This weekend, we’re headed to San Diego to celebrate Sladed 50th birthday. I am really looking forward to it. Not only will a bunch of us be getting to together and acting like the zero is removed from our age, but we will be able to swim together for the first time in decades and, with a little luck and better swim fins, I might even win a few sets.
I am also hoping that this weekend can be the start of the first International Blogging Summit where we weighty-thinking bloggers can get together and discuss, well, blogging. My proposal for the first agenda item is for Italiphil to show the others how we can make enough money at this so we can quit our day jobs and bore the hell out of the rest of you. Boy, that would be fun.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Adrift On An Ocean Of Loneliness
A few nights ago, I spilled my guts to the missus and admitted I was feeling “adrift.” She asked me why I felt this way, but the problem with feeling adrift is you can’t answer such a question.
But I have been trying to find an answer, at least in my own mind, and I’ve come up with a few thoughts. The first is; I don’t think I know of any friend or family member who feels totally content or not somewhat adrift themselves. Or put more artfully by Paul Simon, “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease.”
For our younger generation, I understand it better. They’re anxious to get their lives started and still trying to figure out how and where they fit in. Laz Jr. had a friend visit us in our Virginia Estates and he seemed far too uncertain about his future. This is a brilliant young man on an academic scholarship to earn a masters degree at Cornell University and even he is confused. I had very little advice for him other than to tell him to get in line – none of us knows what we want to be when we grow up. Or put more artfully by Woody Allen when asked who he wanted to be when he grew up stated, “Anyone but me.”
There’s more to it with the 18-25 age group. I think it has something to do with waking up in a world where the security of our country is vulnerable for the first time since our generation was diving under our classroom seats to protect us from a Soviet nuclear attack (still not sure how our school desks would have helped but they were built pretty tough back then). We don’t get to dive under desks these day, we just have to hope that when we get on an airplane or visit Washington or New York that this particular day isn’t the one fanatics have planned to make a violent point. The kind of morbid feeling that comes with this new reality is very unsettling for all of us, but I think it hits the younger generation harder because it must make them worry about the future, and nobody should be so worried about the future when they’re young and just beginning their journey into adulthood.
Whether we like it or not, the world is at war in a different way than it has ever been at war. There are no mighty battles and hills taken to tell whose winning, and no real reason or rules for this clash of cultures gone so wrong. Both sides pray for their god to deliver a victory, but only one will be right – or worse, nobody will be right. The stretch to our imagination over this new paradigm is so disquieting that it would be perhaps more surprising to feel confident and content at the moment. At least this is one reason I must feel adrift.
I also don’t feel at all comfortable about the way the past 14 or more years have become so politically divisive. I admit I took great pleasure in watching our smug former president struggle through self-inflicted wounds caused through general hubris and male-pattern behavior. It was fun to toss a pillow at the TV set whenever his mug was front and center and engaging in some fantastic lie. But now the shoe is on the other foot and I have some appreciation for those who feel similar toward the current president. Rather than say my reaction was correct and then pass off the anger created by Bush as only from irrational opponents who just don’t get it, it’s better to just confess that these past years have been some really, really bad from a dirty politics perspective. And the worse part is; I don’t see a savior in our near future to release us from this partisan dreadfulness.
Now most people wouldn’t be too bothered by this, but to put it more artfully as Brother Bill would have done, “it burns my cookies to a crisp.” I need a break from it, and not just from one of my occupational hazards, but I need to stop listening to talk radio and, especially, stop watching the nightly news.
It is one of the reasons I like international politics so much. Instead of people asking why things aren’t going right in a campaign, I am constantly thanked by the people I work for in other countries because to them, we Americans are the experts. I sort of gag on that, because what we’ve become experts of is how best to tear down our opponents. I just read an article about President Lula in Brazil and how he’s likely to win re-election this year. It was mentioned that the campaign was marred by more negative advertising than ever before seen. That’s as far as the story goes, but I know the truth. President Lula is being advised on his campaign by Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager. There used to be a day when we exported our well-made products and imported cheap Japanese electronics. Now we’re exporting our cynical, negative, hit-piece politics and importing everything else.
I’ve also made some bad investments this year in which I relied on supposedly good friends. In the end, the investment and the friendship fell apart. In my more charitable moments, I assume there was nothing pre-planned by the friend and things just didn’t work out. At least I’d like to believe that. But I’ve experienced this too many times to fall for that generous logic. I was cheated out of a good deal of money and no amount of innocence feigned or good intentions offered will get me to change my mind. Or to put more artfully as Wilford Brimley did in Absence of Malice, “It ain't legal. And worse than that, by God it ain't right.” So I haven’t been able to find a way to forget or forgive on what happened and this adds to my angst.
