Overheard on the Street

"I'm tired of my country having a finger up my ass, and religion having a finger down my throat."

Well, please allow me to add to the litany of fatigue:

I'm tired of the lack of respect for the working men and women who provide us with all manner of services. It starts with treating people with dignity, and it ends with paying them enough to support themselves and their families.

I'm tired of public relations masquerading as journalism. When CNN plays the video press release from Dubai and calls it news -- and NPR uses the same script to do an audio-only version of the story -- something is gravely wrong.

I'm tired of two political parties, both apparently in collusion with special interests and corporations, protecting a corrupt government more reminiscent of a third-world kleptocracy than a modern democratic republic.

I'm tired of entitlement in all forms, from the belief that the very wealthy and powerful automatically deserve both respect and special treatment to the belief that the poor and the oppressed automatically deserve either disdain or a handout.

I’m tired of racism, prejudice, homophobia, xenophobia, and all of the various –ism that turn one person against the other. I’m especially tired and disgusted by the use of any –ism as a political tool. (See Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and the “Southern Strategy” as examples of what should not be acceptable in a democracy.)

I'm tired of the false dichotomy of the arms race vs. the human race. Security is not achieved at the end of a gun. Freedom is not insured by good deeds and good thoughts.

I know we’re all tired, but I want people to wake up and recognize that we - yes, that collectively, all 6.5 billion of us – that we inherited a tremendous gift and burden. We have all of human history's successes and failures as our collective baggage. And there are no porters to carry it.

And we 300 million-odd Americans have a special duty and responsibility to work to make sure that our country remains a living example of what people can to do to create and maintain freedom.

It's up to us.

OK, down off my soapbox. Regular programming will resume shortly.

I love Jane Smiley

Really, there's nothing more to say.

The Beautiful Game

Brasil is the beautiful game. It's all about taking the ordinary, eating it whole, and making something extraorinary. (You fancy people may have heard the term cultural anthrophagy used in sociology and philosophy. Brasilian origin, from Latin roots.)

Before the critique of urban poverty, income inequality, crime, and domestic violence, let me list a few things Brasilian that make the world a better place:

Brasilian football (or soccer, for Americans) -- Graceful, improvisational, impossibly skilled, the Brasilian national football team created the beautiful game. Even playing against the Germans in the last World Cup, Brasil proved they define the game of football. They rise to the occassion, adapt, and overcome.

Feijoada -- the Brasilian national dish. Black beans plus meat, cooked for a loooonnng time, and served with collard greens (couvee), rice, and orange slices. I wish I could say feijoada is healthy for the body (I'll spare you the gory details of my recipe), it sure as hell is comforting.

Brasilian music -- Bossa nova. tropicalia. music popular brasilero (MPB). Antonio Carlos Jobim. Caetano Veloso. Joao Gilberto. Gilberto Gill. Danielle Mercury. Carmen Miranda. Chico Science. Maria Bethania. Bebel Gilberto. Baden Powell. DJ Dolores. Virginia Rodrigues. Tom Ze. I can go on but I don't need to. Beauty, sadness, skill, invention, humanity, humour: it’s all there.

Renewable energy – 20% of Brasil's vehicles run on domestically produced ethanol. Now there’s moving to produce biodiesel.

And it’s more that just vehicles. Following some spectacularly wrongheaded hydroelectric development in the 1980s and 90s, Brasil is following a sustainable path. Enough said.

Housequake

Prince Rodgers Nelson, aka "glyph", aka "the Artist formerly known as Prince", aka "Prince" released a new album this week, "3121". There's been buzz about the album for some time, with the cool kids atwitter -- and justifiably -- at what promised to be a return to form for a great pop writer and performer.

I've only heard the iTunes available "Black Sweat". The Washington Post's J. Freedom du Lac writes this:

""Black Sweat" is a delicious slice of stripped-down electro-funk that sounds like Prince doing his best Pharrell doing his best "Black Album"- or "Kiss"-era Prince, which is so meta it hurts. The song is all stuttering drum machines, hand claps and buzzing, burbling synths, with grunting vocals and falsetto shrieks: "I'm hot and I don't care who knows it, I got a job to do," Prince yelps."

