Hoarse is hoarse, of course, of course

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It’s been quiet around Chez Night the last few days. That’s mainly because last week my voice wandered off at a rest stop somewhere between Missouri and here and has had to hitchhike its way back home. (I know I should have been paying more attention, but the cold medicine made me groggy). About half of it has made it back as of today, and I’m leaving the light on for the rest of it.

For the past few days my voice has fluctuated somewhere between a whisper and a scrape, which has led to some interesting challenges. For example, I haven’t been able to replace my out-of-office voicemail message at work because if I had tried to record anything my callers would end up thinking they’d mistakenly called Dial-A-Perv.

On Wednesday our Executive of the Year came down from Olympus to inspect the troops (“Executive-of-the-Year” is not an award but an acknowledgement that my Division of the Company has reported up to four different super-senior executives in the last five years). I was among a group of managers invited to a get-to-know-you luncheon. You know what happened: “let’s go around the room and say something about what you do.” Naturally, the EOTY decided to sit at the opposite end of the long conference table from me. After five other people had done their thing all eyes rolled to me. I stood up (everyone else had remained seated), grabbed my lunch plate, and walked all the way around the table to an empty chair across from our guest. I then gave my name and croaked “I’m responsible for Communications, and the first rule of Communications is to put yourself in a position to be heard.” Actually, I think that worked out rather well as I quickly hit the “5 things you need to know in 15 seconds” then sat back and let the rotation go on; if the EOTY remembers anyone from that meeting I’m sure it will be me. The rest of the meeting I relied on thoughtful, profound eyebrow movements to make up for what I was missing in vocalization.

The worst part was Tuesday night. I had been saving some tasty morsel for myself, but when I went to the refrigerator it was gone! “Hey! Where’s my ….” I said, except that it came out sounding more like, “Heh! Wissss shhhh meh, meh!” I was like Mufasa without his roar. I had to go into the living room where the rest of the family was and pantomime a tantrum. I pounded my fist into my open, up-turned palm and twisted it. I slashed my finger across my throat. I swung my arms up and out to diagram a large mushroom cloud. The effect was less than satisfying as the response was more amused than repentent. Arrrgghhh! (Boy, my throat hurts just typing that!)

Oh well, it was probably for the best. Some things really are better left unsaid.

Give him a medal!

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“We live in a heroic age. Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows; such are the heroes of civilization. The heroes of barbarism maimed or killed theirs.”

– Andrew Carnegie
A 50-year-old New York man literally leapt to the rescue of a stranger on Tuesday in a way that would have made Andrew Carnegie proud:

NEW YORK — Wesley Autrey faced a harrowing choice as he tried to rescue a teenager who fell off a platform onto a subway track in front of an approaching train: Struggle to hoist him back up to the platform in time, or take a chance on finding safety under the train.

At first, he tried to pull the young man up, but he was afraid he wouldn’t make it in time and they would both be killed.

“So I just chose to dive on top of him and pin him down,” he said.

Autrey and the teen landed in the drainage trough between the rails Tuesday as a southbound No. 1 train entered the 137th Street/City College station.

The train’s operator saw them on the tracks and applied the emergency brakes.

Two cars passed over the men _ with about 2 inches to spare, Autrey said. The troughs are typically about 12 inches deep but can be as shallow as 8 or as deep as 24, New York City Transit officials said.

…

Autrey had been waiting for a train with his two young daughters. After the train stopped, he heard bystanders scream and yelled out: “We’re O.K. down here but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.,” The New York Times reported.

While spectators cheered Autrey, hugged him and hailed him as a hero, he didn’t see it that way.

“I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help,” he told the Times. “I did what I felt was right.”

Mr. Autry’s story has appropriately been featured on tv and in many news stories, and it reminded me of something I learned about several years ago: the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, created by the well-known industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie created the fund, initially endowed with $5 million, in 1904 after being inspired by reading of the selfless rescue efforts of people responding to a coal-mine disaster.

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission has given out more than 9,000 medals since its inception to individuals who risk their lives to save others, including 92 people in 2006. Each received a medal and grant ($5,000 in 2006). In addition, widows and orphans of rescuers receive Carnegie pensions and some children of deceased medal earners receive college scholarships. To date the fund has distributed more than $29 million in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.