I wish I could write happier, more jovial posts. I know I will someday. Most of you know me as a person of good humor who uses bad humor to irritate and entertain. I don’t feel so much in the mood these days and seem to find drifting about without a rudder more to my liking. But I think that is the way society is going and perhaps I am just responding to the mood of the current culture. I wonder if I am correct about others out there who feel the same way. If so, drop me a line and tell me. If not, I would especially like to hear from you.
But I have been trying to find an answer, at least in my own mind, and I’ve come up with a few thoughts. The first is; I don’t think I know of any friend or family member who feels totally content or not somewhat adrift themselves. Or put more artfully by Paul Simon, “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease.”
For our younger generation, I understand it better. They’re anxious to get their lives started and still trying to figure out how and where they fit in. Laz Jr. had a friend visit us in our Virginia Estates and he seemed far too uncertain about his future. This is a brilliant young man on an academic scholarship to earn a masters degree at Cornell University and even he is confused. I had very little advice for him other than to tell him to get in line – none of us knows what we want to be when we grow up. Or put more artfully by Woody Allen when asked who he wanted to be when he grew up stated, “Anyone but me.”
There’s more to it with the 18-25 age group. I think it has something to do with waking up in a world where the security of our country is vulnerable for the first time since our generation was diving under our classroom seats to protect us from a Soviet nuclear attack (still not sure how our school desks would have helped but they were built pretty tough back then). We don’t get to dive under desks these day, we just have to hope that when we get on an airplane or visit Washington or New York that this particular day isn’t the one fanatics have planned to make a violent point. The kind of morbid feeling that comes with this new reality is very unsettling for all of us, but I think it hits the younger generation harder because it must make them worry about the future, and nobody should be so worried about the future when they’re young and just beginning their journey into adulthood.
Whether we like it or not, the world is at war in a different way than it has ever been at war. There are no mighty battles and hills taken to tell whose winning, and no real reason or rules for this clash of cultures gone so wrong. Both sides pray for their god to deliver a victory, but only one will be right – or worse, nobody will be right. The stretch to our imagination over this new paradigm is so disquieting that it would be perhaps more surprising to feel confident and content at the moment. At least this is one reason I must feel adrift.
I also don’t feel at all comfortable about the way the past 14 or more years have become so politically divisive. I admit I took great pleasure in watching our smug former president struggle through self-inflicted wounds caused through general hubris and male-pattern behavior. It was fun to toss a pillow at the TV set whenever his mug was front and center and engaging in some fantastic lie. But now the shoe is on the other foot and I have some appreciation for those who feel similar toward the current president. Rather than say my reaction was correct and then pass off the anger created by Bush as only from irrational opponents who just don’t get it, it’s better to just confess that these past years have been some really, really bad from a dirty politics perspective. And the worse part is; I don’t see a savior in our near future to release us from this partisan dreadfulness.
Now most people wouldn’t be too bothered by this, but to put it more artfully as Brother Bill would have done, “it burns my cookies to a crisp.” I need a break from it, and not just from one of my occupational hazards, but I need to stop listening to talk radio and, especially, stop watching the nightly news.
It is one of the reasons I like international politics so much. Instead of people asking why things aren’t going right in a campaign, I am constantly thanked by the people I work for in other countries because to them, we Americans are the experts. I sort of gag on that, because what we’ve become experts of is how best to tear down our opponents. I just read an article about President Lula in Brazil and how he’s likely to win re-election this year. It was mentioned that the campaign was marred by more negative advertising than ever before seen. That’s as far as the story goes, but I know the truth. President Lula is being advised on his campaign by Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager. There used to be a day when we exported our well-made products and imported cheap Japanese electronics. Now we’re exporting our cynical, negative, hit-piece politics and importing everything else.
I’ve also made some bad investments this year in which I relied on supposedly good friends. In the end, the investment and the friendship fell apart. In my more charitable moments, I assume there was nothing pre-planned by the friend and things just didn’t work out. At least I’d like to believe that. But I’ve experienced this too many times to fall for that generous logic. I was cheated out of a good deal of money and no amount of innocence feigned or good intentions offered will get me to change my mind. Or to put more artfully as Wilford Brimley did in Absence of Malice, “It ain't legal. And worse than that, by God it ain't right.” So I haven’t been able to find a way to forget or forgive on what happened and this adds to my angst.