He's right on. I have one thing to add:

"You be screamin' like a white lady when I count to three" is the sound you hear from a certain apartment in NW DC.

I'm just sayin'.

Grace moving in the world, part III

My father died on Saturday morning, at about 3:30 a.m. I wasn’t at his bedside, but the hospice staff was. They informed me that my father struggled somewhat as his body failed, and then at the end he peacefully let go of the body that had trapped him for the last three months.

Graham (the DP to you blog readers) arrived in Phoenix at 2:00 a.m. I awaited his arrival at the airport with more need and anticipation than I had ever before, for him or for anyone. Our collective relief and joy at our reunion was palpable. The missing part of my being was replaced, as was his. We talked on the way back to the hotel, mostly of trivial things: baseball spring training, how Phoenix appears to be growing as a place like a game of Sim City gone very badly wrong, why Southwest Airlines “cattle car” seating is problematic. We did speak of my father, but only to say that his day was comfortable, and he seemed to be at peace.

We reached the hotel, and settled in. The rhythms and patterns of our life together immediately started, without thought, without hesitation. After all the sturm und drang of the last few days, it wasn’t a surprise that Graham quickly fell sound asleep. My own trip to the land of Nod was somewhat troubled – and then, mysteriously, I slide into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It wasn’t for very long. At 6:30 a.m., Shannon, the R.N. at Odyssey Hospice called my mobile phone. He told me my father had died. Did I want him to call the funeral home to remove my father’s body? No: I first wanted to see my father, and say my final words to his physical body.

Nothing about the call surprised me. My father, an intensely private man at the best of times, proved to be just as private at the end of his life. That he died in the presence of the Odyssey staff gave me comfort. I’d thought for years he’d die alone, and I would only learn of his death through a call from a mortuary or a hospital. While I wasn’t present, people who could care and comfort him were present, and did provide comfort. And – mysteriously – Dad waited until Graham could physically comfort me to leave. Dad left me a gift for which I was immediately grateful.

Both the morning coffee and the first cigarette seemed more bitter than usual. Oddly, Phoenix’s sunrise was obscured by high clouds and the legendary dry air of the desert felt slightly damp. We shuffled across the now-familiar groove I’d worn in Phoenix’s matrix of surface streets and freeways, and arrived at the hospice. I wasn’t afraid; I’d seen my Aunt Monica’s dead body last May. But unlike my father, Monica and I had spent three weeks prior to her death talking, working, laughing, and (against her instructions and intentions) crying, bringing our relationship to a close, and helping her to find her way to peace. What would it be like to see my father, to whom I’d told so much in his final days, hoping that he would hear it and find some comfort in my words and my presence?

It was hard. It was unbelievably hard. The hospice buzzed with the morning activity of any health care facility. The door to my father’s room was closed. I opened the door, and three things struck me: the sound of the oxygen concentrator was gone; my father’s body lay fully extended and relaxed on the hospital bed, the first time I had seen him not contracted since I encountered him in hospital three weeks earlier; and his spirit was gone. Graham stood away from the bed, while I stood at my father’s side, and quietly spoke a few words, and prayed. Then I removed the model airplane hanging from the television, and collapsed into Graham’s arms.

Growing up, four people defined my life: my mother and father, my Aunt Monica, and my great Aunt Natalie. My father called it the coven: Monica, Nat, and Virginia were all extremely powerful personalities, and left an impression on anyone they met and anything they did. My father and I might have formed a boy’s club to resist the girls, but we didn’t. Each of the four was a pillar of my life, and each played a very special – and irreplaceable role – for me. Nat had died first, and her loss was easiest to accept: but I never can step foot in Manhattan, buy clothes, drink a Salty Dog, or order dinner in a restaurant without acknowledging her role in my life.

