they perhaps weren't sure about how they felt about each other, but they considered the wedding promises they made to each other immovable objects and everything else had to be adjusted to fit around them. I remember seeing them through the years still holding hands when they walked together. Marriage was sacred in their eyes and as such, it would and could endure through every mortal problem. Mortal human problems are, after all, transient and temporary just like the mortal humans who create them. What is sacred is eternal.
I think many of us forget the value of holding something sacred in our lives. Too often we claim that "nothing is sacred!" as though that were an honorable phrase and a symbol of independent thinking. I suspect recognizing the sacred in ourselves and each other and having the courage to preserve it might be the far more honorable and independent thing to do.
Mr. and Mrs. Walsh had five children. I became friends with their oldest daughter, MaryRose, when we were in 7th grade and we were soon inseparable. This was two years after the death of my own father and within moments of our meeting I became part of their extended family. My home life was in as good an order as it could have been under the circumstances, but I found a stability and comfort in their midst that I did not have anywhere else. They included me in many family functions and family vacations. I've been to their weddings, their funerals, and was introduced many times as their "other" daughter.
Even so, it's a difficult relationship to describe. Mr. Walsh never sought to replace my father. He was not my surrogate parent, but he was easily one of the most influential male figures in my life. As I entered adulthood, he went beyond being a father figure and became a good friend. We didn't have nearly as many opportunities as I would have liked to really talk heart-to-heart, but those rare times when it was just me and him, I got to know him as a deeply faithful, moral, loving, and kind hearted man. There was not a shred of pretense in him anywhere and it was always the inside of a person that counted with him, and never the shallow trappings of money, prestige, or appearance.
He had a strong sense of justice, and I think it is in this regard that I felt closest to him. Slow to anger and even slower to show it, the one thing guaranteed to rile him up like a shaken hornets' nest was when he believed an injustice had been done. He was my hero.
I know he left this world without regret and without fear. He said so himself when he was diagnosed. The doctors did not spare him the truth and he knew that his illness was terminal. He had plenty of time to consider the prospect of leaving this world, and he told me, "I have no regrets. Sure, there are always things you might have done differently, but this is my life and I have no regrets about any of it."
He was a quiet and stalwart warrior for good, and I am honored to have known him.
I love you, Pop. Say hi to Daddy for me.
Monday, November 26, 2007
What is a "Family Newspaper"?
I dropped in to read something off The Bulletin website today and noted their banner states they are "Philadelphia's Family Newspaper".
I don't know what that means. How is it a "Family Newspaper"?
Does it mean all of their content has a "G" rating or an "E for Everyone" label?
Does it mean they don't report on shootings, homicides, arrests, rapes, or any other crime element in the city?
Or is it more similar to "Family Style Restaurants" where the expectation is everyone will sit down at a table together and the various sections portioned out like the mashed potatoes?
My guess is that "Family Newspaper" refers to the conservative leanings of their editorials and I'm only basing that guess on the notion that "family values" is a tag line synonymous with conservative politics. I'm also guessing the whole point of publishing The Bulletin with its conservatively colored prose is to act as a rebuttal against the "liberal" Inquirer and the "liberal" media in general.
I could be completely wrong and I could live with being wrong about it, but I can't think of any other reason to add "family" before "newspaper". The answer to a press that leans too far in one political direction is not to publish a second paper equally leaning in the opposite direction.
The answer would be to publish a genuinely unbiased accounting of news and events. I don't need all kinds of inflammatory interpretation from either side. All I want is to know what's going on outside the walls of my house and little work cubicle. I can figure out how I feel or what I think about it on my own time.
It's a newspaper - the news on paper with news defined as the factual recounting of events that might affect me and mine and their future, and paper defined as the medium for delivering the news, be it a tangible printed piece or an electronic vision online.
Unfortunately, it's a distractingly silly phrase. I almost didn't bother reading any of it because I couldn't get past the notion that a conscious decision was made to describe "newspaper" with "family".
I don't know what that means. How is it a "Family Newspaper"?
Does it mean all of their content has a "G" rating or an "E for Everyone" label?
Does it mean they don't report on shootings, homicides, arrests, rapes, or any other crime element in the city?
Or is it more similar to "Family Style Restaurants" where the expectation is everyone will sit down at a table together and the various sections portioned out like the mashed potatoes?
My guess is that "Family Newspaper" refers to the conservative leanings of their editorials and I'm only basing that guess on the notion that "family values" is a tag line synonymous with conservative politics. I'm also guessing the whole point of publishing The Bulletin with its conservatively colored prose is to act as a rebuttal against the "liberal" Inquirer and the "liberal" media in general.
I could be completely wrong and I could live with being wrong about it, but I can't think of any other reason to add "family" before "newspaper". The answer to a press that leans too far in one political direction is not to publish a second paper equally leaning in the opposite direction.
The answer would be to publish a genuinely unbiased accounting of news and events. I don't need all kinds of inflammatory interpretation from either side. All I want is to know what's going on outside the walls of my house and little work cubicle. I can figure out how I feel or what I think about it on my own time.
It's a newspaper - the news on paper with news defined as the factual recounting of events that might affect me and mine and their future, and paper defined as the medium for delivering the news, be it a tangible printed piece or an electronic vision online.
Unfortunately, it's a distractingly silly phrase. I almost didn't bother reading any of it because I couldn't get past the notion that a conscious decision was made to describe "newspaper" with "family".
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Stranger Talk
This isn't so much a random street scene as it is one of those random moments of surreal interactions with a stranger.
The elderly man sitting next to me on the train started complaining as soon as we left 30th St station about traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday and how he was staying home.
This led him to the topic of terrorism, where he claimed (loudly) that "No one is going to get ME to hit a prayer rug 5 times a day! I don't even go to church once a week. I go to the church of 'CBS Sunday Edition'. You're not going to get me to bang my head on the floor 5 times a day! It's no wonder they're all nuts! Stop banging your head on the floor!"
Before he could get completely wound up, I pointed out that extremists in any religion are dangerous - look at the fundamentalist Christians.
He replied (loudly), "But they're not burning people at the stake or crucifying people! Haven't done anything like that for over 500 years!!"
He kept this rant up for a little bit. I was trying very hard not to stir him up even more, so I wasn't giving him much ammunition and limiting myself to some head nods and no eye contact.
He was quiet for a while. Then he said, "You want to hear an example of political correctness gone too far?"
"You only have one?"
"I called my bank this morning. Wachovia. And you know what their recorded message said?! 'We'll be closed for the federal holiday.' Can you believe it?! They can't say we'll be closed for Thanksgiving! They have to say "federal" holiday?! Now it's wrong to say Happy Thanksgiving?!??! Who's going to be offended by that - a bunch of turkeys?!!!"
I paused as I debated should I/shouldn't I and finally decided I could not let this go.
I turned to him and said, "Well, I don't know think it's an example of political correctness gone wrong so much as it's an example of a cheap bank. A lot of places have recordings like that so they don't have to keep re-recording the message each holiday. It doesn't matter if it's President's Day or Veteran's Day or Thanksgiving. They can run the same tape saying they'll be closed for the federal holiday, whichever holiday it might be."
His face was priceless. He started out with a quizzical look that quickly dissolved into astonishment and after a moment of digesting this possibility, he said, "Oh. I never thought of that. So you mean that angry e-mail I sent to Wachovia's CEO this morning....."
I nodded at him. Yes, sir. They will have noooooo idea what you were so upset about.
I thought this was a good place to end the conversation except he then said, "Well, I called Glenn Beck about it this morning. Do you ever listen to Glenn Beck?"
"No. I know who he is, but I don't listen to him."
"I called him this morning and told them this story and they put me on the air! And Glenn said he would let the last line - the part about turkeys being offended - speak for itself. And you know they have that delay, so with the delay, I got hear myself on the radio!"
With this he sat up a little straighter in his seat, beamed at me very proudly and said in a half-joking manner, "Now I'm a radio star."
I could analyze this incident all day. I can't make presumptions about the man's life. I'm not going to assume that because he's elderly, that must mean he's lonely. Now that my mother is hitting her mid-70's, I'm very sensitive about making snap judgments about the elderly. My mother is not lonely, not feeble, not disoriented, or suffering from any of the other problems senior citizens are often saddled with by younger generations.I don't think age has anything to do with it. I do think, however, that this man was a prime example of how people have lost their ability to critically think through anything - even something as minor as the recorded message at their bank.
This lack of critical thinking skill is precisely what politicians and talk show hosts everywhere have learned to exploit. No one stops to ask if it makes any sense. All the talking heads want is the emotional gut reaction.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
A Commissioned Piece
A co-worker friend of mine commissioned me to crochet a baby set for her soon to be born grandchild. A recent ultrasound revealed the baby will be a little girl. :-)
I need to practice my photography skills and get better at this, but you'll get the general drift.
I need to practice my photography skills and get better at this, but you'll get the general drift.
Monday, November 12, 2007
On Suffering
I'll be following up with a lot of notes from my retreat, but I wanted to address the issue of suffering as it's been very prominently placed in my awareness these past few weeks leading up to and during my retreat. It'll come back up again in the retreat notes too.
My son's friend, who has been staying with us, found out the day before I left for retreat that his cousin had been shot and killed in Philadelphia. Just another young black man left for dead on the streets of Philadelphia with no word on the news because after over 200 such deaths, what's new about it?
He posted a blog on his MySpace page titled: Can I give you my loss.... to feel...to hold close...Can I give you my pain...To Feel..
He wants to know why. Why the suffering? Is this for God's pleasure? It's been the recurring theme lately. People asking, "Why the suffering? What kind of a God permits evil, or permits suffering?"
The danger in getting into answering these questions is that people ask them most often when they're really angry, and really hurt, and nothing less than a complete undoing of whatever is causing their pain will satisfy.
Well, we can't undo what's been done. In the merest nanosecond after the fact, it becomes a part of the unchangeable past.
There is no suitable explanation that will satisfy under those conditions. The answer has to be addressed to the intellect and when the soul is in pain, the intellect tends to close. One can only hope that the time will come when pain will subside, and the intellect will reopen.
When that time does come, we can consider the dilemma. Why would a God who creates all good and is all powerful allow so much suffering and harm come to his creation?
It's not a new question or series of questions. Scripture deals with them almost sequentially.
