Unringing a bell

You can't.

There's plenty on the too-early death of Centennial Park bombing hero Richard Jewell, who apparently succumbed to diabetes and renal failure this morning at 44. Why add to it?

Just to rant. The injustice done to Jewell has burned me for years.

Don't get me wrong. The FBI had to look into every potential suspect. It's irresponsible not to. It was their leak to the media of their suspicions that led to Jewell's villification. This article in Vanity Fair blames the media, which certainly lived to regret what it had done to Jewell. But what can a network or paper do with a leak? Ignore it? Say "We'll wait for confirmation"? I'd guess that such a decision rests on the authority wielded by the source. This was the FBI. If they say it and if they give it to the media, they must be pretty damn sure.

So if the FBI has to investigate this suspect, and the media has to be able to judge a leak worthy of publication, based on the quality of the source, then what's wrong with the picture?

I can't even pick which soapbox to get on, here. The media is trapped in profit-making, and profit comes from keeping the hot story alive even when it's in preliminary process. Even when an investigation is in the hypothesis, evidence-gathering stage. And the viewers/readers don't see it as prelimnary, but as The Truth unfolding before their zombified eyes.

Then again, a better education system could train our minds to see a process as being a process, and not a final answer. You could illustrate this in a classrrom with a simple damn coin toss -- toss it a hundred times and show that it will turn up heads or tails about 50-50. But that if you tried to decide which would turn up more often based only on the first ten tosses, you'd get a skewed result. Gather all the evidence before you judge, kids! The early evidence might just tell the opposite of the truth.

And politics. Damnable politics that pressures a federal agency to make it look like they know something we don't. Your government wants you to know that you're in good hands, folks. You silly masses might be fooled by this guy's heroics, but we know, like, psychology stuff, so he won't fool us. We'll protect you from his kind.

Profit, politics, and public emotion-based unthinking stupidity all came together to prevent the truth from getting heard. In a nice blog entry, ronnie recounts "a miscarriage of justice" of a whole different kind, yet not so much. It demonstrates the essential wrongness of the death penalty. You gotta wonder why there is a death penalty, and the only possible answer, to me, is emotion. The desire for a "justice" that really cannot bring justice about, that couches rage, fury, desire for revenge in the too-polite term "justice." If somebody killed my loved one wouldn't I want to see him fry? Sure. Your point? My point is that justice, for Stephen Truscott, Richard Jewell, or anyone else, can never be achieved while we have an emotion-based society that devalues thought and reason. It will insist on hot sensational news stories. It will insist on premature closure. It will insist on white-hot revenge instead of coolheaded reason. And while the job of the justice system is to detach from victim emotion and stay evidence-based and cold (Yes. Cold.), that system is selected and pressured to respond to emotion, and gradually becomes emotion-based.

The Jewell case shows how that bell is never unrung. Once cleared he never got back what he'd lost. That's how it works. He got money. He sued all over the place. Michael Moore gave him a cameo, Saturday Night Live gave him a walk-on. He had a little fun. But his hero status never returned.

Jewell had dreamed of a law enforcement career. He'd been turned down by the local police department, but you could say that some kind of Plan put him where he was needed. Because in his role as a private security guard at Olympic Park, he saved 50-100 lives that day in 1996 when Eric Rudolph set off a bomb. So the good news is that we can't unring that bell either. A lot of people are alive because of Richard Jewell.

So it's a life well-lived. Rest in peace.

Oh well.

I wasn't using my foot stool anyway.

It's been a long time comin'

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And it's gonna be a long time gone.

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Lunar eclipse 8/28/07

Spiritual paths - with a shopping mall detour

I'm surrounded by people with a wide spectrum of religion, or lack of it. It pretty much keeps me from spending any significant time inside any religious comfort zone. And this is good. It's important, I think, to step into other peoples' worlds.