Monica was next. She was my compass, my second mother who would put me back on the right path when I’d strayed from what was she knew, instinctively, was right for me. Sometimes she made mistakes with her advice, but for the most part, she was the one who dusted me off and sent me moving forward. By the time of her death, she was confident she’d done a good job with me.

With my father, I was never sure that he understood me, or what I needed in my life. I’m not sure he ever understood just how much he had shaped me, or how much I appreciated what he had given me in life – not things or money, but skills and character and experience. One of the last times we ever really talked was over 20 years ago. We were riding in a motor launch across Los Angeles Harbor, on our way to the ship on which my father was serving as an officer. I’d either come from, or was going to, some event while at college, and I was very full of myself. Dad asked what I wanted to do when I finished college, and I said (in that way only the arrogance of youth can allow) that what I wanted was to be comfortable in any circumstance I found myself in. I’m not sure my father expected that answer. But I’m pretty sure he appreciated the sentiment.

I’d like to think that is exactly what I’ve done with my life. And that I was able to become that person because of my father.

Now, he’s gone – but not really. My father didn’t “pass away.” He’s here, inside me. (Ewww. Perhaps not). He’s here, with me, all the time. That’s grace moving in the world, too.

The Last Straw

(Editor’s note: I studied political science, and strategic planning for nuclear war as an undergraduate. I’m less a dilettante than it might appear at first glance)

The Department of Defense proposes, in its most recent budget submission, to spend US $500 million to develop a conventional warhead to replace nuclear warheads on at least one Trident submarine. The Washington Post published the story on Wednesday; I’d read about it before, but was preoccupied by other issues.

This is, simply put, the most dangerous and destabilizing weapon imaginable.

The new warhead, proposed as part of the “Prompt Global Strike” capability, would be used to attack both hardened targets and “soft” threats such as terrorist groups. Now, on the surface, this seems like a perfectly fine idea. However, there’s a major problem.

There is no way to determine whether a ballistic missile has a conventional or nuclear warhead, based on any known method of observation (I don’t pretend to know if, somewhere in the so-called “Black Budget” such a system has been developed). Given that the Russian, Chinese, French, and British (and presumably the Israeli, Indian, and Pakistani) nuclear arsenals are on a “launch on warning” basis to avoid being destroyed in a pre-emptive “first strike”, the firing of a ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine would presumably trigger an immediate response from one or more of the nuclear powers.

Think about it for a minute.

Let’s say some future President receives “definitive” intelligence that Osama bin Laden has been spotted entering a compound near, oh, let’s say Lahore, Pakistan. She authorizes the use of a flight of ballistic missiles to destroy the compound. A message is sent to a Trident submarine in the Indian Ocean carrying the conventionally armed missiles. It comes up to firing depth (about 10 meters under the surface) and fires the missiles towards the sub-continent.

China and Russia know immediately of the launch from satellite reconnaissance, and begin launch preparations for launch of land or sea-based ICBMs. This may happen as soon as 30 seconds after launch. As neither India nor Pakistan have orbital reconnaissance, they only see the missiles once they enter radar range – perhaps five to six minutes after launch, depending on the location of the submarine. Given that both India and Pakistan have land-based ballistic missiles, they immediately prepare their weapons for launch. All four countries are potentially targets, and given the development of maneuverable re-entry vehicles (MARVs) – which are required to ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of a ballistic missile carrying a conventional warhead, all must respond because based on the launch phase trajectory of the missile as there is no way to determine the final targets of the warheads.

Imagine you’re the head of Pakistan’s missile unit: where do you target your missiles? Well, they won’t reach the U.S. (and besides, we’re allies, right?). Russia’s missiles in Asia are far to the north, in Siberia, and on the Kamchatka Peninsula. China has land-based missiles based in the Taklamaklan Desert on the other side of the Karakoram and Himalayan mountains. India has their land-based missiles in the Gujarat Desert. The Israelis might have submarine-based ballistic missiles, but Israel proper is outside the operational range of your missiles. You have approximately two minutes to make a targeting decision.

The head of the Indian missile unit is in the same situation.