"People suck and they're getting worse. I don't know why God doesn't just wipe them all out and start over again clean." - Read the story of Noah. It's not only about the rainbow.
"If God knows everything that's in our hearts, then God should know who the really awful people are and wipe out only those people. Why wait? God knows they suck. Get rid of them now." - Read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's not only about sodomy and salt.
"I'm a good person. I do everything I can to do the right thing. I'm nice to people. I don't screw people over. I know other people who are WAY worse than I am, and they seem to get all the good stuff! Meanwhile, my life sucks ass!" - Read the story of Job because it's not only about one guy's bad day.
The story of Job has probably the most succinct and forthright response for suffering in the world and while the answer is concise, it still deserves some consideration.
The message God gives to Job and his friends essentially says that unless we were around when the heavens were made, when the earth was formed, and when life was breathed upon the earth, we would have no way of knowing the why's and wherefore's about anything. So stop telling God how to do the job.
Maybe that seems harsh, but I was reminded of this when I came back to work after retreat and opened my e-mail. Dozens and dozens of unread messages scrolled across the screen in front of me with no way for me to know what they said unless I opened each and every one in turn. In order to manage them, I grouped them by subject, tried to prioritize them by what seemed most important, but I only had a subject line to go on.
Sometimes I could tell the importance of the message from reading the subject line. Many times I couldn't. The only possible way for me to know what was in those messages was to read them one.at.a.time.
In order for me to genuinely understand the universe and the workings of the world as God understands, I would have to be able to perceive the universe in all its entirety, both past, present, and future and all the possible outcomes for every action taken by all living creatures anywhere, and I would have to perceive them all at once.
It would be like having all of my e-mails opened before me on one screen and being able to not only comprehend every individual message, but each message's relationship to another, AND be able to prioritize them in order of importance, AANNNDDD answer them immediately with exactly the answer the writer hoped to receive.
We all know this is not how it happens. Here is what can happen - I open one e-mail and read the message. I get pissed off because I don't like the message. I think the writer of the message is a buffoon. I write a terse response that makes clear my opinion of the writer. I hit send.
Then I open the next message, which refutes all of my initial impressions. There are new developments not included in the original e-mail. New information is brought to light. The writer of the first e-mail wasn't a buffoon after all. The matter has been cleared up. I have no reason to be angry, and never did. Now I'm ass.
I know I'm not the only one who makes this mistake. I know because I've been on the receiving end of those "you're a buffoon" e-mails followed shortly by the "sorry I called you a buffoon. signed, the ass." apology e-mails.
If we can't get through one e-mail session without misunderstanding each other, misinterpreting words or actions, taking offense when none was meant simply because we do not have all the information, why would we ever consider ourselves capable of being able to understand the reasoning behind every moment passing in the universe? And yet, when a certain event makes no sense to us or causes us pain, we have no problem questioning the intelligence of God and coming to the conclusion that God must be a buffoon, if God exists at all!
Do I really want to have to extend to God the "sorry I called you a buffoon. signed, the ass." apology, or am I better off wrapping my head around the idea that maybe I don't know as much as I think I do?
Then there's the issue of "evil" versus "tragic". Catholic writers, particularly St. Augustine, wrote long and hard on the subject of evil, the privation of good, and other philosophical thoughts. If you ever get time to read any of it, many of them are very good, but my sense of them is that there's no distinction made between what is malevolently evil and what is simply tragic.
I think the distinction is important when it comes to deciding how much we want to assign to God as the perpetrator of evil, which I'll cover in another post.
My son's friend, who has been staying with us, found out the day before I left for retreat that his cousin had been shot and killed in Philadelphia. Just another young black man left for dead on the streets of Philadelphia with no word on the news because after over 200 such deaths, what's new about it?
He posted a blog on his MySpace page titled: Can I give you my loss.... to feel...to hold close...Can I give you my pain...To Feel..
He wants to know why. Why the suffering? Is this for God's pleasure? It's been the recurring theme lately. People asking, "Why the suffering? What kind of a God permits evil, or permits suffering?"
The danger in getting into answering these questions is that people ask them most often when they're really angry, and really hurt, and nothing less than a complete undoing of whatever is causing their pain will satisfy.
Well, we can't undo what's been done. In the merest nanosecond after the fact, it becomes a part of the unchangeable past.
There is no suitable explanation that will satisfy under those conditions. The answer has to be addressed to the intellect and when the soul is in pain, the intellect tends to close. One can only hope that the time will come when pain will subside, and the intellect will reopen.
When that time does come, we can consider the dilemma. Why would a God who creates all good and is all powerful allow so much suffering and harm come to his creation?
It's not a new question or series of questions. Scripture deals with them almost sequentially.
"People suck and they're getting worse. I don't know why God doesn't just wipe them all out and start over again clean." - Read the story of Noah. It's not only about the rainbow.
"If God knows everything that's in our hearts, then God should know who the really awful people are and wipe out only those people. Why wait? God knows they suck. Get rid of them now." - Read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's not only about sodomy and salt.
"I'm a good person. I do everything I can to do the right thing. I'm nice to people. I don't screw people over. I know other people who are WAY worse than I am, and they seem to get all the good stuff! Meanwhile, my life sucks ass!" - Read the story of Job because it's not only about one guy's bad day.
The story of Job has probably the most succinct and forthright response for suffering in the world and while the answer is concise, it still deserves some consideration.
The message God gives to Job and his friends essentially says that unless we were around when the heavens were made, when the earth was formed, and when life was breathed upon the earth, we would have no way of knowing the why's and wherefore's about anything. So stop telling God how to do the job.
Maybe that seems harsh, but I was reminded of this when I came back to work after retreat and opened my e-mail. Dozens and dozens of unread messages scrolled across the screen in front of me with no way for me to know what they said unless I opened each and every one in turn. In order to manage them, I grouped them by subject, tried to prioritize them by what seemed most important, but I only had a subject line to go on.
Sometimes I could tell the importance of the message from reading the subject line. Many times I couldn't. The only possible way for me to know what was in those messages was to read them one.at.a.time.
In order for me to genuinely understand the universe and the workings of the world as God understands, I would have to be able to perceive the universe in all its entirety, both past, present, and future and all the possible outcomes for every action taken by all living creatures anywhere, and I would have to perceive them all at once.
It would be like having all of my e-mails opened before me on one screen and being able to not only comprehend every individual message, but each message's relationship to another, AND be able to prioritize them in order of importance, AANNNDDD answer them immediately with exactly the answer the writer hoped to receive.
We all know this is not how it happens. Here is what can happen - I open one e-mail and read the message. I get pissed off because I don't like the message. I think the writer of the message is a buffoon. I write a terse response that makes clear my opinion of the writer. I hit send.
Then I open the next message, which refutes all of my initial impressions. There are new developments not included in the original e-mail. New information is brought to light. The writer of the first e-mail wasn't a buffoon after all. The matter has been cleared up. I have no reason to be angry, and never did. Now I'm ass.
I know I'm not the only one who makes this mistake. I know because I've been on the receiving end of those "you're a buffoon" e-mails followed shortly by the "sorry I called you a buffoon. signed, the ass." apology e-mails.
If we can't get through one e-mail session without misunderstanding each other, misinterpreting words or actions, taking offense when none was meant simply because we do not have all the information, why would we ever consider ourselves capable of being able to understand the reasoning behind every moment passing in the universe? And yet, when a certain event makes no sense to us or causes us pain, we have no problem questioning the intelligence of God and coming to the conclusion that God must be a buffoon, if God exists at all!
Do I really want to have to extend to God the "sorry I called you a buffoon. signed, the ass." apology, or am I better off wrapping my head around the idea that maybe I don't know as much as I think I do?
Then there's the issue of "evil" versus "tragic". Catholic writers, particularly St. Augustine, wrote long and hard on the subject of evil, the privation of good, and other philosophical thoughts. If you ever get time to read any of it, many of them are very good, but my sense of them is that there's no distinction made between what is malevolently evil and what is simply tragic.
I think the distinction is important when it comes to deciding how much we want to assign to God as the perpetrator of evil, which I'll cover in another post.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
If only the hand of God would truly smite the wicked.
And here is Fred Phelp's whole schtick in a nutshell:
"This will elevate me to something important," Phelps told reporters. "This was an act of futility."
Note - he doesn't say that this will elevate the Word of God, or God's message to something important. No, it will elevate Fred Phelps himself to something important.
Just another sad little man who believed he was destined for greatness and realized his life was as good as it was going to get.
Too bad he missed all the opportunities for fostering greatness from within. Had he focused on developing his own soul instead of condemning others, he might have actually done some good.
Now he's a raving lunatic with narcissistic obsession standing as evidence that God's justice is not always what we think it should be.
"This will elevate me to something important," Phelps told reporters. "This was an act of futility."
Note - he doesn't say that this will elevate the Word of God, or God's message to something important. No, it will elevate Fred Phelps himself to something important.
Just another sad little man who believed he was destined for greatness and realized his life was as good as it was going to get.
Too bad he missed all the opportunities for fostering greatness from within. Had he focused on developing his own soul instead of condemning others, he might have actually done some good.
Now he's a raving lunatic with narcissistic obsession standing as evidence that God's justice is not always what we think it should be.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Random Street Scenes II
The guy selling t-shirts at 18th and Market.
I don't know that this will translate well into print because so much relies on the inflection and tone, but I think you'll get the general idea.
"T-SHIRTS!!!! WE HAVE T-SHIRTS!!!!"
"WE HAVE DALLAS SUCKS!"
"WE HAVE FLYERS' JERSEYS!"
*noticeable pause*
"AND THE EAGLES ARE PLAYING LIKE SHEEEEEYIT!"
"Pass me. another beer."
Sure enough, he has a t-shirt hanging up that reads:
The Eagles are playing like shit. Pass me another beer.
Never have I heard such a heartfelt and emotional reading of a t-shirt. There's a man who missed his calling. I can only imagine what he'd do with Macbeth.
I posted this little snippet of Philly life on the MySpace group I belong to, and one of the responses was:
"On Preston & Steve the other morning they were talking about some guy on Delaware Ave who sells flowers. He has a sign that says "Buy The Bitch A Bunch." If I were ever down on Del. Ave. I would buy flowers from him too. That's classic."
Oh, Philly. Gotta love this town.
I don't know that this will translate well into print because so much relies on the inflection and tone, but I think you'll get the general idea.