My friend Leila has kind of a zen view. I like her philosophy of charitable giving: "Give where you are spiritually fed," she suggests. We have interesting talks in which she tries to explain to me the state of existence above the plane of duality where there's no good or bad, things just "are." I'm more backward than she is: I keep saying "But if something isn't bad how can it not be good?? And if that plane exists, then there's the plane of duality and the plane of non-duality, which is a duality." It's OK. If it's a spiritual direction in which I need to go, then I'll evolve to it at my own pace. Then there's my ardently anti-religion husband -- he bought a "Born Again Pagan" t-shirt for amusement, but even paganism is too religious for him -- and my conservative Baptist brother.

It was with my brother's family that I just saw my first full-immersion baptism. My niece, who's 11, was baptized this past weekend. I got to be there for something that means the world to people I love, but that's a foreign experience for me, and to see it through their eyes.

My bro and I were raised in the Episcopal church. He was an acolyte. I, 7 years older, wanted to be but this was a closed door to girls in the 60's, in the south anyway. It was for the best though. My interest was a whole lot of desire to be on stage, and no conviction.

Anyway, I'm used to much formality, and to infant baptism. Confirmation for us was at age 12-ish, in 6th grade. We underwent lots of preparation, lots of ceremony. I had a new white dress made out of that 1966 Fortrel (R) stuff that resembled foam rubber, and my first "heels," only an inch and a half tall. All followed by a back yard cookout with gifts -- religious gifts, but gifts nonetheless.

Sunday school "confirmation class" was a year-long thing we took seriously as our key to an important rite of passage. Though once we'd been confirmed and they still expected us to attend confirmation class, my same-age cousin and I decided that was ridiculous. You don't have to keep submitting applications when you're in the club, fer cripes sake. So we would get our bottled Nehi's out of the fellowship hall vending machine, but instead of moseying over to class, we'd go back out to the parking lot, hide on the floor of our parked car till classes started and the lot cleared, then sneak across the street to play in the park.

Circa 20 years ago my brother became a Baptist. Such decisions are highly personal. I've never talked to him about whatever experience moved him to do this.

My default setting is that, in our varying concepts of God or of whatever drives the universe, we each have strictly a "radiant" relationship with it, meaning that each of us is like a wheel spoke. We radiate from the wheel's hub. The other spokes have their own direct connections to the hub, they don't go through me, and their perceptions of that hub's nature should not be challenged by me. I don't consider myself to have the authority or the right to try. This is why I'm pretty much anti-evangelical. Faith is something that can be shared, sure, but that does not need to be.

My bro and I remain close because we give each other full space and acceptance of the different paths we've taken. Anyway, I'd been to a couple services in this church, including my turn as their bridesmaid in 1994, but did not know exactly what to expect from a Baptist full-immersion baptism. I was invited to be there with them so I got ready for a road trip.

[FASHION STUFF ALERT - GUYS CAN IGNORE THIS NEXT PART]

The first thing guys would groan about is that I had time to either get the oil changed, or buy a dress. I bought a dress.

My problem is that I'm not fashion-oriented enough. All my dresses are 10 years old. Outdated style is not a problem in itself. But being age-inappropriate is.

Saturday morning I hauled out my dress options and had to accept that the lacy bibs and flouncy sleeves just do not work on a 53-year-old woman. I came out and said to Larry, "I have to go buy a dress." He said, "I'll come with you and we'll use the Magic Card." At J. C. Penney, I left him the shoe department, hit the sale rack, and, lo-and-behold! found something right away. Simple, nice, and reduced from $70, to $17.49! He got just as good a deal on some sneakers.

[OK, END OF FASHION STUFF]

Next was to gather up the music-to-drive-to CDs I'd spent Friday compiling and burning (instead of checking my wardrobe), and get on the road. It's about a 5 hour drive from here to my brother and sister-in-law's little NC town. When there's no tourist traffic jam, that is. My trip was closer to 7 hours. The CDs didn't play. Well, one did, but much as I love Billie Holiday, I was pretty sick of it by the time i got home.