Both China and Russia have slightly more time (and much more sophisticated warning and tracking capabilities – they can probably determine what type of missiles were launched, and from what platform). And unlike the Pakistanis and the Indians, their ballistic missiles have global reach. And they have many more missiles, maintained both on land and at sea. So their immediate need to respond is not as great.

Now, our future President may – or may not – choose to notify the appropriate states prior to launching the strike. If she does, she threatens her chances of eliminating the intended target because leaked information would, almost inevitably, reach OBL – and quickly. If she does not, any of the four nuclear countries will think they are targets for the warheads.

So, your two minutes are up. Do you launch your missiles, and if so, where?

This is why this is a destabilizing and dangerous weapon system. Put simply, it kicks open the door to Armageddon. Unlike most “traditional” ballistic missiles, there is no deterrent effect with its deployment. In fact, a ballistic missile with a conventional warhead almost forces a nuclear power with ballistic missiles to an immediate launch on warning posture.

Tell your Representatives and Senators this, now: no funds for development of conventional warheads for ballistic missiles. If we need “bunker busting” and soft target strike capability (which, honestly, are good things to have), then we should do it with a combination of special forces, human intelligence, and stealth aircraft delivering precision guided munitions.

And if you have questions, ask yourself this: do you trust Donald Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense to make prudent decisions about how other countries will respond to our actions?

Thought so.

Vertigo

Hello, hello
(¡Ola!)
I'm at a place called Vertigo.
(¿Donde este?)
It's everything I wish I didn't know.
Except you give me something
I can feel.

Vertigo/U2

The flight back to Washington from Phoenix couldn't be more mundane. It helps having the acquired skills of the seasoned traveller: you learn the equipment you're flying on, figure out the right row in which to be seated, how to chat up the ground crew and security staff to minimize the disruption of post 9/11 security. No matter how good the barbeque smells in the Memphis airport you avoid it (besides, the line is too fucking long). Since you didn't buy tickets at the same time, your partner is flying a different, somewhat eccentric path across country. Will he stop at Luke's and have a sausage and cheesesteak? Will the hand of God swat his flight from the sky, leaving you even more bereft than you already are?

Lest you, dear reader, think I've come completely unhinged, just know that what you've just read is the worst of my thoughts. My grief is present in a lack of patience and a profound fear of any more loss. I want a vacation from drama, and I want it now. I want a Sazerac and a thick steak and a Caesar salad. I want to smoke the cigar I bought to honor my father. I want to hang out with friends and talk religion and politics and ogle hot men. I want to wear my new shirt -- the silk and cotton shirt the color of my father's eyes that feels better on me than any piece of clothing I've ever worn -- and go to Cashion's with the DP. I want to fly a model airplane again. I want to be observant during Lent in a way that honours my father and to know that I will celebrate the Tridium at Holy Trinity, repeating a liturgy that has in part been observed for four thousand years. I want to know first hand that my father wasn't pulling my leg when he said Rio de Janiero is more beautiful than San Francisco.

One down

What they don't tell you, growing up, is that there are some things you'll face that really do change everything. The death of a parent is one of them.

I'd written a lot about my father, recently. And yes, there are far more horrible medical circumstances than being kept alive by a ventilator, feeding tube, and IV drip. But the pain I've experienced came from watching my father lose the possibility of returning to a fraction of the life he once lead while being maintained in a way that appears inhuman.

It's not death – and in particular, my father's death -- that bothered me. It's the somewhere between living and dying where Dad was stuck that made me furious. How could this happen to him? Why couldn't I have done something to prevent this travesty? How can I help my father to make a choice between living a half-life and dying -- and truly being at peace?

In the end I'm not sure he made a choice: his body failed, and he could neither fight his way back to health, or to gracefully accept that he's at the end of life and let go. But I'm sure that he's now at peace, however tortured the path was to get there.

Now, it's about my grief and my grieving. I suspect this won't be pretty, that my choices may be bad, and that things will seem much worse before they get better.

Grace moving in the world, part II

Family is a strange word in American English. Most Americans think of family as their immediate family – father, mother, siblings – and sometimes extend their family to include grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins. My definition of family is different.