I wish I could write happier, more jovial posts. I know I will someday. Most of you know me as a person of good humor who uses bad humor to irritate and entertain. I don’t feel so much in the mood these days and seem to find drifting about without a rudder more to my liking. But I think that is the way society is going and perhaps I am just responding to the mood of the current culture. I wonder if I am correct about others out there who feel the same way. If so, drop me a line and tell me. If not, I would especially like to hear from you.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Assessing Blame
For a little while, or at least for the time I was working up the urge to write again, I have been thinking about the geopolitical cauldron that we have collectively been sitting around and dangling our feet over the edge. Let’s face it; we’re a few BTUs away from the pot boiling over.
The best way to excuse all the uncertainty and violence around the world is to claim, “Bush started it all by invading Iraq.” Or better, “Bush started it all by being elected.” Well, that’s a bit too simplistic and makes it far too convenient for most Americans to wrap it all up as if it were a 30-minute sitcom. Consider the following:
As day broke on September 11, 2001, President Bush had some of the most inconsequential goals of any modern president. He merely wanted to use the federal government to improve educational opportunities and behave as an amorphous “compassionate conservative.” He was even reading to school children while 19 Muslim fanatics were slitting the throats of flight attendants and pilots before crashing their hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. What did President Bush do to encourage this unthinkable act? Did they not like his education policy? Were the books he was reading to schoolchildren offensive? We’re they still feeling disenfranchised about the Florida recount?
We all know now – at least 70 percent of us still believe this – that these 19 men, financed by Osama bid Laden, had been planning the attacks for three years prior to Bush taking office. We also know from captured data and public statements that the attacks were done to measure American resolve after we left Somalia with our tails tucked in, decided not to do anything in Rwanda and almost completely ignored the bombing of the USS Cole. None of this has anything to do with Bush.
In Palestine, hostilities didn’t begin when Bush took office. It’s difficult to find a time during the past 50 years when there wasn’t violence among the closely nestled ethnic and religious combatants. The upswing in violence in the disputed territories began in September 2000 when Al Gore had a six-point lead in national polls. This was called the Second Intifada, and it was the second because there was a First Intifada in 1987 that ended in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords which got Yassar Arafat a Nobel Peace Prize (does the weird Norwegian guy ever take back the peace prize when he’s goofed up like this?). Thousands died in each of these uprisings but, again, what does President Bush have to do with this?
North Korea, which Americans had heard little about until they were named as part of the infamous Axis of Evil trio, had been giving the Clinton Administration fits over their nuclear weapon ambitions. President Clinton was at such a loss on how to deal with a leader who kept his nation locked in the basement that he sent former President Carter to surrender on his behalf.
While President Clinton may have secretly hoped the North Koreans would kidnap Carter to keep him from hanging around outside the Oval Office, he must have been satisfied when Carter returned with a document declaring the North Koreans would give up building a nuclear arms program. At least he was happy until he got the bill on the several billion dollar incentive package Carter offered the North Korean regime so they would sign a document proclaiming they would never again think of ways to blow up the world. This, in the practiced art of statecraft is called “paper diplomacy” and, like similar treaties, a hearty handshake and a statement about their word being their bond may have produced similar results and saved a few pounds of paper.
As we have since learned, the North Koreans never stopped their nuclear programs and when they had run through the original billions in American taxpayer support, they declared themselves very, very bad liars and cheats. This not so stunning admission led to a request for comparable American diplomacy and, as long as it came with a check with at least nine zeros, they would agree to be good again. All that was left was a document to sign.
This request, however, came while Bush was president and Carter was off stirring up trouble elsewhere and so no ransom was paid. This caused North Korean leader Kim Jeong-il to pout and saber rattle for the next few years. I suppose Bush could have given Kim some payola to stay out of our hair a while, but I fail to see how North Korean goofiness is due to Bush policies or American lunacy for electing him.
Of course we all know we have trouble in Iran, or at least we think we do. There is a rumor Iran is building a nuclear weapons program but their leader, who didn’t even win the Most Wacky Dictator award at the recent U.N. American Bashathon, claims these are dirty lies by Imperialist Occupiers and their Zionist collaborators.