"T-SHIRTS!!!! WE HAVE T-SHIRTS!!!!"
"WE HAVE DALLAS SUCKS!"
"WE HAVE FLYERS' JERSEYS!"
*noticeable pause*
"AND THE EAGLES ARE PLAYING LIKE SHEEEEEYIT!"
"Pass me. another beer."
Sure enough, he has a t-shirt hanging up that reads:
The Eagles are playing like shit. Pass me another beer.
Never have I heard such a heartfelt and emotional reading of a t-shirt. There's a man who missed his calling. I can only imagine what he'd do with Macbeth.
I posted this little snippet of Philly life on the MySpace group I belong to, and one of the responses was:
"On Preston & Steve the other morning they were talking about some guy on Delaware Ave who sells flowers. He has a sign that says "Buy The Bitch A Bunch." If I were ever down on Del. Ave. I would buy flowers from him too. That's classic."
Oh, Philly. Gotta love this town.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
My morbid fascination
I have a morbid fascination with MyDeathSpace.com. I visit this site about once a week or so to see what new profiles have been added and to read the stories behind them.
I guess I'm fascinated by this new ritual that's been added to our culture. Mourning the death of a loved one is now a public affair and it can go on for years. People who have passed on are now frozen in time indefinitely and friends and family can stop by to pay their respects without ever having to leave their computer. It's truly a bizarre cultural development.
The news is all sad. I don't think there's anyone on there whose death is not tragic whether it was from illness, car accident, crime, overdose, or intentional suicide.
The suicides are the most riveting stories of all. Most of the pages visited don't feature the dark goth, emo, multi-colored hair and piercings most people might expect. The pages of those dead by their own hand often show happy looking, smiling individuals in photos with friends and family members. The depression that's driving them to take their own life is hidden in there somewhere like a dark malignant tumor.
The notes left from family and friends in memoriam show the depth of the loss, the guilt, the sorrow, and most importantly, the lack of recognition that anything was seriously wrong.
Every time I think progress is being made in raising people's understanding of depression and mental illness, I see one of these pages and realize the vast majority of people still don't have a clue.
The article I read today had to be the worst example of this I've ever seen. A young man, age 26, from Michigan killed himself on October 5, 2007. He left his suicide note on his blog. It read, in part, "I tried to cry out for help but my cries went un-answered."
People posted comments in response to the blog asking the young man to call them, but no one, apparently, picked up the phone to call HIM, or to call his family, or to call 911. They read his note saying good-bye, asking people to take care of his dog, and responded via blog comments rather than trying to make a personal contact.
His sister also commented on his blog after his death and she said, in part, "I talked to him a week before he did it and he tried to get me to do a murder suicide thing with him and he sent me a picture of him with a gun in his mouth but he said he wouldn't do it because it would hurt everyone to bad. I was going to call the police and have him taken away to get some help but I thought if he wasn't serious he would never forgive me.
Was it normal for him to send her pictures of himself with a gun in his mouth that she might think he was joking?!
It can be a tough call, I know, to decide when to intervene in someone else's life. People don't want to overreact, don't want to intrude, don't want to push away the very person they're trying to help. But I don't think it can be emphasized enough - better to be wrong on the side of playing it safe and taking all suicide threats seriously than to be wrong on the side of dismissing them and losing a loved one.
Act. Intervene. Be nosy. Call. Ask questions. Help each other, love each other, save each other.
I guess I'm fascinated by this new ritual that's been added to our culture. Mourning the death of a loved one is now a public affair and it can go on for years. People who have passed on are now frozen in time indefinitely and friends and family can stop by to pay their respects without ever having to leave their computer. It's truly a bizarre cultural development.
The news is all sad. I don't think there's anyone on there whose death is not tragic whether it was from illness, car accident, crime, overdose, or intentional suicide.
The suicides are the most riveting stories of all. Most of the pages visited don't feature the dark goth, emo, multi-colored hair and piercings most people might expect. The pages of those dead by their own hand often show happy looking, smiling individuals in photos with friends and family members. The depression that's driving them to take their own life is hidden in there somewhere like a dark malignant tumor.
The notes left from family and friends in memoriam show the depth of the loss, the guilt, the sorrow, and most importantly, the lack of recognition that anything was seriously wrong.
Every time I think progress is being made in raising people's understanding of depression and mental illness, I see one of these pages and realize the vast majority of people still don't have a clue.
The article I read today had to be the worst example of this I've ever seen. A young man, age 26, from Michigan killed himself on October 5, 2007. He left his suicide note on his blog. It read, in part, "I tried to cry out for help but my cries went un-answered."
People posted comments in response to the blog asking the young man to call them, but no one, apparently, picked up the phone to call HIM, or to call his family, or to call 911. They read his note saying good-bye, asking people to take care of his dog, and responded via blog comments rather than trying to make a personal contact.
His sister also commented on his blog after his death and she said, in part, "I talked to him a week before he did it and he tried to get me to do a murder suicide thing with him and he sent me a picture of him with a gun in his mouth but he said he wouldn't do it because it would hurt everyone to bad. I was going to call the police and have him taken away to get some help but I thought if he wasn't serious he would never forgive me.
Was it normal for him to send her pictures of himself with a gun in his mouth that she might think he was joking?!
It can be a tough call, I know, to decide when to intervene in someone else's life. People don't want to overreact, don't want to intrude, don't want to push away the very person they're trying to help. But I don't think it can be emphasized enough - better to be wrong on the side of playing it safe and taking all suicide threats seriously than to be wrong on the side of dismissing them and losing a loved one.
Act. Intervene. Be nosy. Call. Ask questions. Help each other, love each other, save each other.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Is Higher Education Failing
The YouTube video linked above came to me through my employer.
I work for a publisher of medical books. We publish reference books, textbooks, journals, and online courses for the benefit of anyone associated with the healthcare industry. If you are involved in any way with the heathcare industry from student to experienced professional, I've probably got a book for you.
In the almost 10 years I've been with this company I've seen the shift from printed materials to electronic offerings increase dramatically from year to year. This video certainly highlights the reality that the generation of students currently in college love their online connections through Facebook, MySpace, and blogs.
The question is how much of this love of technology and the use of internet resources is relevant to education?
My answer - not as much as people would like to believe. In the video, students hold up signs stating their average class size is 115 students. Like many college level lecture halls, hundreds of students fill stadium seats to be present for a 1.5 to 3 hour lecture. If you have an energetic and engaging professor, this can be fun. If you have a monotoned dullard, it can be akin to having your body hair removed one hair at a time.
In my opinion, this has never been a good setup. The state of technology has nothing to do with the fact that smaller class sizes are always better for students from grade school on up.
Is this the point of the video, or is it to show how one can learn just as much by independently surfing around online to get the same information as one would get while sitting among a nameless sea of faces? If that's the point, what is really the fundamental difference between the two?
I could study online alone and submit my work to a faceless instructor who knows me only by my e-mail address, or I can sit in a lecture hall with 115 other people and listen to an instructor who knows me only by my e-mail address as it appears on the class list.
In order to assess what needs to be changed about how today's students are educated, we have to first assess just what it is we're after.
What we want are students who are good critical thinkers, who can work their way through a problem and solve it, who can communicate effectively with each other and with customers, clients, patients, and who can be efficient in the workplace.
Will today's students be able to achieve these goals when their preferred method of communication involves using pseudo-abbreviations like "u", "ur", "idk", "2" for all versions of its like sounding verbiage, and the interchangeable usage of "lose" and "loose"?
Am I merely being too picky about language and spelling? I don't think so. I think it's entirely indicative of the "shortcut" way students choose to look at life. Educators need to decide if they can create productive, smart, clear thinking individuals by delivering course content over instant messenger. If not, then they'll need to stick with teaching, commit themselves to becoming even better teachers, and keep the internet as one more tool in the arsenal instead of their replacement.
I work for a publisher of medical books. We publish reference books, textbooks, journals, and online courses for the benefit of anyone associated with the healthcare industry. If you are involved in any way with the heathcare industry from student to experienced professional, I've probably got a book for you.
In the almost 10 years I've been with this company I've seen the shift from printed materials to electronic offerings increase dramatically from year to year. This video certainly highlights the reality that the generation of students currently in college love their online connections through Facebook, MySpace, and blogs.
The question is how much of this love of technology and the use of internet resources is relevant to education?
My answer - not as much as people would like to believe. In the video, students hold up signs stating their average class size is 115 students. Like many college level lecture halls, hundreds of students fill stadium seats to be present for a 1.5 to 3 hour lecture. If you have an energetic and engaging professor, this can be fun. If you have a monotoned dullard, it can be akin to having your body hair removed one hair at a time.
In my opinion, this has never been a good setup. The state of technology has nothing to do with the fact that smaller class sizes are always better for students from grade school on up.
Is this the point of the video, or is it to show how one can learn just as much by independently surfing around online to get the same information as one would get while sitting among a nameless sea of faces? If that's the point, what is really the fundamental difference between the two?
I could study online alone and submit my work to a faceless instructor who knows me only by my e-mail address, or I can sit in a lecture hall with 115 other people and listen to an instructor who knows me only by my e-mail address as it appears on the class list.
In order to assess what needs to be changed about how today's students are educated, we have to first assess just what it is we're after.
What we want are students who are good critical thinkers, who can work their way through a problem and solve it, who can communicate effectively with each other and with customers, clients, patients, and who can be efficient in the workplace.
Will today's students be able to achieve these goals when their preferred method of communication involves using pseudo-abbreviations like "u", "ur", "idk", "2" for all versions of its like sounding verbiage, and the interchangeable usage of "lose" and "loose"?
Am I merely being too picky about language and spelling? I don't think so. I think it's entirely indicative of the "shortcut" way students choose to look at life. Educators need to decide if they can create productive, smart, clear thinking individuals by delivering course content over instant messenger. If not, then they'll need to stick with teaching, commit themselves to becoming even better teachers, and keep the internet as one more tool in the arsenal instead of their replacement.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Wee Willie Winkie
One of our authors was unfortunately saddled with the name "Winkie".
I'm not sure why anyone would do that to a child, ever, but her parents did and it is to her credit that she has grown into a functioning adult.
Of course this doesn't mean we (myself and her editor) won't poke fun at it. We do. Frequently.
When the topic of "what the hell kind of a name is Winkie?!" came up again today, I decided to surf around to find the nursery rhyme "Wee Willie Winkie", which is what I always think of when I hear her name. I figured maybe I could find something interesting or funny to speak about.