Rolled into town, and this cool car, which does not resemble anything that occurs in automotive nature, was waiting at the town's one-light intersection. By the time I got the camera on I was too late to capture what Larry tells me is important identification information - the headlights and grill. He says it's a custom or a kit car.

My bro was away till late evening doing biology field work, so my sister-in-law took me and the kids to a local Italian restaurant. Here in this tiny town was this nice little place where they make everything fresh, have their own garden behind the restaurant for fresh herbs and salad veggies. Which I missed photographing because we were around the block before I got the camera out of my purse and turned on. My next camera will hold a charge for an extended time, blast it, and let me leave it on for unexpected shots.

Next morning was the service.

Superficially, the lack of long study and ceremony can make a Baptist baptism seem downright casual.

It's not. Not at all. It's a decision so important that it must be made by you, not for you. But it's also more emotional and less studied. No year-long class. No test on the Apostles' Creed or other doctrine. No set age, though about 7 -- the age of reason -- seems to be the minimum. Each child, or adult, undergoes baptism when he or she is moved to do so. My niece had announced her readiness and gone to the altar to profess her faith at the end of service a couple weeks before this, rather surprising her parents.


She and the pastor are standing in the baptismal pool here. The ceremony is brief. The pastor says a few words about the congregant, and asks her to state her "profession of faith." Then he lowers her into the water and lifts her back up.

Because my niece has all these weird Episcopal relatives, she had gifts to open. No other kids had gifts, they just towelled off their hair and proceeded with a normal Sunday. And I needed to get back on the road to get home before dark.

By the time I'd listened to my 2 listenable CD's (one homemade and one commercial) for the umpteenth time I was on the lookout for a place -- any place! -- to buy CD's. But on the tourist-avoidance route I took, there was not a single mall, WalMart, Kmart or Target.

Wonderful little rural towns dot the route.
But no music stores.

But the drive was smooth and easy. A sullen Graymatter shunned me for 5 hours after I got home, making me wonder what kinds of punishment she'll dole out when we take a week's vacation. I'll think about it later. This was a good weekend, a unique experience for me and very beautiful.

Window wildlife of the day

This morning's visitor was a praying mantis.

Blast from the past no. 2

More from the "things you find when you're looking for something else" files ...

Happy Birthday (in a couple days) to the bane of our 70's feminist existences, Phyllis Schlafly, born August 15, 1924.

I've saved this cartoon for 28 years. It's by Mike Peters and all I have is a photocopy, so I can't source it. It's from page 76 of something. Most likely a news magazine. The only date up there on top left is "1979c."

If anybody does not know who Phyllis Schlafly is -- she was an ardent opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, and of feminism in general. And still is. As of this writing she's still kicking liberal ass, on most every topic. And I still disagree with her on most every topic, but you know what? Schlafly seemed extreme and outrageous to me back then, but now in the Coulter era I miss those relatively (relatively!) thoughtful reasoned days of issue-based discourse. Ya know?

Blast from the past no. 1

From the "things you find when you're looking for something else" files! I didn't know I still had this thing, but I was excited to find it because, simple and primitive though it is, I couldn't reconstruct it now if my life depended on it.

Well I recall -- I hate admitting this -- the major brain contortion that this assignment required of me in 1981. This is an information retrieval program. Part of the library science degree. It assigns search terms to a list of (entirely fictitious) journals, and lets a library customer find them by topic.

I got an A, I'll have you know. I wrote in a provision for the searcher to use a search term not found. And I looped it so the searcher didn't have to re-log-in to do another search. Why is that impressive? Because my super-smart friend Eve, who was the class star, got an A-minus for having it log off after each search.

This was the one and only time I did anything better than Eve did. Yes, I still remember that!