The fund has some interesting requirements. People who save others in the line of duty – police, firemen, soldiers – don’t qualify, though several off-duty individuals have won. People who save family members qualify only if they are killed or severely injured in the rescue. Essentially, you can’t be a hero for doing what’s expected of you. Most of the awards go to people who risked their lives to save strangers. For the record, 7 recipients last year died in their attempts to save others; two medal winners were in their 70s and one was 81; three were 15 to 16 years old; five were women. Medal winners were recognized for rescuing others from burning (46), drowning (17), assault (15), animal attack (5), accidents (5) and falls (2). You can get the details concerning these and other heroes here.

I celebrate Mr. Autry and wish that the 92 heroes recognized with Carnegie medals last year could have received the same attention and celebration — not just because they deserve it, but because we need to hear about it. Just think, 92 people; that’s nearly two heroes a week we could be splashing on our video screens, tabloids, web pages and talking about over lunch. I’d much rather hear about these actions than some celebimbo who’s gone out without her underpants. And, much like Carnegie’s quote that opened this post, I’d much rather see the media focus its attention on those who preserve or rescue their fellows as opposed to those who take a bomb into a public place to maim or kill theirs.

Life is a highway

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One of the things about blogging is that occasionally you can do a little self-indulgent interior-monologuing:

We were bombing down the interstate the other day, the Mall Diva in the driver’s seat, cruise control, good visibility and dry pavement laid out straight in front of us just the way the engineer drew it up. We were going fast, perhaps a little faster than allowed, but the road appeared to roll by langourously with the green highway signs occasionally marking progress as the numbers to our expected destination got steadily smaller.

Life is often like that. It goes by fast, but you get so used to it that you hardly notice. The signposts — birthdays, events — come and go pretty much as expected, letting you know you’re getting closer to whatever is ahead, and large sections of it (at least when you get to be my age) are flat and straight. Every so often, though, you come to a curve; a big, sweeping change of course. You’re still on the same highway, still going the same place, it’s just that this is “the way” and you follow it as the compass (and sometimes your tummy) swings around. It’s not unexpected, if you check the map you’ll see that the curve is clearly marked, but you might be surprised to find that you’ve come so far, so soon.

It just takes the slightest turn of your hands to stay on course; similarly a simple thing, such as a short conversation, can mark a turning point and the familiar road starts to look a little different. Our family swept into one such curve the other day. I’m talking about life, not the highway, but the natural inclination is still to let off the gas a little, slow down, maintain control — if I were in the driver’s seat, that is.

All in all, it’s a good thing, but — sorry to be a tease — I can’t write any more about it at this time. Actually, I think I’m going to write plenty (this, for example) as I sense that a very philosophical vein has been tapped; it’s just that I don’t expect to post any thing further about this particular subject for some time. Everyone is well, everything is secure — did that last sign say anything about there being a rest area up ahead?

Back to other blogging nonsense tomorrow.

50 years on a dare

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They had known each other of course, the basketball player and the cheerleader at the small high school, but neither really liked the other all that much. She was smart, talented, headed for college and, truth be told, probably a bit stuck on herself. He was coarse and gangly with a quick temper shaped perhaps by being the youngest of four brothers, and from a family that sent its sons to the Air Force, not college. Their first date was more of a dare than a launching pad for romance.

Some tender shoot must have inviegled its way through such unpromising soil and gained a toe-hold, however. They finished high school in 1954 and became engaged, but set off on separate paths. She was off to Drury College in Springfield and he followed his brothers into the service, winding up in Germany. Her father wanted her to finish college; his Uncle Sam wanted him to spend 3 years near the Black Forest. Three years! Ah, but if you were a married man the Air Force would only keep you overseas for 18 months, and if you were an only daughter you knew the right combination of foot-stamping and soulful appeals to bend your father’s will. Rules and regulations met with hopes and aspirations and both paternal blessing and a 30-day leave were granted, and a late December wedding date was set.

The cold, waning days of the year are not a traditional time for weddings which more typically occur in the hopeful and promising days of spring, and other portents attending the event were ominous: the flower girl got stage fright at the back of the church and collapsed, crying, in the aisle, refusing to go forward; the ring-bearer wore a gaudy white patch over one eye as a result of a youthful accident immediately after the previous day’s rehearsal; the punch bowl was borrowed from a recently married woman who’s husband would later beat her half to death; and the pastor who married them would run off with another woman a week after performing their ceremony. Following the wedding they had to drive 90 miles through a blizzard to the swanky Case Hotel in St. Louis for their honeymoon (a gift from her parents), only to find the hotel on fire when they arrived.