As much as we want to give President Ahmadinejad and his religious leaders the benefit of the doubt, Iran’s claim that it’s nuclear program is for generating electrical power does stretch credibility a tad. In a country that produces more oil than it can dump in American SUVs and possesses an abundance of hydro power, it’s difficult to imagine Iran needing nuclear power and even more puzzling that it needs to place the components for its power generators scattered about the country, deep inside reinforced bunkers. But what do I know? I am not a scientist.
None of this is to say we don’t have a problem with Iran, but it didn’t begin in November of 2000 or even in the chad-searching days to follow. Our troubles with Iran go back sixty years when Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson, helped stage a coup to make sure Iran’s leader Mohammed Mossadegh kept his paws of U.S. and British oil reserves. Twenty-five years later, President Carter was learning to play the fiddle around fires when a U.S.-installed regime led by the autocratic Reza Shah was overthrown by a religious theocracy and, ever since, Iran has been a tricky read. It’s safe to say that Iran’s leadership didn’t like Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton well before it didn’t like the current President Bush. Giving Bush the blame for this failed relationship would be to ignore some pretty recent history.
In Iraq, where rubber seems anxious to hit the road of divisiveness, our troubles didn’t begin with the election of George W. Bush or even his father, come to mind. The U.N., led by France oddly enough, had tossed the first three sanctions against Saddam for using chemical weapons on the Kurds and the Iranians in March of 1988. In 1989, as Saddam was feeling pretty good for getting away with gassing his neighbors, he decided to loot and rough-up another neighbor, Kuwait.
Amid cries of “No Blood For Oil,” an international force led by the U.S. came to the rescue of a bunch of rich Sultans to recapture their pipelines and Platinum American Express Cards. Saddam’s reaction to our military solution was to lob SCUD missiles at Israel, which possessed chemical and nuclear weapons of their own but decided against such a nightmare reaction and decided instead to rely on the unproven success of the American Patriot defense system. Of course it’s fashionable these days to discuss relative reaction to attacks on Israel, but here was a case when missiles of unknown payloads were fired at Israel and the Israelis didn’t react at all except to put on gas masks and huddle in bunkers.
America was a proud country for a short while as we basked in a decisive victory with minor causalities. Saddam quickly capitulated and signed a bunch of documents similar to the North Koreans that promised peace, love, understanding and Frisbee tossing in city parks. What Saddam did not sign, and is often overlooked, was a peace treaty. Instead he signed a document that put the war on hold as long as he lived up to his end of the bargain. To nobody’s surprise, he failed at keeping his word and 14 more U.N. Resolutions – some even strongly worded – were passed by a lot of weighty international thinkers and do-gooders.
We can debate ad nauseam on the soundness of Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq. In fact, most of Congress, including democrats, voted to authorize a war with Iraq but many have said it was an unfair tactic by the Administration because it came far too close to an election when the brave Members are judged by their constituents. But rather than debate, let’s just admit it was a big mistake to go to war in Iraq. And by conceding this point, we also get to announce loudly that this is Bush’s fault. It takes a long time to get here, but at least we have something to blame on George W. I trust some are now satisfied.
The best way to excuse all the uncertainty and violence around the world is to claim, “Bush started it all by invading Iraq.” Or better, “Bush started it all by being elected.” Well, that’s a bit too simplistic and makes it far too convenient for most Americans to wrap it all up as if it were a 30-minute sitcom. Consider the following:
As day broke on September 11, 2001, President Bush had some of the most inconsequential goals of any modern president. He merely wanted to use the federal government to improve educational opportunities and behave as an amorphous “compassionate conservative.” He was even reading to school children while 19 Muslim fanatics were slitting the throats of flight attendants and pilots before crashing their hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. What did President Bush do to encourage this unthinkable act? Did they not like his education policy? Were the books he was reading to schoolchildren offensive? We’re they still feeling disenfranchised about the Florida recount?
We all know now – at least 70 percent of us still believe this – that these 19 men, financed by Osama bid Laden, had been planning the attacks for three years prior to Bush taking office. We also know from captured data and public statements that the attacks were done to measure American resolve after we left Somalia with our tails tucked in, decided not to do anything in Rwanda and almost completely ignored the bombing of the USS Cole. None of this has anything to do with Bush.