Then I found this (also linked above):
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/day300506.html
and determined that I would not be able to write anything nearly as witty, so you may as well read this.
I'm not sure why anyone would do that to a child, ever, but her parents did and it is to her credit that she has grown into a functioning adult.
Of course this doesn't mean we (myself and her editor) won't poke fun at it. We do. Frequently.
When the topic of "what the hell kind of a name is Winkie?!" came up again today, I decided to surf around to find the nursery rhyme "Wee Willie Winkie", which is what I always think of when I hear her name. I figured maybe I could find something interesting or funny to speak about.
Then I found this (also linked above):
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/day300506.html
and determined that I would not be able to write anything nearly as witty, so you may as well read this.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Latest projects
Finally finished the crib cover a co-worker commissioned me to crochet for her.
I have to admit that I really like this blanket and the bright colors have inspired me to try and design something special. If it works, I'll post pics of the finished piece. If not, well, it was a thought.
Next, a Poncho and matching Beret set. This I did for me after the first few crisp days of fall weather. Then it went up to 86 degrees in the shade. Figures.
And finally, the small area rug for my living room. A little wavy around the edges, but these colors perfectly match my curtains, and my furniture! Thank you, Style Network for making me notice these things!!!
Friday, October 12, 2007
An article everyone should read
A Death in the Family
by Christopher Hitchens
Vanity Fair, November 2007
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/hitchens200711?currentPage=1
[Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist, the author measures his words against a family's grief and a young man's sacrifice.]
I was having an oppressively normal morning a few months ago, flicking through the banality of quotidian e-mail traffic, when I idly clicked on a message from a friend headed "Seen This?" The attached item turned out to be a very well-written story by Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times. It described the death, in Mosul, Iraq, of a young soldier from Irvine, California, named Mark Jennings Daily, and the unusual degree of emotion that his community was undergoing as a consequence. The emotion derived from a very moving statement that the boy had left behind, stating his reasons for having become a volunteer and bravely facing the prospect that his words might have to be read posthumously. In a way, the story was almost too perfect: this handsome lad had been born on the Fourth of July, was a registered Democrat and self-described agnostic, a U.C.L.A. honors graduate, and during his college days had fairly decided reservations about the war in Iraq. I read on, and actually printed the story out, and was turning a page when I saw the following:
"Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … "
I don't exaggerate by much when I say that I froze. I certainly felt a very deep pang of cold dismay. I had just returned from a visit to Iraq with my own son (who is 23, as was young Mr. Daily) and had found myself in a deeply pessimistic frame of mind about the war. Was it possible that I had helped persuade someone I had never met to place himself in the path of an I.E.D.? Over-dramatizing myself a bit in the angst of the moment, I found I was thinking of William Butler Yeats, who was chilled to discover that the Irish rebels of 1916 had gone to their deaths quoting his play Cathleen ni Houlihan. He tried to cope with the disturbing idea in his poem "Man and the Echo":
Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot? …
Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?
Abruptly dismissing any comparison between myself and one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, I feverishly clicked on all the links from the article and found myself on Lieutenant Daily's MySpace site, where his statement "Why I Joined" was posted. The site also immediately kicked into a skirling noise of Irish revolutionary pugnacity: a song from the Dropkick Murphys album Warrior's Code. And there, at the top of the page, was a link to a passage from one of my articles, in which I poured scorn on those who were neutral about the battle for Iraq … I don't remember ever feeling, in every allowable sense of the word, quite so hollow.
I writhed around in my chair for a bit and decided that I ought to call Ms. Watanabe, who could not have been nicer. She anticipated the question I was too tongue-tied to ask: Would the Daily family—those whose "house lay wrecked"—be contactable? "They'd actually like to hear from you." She kindly gave me the e-mail address and the home number.
I don't intend to make a parade of my own feelings here, but I expect you will believe me when I tell you that I e-mailed first. For one thing, I didn't want to choose a bad time to ring. For another, and as I wrote to his parents, I was quite prepared for them to resent me. So let me introduce you to one of the most generous and decent families in the United States, and allow me to tell you something of their experience.
Second Lieutenant Mark Daily flanked by his wife, Janet, and his parents, Linda and John, at Fort Bliss, in Texas, October 30, 2006.
In the midst of their own grief, to begin with, they took the trouble to try to make me feel better. I wasn't to worry about any "guilt or responsibility": their son had signed up with his eyes wide open and had "assured us that if he knew the possible outcome might be this, he would still go rather than have the option of living to age 50 and never having served his country. Trust us when we tell you that he was quite convincing and persuasive on this point, so that by the end of the conversation we were practically packing his bags and waving him off." This made me relax fractionally, but then they went on to write: "Prior to his deployment he told us he was going to try to contact you from Iraq. He had the idea of being a correspondent from the front-lines through you, and wanted to get your opinion about his journalistic potential. He told us that he had tried to contact you from either Kuwait or Iraq. He thought maybe his e-mail had not reached you … " That was a gash in my hide all right: I think of all the junk e-mail I read every day, and then reflect that his precious one never got to me.
Lieutenant Daily crossed from Kuwait to Iraq in November 2006, where he would be deployed with the "C," or "Comanche," Company of the Second Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment—General Custer's old outfit—in Mosul. On the 15th of January last, he was on patrol and noticed that the Humvee in front of him was not properly "up-armored" against I.E.D.'s. He insisted on changing places and taking a lead position in his own Humvee, and was shortly afterward hit by an enormous buried mine that packed a charge of some 1,500 pounds of high explosive. Yes, that's right. He, and the three other American soldiers and Iraqi interpreter who perished with him, went to war with the army we had. It's some consolation to John and Linda Daily, and to Mark's brother and two sisters, and to his widow (who had been married to him for just 18 months) to know that he couldn't have felt anything.
Yet what, and how, should we feel? People are not on their oath when speaking of the dead, but I have now talked to a good number of those who knew Mark Daily or were related to him, and it's clear that the country lost an exceptional young citizen, whom I shall always wish I had had the chance to meet. He seems to have passed every test of young manhood, and to have been admired and loved and respected by old and young, male and female, family and friends. He could have had any career path he liked (and won a George C. Marshall Award that led to an offer to teach at West Point). Why are we robbed of his contribution? As we got to know one another better, I sent the Daily family a moving statement made by the mother of Michael Kelly, my good friend and the editor-at-large of The Atlantic Monthly, who was killed near the Baghdad airport while embedded during the invasion of 2003. Marguerite Kelly was highly stoic about her son's death, but I now think I committed an error of taste in showing this to the Dailys, who very gently responded that Michael had lived long enough to write books, have a career, become a father, and in general make his mark, while their son didn't live long enough to enjoy any of these opportunities. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now
In his brilliant book What Is History?, Professor E. H. Carr asked about ultimate causation. Take the case of a man who drinks a bit too much, gets behind the wheel of a car with defective brakes, drives it round a blind corner, and hits another man, who is crossing the road to buy cigarettes. Who is the one responsible? The man who had one drink too many, the lax inspector of brakes, the local authorities who didn't straighten out a dangerous bend, or the smoker who chose to dash across the road to satisfy his bad habit? So, was Mark Daily killed by the Ba'thist and bin Ladenist riffraff who place bombs where they will do the most harm? Or by the Rumsfeld doctrine, which sent American soldiers to Iraq in insufficient numbers and with inadequate equipment? Or by the Bush administration, which thought Iraq would be easily pacified? Or by the previous Bush administration, which left Saddam Hussein in power in 1991 and fatally postponed the time of reckoning?
These grand, overarching questions cannot obscure, at least for me, the plain fact that Mark Daily felt himself to be morally committed. I discovered this in his life story and in his surviving writings. Again, not to romanticize him overmuch, but this is the boy who would not let others be bullied in school, who stuck up for his younger siblings, who was briefly a vegetarian and Green Party member because he couldn't stand cruelty to animals or to the environment, a student who loudly defended Native American rights and who challenged a MySpace neo-Nazi in an online debate in which the swastika-displaying antagonist finally admitted that he needed to rethink things. If I give the impression of a slight nerd here I do an injustice. Everything that Mark wrote was imbued with a great spirit of humor and tough-mindedness. Here's an excerpt from his "Why I Joined" statement:
Anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me).… Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics.
And here's something from one of his last letters home:
I was having a conversation with a Kurdish man in the city of Dahok (by myself and completely safe) discussing whether or not the insurgents could be viewed as "freedom fighters" or "misguided anti-capitalists." Shaking his head as I attempted to articulate what can only be described as pathetic apologetics, he cut me off and said "the difference between insurgents and American soldiers is that they get paid to take life—to murder, and you get paid to save lives." He looked at me in such a way that made me feel like he was looking through me, into all the moral insecurity that living in a free nation will instill in you. He "oversimplified" the issue, or at least that is what college professors would accuse him of doing.
In his other e-mails and letters home, which the Daily family very kindly showed me, he asked for extra "care packages" to share with local Iraqis, and said, "I'm not sure if Irvine has a sister-city, but I am going to personally contact the mayor and ask him to extend his hand to Dahok, which has been more than hospitable to this native-son." (I was wrenched yet again to discover that he had got this touching idea from an old article of mine, which had made a proposal for city-twinning that went nowhere.) In the last analysis, it was quite clear, Mark had made up his mind that the United States was a force for good in the world, and that it had a duty to the freedom of others. A video clip of which he was very proud has him being "crowned" by a circle of smiling Iraqi officers. I have a photograph of him, standing bareheaded and contentedly smoking a cigar, on a rooftop in Mosul. He doesn't look like an occupier at all. He looks like a staunch friend and defender. On the photograph is written "We carry a new world in our hearts."
In his last handwritten letter home, posted on the last day of 2006, Mark modestly told his father that he'd been chosen to lead a combat platoon after a grenade attack had killed one of its soldiers and left its leader too shaken to carry on. He had apparently sounded steady enough on the radio on earlier missions for him to be given a leadership position after only a short time "in country." As he put it: "I am now happily doing what I was trained to do, and am fulfilling an obligation that has swelled inside me for years. I am deep in my element … and I am euphoric." He had no doubts at all about the value of his mission, and was the sort of natural soldier who makes the difference in any war.
