The team “Night Writer Plus” consisting of myself, the lovely Night Visions, and two fortunate souls sitting next to us with nothing better to do (but knowledgeable about the Grammys), boldly stepped into the vacuum left by the absent Fraters and won the Thursday Night Trivia Contest at Keegan’s.
Fraters: We have the title. We have the free drink tickets. We have no fear! See you next week.
There have been times over the years when I’d be so vexed and miffed with the local newspapers that I’d think about starting my own. Actually it was more like fantasizing than thinking, because once thinking actually entered into the the daydream I’d think of the enormous start-up costs for a plant and equipment, the challenge of vetting reporters, recruiting advertisers, dealing with unions and worrying about things such as whether my delivery staff was actually delivering the paper or sitting at Krispy Kreme. I’d then find more pleasant uses for my imagination.
Then the blogosphere began to coalesce and a wide variety of opinion, analysis and even news reporting became easily available. Clicking between multiple voices from various sides of an issue and across the political spectrum increased my awareness and understanding (especially once I discovered the MOB).
Much is written and disputed in both the print and online media these days about the shrinking influence of the old model of journalism and the new wave. I won’t rehash the arguments for and against here, but I was very intrigued by this post today from Jay Rosen (PressThink) on the “stand alone journalist” and his description of virtual newspapers where writers could submit news and punditry for purchase and posting. More details on this concept are available here and here, and a Minneapolis edition can be found here.
I think it’s an interesting concept, and while I’d still make my daily visits to the Fraters, Mitch, the Captain and the other NARNians as well as MOBsters such as Bogus, MAWB Squad, Kool Aid Report, the Psycmeistr and Centrisity (to name but a few), these are all strong voices that would be great regular contributors to a consolidated Minnesota site – and even better if they could make a few bucks in the process!
Granted, I’m new to the blogosphere and perhaps this type of thing has been tried and found wanting for reasons not readily apparent to me. If any bloggers have already looked into the NewsMinneapolis site, or choose to look into it now, I’d be very interested in hearing your reactions.
Is the Democratic Party in a persistent vegetative state? (And are “blue” states blue due to a lack of oxygen?) One might wonder about that if the presence of intelligent thought – as opposed to pure mulishness – is one of the requirements for meaningful life.
I’ve been meaning to comment on the the inconsistency of the media’s reaction to Howard Dean’s promise to use Terri Schiavo’s case as a political football, but Tim Blair has already framed it perfectly:
CASE ONE: The fight over removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube “is a great political issue … and a tough issue for Democrats … This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.” —Republican legal counsel Brian Darling in a memo first reported on March 18.
Result: Much left-wing rage, many on the right embarrassed, Darling resigns.
CASE TWO: “We’re going to use Terri Schiavo later on. This is going to be an issue in 2006, and it’s going to be an issue in 2008.” —Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, April 15.
Result: Pending.
Result: (sound of crickets chirping) is more like it. I don’t think the Dems could survive without the “life support” provided by the Mainstream Media.
(HT: Around the World in 80 days)
I’ve been thinking about family dynamics a lot lately, so Varifrank’s “writing between the lines” on an article about the negative reaction of Pope Benedicts’s older brother to his sibling’s elevation cracked me up.
This popped up in today’s “The Writer’s Almanac:”
It’s the birthday of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, born in A.D. 121. He is not as well known for his leadership abilities as he is for his deeply philosophical nature. He was a kind and tolerant ruler who freed many slaves and tried his best to rid Rome of corruption. But Aurelius is best known for the writings he left behind. They were diaries and reflections he wrote every day, and were not meant for publication, but were his own personal insights into the stresses of ruler-ship and of everyday life, and fears about his own personal inadequacies. His writings, now known as the Meditations, also mark his beliefs in the doctrines of Stoicism: that we must get through the problems of our lives with patience and endurance, drawing on our own inner resources to see us through. He believed that most of life was predestined, but that much of it could be improved by our own discipline and will power.
He wrote: “If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature…you will be happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.”
The original Marcus Aurelius would have made a good blogger. The MOB’s version isn’t bad either: stop over at The Attic and get some cake and check out today’s take on a flat tax vs. a national sales tax.
I unexpectedly found myself in a hospital emergency room last Wednesday. Of course, just about everyone who finds themselves in an emergency room does so unexpectedly since it’s not the type of event that typically makes it into your dayrunner. (“You want to get together at 10:00? Sorry, that’s no good for me – I’m down for cardiac arrest then. What does the following week look like for you?”)
In this instance, however, the element of surprise was not as great since the ER staff was focusing on my father, who was already scheduled for heart surgery later in the week. I had arrived at my parents’ home the night before in anticipation of the surgery, so I was there in the morning when my dad woke up feeling very weak and couldn’t catch his breath – the result of what would turn out to be fluid building up in his chest due to his failing aortic valve. My mother had called the EMTs and he was taken to the regional hospital nearby where his immediate symptoms were quickly brought under control by the ER team and we all began breathing easier.