In Palestine, hostilities didn’t begin when Bush took office. It’s difficult to find a time during the past 50 years when there wasn’t violence among the closely nestled ethnic and religious combatants. The upswing in violence in the disputed territories began in September 2000 when Al Gore had a six-point lead in national polls. This was called the Second Intifada, and it was the second because there was a First Intifada in 1987 that ended in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords which got Yassar Arafat a Nobel Peace Prize (does the weird Norwegian guy ever take back the peace prize when he’s goofed up like this?). Thousands died in each of these uprisings but, again, what does President Bush have to do with this?
North Korea, which Americans had heard little about until they were named as part of the infamous Axis of Evil trio, had been giving the Clinton Administration fits over their nuclear weapon ambitions. President Clinton was at such a loss on how to deal with a leader who kept his nation locked in the basement that he sent former President Carter to surrender on his behalf.
While President Clinton may have secretly hoped the North Koreans would kidnap Carter to keep him from hanging around outside the Oval Office, he must have been satisfied when Carter returned with a document declaring the North Koreans would give up building a nuclear arms program. At least he was happy until he got the bill on the several billion dollar incentive package Carter offered the North Korean regime so they would sign a document proclaiming they would never again think of ways to blow up the world. This, in the practiced art of statecraft is called “paper diplomacy” and, like similar treaties, a hearty handshake and a statement about their word being their bond may have produced similar results and saved a few pounds of paper.
As we have since learned, the North Koreans never stopped their nuclear programs and when they had run through the original billions in American taxpayer support, they declared themselves very, very bad liars and cheats. This not so stunning admission led to a request for comparable American diplomacy and, as long as it came with a check with at least nine zeros, they would agree to be good again. All that was left was a document to sign.
This request, however, came while Bush was president and Carter was off stirring up trouble elsewhere and so no ransom was paid. This caused North Korean leader Kim Jeong-il to pout and saber rattle for the next few years. I suppose Bush could have given Kim some payola to stay out of our hair a while, but I fail to see how North Korean goofiness is due to Bush policies or American lunacy for electing him.
Of course we all know we have trouble in Iran, or at least we think we do. There is a rumor Iran is building a nuclear weapons program but their leader, who didn’t even win the Most Wacky Dictator award at the recent U.N. American Bashathon, claims these are dirty lies by Imperialist Occupiers and their Zionist collaborators.
As much as we want to give President Ahmadinejad and his religious leaders the benefit of the doubt, Iran’s claim that it’s nuclear program is for generating electrical power does stretch credibility a tad. In a country that produces more oil than it can dump in American SUVs and possesses an abundance of hydro power, it’s difficult to imagine Iran needing nuclear power and even more puzzling that it needs to place the components for its power generators scattered about the country, deep inside reinforced bunkers. But what do I know? I am not a scientist.
None of this is to say we don’t have a problem with Iran, but it didn’t begin in November of 2000 or even in the chad-searching days to follow. Our troubles with Iran go back sixty years when Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson, helped stage a coup to make sure Iran’s leader Mohammed Mossadegh kept his paws of U.S. and British oil reserves. Twenty-five years later, President Carter was learning to play the fiddle around fires when a U.S.-installed regime led by the autocratic Reza Shah was overthrown by a religious theocracy and, ever since, Iran has been a tricky read. It’s safe to say that Iran’s leadership didn’t like Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton well before it didn’t like the current President Bush. Giving Bush the blame for this failed relationship would be to ignore some pretty recent history.
In Iraq, where rubber seems anxious to hit the road of divisiveness, our troubles didn’t begin with the election of George W. Bush or even his father, come to mind. The U.N., led by France oddly enough, had tossed the first three sanctions against Saddam for using chemical weapons on the Kurds and the Iranians in March of 1988. In 1989, as Saddam was feeling pretty good for getting away with gassing his neighbors, he decided to loot and rough-up another neighbor, Kuwait.
Amid cries of “No Blood For Oil,” an international force led by the U.S. came to the rescue of a bunch of rich Sultans to recapture their pipelines and Platinum American Express Cards. Saddam’s reaction to our military solution was to lob SCUD missiles at Israel, which possessed chemical and nuclear weapons of their own but decided against such a nightmare reaction and decided instead to rely on the unproven success of the American Patriot defense system. Of course it’s fashionable these days to discuss relative reaction to attacks on Israel, but here was a case when missiles of unknown payloads were fired at Israel and the Israelis didn’t react at all except to put on gas masks and huddle in bunkers.