At the first chance I got, I invited his family for lunch in California. We ended up spending the entire day together. As soon as they arrived, I knew I had been wrong to be so nervous. They looked too good to be true: like a poster for the American way. John Daily is an aerospace project manager, and his wife, Linda, is an audiologist. Their older daughter, Christine, eagerly awaiting her wedding, is a high-school biology teacher, and the younger sister, Nicole, is in high school. Their son Eric is a bright junior at Berkeley with a very winning and ironic grin. And there was Mark's widow, an agonizingly beautiful girl named Snejana ("Janet") Hristova, the daughter of political refugees from Bulgaria. Her first name can mean "snowflake," and this was his name for her in the letters of fierce tenderness that he sent her from Iraq. These, with your permission, I will not share, except this:
One thing I have learned about myself since I've been out here is that everything I professed to you about what I want for the world and what I am willing to do to achieve it was true. …
My desire to "save the world" is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you.
If that is all she has left, I hope you will agree that it isn't nothing.
I had already guessed that this was no gung-ho Orange County Republican clan. It was pretty clear that they could have done without the war, and would have been happier if their son had not gone anywhere near Iraq. (Mr. Daily told me that as a young man he had wondered about going to Canada if the Vietnam draft ever caught up with him.) But they had been amazed by the warmth of their neighbors' response, and by the solidarity of his former brothers-in-arms—1,600 people had turned out for Mark's memorial service in Irvine. A sergeant's wife had written a letter to Linda and posted it on Janet's MySpace site on Mother's Day, to tell her that her husband had been in the vehicle with which Mark had insisted on changing places. She had seven children who would have lost their father if it had gone the other way, and she felt both awfully guilty and humbly grateful that her husband had been spared by Mark's heroism. Imagine yourself in that position, if you can, and you will perhaps get a hint of the world in which the Dailys now live: a world that alternates very sharply and steeply between grief and pride.
On a drive to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and again shortly before shipping out from Fort Bliss, Texas, Mark had told his father that he had three wishes in the event of his death. He wanted bagpipes played at the service, and an Irish wake to follow it. And he wanted to be cremated, with the ashes strewn on the beach at Neskowin, Oregon, the setting for his happiest memories of boyhood vacations. The first two of these conditions had already been fulfilled. The Dailys rather overwhelmed me by asking if I would join them for the third one. So it was that in August I found myself on the dunes by an especially lovely and remote stretch of the Oregon coastline. The extended family was there, including both sets of grandparents, plus some college friends of Mark's and his best comrade from the army, an impressive South Dakotan named Matt Gross. As the sun began to sink on a day that had been devoted to reminiscence and moderate drinking, we took up the tattered Stars and Stripes that had flown outside the family home since Mark's deployment and walked to his favorite spot to plant it. Everyone was supposed to say something, but when John Daily took the first scoop from the urn and spread the ashes on the breeze, there was something so unutterably final in the gesture that tears seemed as natural as breathing and I wasn't at all sure that I could go through with it. My idea had been to quote from the last scene of Macbeth, which is the only passage I know that can hope to rise to such an occasion. The tyrant and usurper has been killed, but Ross has to tell old Siward that his boy has perished in the struggle:
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt;
He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
This being Shakespeare, the truly emotional and understated moment follows a beat or two later, when Ross adds:
Your cause of sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.
I became a trifle choked up after that, but everybody else also managed to speak, often reading poems of their own composition, and as the day ebbed in a blaze of glory over the ocean, I thought, Well, here we are to perform the last honors for a warrior and hero, and there are no hysterical ululations, no shrieks for revenge, no insults hurled at the enemy, no firing into the air or bogus hysterics. Instead, an honest, brave, modest family is doing its private best. I hope no fanatical fool could ever mistake this for weakness. It is, instead, a very particular kind of strength. If America can spontaneously produce young men like Mark, and occasions like this one, it has a real homeland security instead of a bureaucratic one. To borrow some words of George Orwell's when he first saw revolutionary Barcelona, "I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for."
I mention Orwell for a reason, because Mark Daily wasn't yet finished with sending me messages from beyond the grave. He took a pile of books with him to Iraq, which included Thomas Paine's The Crisis; War and Peace; Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (well, nobody's perfect); Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time; John McCain's Why Courage Matters; and George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. And a family friend of the Dailys', noticing my own book on Orwell on their shelf, had told them that his own father, Harry David Milton, was "the American" mentioned in Homage to Catalonia, who had rushed to Orwell's side after he had been shot in the throat by a Fascist sniper. This seemed to verge on the eerie. Orwell thought that the Spanish Civil War was a just war, but he also came to understand that it was a dirty war, where a decent cause was hijacked by goons and thugs, and where betrayal and squalor negated the courage and sacrifice of those who fought on principle. As one who used to advocate strongly for the liberation of Iraq (perhaps more strongly than I knew), I have grown coarsened and sickened by the degeneration of the struggle: by the sordid news of corruption and brutality (Mark Daily told his father how dismayed he was by the failure of leadership at Abu Ghraib) and by the paltry politicians in Washington and Baghdad who squabble for precedence while lifeblood is spent and spilled by young people whose boots they are not fit to clean. It upsets and angers me more than I can safely say, when I reread Mark's letters and poems and see that—as of course he would—he was magically able to find the noble element in all this, and take more comfort and inspiration from a few plain sentences uttered by a Kurdish man than from all the vapid speeches ever given. Orwell had the same experience when encountering a young volunteer in Barcelona, and realizing with a mixture of sadness and shock that for this kid all the tired old slogans about liberty and justice were actually real. He cursed his own cynicism and disillusionment when he wrote:
For the fly-blown words that make me spew
Still in his ears were holy,
And he was born knowing what I had learned
Out of books and slowly.
However, after a few more verses about the lying and cruelty and stupidity that accompany war, he was still able to do justice to the young man:
But the thing I saw in your face
No power can disinherit:
No bomb that ever burst
Shatters the crystal spirit.
May it be so, then, and may death be not proud to have taken Mark Daily, whom I never knew but whom you now know, and—I hope—miss.
by Christopher Hitchens
Vanity Fair, November 2007
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/hitchens200711?currentPage=1
[Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist, the author measures his words against a family's grief and a young man's sacrifice.]
I was having an oppressively normal morning a few months ago, flicking through the banality of quotidian e-mail traffic, when I idly clicked on a message from a friend headed "Seen This?" The attached item turned out to be a very well-written story by Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times. It described the death, in Mosul, Iraq, of a young soldier from Irvine, California, named Mark Jennings Daily, and the unusual degree of emotion that his community was undergoing as a consequence. The emotion derived from a very moving statement that the boy had left behind, stating his reasons for having become a volunteer and bravely facing the prospect that his words might have to be read posthumously. In a way, the story was almost too perfect: this handsome lad had been born on the Fourth of July, was a registered Democrat and self-described agnostic, a U.C.L.A. honors graduate, and during his college days had fairly decided reservations about the war in Iraq. I read on, and actually printed the story out, and was turning a page when I saw the following:
"Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … "
I don't exaggerate by much when I say that I froze. I certainly felt a very deep pang of cold dismay. I had just returned from a visit to Iraq with my own son (who is 23, as was young Mr. Daily) and had found myself in a deeply pessimistic frame of mind about the war. Was it possible that I had helped persuade someone I had never met to place himself in the path of an I.E.D.? Over-dramatizing myself a bit in the angst of the moment, I found I was thinking of William Butler Yeats, who was chilled to discover that the Irish rebels of 1916 had gone to their deaths quoting his play Cathleen ni Houlihan. He tried to cope with the disturbing idea in his poem "Man and the Echo":
Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot? …
Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?
Abruptly dismissing any comparison between myself and one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, I feverishly clicked on all the links from the article and found myself on Lieutenant Daily's MySpace site, where his statement "Why I Joined" was posted. The site also immediately kicked into a skirling noise of Irish revolutionary pugnacity: a song from the Dropkick Murphys album Warrior's Code. And there, at the top of the page, was a link to a passage from one of my articles, in which I poured scorn on those who were neutral about the battle for Iraq … I don't remember ever feeling, in every allowable sense of the word, quite so hollow.
I writhed around in my chair for a bit and decided that I ought to call Ms. Watanabe, who could not have been nicer. She anticipated the question I was too tongue-tied to ask: Would the Daily family—those whose "house lay wrecked"—be contactable? "They'd actually like to hear from you." She kindly gave me the e-mail address and the home number.
I don't intend to make a parade of my own feelings here, but I expect you will believe me when I tell you that I e-mailed first. For one thing, I didn't want to choose a bad time to ring. For another, and as I wrote to his parents, I was quite prepared for them to resent me. So let me introduce you to one of the most generous and decent families in the United States, and allow me to tell you something of their experience.
Second Lieutenant Mark Daily flanked by his wife, Janet, and his parents, Linda and John, at Fort Bliss, in Texas, October 30, 2006.
In the midst of their own grief, to begin with, they took the trouble to try to make me feel better. I wasn't to worry about any "guilt or responsibility": their son had signed up with his eyes wide open and had "assured us that if he knew the possible outcome might be this, he would still go rather than have the option of living to age 50 and never having served his country. Trust us when we tell you that he was quite convincing and persuasive on this point, so that by the end of the conversation we were practically packing his bags and waving him off." This made me relax fractionally, but then they went on to write: "Prior to his deployment he told us he was going to try to contact you from Iraq. He had the idea of being a correspondent from the front-lines through you, and wanted to get your opinion about his journalistic potential. He told us that he had tried to contact you from either Kuwait or Iraq. He thought maybe his e-mail had not reached you … " That was a gash in my hide all right: I think of all the junk e-mail I read every day, and then reflect that his precious one never got to me.
Lieutenant Daily crossed from Kuwait to Iraq in November 2006, where he would be deployed with the "C," or "Comanche," Company of the Second Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment—General Custer's old outfit—in Mosul. On the 15th of January last, he was on patrol and noticed that the Humvee in front of him was not properly "up-armored" against I.E.D.'s. He insisted on changing places and taking a lead position in his own Humvee, and was shortly afterward hit by an enormous buried mine that packed a charge of some 1,500 pounds of high explosive. Yes, that's right. He, and the three other American soldiers and Iraqi interpreter who perished with him, went to war with the army we had. It's some consolation to John and Linda Daily, and to Mark's brother and two sisters, and to his widow (who had been married to him for just 18 months) to know that he couldn't have felt anything.