Fortunately they were able to check into their room, and after the weekend it was back to spend a week with his parents and then a week in Indianapolis with hers before he had to board the bus for the two-day trip to New York and a flight back to Germany. Every time the bus stopped he had to fight the urge to get off and hitch-hike back to her, even if it meant going AWOL. It wouldn’t have been hard to do; in those days soldiers in uniform had little trouble hitching rides, but since the uniform represented the only clothes he owned he knew it was a very short-sighted strategy. He finished his time in Germany, now reduced to just seven more months as a result of his new status; returned to the states in July and together they conceived a son in August.

It would be nice to say that they used up all their hard luck just in getting through the wedding and early days, but nothing is that easy. She quit school and they put ten years and a lot of miles into the Air Force, living in base housing or whatever they could afford as two more kids came along. Real life was a lot harder than perhaps they expected and the knot at the end of their rope could get a bit frayed at times. They both had health issues and the kids had their own array of problems; one son walked funny and didn’t appear to hear well; another son seemed to require stitches for something every other week; the daughter seemed to be allergic to everything and would often swell up, or come down with Scarlet Fever. There seemed to be an awful lot of tomato-green bean casseroles for dinner. Just when the knot would seem about to give-way, though, there would be a timely visit from family or some stroke of fortune or fate to get them through. Later they would launch and sell a couple of businesses, she would go back to college for her degree and become an elementary school teacher and eventually a principal while earning Masters and Doctorate degrees.

The years came and went, as did the challenges and saving graces. That tender little shoot from their youth somehow grew into a strong, thick root — a bit gnarled and twisted, but all the harder to pry out of the ground for all that. They argued some, but hugged more and were absolutely resolute and united in trying to do the best they could for their children, even if the children didn’t always want to cooperate. Last Friday evening they stood in the same church where they were married 50 years earlier, posing for a succession of photos with children, grandchildren and relatives. They certainly knew everything that had gone into getting there, even if they were a bit at a loss to explain it.

“50 years ago all I had was a 1950 Mercury and my good looks,” he said with some wonder, “and now I don’t have that Mercury.” When she was asked for the secret she tried to give a short explanation for a long answer that is still being computed. “You just take it one day at a time, and sometimes, 15 minutes at a time.”

Happy 50th anniversary, Mom and Dad, and may there be many more!

‘Twas the days after Christmas

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Part 2 to my previous post: do you remember how the Red Ryder Air Rifle for me was a laptop? Well, I betcha can’t guess what happened on Christmas morning!

I woke up at about 6:30, but since I’m not one of the mean kids who
will jump out of bed and immediatley run into their parents rooms to wake them up no matter how tired they are, I stayed in bed until I heard the shower start in the Reverend Mother and The Old Man’s room, which meant Reverend Mother was awake (There was no telling if The Old Man was awake or not). I waited a bit more until I heard the door to the Mall Diva’s room open. I then jumped out of bed, eager to begin the stocking ritual of the morning. I then found out that MD didn’t think we should go into the Reverend Mother and The Old Man’s room yet. So I waited till I heard the shower shut off, then I ran down to grab the stockings while MD knocked on the bedroom door. We entered at The Old Man’s grunt of “Who is it?” and sat down. Mom wasn’t out of the bathroom yet, so we (surprise, surprise) waited.

After a bit, Mom came into the room, and we began opening the stockings.
Here is a list of what I received in my stocking:

A bottle of Jones Fufu Berry Soda from The Old Man
A necklace from MD
Chocolate
Reeses Pieces from Mom
A Candy Cane from Bonita
A tweezers from Reverend Mother

We went downstairs, but we didn’t unwrap presents yet. Mom had to make
coffee first. There was a present for both me and MD, then 5 presents each for both of us. MD and I decided to open the present for both of us first. Dad said, “That’s from ‘The Old Man’,” which gave me a clue as to what was inside. MD took one side, and I took the other, and we shredded the paper. It was (dramatic pause) a box!!!! I opened the box and inside was a

LAPTOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh joy! I was sooo happy. I was sitting there with my mouth hanging wide
open, and MD was grinning wildly. Then The Old Man said, “Now we have to
figure out a schedule for you two to use it,” and MD said, “I know this is more for Tiger Lilly than for me.”

We commenced opening the other presents. I got:

A Dream Pillow that is supposed to ‘reduce stress, induce sleep, and
heighten dreams,’ from MD

A scrunchie from Reverend Mother

An outfit from Bonita

Crest teeth whitening strips (Mom claims that I asked for those, just not for Christmas.)