America was a proud country for a short while as we basked in a decisive victory with minor causalities. Saddam quickly capitulated and signed a bunch of documents similar to the North Koreans that promised peace, love, understanding and Frisbee tossing in city parks. What Saddam did not sign, and is often overlooked, was a peace treaty. Instead he signed a document that put the war on hold as long as he lived up to his end of the bargain. To nobody’s surprise, he failed at keeping his word and 14 more U.N. Resolutions – some even strongly worded – were passed by a lot of weighty international thinkers and do-gooders.
We can debate ad nauseam on the soundness of Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq. In fact, most of Congress, including democrats, voted to authorize a war with Iraq but many have said it was an unfair tactic by the Administration because it came far too close to an election when the brave Members are judged by their constituents. But rather than debate, let’s just admit it was a big mistake to go to war in Iraq. And by conceding this point, we also get to announce loudly that this is Bush’s fault. It takes a long time to get here, but at least we have something to blame on George W. I trust some are now satisfied.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
9/11
Following a lot of hype and exercised politicos, I decided to watch the ABC movie “The Path to 9/11” tonight. Much of it was plodding and tried too hard to weave every piece of evidence into a colossal failure of American presidents and intelligence services. If only the million parts to this puzzle were so simple I suppose the people who try to keep us safe wouldn’t need the benefit of hindsight the producers had to do their job.
This isn’t to say a lot of clues weren’t missed, I just think all of them added up miss the main point: Five years ago today was Day 1, and it changed everything. While the politicians look for blame and conduct endless reviews of procedure and chain of evidence, the real story is how America bundled together for a little while following the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Sure, many of us have regressed to our old pre-9/11 ways and reacted as partisans instead of Americans, but there are too many stories caught on the record representing heroics, kindness, patriotism and singular purpose to be swept away in the bickering that has become all too common.
History teaches each of us important lessons and, for that reason, ABC’s decision to put out a movie that focuses on what led up to the attacks in New York and Washington will be useful to all those with short memories. I suspect the debate will now center around what was edited and changed to suit the prickly sensitivities of the Clinton Administration, but one thing can be said about the behavior of so many people on that fateful day five years ago: crisis is the best editor of the human spirit.
This isn’t to say a lot of clues weren’t missed, I just think all of them added up miss the main point: Five years ago today was Day 1, and it changed everything. While the politicians look for blame and conduct endless reviews of procedure and chain of evidence, the real story is how America bundled together for a little while following the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Sure, many of us have regressed to our old pre-9/11 ways and reacted as partisans instead of Americans, but there are too many stories caught on the record representing heroics, kindness, patriotism and singular purpose to be swept away in the bickering that has become all too common.
History teaches each of us important lessons and, for that reason, ABC’s decision to put out a movie that focuses on what led up to the attacks in New York and Washington will be useful to all those with short memories. I suspect the debate will now center around what was edited and changed to suit the prickly sensitivities of the Clinton Administration, but one thing can be said about the behavior of so many people on that fateful day five years ago: crisis is the best editor of the human spirit.
Funeral For A Stranger
I went to a funeral for Pat’s father last week. I knew his father Joe, which is to say we had met a few times and he was the company’s banker. I didn’t really go to the funeral for Joe; I mostly went to be there for Pat.
During the funeral, I sorted out a few things: One is; it’s important to be reconciled with our family members and loved ones. Joe had become estranged to his three kids, mostly for reasons of stubbornness and silly pride. And when he died suddenly at age 55, there was no opportunity for him to get things straight with them or, for that matter, for his kids to find a tidy finality. I know life doesn’t always give us the closure we seek, but it seemed to be added cruelty for Pat to have to say good-bye with so much left unanswered.
I also decided I want to mean more to people than to have my golfing buddies tell recent stories about me. In fact, it would be my inclination to have those closest to me – Mrs. Laz and the Lazettes preferably – be the ones to tell the bad jokes about me and the stories that make up who I am. At least I hope I will end up being more than a golfing story, as it seemed Joe did. I am sure Pat and his sibblings would have had much better and more caring memories.
Finally, I don’t want a casket or a church to be the setting for my final send-off. Ed Asner, playing Lou Grant on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, once told his friends that should he die, they were instructed to “Just put him out with the next day’s trash.” My dad thought that was pretty funny and constantly reminded us that’s what he wanted and I believed him. But he got a casket instead, and just knowing his cold body was in the box below me as I gave his eulogy was nearly too much to bear.