It’s different because my experience of family is different. Both of my parents left behind their traditional families early in life. My father’s reasons were obvious; my mother’s are similar (and will remain private for the time being). But between them, when it was time to make their family, there was me – and a lot of friends. Growing up I envied their friendships. I wanted to have friends like theirs – people who did interesting things in the world, who were obviously close to my parents, and who clearly loved my mother and father and were in turn loved by them.

Friends like that don’t just happen. It takes a lot of work to create those relationships, and to keep them working over time. It took me a while (ok, a very long time) to understand how to make it work. (Some of you readers may think I’ve never understood how to make it work.) And over time, I’ve met many wonderful people who have become friends – but really, I think of them as my family. (I’ll skip the listing of each and every one of you who are part of my family – but my guess is, if you’re reading this, you’ll know if you are.)

By creating our family, we find a way to meet our human needs in a very tangible way. In my own life, both of my parents weren’t able to understand some of the issues that I brought to them. But my family clearly understands what I bring to them – and know that I can meet and answer some of their needs as well.

Again, it’s grace that allows us to meet our families. I know that grace moving in the world has brought me to my family.

Grace moving in the world

My father is dying. That, in and of itself, means nothing. We’re all dying, each of us, from the moment we’re born. Too often people lose sight of the cycle of life, and are terrified of what happens when life ends.

My father is one of those people. My father is full of fear. His life has been full of fear. It started with parental and sibling abuse as a child. The fear that comes from not being able to trust those closest to you is corrosive. That fear prevented my father from ever really understanding my love for him, and of the love and respect of many people whose lives he touched. Perhaps because there was so much fear in his life he’s now afraid of death. I will never know for sure.

What I do know is that with the advice and support of family, and of the medical professionals caring for my father, I made the decision to move my father to hospice. Sometime in the next two days, the hospice team will remove the ventilator and feeding tube that have been keeping him alive for the last two months. Sometime after that, my father will die.

I know this sounds very clinical, somewhat cruel, and (to some) immoral. But this decision is very carefully considered. When the mechanical and medical support began, there was a chance – a small chance, but a real chance – that Dad would recover enough to be able to enjoy some part of his life: building and flying his radio controlled model airplanes, researching and creating his inventions, or writing his “crazy papers” (my term) documenting his harassment by various mysterious parties (the Seaman’s Union, the U.S. Marines, and pharmaceutical companies, to name a few).

But for a 79 year old man with a history of diabetes and high blood pressure, a survivor of cancer, and who had recently suffered a series of mini-strokes, the mechanical and medical support are not enough to allow his body to heal itself. I watch my father lying in that hospital bed, unable to squeeze my hand to let me know he heard my voice, unable to control his bodily functions, and I know this is not the man I grew up loving and fighting in order to understand him. His spirit is there, yes; but it is trapped inside a failing body. He will not get better. Left on the ventilator and the PIC line and the hydration line, his heart will continue to function. But other organs – his kidneys, his liver – will fail. The accumulation of metabolic waste in the body will poison him. His muscles will contract, and he will fold into a posture resembling the fetal position.

That is the cruelest of all possible fates: To be trapped, afraid of what’s ahead, unable to let go of a limited and painful life. That is not what my father would want. That is not what I want for my father.

I will be with my father as we remove the medical support that might have allowed him to recover, and now is simply keeping him functioning. The hospice team will be working to make sure his pain is controlled, and he is made as comfortable as humanly possible. Music will be playing – country music, probably Patsy Cline, certainly Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and maybe Lucinda Williams. Yes, the music is full of the loneliness of the High Plains, and might seem like the least comforting thing to play to a dying man. But I know it’s the music he listened to for hours, traveling at sea or on the highway. It is a friend, comforting him. I’ll be there, letting my father know that he will always be a part of me, and is loved – and that he will live on in not just my memory, but of many, many people whose lives he touched.

With grace moving in the world, my father will stop being afraid, and his spirit will at last be free.