The shock was greater for two other families who were also gathering in the ER that morning. One was the family of an older man brought in as a result of a stroke, and the second was the family of a teenaged young man who’s truck had crashed into a tree.
The “children” of the stroke victim were all adults and I imagined that their expressions suggested they knew something like this was going to happen eventually but they would have been happy for it not to have been today. Having been through strokes in our own family I knew what was still in store for them and wondered if they had an inkling yet of the nature of the life changing experience that had just introduced itself to their family.
For the family of the young man the shock was even greater and ultimately more complete as he was soon pronounced dead.
From the relative comfort of my family’s situation I still had cause to ponder the seeming randomness of three lives and three families coming together at that time – all within 50 feet of each other but each in our own world as three destinies were parceled out: you live, you die, you limp.
The doctors decided to move my dad a day early to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis where his surgery was to take place. My mother and I went back to the house to get my things and pack what she’d need. My folks live in the same small rural Missouri town where they grew up and where they are still surrounded by family and many older friends with whom they have many shared experiences. On the way to the hospital we stopped to top off the gas tank and while at the gas station my mom saw some friends, one of whom had already had the same surgery my dad was having. Mom filled them in on the change in plans and as the group was standing together I saw what I took as a look of knowing pass between them that I chalked up to the shared procedure.
On the day of the surgery I saw the same look of knowing on the faces of my dad’s older brothers, his sister and sister-in-law as they arrived in the waiting room and greeted my mother. The words they used were appropriate, but the looks they gave her – and the look she returned – were so meaningful and even tangible that I knew that was were the real communication was taking place. Since his brothers had had heart attacks and by-pass operations I at first attributed the look to that experience, yet I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
I thought about it as we waited and then a deeper understanding came to me. The knowing did come from shared experience, but it wasn’t the experience of the surgery itself. It was the bond of a generation that had been young together, raised their families at the same time (often in what must have looked like a large, rolling pile of kids), sent the kids off and simply went on getting older. It was a knowing that acknowledged this wasn’t the first hospital waiting room they had gathered in, and that it wasn’t going to be the last. Only today’s outcome was unknown.
They and their friends have gone on to a time in their lives still largely alien to me and my generation. As I’ve grown older I’ve lived the things they’ve lived and come to understand the things I didn’t grasp when I was younger, but perhaps I thought that as an adult I had come to know it all. They each, however, have buried at least one parent, have marked the illnesses and passing of friends and family, felt the stiffness in their own bones. They move slower now, but what was the point of hurrying in the first place?
I suppose it is my own self-centeredness that causes me to think my parents belong to me, overlooking that they had their own brothers and sisters before I was born, and see more of their siblings now than they do their own kids, with two-thirds of us scattered across the country. Theirs is a shared history before and after my generation, with all the hopes and fears, ups and downs, affection and annoyances common to us all, and a shared experience of aging who’s only consolation may be that you don’t have to do it alone.
We waited, prompting our uncles for the old stories from their growing up that we in turn had grown up hearing, listening again to the tales of the tricks played on their little brother and the times where they probably should have died many times over.
On schedule the surgeon came out and called my mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law and I to one side and gave us the news that the operation had gone perfectly. I turned to give the thumbs up to the rest of the family when the relief crashed over us like a wave, making me weak in the knees. Our small group huddled together, shaking, almost as if we had received the worst possible news instead of the best. The rest of the family gathered around, touching us and offering congratulations and then withdrawing, knowing we’d need some time to ourselves – and now that I think about it, probably needing some time themselves. They, too, had survived and were moving on, still ahead.
But I know things now that I didn’t know before.
I spent a lot of time in hospitals last week, some of it in an emergency room and some of it in a waiting room with families of other men and women undergoing heart surgery. In the process I gained some new insights that I’m currently working into another post.
While doing this, however, I thought of something I had written for the original, pre-blog “Filings” a few years ago that seemed to gain additional resonance as we waited with others for word on matters of life and death. I offer these questions for now while I finish my more recent thoughts.
I was present at a couple of “good-byes” recently that really made me stop and say, “Hello.” One was a retirement party for a woman who was leaving a job after 27 years, and the other was a visitation for a man who left this earth after 38 years. I attended the two events one right after the other in the same evening. This unusual set of circumstances, and the overwhelming honor and esteem the two unrelated individuals were so obviously held in, helped me to rediscover the value of an old, old lesson.
Have you ever noticed how we judge others by their actions, yet expect others to judge us by our intentions?
The woman who’s retiring is a real sweetheart who always seems to have an encouraging word and a cheerful attitude, and a habit of doing quiet, thoughtful things for others. She’s always been wonderful to me, and of course I’ve thought that this is because I’m such a lovable guy myself. As I looked at the room overflowing with sincere well-wishers, the table piled with gifts, and the company choir that had come to sing for her, I was taken by the realization that she didn’t just treat me as special, she treated everyone as special. And of course it came back to her, in heaps.