After I kick the bucket, just stick up some good photos of me and let everyone tell a favorite story. Perhaps the Boy can talk about all the sports and travel we did together and then get his cousins drunk again as that would seem fitting. The girl can tell how we had our own separate language and how it was often quite colorful. I don’t need nor want kneeling and eating wafers to sum up who I am. I want to be remembered for being flesh and blood and not for the symbols that wine and wafers represent.
Well, actually, I don’t want to die if that can be arranged. Who do I see about that request?
During the funeral, I sorted out a few things: One is; it’s important to be reconciled with our family members and loved ones. Joe had become estranged to his three kids, mostly for reasons of stubbornness and silly pride. And when he died suddenly at age 55, there was no opportunity for him to get things straight with them or, for that matter, for his kids to find a tidy finality. I know life doesn’t always give us the closure we seek, but it seemed to be added cruelty for Pat to have to say good-bye with so much left unanswered.
I also decided I want to mean more to people than to have my golfing buddies tell recent stories about me. In fact, it would be my inclination to have those closest to me – Mrs. Laz and the Lazettes preferably – be the ones to tell the bad jokes about me and the stories that make up who I am. At least I hope I will end up being more than a golfing story, as it seemed Joe did. I am sure Pat and his sibblings would have had much better and more caring memories.
Finally, I don’t want a casket or a church to be the setting for my final send-off. Ed Asner, playing Lou Grant on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, once told his friends that should he die, they were instructed to “Just put him out with the next day’s trash.” My dad thought that was pretty funny and constantly reminded us that’s what he wanted and I believed him. But he got a casket instead, and just knowing his cold body was in the box below me as I gave his eulogy was nearly too much to bear.
After I kick the bucket, just stick up some good photos of me and let everyone tell a favorite story. Perhaps the Boy can talk about all the sports and travel we did together and then get his cousins drunk again as that would seem fitting. The girl can tell how we had our own separate language and how it was often quite colorful. I don’t need nor want kneeling and eating wafers to sum up who I am. I want to be remembered for being flesh and blood and not for the symbols that wine and wafers represent.
Well, actually, I don’t want to die if that can be arranged. Who do I see about that request?
Friday, September 01, 2006
Living With Diabetes
Most of you know I have Type-2 diabetes. Well maybe some of you don’t as you have seen me gulp down a slice of chocolate cake like a doomed man one minute before midnight. If you don’t mind, can I say part of that last sentence again slowly? Gulp...down...a...slice...of...chocolate cake…mmmmmmmmmm. Therein may lay one of the causes of my ailment: chocolate cake.
The truth is, diabetes is no fun. The list of things you’re not supposed to eat is long, varied and tasty and the temptations are everywhere. I can’t eat cake, cookies, pie, candy bars, ice cream, popsicles, or Cracker Jacks. I can’t drink soft drinks, most wines, cocktails and beer. Hell, I can’t even drink milk (lactose is a sugar), any kind of juice, and I can't eat most fruit (fructose is a natural sugar but the body can’t tell the difference).
Then there is another list that I am supposed to stay away from, and that is any food with carbohydrates, especially complex carbs. This means I really shouldn’t eat pasta and, if I do, I have to be careful that the tomato sauce is low in sugar. Breads of all sorts, one of my Achilles Heels, are a no-no as is the jam I desire to put on it. Potatoes are high in carbohydrates and so are other starchy vegetables and fun things like the best-tasting peanut butter.
I often feel sorry for myself, especially as I watch those around me ordering desert while I try to drool discretely. But the fact is, I have eaten my lifetime share of sweets and carbs; I have just eaten them faster than most people do – in my case, by age 42. My mom wasn’t exactly a good role model because she had a huge sweet-tooth and, if you can believe this, once a week when we were kids, she fed us donuts for lunch. And not just any kind of donuts, the sweetest, most decadent kind of donuts. Even one of our dogs had diabetes, probably from eating table scraps.
Recently I found out that a good friend of mine has diabetes. He’s coming to grips with it the same way I did eight years ago and I can tell you it’s not fun. Like me, suddenly many of the simple pleasures in life have been grabbed from him and it didn’t happen at an age for us when we’d be accused of being flexible. We’ve had to learn to read those tiny nutritional labels that we never bothered to look at before and get booklets to tell us how many grams of sugar or carbs are in food that can’t be labeled, or factor the approximate evils of restaurant food.