Yet what, and how, should we feel? People are not on their oath when speaking of the dead, but I have now talked to a good number of those who knew Mark Daily or were related to him, and it's clear that the country lost an exceptional young citizen, whom I shall always wish I had had the chance to meet. He seems to have passed every test of young manhood, and to have been admired and loved and respected by old and young, male and female, family and friends. He could have had any career path he liked (and won a George C. Marshall Award that led to an offer to teach at West Point). Why are we robbed of his contribution? As we got to know one another better, I sent the Daily family a moving statement made by the mother of Michael Kelly, my good friend and the editor-at-large of The Atlantic Monthly, who was killed near the Baghdad airport while embedded during the invasion of 2003. Marguerite Kelly was highly stoic about her son's death, but I now think I committed an error of taste in showing this to the Dailys, who very gently responded that Michael had lived long enough to write books, have a career, become a father, and in general make his mark, while their son didn't live long enough to enjoy any of these opportunities. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now
In his brilliant book What Is History?, Professor E. H. Carr asked about ultimate causation. Take the case of a man who drinks a bit too much, gets behind the wheel of a car with defective brakes, drives it round a blind corner, and hits another man, who is crossing the road to buy cigarettes. Who is the one responsible? The man who had one drink too many, the lax inspector of brakes, the local authorities who didn't straighten out a dangerous bend, or the smoker who chose to dash across the road to satisfy his bad habit? So, was Mark Daily killed by the Ba'thist and bin Ladenist riffraff who place bombs where they will do the most harm? Or by the Rumsfeld doctrine, which sent American soldiers to Iraq in insufficient numbers and with inadequate equipment? Or by the Bush administration, which thought Iraq would be easily pacified? Or by the previous Bush administration, which left Saddam Hussein in power in 1991 and fatally postponed the time of reckoning?
These grand, overarching questions cannot obscure, at least for me, the plain fact that Mark Daily felt himself to be morally committed. I discovered this in his life story and in his surviving writings. Again, not to romanticize him overmuch, but this is the boy who would not let others be bullied in school, who stuck up for his younger siblings, who was briefly a vegetarian and Green Party member because he couldn't stand cruelty to animals or to the environment, a student who loudly defended Native American rights and who challenged a MySpace neo-Nazi in an online debate in which the swastika-displaying antagonist finally admitted that he needed to rethink things. If I give the impression of a slight nerd here I do an injustice. Everything that Mark wrote was imbued with a great spirit of humor and tough-mindedness. Here's an excerpt from his "Why I Joined" statement:
Anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me).… Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics.
And here's something from one of his last letters home:
I was having a conversation with a Kurdish man in the city of Dahok (by myself and completely safe) discussing whether or not the insurgents could be viewed as "freedom fighters" or "misguided anti-capitalists." Shaking his head as I attempted to articulate what can only be described as pathetic apologetics, he cut me off and said "the difference between insurgents and American soldiers is that they get paid to take life—to murder, and you get paid to save lives." He looked at me in such a way that made me feel like he was looking through me, into all the moral insecurity that living in a free nation will instill in you. He "oversimplified" the issue, or at least that is what college professors would accuse him of doing.
In his other e-mails and letters home, which the Daily family very kindly showed me, he asked for extra "care packages" to share with local Iraqis, and said, "I'm not sure if Irvine has a sister-city, but I am going to personally contact the mayor and ask him to extend his hand to Dahok, which has been more than hospitable to this native-son." (I was wrenched yet again to discover that he had got this touching idea from an old article of mine, which had made a proposal for city-twinning that went nowhere.) In the last analysis, it was quite clear, Mark had made up his mind that the United States was a force for good in the world, and that it had a duty to the freedom of others. A video clip of which he was very proud has him being "crowned" by a circle of smiling Iraqi officers. I have a photograph of him, standing bareheaded and contentedly smoking a cigar, on a rooftop in Mosul. He doesn't look like an occupier at all. He looks like a staunch friend and defender. On the photograph is written "We carry a new world in our hearts."
In his last handwritten letter home, posted on the last day of 2006, Mark modestly told his father that he'd been chosen to lead a combat platoon after a grenade attack had killed one of its soldiers and left its leader too shaken to carry on. He had apparently sounded steady enough on the radio on earlier missions for him to be given a leadership position after only a short time "in country." As he put it: "I am now happily doing what I was trained to do, and am fulfilling an obligation that has swelled inside me for years. I am deep in my element … and I am euphoric." He had no doubts at all about the value of his mission, and was the sort of natural soldier who makes the difference in any war.
At the first chance I got, I invited his family for lunch in California. We ended up spending the entire day together. As soon as they arrived, I knew I had been wrong to be so nervous. They looked too good to be true: like a poster for the American way. John Daily is an aerospace project manager, and his wife, Linda, is an audiologist. Their older daughter, Christine, eagerly awaiting her wedding, is a high-school biology teacher, and the younger sister, Nicole, is in high school. Their son Eric is a bright junior at Berkeley with a very winning and ironic grin. And there was Mark's widow, an agonizingly beautiful girl named Snejana ("Janet") Hristova, the daughter of political refugees from Bulgaria. Her first name can mean "snowflake," and this was his name for her in the letters of fierce tenderness that he sent her from Iraq. These, with your permission, I will not share, except this:
One thing I have learned about myself since I've been out here is that everything I professed to you about what I want for the world and what I am willing to do to achieve it was true. …
My desire to "save the world" is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you.
If that is all she has left, I hope you will agree that it isn't nothing.
I had already guessed that this was no gung-ho Orange County Republican clan. It was pretty clear that they could have done without the war, and would have been happier if their son had not gone anywhere near Iraq. (Mr. Daily told me that as a young man he had wondered about going to Canada if the Vietnam draft ever caught up with him.) But they had been amazed by the warmth of their neighbors' response, and by the solidarity of his former brothers-in-arms—1,600 people had turned out for Mark's memorial service in Irvine. A sergeant's wife had written a letter to Linda and posted it on Janet's MySpace site on Mother's Day, to tell her that her husband had been in the vehicle with which Mark had insisted on changing places. She had seven children who would have lost their father if it had gone the other way, and she felt both awfully guilty and humbly grateful that her husband had been spared by Mark's heroism. Imagine yourself in that position, if you can, and you will perhaps get a hint of the world in which the Dailys now live: a world that alternates very sharply and steeply between grief and pride.
On a drive to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and again shortly before shipping out from Fort Bliss, Texas, Mark had told his father that he had three wishes in the event of his death. He wanted bagpipes played at the service, and an Irish wake to follow it. And he wanted to be cremated, with the ashes strewn on the beach at Neskowin, Oregon, the setting for his happiest memories of boyhood vacations. The first two of these conditions had already been fulfilled. The Dailys rather overwhelmed me by asking if I would join them for the third one. So it was that in August I found myself on the dunes by an especially lovely and remote stretch of the Oregon coastline. The extended family was there, including both sets of grandparents, plus some college friends of Mark's and his best comrade from the army, an impressive South Dakotan named Matt Gross. As the sun began to sink on a day that had been devoted to reminiscence and moderate drinking, we took up the tattered Stars and Stripes that had flown outside the family home since Mark's deployment and walked to his favorite spot to plant it. Everyone was supposed to say something, but when John Daily took the first scoop from the urn and spread the ashes on the breeze, there was something so unutterably final in the gesture that tears seemed as natural as breathing and I wasn't at all sure that I could go through with it. My idea had been to quote from the last scene of Macbeth, which is the only passage I know that can hope to rise to such an occasion. The tyrant and usurper has been killed, but Ross has to tell old Siward that his boy has perished in the struggle:
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt;
He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
This being Shakespeare, the truly emotional and understated moment follows a beat or two later, when Ross adds:
Your cause of sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.
I became a trifle choked up after that, but everybody else also managed to speak, often reading poems of their own composition, and as the day ebbed in a blaze of glory over the ocean, I thought, Well, here we are to perform the last honors for a warrior and hero, and there are no hysterical ululations, no shrieks for revenge, no insults hurled at the enemy, no firing into the air or bogus hysterics. Instead, an honest, brave, modest family is doing its private best. I hope no fanatical fool could ever mistake this for weakness. It is, instead, a very particular kind of strength. If America can spontaneously produce young men like Mark, and occasions like this one, it has a real homeland security instead of a bureaucratic one. To borrow some words of George Orwell's when he first saw revolutionary Barcelona, "I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for."
I mention Orwell for a reason, because Mark Daily wasn't yet finished with sending me messages from beyond the grave. He took a pile of books with him to Iraq, which included Thomas Paine's The Crisis; War and Peace; Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (well, nobody's perfect); Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time; John McCain's Why Courage Matters; and George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. And a family friend of the Dailys', noticing my own book on Orwell on their shelf, had told them that his own father, Harry David Milton, was "the American" mentioned in Homage to Catalonia, who had rushed to Orwell's side after he had been shot in the throat by a Fascist sniper. This seemed to verge on the eerie. Orwell thought that the Spanish Civil War was a just war, but he also came to understand that it was a dirty war, where a decent cause was hijacked by goons and thugs, and where betrayal and squalor negated the courage and sacrifice of those who fought on principle. As one who used to advocate strongly for the liberation of Iraq (perhaps more strongly than I knew), I have grown coarsened and sickened by the degeneration of the struggle: by the sordid news of corruption and brutality (Mark Daily told his father how dismayed he was by the failure of leadership at Abu Ghraib) and by the paltry politicians in Washington and Baghdad who squabble for precedence while lifeblood is spent and spilled by young people whose boots they are not fit to clean. It upsets and angers me more than I can safely say, when I reread Mark's letters and poems and see that—as of course he would—he was magically able to find the noble element in all this, and take more comfort and inspiration from a few plain sentences uttered by a Kurdish man than from all the vapid speeches ever given. Orwell had the same experience when encountering a young volunteer in Barcelona, and realizing with a mixture of sadness and shock that for this kid all the tired old slogans about liberty and justice were actually real. He cursed his own cynicism and disillusionment when he wrote:
For the fly-blown words that make me spew
Still in his ears were holy,
And he was born knowing what I had learned
Out of books and slowly.
However, after a few more verses about the lying and cruelty and stupidity that accompany war, he was still able to do justice to the young man:
But the thing I saw in your face
No power can disinherit:
No bomb that ever burst
Shatters the crystal spirit.