Strawberries and honeysuckle

I woke up to find a wonderful addition to my breakfast waiting for me on the kitchen counter. Larry, who's out filling bird feeders, walking Scooter (they take a morning constitutional, out to the marsh and back, then yard rounds), and tending the gardens long before I'm even conscious, had harvested our first strawberries for me.

It's a tiny berry patch. That's the whole patch right there. It won't yield enough for a pie, won't accumulate for cereal topping. The number edible at any one time would even get lost in a yogurt cup.

So there was nothing to do but .... eat them. Bite into a berry, no ups, no extras, and get a delicious bit of flavor that I would have missed if I'd mixed them into something.

This made me think about my honeysuckle experiment. I was about 8 or 9. All us south'n kids knew how to pick a honeysuckle blossom off its stem, pull the stamen out which raked out a tiny drop of nectar, and catch that extreme sweetness on our tongues.

I'm a kid. I'm thinking, Wow! I bet a whole spoonful of this would be even better than my standard for gourmet flavor - a Nehi Grape soda.

I got a spoon and proceeded to spend, God knows, maybe 20-30 minutes accumulating the tiny drops of nectar in it. By the time I was fed up with this slow process, the bowl of the spoon was only about half full, but close enough. I'd get a sizeable sample of nectar. I gulped it. Horrors. The cloyingly sweet, slightly musty flavor nearly gagged me. It wasn't quite as bad as Creomulsion For Children, but it was bad enough.

Gorging just doesn't work at all for some things - they need to be tasted in tiny exquisite amounts. Others, like fresh-picked berries, would be fine by the bowlful, but can be little marvels one unembellished berry at a time.

Arithmancy 101

When I started this blog I didn't intend a real focus, just whatever I felt like yammering about. But I did figure a theme that would pop up now and again is how I juggle being a Christian and a liberal. Not a problem, till you get to St. Paul. Paul has been evoked to keep women out of the priesthood, to say slavery isn't so bad, to call gay relationships an abomination. He's not the only, or the original, source of any of this but mention his name and lots of people understandably look daggers at you.

And that meant at some point explaining why I think St. Paul is neither God-appointed, nor Satan spawned. A half-done version has been sitting here in my word processor, inspired by a neat history book I found and wanted to share. Then the subject came up elsewhere, so maybe its time to dust this off.

I wondered for a long time why exactly we're supposed to treat Paul's words as The Word of God. There are plenty of sources on the formation of the New Testament canon, but I ran into some clues by accident, in this nifty little book that I read for a whole different reason, i.e., that I like book stuff.



BOOKS AND READERS IN THE EARLY CHURCH: A HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN TEXTS. HARRY Y GAMBLE. YALE U. Pr. 1995. (All quotes are from it, unless otherwise indicated.)

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Nascent Christianity was a scattered and, in the Roman empire, an outlaw movement.  So.  How do you keep a group not only going, but on the straight-and-narrow? Pressure and influence are comin' at it from all sides. Authorities who want to wipe it out. Local gods. The general tendency for any belief system to evolve and fashion new interpretations and rituals. You have to train it like a vine.

Today you'd keep your movement in-touch and on-message by internet and cell phones. In the 1st-to- 3rd centuries it was done with writing.

These numerous and far-flung Christian congregations, large and small, nevertheless retained a sharp awareness of their collective identity as the ecclesia katholike and affirmed their mutual relations through frequent communication.

Till the second century CE, the book as we know it barely existed. A "book" was a scroll. Cumbersome, single-sided, you needed both hands to hold it, you had to rewind afterwards (!) and forget leafing back to a previous passage if you needed it. It's not real hard to see why the codex --the bound pile of leaves between covers, essentially the book as we know it -- took over.

And early Christianity had a lot to do with that. Codices had been used for books before, but hadn't caught on much, and were primarily a way to make early blank books for people to take their own notes in. Then the Christian movement came along.

The short version is that their literature needed to be easily portable, easy to reference, and easily hidden. You could get more text in the same space using a codex than using a scroll. If nothing else, you used both sides. You could also more easily flip to whatever passage dealt with a specific question.