And a book that I unfortunately already had. I also got a bead bracelet maker, and a gift certficate for Michaels.

Later the family came over. There was feasting of goose and turkey, gabbing and more present opening. My cousin told me that he got “Factions” for Christmas (the second part to a game that I love called “Guild Wars”). He is sooo lucky. But hey, he didn’t get a laptop! He gave me his compound bow and arrows for Christmas. This year was the best Christmas ever, with one flaw. Mom was sick. She stayed in bed all day, except for the present opening. Of course she came down for that. It’s nasty to be sick on a holiday like Christmas, but she’s feeling much better now.

Ciao for now, and Merry Belated Christmas!

Cat-astrophe averted

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Our holiday houseguest list started with my mother-in-law. She, in-turn, attracted the outlaw-in-law, who brought along the pitbull-in-law. They’re all generally nice enough, but as with most relationships it still pays to watch your fingers.

The dog stays outside for the most part, but joined us all inside for breakfast this morning. She’s a friendly beast that thinks she’s a 50-lb lapdog and has all the inquisitiveness and exuberance of a puppy. Her presence definitely changed the animal dynamic in the house as she tried to be “friends” with the domiciled pets. The guinea-pig, who has always been oblivious of our cat, clutched his chest and buried himself inside his plastic pig-loo despite already being inside a cage. The bird, also caged, got verrrrwy, verrrwy quiet even though she is best-known for her sputtering, Al Franken-like rants (her diction is a little bit better). Someone thoughtfully sequestered the cat in the basement before letting the dog in, so his initial reaction was hard to judge.

After being rebuffed by the other pets, the pitbull became completely fixated on the door to the basement, snuffling, prancing and whining. Now, the basement has everything the cat needs to make himself comfortable; his food dish, litter box and plenty of his favorite soft spots to sleep upon. We always shut him down there whenever we take the bird out for social interaction. You’d think that with all the comforts and conveniences close at hand, and a hairy, slavering beast on the other side of the door, the cat would be content to lie low. Something in his felinity, however, determined that if we wanted him in one place, then he wanted to be anywhere but there. So, when my mother-in-law accidentally opened the basement door, he leaped to freedom, perhaps in the hopes of catching the bird uncaged and unawares.

It would have been funny to have seen his face the moment he realized his miscalculation. Instead I had to settle the next instant for the bug-eyed, brushy-tailed look of terror as he came peeling around the corner into the living room looking for any high ground. Fortunately for me, I was leaning back in my chair instead of standing up so instead of leaping on my head he went for the top of the piano instead while the dog’s owner caught the animal’s head between his knees to keep her from continuing the hot pursuit. The Mall Diva swooped in and collected her cat and whisked him to safety in her room, his eyes the size of quarters and his back toes spread out like rakes. Order was soon restored and life, fortunately, went on.

The holidays can be so stressful.

Never before seen footage of the last supper!

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Television just loves Christmas specials. Why, just the other evening I was channel-surfing the satellite dish and came across The Secret Lives of Jesus (Jesus was a petulant child who hurt other kids and as a grown-up had a “special” relationship with Mary Magdalene — oh, and was never really crucified), The Gospel of Judas (he was really a sensitive, sweet guy that Jesus confided in who got a bad rap because Jesus actually asked him to be his betrayer), and a show about the book of Revelation that described the Apostle John (if that’s your real name) as a bitter, half-crazed old man sleeping on rocks and lashing out at society. I also saw a few minutes of a show where an archeologist “discovered” the natural reason why the Pool of Bethesda could have looked as if an angel occasionally stirred the water.

No doubt these were all meticulously researched documentaries dedicated to digging out the truth, though I noticed that a guard leading Jesus away from Herod in one of the re-enactments was wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes under his long robe. The programs all seemed to have the requisite talking heads with impressive religious and academic titles and scholarly accents for authenticity, though I suspect that a closer examination might find they and their theories about as credible as David Duke addressing a conference of holocaust deniers. As for the Gospel of Judas, the experts can prove that the fragments of the codex are old, but not that it’s anything other than a self-serving treatise from the already discredited Gnostic canon. I suppose it’s kind of like someone 2000 years in the future finding a portion of Ward Churchill’s 9-11 account and saying, “Aha – I knew it all along!”

It’s interesting that these shows all happen to be scheduled at this time of year, but at least it allows for easier side-by-side comparision. As far as credibility goes, I think the programs I glimpsed all fall short of other seasonal productions such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” (Amazing scientific fact: Bumbles bounce!)