May it be so, then, and may death be not proud to have taken Mark Daily, whom I never knew but whom you now know, and—I hope—miss.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Now is the Fall of my discontent....
Perhaps it is due the change of seasons that I am feeling vaguely melancholy and out of sorts.
Or, perhaps it is because I no longer have a passion for what I do.
I like my boss. I like the company. I get great benefits. I get boatloads of vacation. I pretty much come and go as I please. I sometimes work from home. The pay is adequate. I get a bonus every year. I have money in the retirement plan.
And I'm bored beyond reason. It's not even that the work is dull because what I've been working on is actually pretty interesting. If I could muster up any kind of motivation, I could probably rip though 90% of what I have to get done in one day instead of procrastinating it out for weeks on end.
However, I sit at a desk in a cluster of cubes where no one is more than 100 feet away from me, and no one speaks. Ever. To anyone.
It's quieter than a library in here and the effect is like trying to work in a sensory deprivation tank. Rather than leaving me with a feeling of peaceful and productive solitude, I feel isolated and depressed.
My boss hired a new person to work on a particular project. He's a young guy, this new person, energetic and bright. But, he's caught on pretty quickly that idle chit-chat has no place in this office and so he's followed suit with everyone else - he's got a pair of headphones stuck on his head and he never speaks beyond "Good morning" and "Have a good night." Meanwhile, I notice he also spends a good part of the day surfing the net and posting to blogs and message boards.
He at least has smoking working in his favor. Smokers have a network of allies. They meet outside and bond over Marlboro's and menthols. I used to smoke and when I quit, I lost all connection to my fellow inhalers and subsequently also lost all inside knowledge and gossip.
I come in. I sit. I stare at a computer. I force myself to do something work related. I pack a lunch. I eat at my desk. As soon as I think I can leave without raising eyebrows, I go home.
And I hate it.
The real dilemma is I have no idea how to improve the situation. Sure, I could look for another job in another company, but doing what? The same thing? Why start over somewhere else to do the same thing when it means I'll also have to give up the vacation time, the bonuses, the freedom of movement...
To do something else? I've been trying to think of some other line of work I'd like to do that might be more stimulating, and honestly, the things I think of don't pay nearly as well as this job. Jobs that pay more I'm not sure I'm qualified to do.
It doesn't help that people I admired or at least respected in this company left for bigger and better things, and ended up coming back here! Nothing says "Don't bother." like watching someone dance out the door in anticipation of a better situation and then watching them schelp back in again a year or two later because the better situation turned out to be no better.
It's enough to make me want to adopt some quirky and unusual habits just to break up the monotony. I want to start wearing funny hats or loud shirts or clown shoes or big elaborate earrings. I want to start randomly calling out meaningless phrases like "Fire in the hole!" or "Ring the bell!" every time I send an e-mail. I want to hire the Mummers to strut through the halls every once in a while. I want to form a conga line. I want to do anything that will encourage people to be genuine co-workers and at least talk to each other once in a while rather than sitting all day in dead, draining, debilitating silence.
Or, perhaps it is because I no longer have a passion for what I do.
I like my boss. I like the company. I get great benefits. I get boatloads of vacation. I pretty much come and go as I please. I sometimes work from home. The pay is adequate. I get a bonus every year. I have money in the retirement plan.
And I'm bored beyond reason. It's not even that the work is dull because what I've been working on is actually pretty interesting. If I could muster up any kind of motivation, I could probably rip though 90% of what I have to get done in one day instead of procrastinating it out for weeks on end.
However, I sit at a desk in a cluster of cubes where no one is more than 100 feet away from me, and no one speaks. Ever. To anyone.
It's quieter than a library in here and the effect is like trying to work in a sensory deprivation tank. Rather than leaving me with a feeling of peaceful and productive solitude, I feel isolated and depressed.
My boss hired a new person to work on a particular project. He's a young guy, this new person, energetic and bright. But, he's caught on pretty quickly that idle chit-chat has no place in this office and so he's followed suit with everyone else - he's got a pair of headphones stuck on his head and he never speaks beyond "Good morning" and "Have a good night." Meanwhile, I notice he also spends a good part of the day surfing the net and posting to blogs and message boards.
He at least has smoking working in his favor. Smokers have a network of allies. They meet outside and bond over Marlboro's and menthols. I used to smoke and when I quit, I lost all connection to my fellow inhalers and subsequently also lost all inside knowledge and gossip.
I come in. I sit. I stare at a computer. I force myself to do something work related. I pack a lunch. I eat at my desk. As soon as I think I can leave without raising eyebrows, I go home.
And I hate it.
The real dilemma is I have no idea how to improve the situation. Sure, I could look for another job in another company, but doing what? The same thing? Why start over somewhere else to do the same thing when it means I'll also have to give up the vacation time, the bonuses, the freedom of movement...
To do something else? I've been trying to think of some other line of work I'd like to do that might be more stimulating, and honestly, the things I think of don't pay nearly as well as this job. Jobs that pay more I'm not sure I'm qualified to do.
It doesn't help that people I admired or at least respected in this company left for bigger and better things, and ended up coming back here! Nothing says "Don't bother." like watching someone dance out the door in anticipation of a better situation and then watching them schelp back in again a year or two later because the better situation turned out to be no better.
It's enough to make me want to adopt some quirky and unusual habits just to break up the monotony. I want to start wearing funny hats or loud shirts or clown shoes or big elaborate earrings. I want to start randomly calling out meaningless phrases like "Fire in the hole!" or "Ring the bell!" every time I send an e-mail. I want to hire the Mummers to strut through the halls every once in a while. I want to form a conga line. I want to do anything that will encourage people to be genuine co-workers and at least talk to each other once in a while rather than sitting all day in dead, draining, debilitating silence.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Could be time to turn in my Catholic membership card
In a discussion on one of the Catholic discussion boards on MySpace (even reading that sentence is a little scary), the subject came up of the Blessed Mother's perpetual virginity.
I have always understood Mary's perpetual virginity in terms of she conceived a son not through any man, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. After the birth of Jesus, she did not bear any additional children and did not have marital relations with Joseph, her husband, but remained chaste throughout her life preserving the virginity graced by God's presence in her womb.
This is a dogma of the Church, that while difficult to comprehend perhaps, I can accept. It reconciles well with Scripture and all that we have come to understand about the Blessed Mother.
Then came this discussion where not only did Mary conceive through the miracle of the Holy Spirit, but she also gave birth in a miraculous manner that had Jesus pass through the birth canal without any physical injury or pain to his mother.
This was news to me as we did not cover this aspect of the Virgin Birth in Catholic grade school, and by the time we got to high school, the nuns were more concerned about keeping the girls from bearing children of their own. Forget trying to explain how Mary gave birth without a break in the hymen.
I am appalled by this notion. I am not surprised that a bunch of men who never had children came up with this scenario, but I am appalled by 1) the idea that childbirth is such a heinous experience that we are expected to believe the greatest gift Mary could receive would be to have a supernatural birth without experiencing anything even remotely human in the process; and 2) that Mary's very humanity would be stripped from her as though her womanhood would be detrimental to the divinity of Christ.
Speechless. The whole conversation has left me speechless. On one hand the Church teaches us that giving birth is a tremendous gift - a sharing with God in the creation of new life. On the other hand, the pain of childbirth is seen as a horrible event from which Mary was to be protected. On the third hand, it is believed there is no greater way to show one's love of God than to suffer as Christ suffered.
The issue isn't even about the pain. Lots of women do whatever they can to avoid the pain of childbirth, so the idea of Mary being blessed with a pain free labor and delivery is not incomprehensible.
What is mind boggling to me is the part about Jesus leaving the womb without any physical injury or normal physical process.
This focus on keeping the hymen and birth canal intact ignores the reality of amniotic fluid, afterbirth, placenta, and uterine enlargement. Why not go even further and say Mary was never cursed with a menstrual cycle either? If she never had a menstrual cycle, then she never ovulated, and if she never ovulated, then she must not have had any eggs. Would this not make Mary not only virginal, but barren as well?
There are times when I think the Church fathers got a little too caught up in the details without possessing any real understanding of the human condition, particularly the female human condition.
As I said on the boards, I personally find the image of Mary giving birth to a son already conceived under miraculous circumstances, in the dark of the desert with only the grace of God and the love of her husband to give her comfort a far, far, FAR more compelling image of faith than the idea of a baby gliding through the birth canal like a ghost with no connection to his mother whatsoever.
What a sad way to come into the world and what sad experience for Mary to be robbed of all that makes for the true miracle of childbirth.
I have always understood Mary's perpetual virginity in terms of she conceived a son not through any man, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. After the birth of Jesus, she did not bear any additional children and did not have marital relations with Joseph, her husband, but remained chaste throughout her life preserving the virginity graced by God's presence in her womb.
This is a dogma of the Church, that while difficult to comprehend perhaps, I can accept. It reconciles well with Scripture and all that we have come to understand about the Blessed Mother.
Then came this discussion where not only did Mary conceive through the miracle of the Holy Spirit, but she also gave birth in a miraculous manner that had Jesus pass through the birth canal without any physical injury or pain to his mother.
This was news to me as we did not cover this aspect of the Virgin Birth in Catholic grade school, and by the time we got to high school, the nuns were more concerned about keeping the girls from bearing children of their own. Forget trying to explain how Mary gave birth without a break in the hymen.
I am appalled by this notion. I am not surprised that a bunch of men who never had children came up with this scenario, but I am appalled by 1) the idea that childbirth is such a heinous experience that we are expected to believe the greatest gift Mary could receive would be to have a supernatural birth without experiencing anything even remotely human in the process; and 2) that Mary's very humanity would be stripped from her as though her womanhood would be detrimental to the divinity of Christ.
Speechless. The whole conversation has left me speechless. On one hand the Church teaches us that giving birth is a tremendous gift - a sharing with God in the creation of new life. On the other hand, the pain of childbirth is seen as a horrible event from which Mary was to be protected. On the third hand, it is believed there is no greater way to show one's love of God than to suffer as Christ suffered.
The issue isn't even about the pain. Lots of women do whatever they can to avoid the pain of childbirth, so the idea of Mary being blessed with a pain free labor and delivery is not incomprehensible.
What is mind boggling to me is the part about Jesus leaving the womb without any physical injury or normal physical process.