Enter Paul. Advantage number one: he was one of the very earliest to write to far-flung congregations and guide them.

Advantage two: He struck exactly the right note:

One of the most urgent tasks of the Christian movement in its infancy was to support its convictions by showing their consistency with Jewish scriptures. ... Proper interpretation of scripture was...vital to their identity and agency as "the true Israel."... Paul frequently resorts to Jewish scripture in writing to Gentile Christian congregations.

Advantage three: He was considered just as "apostolic" as the Twelve. Eusebius says as much (Church History 3:24, written before 325 CE).

By Paul's self-proclamation, he equated his experience on the road to Damascus as delegation by God of the same level of authority that the Twelve had been given. His --to church authorities-- unimpeachable personal conduct and theology supported this. But another little factor plays in here.

Advantage four: The Mystical Number Seven

There is an old theory, mentioned in a number of ancient Christian sources, that the apostle had written to seven churches and that therefore, because the number seven symbolized totality or universality, Paul had addressed the church at large.

(This would have been an early ten-letter collection [1], some of which were attributed to Paul at the time but were later disproved.)

If the edition had consisted of a group of codices or scrolls, even so small a group as two, it could not have signified Paul's catholic relevance, for nothing would prevent the individual codices or scrolls from being taken separately and the sevenfold disposition of the letters thus being obscured or lost. ... The very nature of this edition therefore required its presentation as a physical unit, a single book.

This reverence for the number seven was pretty powerful stuff to the ancient world mentality. Heck, we're not over it yet. That Paul had been moved to address all of Christiankind only enhanced his reputation as one chosen, set apart.

Paul's Greatest Hits collection was too big for one scroll. Its total length would have been at least double a useable size, and triple the size of an average scroll.

It was almost certainly passed around instead as a codex, a non-traditional format at the time, but one that allowed the collection to maintain that mystical seven-based integrity by existing in one volume. There's evidence -- though no surviving full copies -- that a single-volume "seven churches" edition of his letters was a familiar book by the early 2nd century when the pseudonymous writer of II Peter proclaimed Paul's apostolic status in 3:15-16.

Glimpsing what's behind the canonization of Paul's work actually helps me like the guy better than most liberals probably do.  The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but we pretty much all do the best we can, and Paul felt pressured.  He believed the second coming was imminent, and -- now we're into my opinion here -- that changing societal or gender roles was pointless.   Get the message out, people, we do not have time to quibble about who teaches and who does the cooking when society is about to end anyway.   While he tells one community not to allow women any authority, he acknowledges woman deacons in others (Romans 16, and possibly 1Timothy 3).

What does it add up to? To me it makes sense as an instruction to not waste time sweeping a house that's about to burn down.  However things are, leave them be, and put the effort into the real job.

His condemnation of same-sex relationships stems, I think, from the idea that God creates things to operate exactly One Correct Way, and that any small population that statistically diverges is "unnatural" and has to be the work of Satan. On this I have no trouble dismissing Paul without despising him for it.

Sometimes letting daylight fall on and dissolve the magic is a very good thing. Till we do, the choices falsely appear to be: take his words as those of God Himself ... or dismiss him as a power-mad fraud. Neither is necessary.


[1] Corinthians (1 & 2); Romans; Ephesians; Thessalonians (1 & 2); Galatians; Phillipians; Colossians & Philemon (grouped together).

High drama, 1928

A hazard of selling books is that you want to keep so many of them. I can't sell this! It was one of those delightful junk-shop finds: a 1928 book of sample letters to help you write your way through absolutely any personal or professional crisis.

Sure, it tells you all the proper forms. And some situations are awkward, so guidance in what to say is nice to have. For example, how do you offer condolences to a friend who's suffered catastrophic monetary loss?