Some things are hard to wash off

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Not that long ago millions of Iraqi men and women boldly took to the streets, eager to vote for freedom and a chance to shape their own lives, and proud to show off their purple fingers, dipped in die as a simple way to prevent voter fraud but also perfect for delivering a collective poke in the eye to terror and tyranny.

I try to remember their faces and fingers as the media machine clanks and hums, blowing smoke and steam into its depiction of gang warfare as a civil war. The purple fingers were not enough to prevent fraud of outrageous proportions; a small but deadly minority subverts the will of the people and the efforts of a fledgling government, intimidating the majority not just with violence but with the idea that the forces standing for Reason and Order will themselves be cowed and will again abandon the innocent to the protection of paper treaties holding back a cyclone of hate. The brutal few are aided by the symbiotic complicitness of foreign media and political elements with their own desire to overthrow a government and replace it with something less of a hindrance to its own thirst for power and right-thinking, regardless of the cost to a country as a whole. Small wonder there are those who wring their hands while they still may, and reach for the soap to remove the tincture.

There are some things you get on your hands, however, that can never be washed off, as Michael Yon reminds us in his post No Darker Heart:

A Killing Field, Cambodia
After the monsoon rains abate, the draining earth offers up fragments of clothing, human teeth and bones as final testimony of the restless, wronged dead. Murdered on this now sacred ground, thirty or more years ago, they are among the millions of souls sacrificed to a fevered ideology that was completely broken only a decade ago. The remains that seep up through the mud under my feet in this Killing Field are from a different war, but they echo a mournful reminder of how jarringly common it is for societies at war with themselves to descend into madness. Death squads under holy orders, suicide bombers in mosques, machete-wielding mobs in Rwanda, industrialized gas chambers in Europe, fire-breathing Janjaweed militias in Darfur, and here the tree named for its function as “killing tree against which executioners beat children.”

Powerful, philosophical memes, forever pulsing through human populations, are never far from pushing us to some brink. The best memes land people on the moon; they create more cures than afflictions, more freedoms than restrictions, more heroes than villains, more hope than despair. These memes tend to pump knowledge into the human mind rather than vacuum it out. Perhaps memes are just memes, philosophies just philosophies, mental scripts piled atop mental scripts much as we build upon the lands where our ancestors lived and died. I once spent two days coursing down the Mekong River deep into Laos, wondering who had gone before me, and how many times humans have reinvented the boat. Today, we walk across the bridges, a concept others imagined then built, and we walk along trails and routes that have lasted for centuries or millennia, all while making new connections. Some trails lead to Hell.

Despite that many paths are clearly marked “This fork to Hell: Take right fork to nicer place,” a herd inertia prevents stopping long enough to read the signs or heed the caution. Signs appear in many forms, but they are always there. Jets crashing into buildings, yellow stars on lapels, people disappearing into the night, mass graves appearing on the edge of town, official languages, and always, the silent assent of enough people greasing the sides of the slope: visit enough genocide memorials in Germany or Poland or here and the patterns of pathology present themselves.

Here in the sweltering jungles of Cambodia, the educated, cultural elite Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge denizens perpetrated horrors ranging from ripping off nipples with pliers to vivisection, all part of a master plan to create a Utopia cleansed of all impurities of Western influence. Although Cambodia had been an ally of the West, during Cambodia’s years of darkness the eyes of world leaders were studiously averted, providing complicit cover for a charismatic zealot to excavate along ancient cultural divides and exploit rich veins of resentment.

Read the whole thing.

144 years ago, or just the other day?

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1. No end to the war in sight.

2. The purpose for the war has changed.

3. The President’s ratings at a low.

4. Democrats opposed to the President’s policies gain in Congress.

5. Willingness to “stay the course” in doubt.

6. Freedom the last, best hope on earth.



From the December 1 “The Writer’s Almanac”:



It was on this day in 1862 that Abraham Lincoln gave the State of the Union address at one of the lowest points of his presidency. An end to the Civil War was nowhere in sight. Just 10 weeks before, Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation, turning the war into a war about slavery rather than just states’ rights. But in the recent election, anti-Lincoln Democrats had made big gains in the Congress. Many people saw that as a sign that the North didn’t want to fight to free the slaves.



Instead of expressing doubts in his speech, Lincoln argued that freeing the slaves was necessary to ensure that America live up to its own ideals. In his speech, on this day in 1862, Lincoln said, “The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. … We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth.”