To ensure we’ve been well-behaved on our diet, we’re rewarded with frequent finger pricking and blood-letting to get to know our blood sugar levels. Mostly this is frustrating because we get high readings when we think we’ve been good and low readings following a dinner made solely from pumpkin pie (actually that never happened, I just wish it would). The point is, there are other chemical things happening in our mysterious body that affect our blood sugar including feeling a bit under the weather, lack of exercise or being too hungry (yes, not enough food in the body and the body will store what you do have as sugar for more energy and put out a higher reading).
My advice to my friend is to not worry too much about it. Be a good boy at first and stab your fingers and squeeze out the drop of blood so you can understand the way foods and activity affect blood sugar levels. This will also be a useful exercise in limiting the number of lectures from wives, dieticians and nurses. The pills are better now then they were when I first found out I had diabetes and while they will add a few pounds to the body, your blood sugar will go down and you won’t suffer from days when a single pill can lower your blood sugar to a near-comatose 50. After a while, you will be able to rely on you’re A1-C readings which are a three-month average of your blood sugar and a better indicator of where your stable levels are.
Diabetes is a life-altering disease but very manageable. It’s certainly more manageable the younger we are. I know my friend can’t be as active as he would like, but hopefully he can take 10-minute walks with his wife and then work his way up to daily 30-mintue walks. And, yes, I am aware that she will nag at him for the full 30-minute walk, but that is only because she loves him (I think).
The truth is, diabetes is no fun. The list of things you’re not supposed to eat is long, varied and tasty and the temptations are everywhere. I can’t eat cake, cookies, pie, candy bars, ice cream, popsicles, or Cracker Jacks. I can’t drink soft drinks, most wines, cocktails and beer. Hell, I can’t even drink milk (lactose is a sugar), any kind of juice, and I can't eat most fruit (fructose is a natural sugar but the body can’t tell the difference).
Then there is another list that I am supposed to stay away from, and that is any food with carbohydrates, especially complex carbs. This means I really shouldn’t eat pasta and, if I do, I have to be careful that the tomato sauce is low in sugar. Breads of all sorts, one of my Achilles Heels, are a no-no as is the jam I desire to put on it. Potatoes are high in carbohydrates and so are other starchy vegetables and fun things like the best-tasting peanut butter.
I often feel sorry for myself, especially as I watch those around me ordering desert while I try to drool discretely. But the fact is, I have eaten my lifetime share of sweets and carbs; I have just eaten them faster than most people do – in my case, by age 42. My mom wasn’t exactly a good role model because she had a huge sweet-tooth and, if you can believe this, once a week when we were kids, she fed us donuts for lunch. And not just any kind of donuts, the sweetest, most decadent kind of donuts. Even one of our dogs had diabetes, probably from eating table scraps.
Recently I found out that a good friend of mine has diabetes. He’s coming to grips with it the same way I did eight years ago and I can tell you it’s not fun. Like me, suddenly many of the simple pleasures in life have been grabbed from him and it didn’t happen at an age for us when we’d be accused of being flexible. We’ve had to learn to read those tiny nutritional labels that we never bothered to look at before and get booklets to tell us how many grams of sugar or carbs are in food that can’t be labeled, or factor the approximate evils of restaurant food.
To ensure we’ve been well-behaved on our diet, we’re rewarded with frequent finger pricking and blood-letting to get to know our blood sugar levels. Mostly this is frustrating because we get high readings when we think we’ve been good and low readings following a dinner made solely from pumpkin pie (actually that never happened, I just wish it would). The point is, there are other chemical things happening in our mysterious body that affect our blood sugar including feeling a bit under the weather, lack of exercise or being too hungry (yes, not enough food in the body and the body will store what you do have as sugar for more energy and put out a higher reading).
My advice to my friend is to not worry too much about it. Be a good boy at first and stab your fingers and squeeze out the drop of blood so you can understand the way foods and activity affect blood sugar levels. This will also be a useful exercise in limiting the number of lectures from wives, dieticians and nurses. The pills are better now then they were when I first found out I had diabetes and while they will add a few pounds to the body, your blood sugar will go down and you won’t suffer from days when a single pill can lower your blood sugar to a near-comatose 50. After a while, you will be able to rely on you’re A1-C readings which are a three-month average of your blood sugar and a better indicator of where your stable levels are.
Diabetes is a life-altering disease but very manageable. It’s certainly more manageable the younger we are. I know my friend can’t be as active as he would like, but hopefully he can take 10-minute walks with his wife and then work his way up to daily 30-mintue walks. And, yes, I am aware that she will nag at him for the full 30-minute walk, but that is only because she loves him (I think).
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