By the time I made it to the visitation, there were lines of people extending out of two doors and well into the parking lot of the funeral home. The man who died had recently done a small favor for me, but I was there because he was the brother of a good friend. I had known he was active in the community, but I was unprepared for the large crowd of people of all ages who were there, so many of whom were obviously and profoundly grieved. As I beheld the ever-increasing crowd I, too, began to feel the loss – the loss of not having known this man myself.
The point here is that for these two people, touching others had obviously been a lifestyle and not a special event. Their good intentions were manifested in their lives, and I’ve got to believe that the blessings poured back into their lives over the years have been a result of this, and not the other way around.
This is not to say that the impact of our lives is ultimately measured by the number of people who show up at our retirement parties or funerals. At the same time, however, you don’t get large crowds of people who turn out to say, “You know, he really meant well.”
It’s true that God looks at the heart, but it’s also true that “out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks” (and you act). Has the impact of your life – in your home, your job, your church – lived up to your own intentions? How about God’s?
My father’s heart surgery was a complete success, although we did have some difficult moments and some late hours over the past few days. I’m back in front of my home computer, and used the long drive to ponder some of the new insights I’ve gained this week on the dynamics of family, faith, aging, love and fear. I’ll be sorting these out and posting on these soon, but right now it’s just good to be home. I appreciate those of you who have prayed and emailed or posted support. Thank you, it made a difference.
I had a long drive today, but since I calculate that I’ve made this drive at least 60 times in the last 25 years, it wasn’t remarkable. It did feel a little weird, however, to be driving solo without the family along. One big difference: today I have total control over both the music and the snacks.
This doesn’t mean the voices of my loved ones aren’t being heard, though. For example, I shuffle through the CDs for the next selection and I think I hear, “Geez, do you think we could listen to something recorded in this century?” Stopping for snacks: Mmmm, pork rinds. “Dad, that is so gross.” Sorry, can’t hear you over the crunching and the loud music.
I do start to think about family trips we’ve taken, such as the big trek through South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming a while back. I remember typing some impressions into the trusty laptop. Are they still there? Oh yes, and with just a couple of clicks…presto! Instant blog!
“Oh, that’s just too easy.” Sorry, not listening.
SOUTH DAKOTA FLASHBACK
Keystone
We are drawing near to Mount Rushmore, and our eyes scan the hills and horizon around us looking for the first glimpse. But first our eyes must sweep past the countless brightly colored and/or flashing signs promising us the Black Hills’ “best, cheapest, most beautiful, most convenient or most shameless” memorabilia.Highway 14 is the major artery into the Mount Rushmore area, which I suppose makes us tourists the lifeblood of the businesses in Keystone. Many must pass this way, and there is the inevitable competition to see to our undeniable needs to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and buy forgettable mementos. I’m struck by the fact that people will drive hundreds, even thousands, of miles to see spectacular scenery or a monumental example of human art and endeavor and then want to commemorate the awe-inspiring experience with some crappy piece of plastic.
The process has been going on in this area since the first Conestoga wagon had a Wall Drug sticker pasted on its back bumper, and Keystone – located at the base of Mount Rushmore – is its own monument to the economic freedom ensured by the rocky busts ensconced above. Gift stores and restaurants line both sides of the main route through town, each one apparently named after a cowboy, an Indian or a president. Just as prominent are the billboards promoting Gutson Borglum-related sites and attractions. Borglum was the sculptor, visionary – and marketing maven – who through his will and perseverance created the Rushmore monument and, for all intents and purposes, Keystone as well.
The town reminds me of Gatlinburg, Tenn., another village that clings to the side of a mountain and exists solely to collect whatever money can be shaken from the tourists’ pockets by gravity or impulse. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many of the same lame postcards of “country” humor here in Keystone that I saw in Gatlinburg 30 years ago. Everything from jack-alopes to the bald man’s hairbrush and folksy plaques with universal truths using colloquial spelling. I’ll grant you there is one distinct difference between Keystone and Gatlinburg: you’re not likely to find a bust of Lincoln in Tennessee.
Spearfish to Rapid City
The sky is at war with the earth. Streaks of lightning marble the dusky sky over the Black Hills, striking hilltop after hilltop. Occasionally a sheet of yellow appears, completely filling the space between two hills.There is a history of mostly peaceful detente between the earth and the sky, punctuated by what appears to be spectacularly violent episodes such as this one. The thunder booms from the sky to the hills as if to say, “This time, this time I’m taking you down and knocking you flat.” The perpetually shrugged shoulders of the hills seem to respond: “That may have worked for you in Iowa, but it ain’t happening here.”
Or perhaps the thunder is the voice of the hills, answering the challenge of the sky with a collective roar and rumble from deep in the throat. The fact is, this is an old marriage, and nothing will get settled tonight. This, too, will blow over, and in the morning it will be as if nothing has happened.
Kind of like this blog…
This was a little too close. The airplane part landed not very far from an intersection I drive through regularly.
FAA Probes Loss of Part from DC-10 during flight.