This focus on keeping the hymen and birth canal intact ignores the reality of amniotic fluid, afterbirth, placenta, and uterine enlargement. Why not go even further and say Mary was never cursed with a menstrual cycle either? If she never had a menstrual cycle, then she never ovulated, and if she never ovulated, then she must not have had any eggs. Would this not make Mary not only virginal, but barren as well?
There are times when I think the Church fathers got a little too caught up in the details without possessing any real understanding of the human condition, particularly the female human condition.
As I said on the boards, I personally find the image of Mary giving birth to a son already conceived under miraculous circumstances, in the dark of the desert with only the grace of God and the love of her husband to give her comfort a far, far, FAR more compelling image of faith than the idea of a baby gliding through the birth canal like a ghost with no connection to his mother whatsoever.
What a sad way to come into the world and what sad experience for Mary to be robbed of all that makes for the true miracle of childbirth.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Off and running!
I wasn't planning on starting off this blog with a rant, and I'll try to keep it toned down, but I've noticed something more and more in the last few days.
We are slowly sinking into silence.
My workplace is a good example. Two years ago we were in an old building in Old City right by Washington Square. The cubes had high walls, but even so things were cramped and the everyday office noise was an energetic hum.
Then we moved closer to City Hall into a taller, more modern building. Our cubes are smaller, and the walls are low so you can see over them, but with the additional space (and the layoffs) we are sitting farther away from each other.
The ultimate effect has been less personal space, less privacy, more communal space, and oddly, more isolation. No one speaks on the phone to anyone anymore because every conversation can be heard by your neighbors. Even calls to clients have diminished because there is an atmosphere of intimidation and a fear of making too much noise.
No one speaks to each other because where it used to be possible to hold a semi-private conversation with a co-worker, where you could go and kibbitz with those you had befriended, is now a public arena. You certainly can't go anywhere now and vent your spleen about a minor frustration or annoyance. There's no opportunity to get it off your chest, get some sympathy from another who understands your position, and move on.
We have seen the death of the office water cooler conversation, and if something is getting under your skin, now you have to hold onto it, or e-mail it, where it can be scrutinized by the IT folks monitoring the work servers.
At the end of this long day spent in monastic silence, I get to ride public transit to go home. One would think a crowded commuter train would be a good place to strike up a conversation with someone - shared experience, close quarters, that sort of thing. Unfortunately no, this is not the case. Everyone on the train wants to nap. They want to sit alone and will stack their belongings on the seat next to them in an effort to discourage anyone else from sitting there.
Even as people pour onto the train and seats fill up, those who wish to be alone will take up as much room as they can and then bury their heads in books or papers or put headphones on. The message is clear...."Don't even THINK about sitting here!"
It is not until a brave soul who really, really wants to sit down specifically requests the seat that such a person will slowly remove their belongings and make room for another body. Even as they're doing so, their face will clearly show the annoyance and indignation at being made to relinquish the empty seat. Doesn't seem to matter that the person who paid for the ticket has the most right to the seat. Possession is 9/10 of the law, and by golly, they were in possession.
All ranting aside, there is a larger picture being painted here. We are becoming a nation of isolated individuals seeking an increasingly larger area of personal space and solitude. We don't want to hear about the other person's day, or the other person's problems. We don't want to share our own daily lives with anyone else either.
This lack of personal contact and communication about the mundane has created an atmosphere that inhibits conversation about the larger issues. The dialogs we should be having about war, poverty, race, violence, peace, education aren't happening. I don't have the first clue what any of my neighbors and few of my co-workers think about anything going on in the world. Why would I ever talk to them about who might be a good leader for this country when we won't even talk about how lovely the trees look at this time of year? Or what we might be able to do to combat poverty, or violence when we won't even look at each other when stepping out to pick up the paper?
Instead, the TVs blare into our individual living rooms and individually we assess the truth or falsehood of the news reports or the speeches from Washington. There is no opportunity or desire to feed this information into the collective consciousness of our neighbors and co-workers and see how it measures up against the analysis of community wisdom. Finding out what someone else thinks might distract us from coming to our own conclusions! We are making decisions that affect the lives of us all in individual vacuums with the utmost confidence that what we've decided must be best. After all, no one else is there to disagree, so it must be right, right?
I think we've seen the fruits of these decisions and the fruit, I believe, is rotten.
Instead of having town hall meetings via YouTube or some other high tech communication device, we need to get back to having the normal, daily interactions of humanity. Saying hello, good morning, how was your day, how is your family, how about this weather, what are you doing for vacation, why don't you stop by for coffee....?
In the Gospel of Luke, there is a passage that states: He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater: and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater. (Lk 16:10)
This is true in many ways. It may seem a small thing to talk with your neighbor, your co-worker, or your seat mate about the mundane, but it is these small conversations about small things that build the trust and skill necessary to talk about the larger, more important things.
Speak up, people.
We are slowly sinking into silence.
My workplace is a good example. Two years ago we were in an old building in Old City right by Washington Square. The cubes had high walls, but even so things were cramped and the everyday office noise was an energetic hum.
Then we moved closer to City Hall into a taller, more modern building. Our cubes are smaller, and the walls are low so you can see over them, but with the additional space (and the layoffs) we are sitting farther away from each other.
The ultimate effect has been less personal space, less privacy, more communal space, and oddly, more isolation. No one speaks on the phone to anyone anymore because every conversation can be heard by your neighbors. Even calls to clients have diminished because there is an atmosphere of intimidation and a fear of making too much noise.
No one speaks to each other because where it used to be possible to hold a semi-private conversation with a co-worker, where you could go and kibbitz with those you had befriended, is now a public arena. You certainly can't go anywhere now and vent your spleen about a minor frustration or annoyance. There's no opportunity to get it off your chest, get some sympathy from another who understands your position, and move on.
We have seen the death of the office water cooler conversation, and if something is getting under your skin, now you have to hold onto it, or e-mail it, where it can be scrutinized by the IT folks monitoring the work servers.
At the end of this long day spent in monastic silence, I get to ride public transit to go home. One would think a crowded commuter train would be a good place to strike up a conversation with someone - shared experience, close quarters, that sort of thing. Unfortunately no, this is not the case. Everyone on the train wants to nap. They want to sit alone and will stack their belongings on the seat next to them in an effort to discourage anyone else from sitting there.
Even as people pour onto the train and seats fill up, those who wish to be alone will take up as much room as they can and then bury their heads in books or papers or put headphones on. The message is clear...."Don't even THINK about sitting here!"
It is not until a brave soul who really, really wants to sit down specifically requests the seat that such a person will slowly remove their belongings and make room for another body. Even as they're doing so, their face will clearly show the annoyance and indignation at being made to relinquish the empty seat. Doesn't seem to matter that the person who paid for the ticket has the most right to the seat. Possession is 9/10 of the law, and by golly, they were in possession.
All ranting aside, there is a larger picture being painted here. We are becoming a nation of isolated individuals seeking an increasingly larger area of personal space and solitude. We don't want to hear about the other person's day, or the other person's problems. We don't want to share our own daily lives with anyone else either.
This lack of personal contact and communication about the mundane has created an atmosphere that inhibits conversation about the larger issues. The dialogs we should be having about war, poverty, race, violence, peace, education aren't happening. I don't have the first clue what any of my neighbors and few of my co-workers think about anything going on in the world. Why would I ever talk to them about who might be a good leader for this country when we won't even talk about how lovely the trees look at this time of year? Or what we might be able to do to combat poverty, or violence when we won't even look at each other when stepping out to pick up the paper?
Instead, the TVs blare into our individual living rooms and individually we assess the truth or falsehood of the news reports or the speeches from Washington. There is no opportunity or desire to feed this information into the collective consciousness of our neighbors and co-workers and see how it measures up against the analysis of community wisdom. Finding out what someone else thinks might distract us from coming to our own conclusions! We are making decisions that affect the lives of us all in individual vacuums with the utmost confidence that what we've decided must be best. After all, no one else is there to disagree, so it must be right, right?
I think we've seen the fruits of these decisions and the fruit, I believe, is rotten.
Instead of having town hall meetings via YouTube or some other high tech communication device, we need to get back to having the normal, daily interactions of humanity. Saying hello, good morning, how was your day, how is your family, how about this weather, what are you doing for vacation, why don't you stop by for coffee....?
In the Gospel of Luke, there is a passage that states: He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater: and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater. (Lk 16:10)
This is true in many ways. It may seem a small thing to talk with your neighbor, your co-worker, or your seat mate about the mundane, but it is these small conversations about small things that build the trust and skill necessary to talk about the larger, more important things.
Speak up, people.
Random Street Scenes
My philosophy has always been when you go out in the world, pay attention as much as possible. There's a lot going on.
Some random street scenes from recent days....
While walking back from the yarn store through Rittenhouse Square I passed a young woman who was trying to talk on her cell phone. The other person apparently couldn't hear her.
This is what I heard:
"Will you have time to do that?"......"I SAID Will you have time to do that?"......"WIIIILLLLLL YOOOUUUUUU HHAAAAAAVVEEE TIIIIIMMMMEEE TO DOOOOO THAAATTTTT?"
(now read this next part in your very best valley girl voice. don't slack off. hers was quite refined and perfect.)
"Oh.mygod. What.the fuck? What is UP with this piece of shit phone?!?!?"
These are the times that make me wish I wrote screenplays for film. I would so include this scene in a movie somehow.
********************
Overheard outside the Acme in Paoli:
Two teenage girls on their break -
"So, I asked my mom... and she said..like...you're Asian. You don't need to shave."
I...never knew that.
Some random street scenes from recent days....
While walking back from the yarn store through Rittenhouse Square I passed a young woman who was trying to talk on her cell phone. The other person apparently couldn't hear her.
This is what I heard:
"Will you have time to do that?"......"I SAID Will you have time to do that?"......"WIIIILLLLLL YOOOUUUUUU HHAAAAAAVVEEE TIIIIIMMMMEEE TO DOOOOO THAAATTTTT?"
(now read this next part in your very best valley girl voice. don't slack off. hers was quite refined and perfect.)
"Oh.mygod. What.the fuck? What is UP with this piece of shit phone?!?!?"
These are the times that make me wish I wrote screenplays for film. I would so include this scene in a movie somehow.
********************
Overheard outside the Acme in Paoli:
Two teenage girls on their break -
"So, I asked my mom... and she said..like...you're Asian. You don't need to shave."
I...never knew that.
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