Although the blow has been a severe one, there is the great consolation in knowing that your conduct has gained the ungrudging praise of everyone.

But it goes much further. The book must have been a boon to people who just have no clue how to express themselves: what to say in a love letter to your fiancée overseas enclosing a Christmas present; what to say in a casual chatty letter to your daughter who's away at boarding school:

My dearest Mabel,
....I was so glad to get your letter yesterday and to hear that you are quite well. Aunt Jane was here yesterday and asked after you very kindly. She says they are all going to Montreal for August. How is Elsie Fielding? Her mother says she is thinking of going to Vassar when she leaves. I suppose she is very clever. Do you find your clothes lasting well?

You get full-text examples, with various possible replies from yes to no to maybe, and they add up to series of wonderful little soap operae: I find myself getting involved with these people. I'm very happy for Robert J. Smith, who passed his exam with flying colors. His friend Edward Green congratulates him, Robert writes Ed back to say thanks and mention how nervous he was, and Robert's mother is very proud.

There's something for everybody on every side of a transaction: How to solicit for a charity:

Dear Mrs. Mandell,
....As you are no doubt aware, the distress in this neighborhood is becoming very intense, and I have determined to make a special appeal to my parishioners in order to raise a fund to buy blankets and coal and food for the poorest of the poor. I should feel most thankful for any contribution, either of money or of the articles themselves. You can have no idea of the terrible state of poverty that I find on all hands. Many men are out of work and all this falls bitterly hard on the wives and children.

How to say yes:

Dear Mr. Fairchild,
....I enclose herewith a check for $5.00 which I earnestly hope may be of some help. It is indeed a distressing state of affairs. I hear on all hands the great need of the laboring people due to the lack of work and I am glad to do my bit.

How to beg off - man, this is a bit chilly:

Dear Mr. Fairchild,
....I have read your letter with great pain. It is indeed a terrible state of affairs, but it is my firm conviction that indiscriminate giving is the worst possible thing for the poor. The only real cure is to make certain of the continuity of employment. I would gladly subscribe to any scheme to bring that about. In the present condition of the labor market I feel sure that it would be useless to do anything that will merely temporarily alleviate and not definitely eradicate poverty.
...............Yours very truly
.....................Marion Mandell

Now here's a situation where proper wording is vital: "Letter of proposal from a gentleman to a young lady he has met on only a few occasions."
(I worry about Paul and Mabel. Really, I do):

Dear Miss Lucey,
....I fear this letter will surprise you very much but I trust that the genuineness of my feelings will excuse me in your eyes. I first met you at Viola's dance in April and since then I have seen and talked to you on three separate occasions only. But the impression you first created in my mind was so powerful that I have thought of nothing else since then. Each time I have seen you since I have been more and more assured that you, and you alone, are able to give me that happiness which is every man's goal. I will not beat around the bush any more but will ask you straight out--will you marry me?
.....I implore you to think it over well. I cannot explain in writing how passionately I love you and with what joy I would dedicate my whole life to you.
....Although not rich I am comfortable situated and quite in a position to support a wife. I want to come in person and urge my suit and await therefore with profoundest anxiety an answer to this letter.
................Yours devotedly,
.....................Paul Carlson

This sample answer is purportedly a "yes":

Dear Mr. Carlson,
....I hardly know how to answer your letter. It is quite true that we have met very seldom but I already feel as if I had known you for years. I will not say any more now but come around at eight o'clock tonight and you shall have your answer.
...............In haste,
.................Mabel Lucey

Here's how to nix the idea but leave some hope:

Dear Mr. Carlson,
....I need hardly mention that your letter came as a complete surprise to me. Al though I realize the genuineness of your sentiments and feel flattered that they should be directed toward me, I must tell you at once, both for your sake and mine, that all such ideas are quite out of the question. I do not believe in love at first sight and certainly would not trust my happiness to one whom I know so slightly. Forgive me if I appear to speak too plainly but I am convinced that it is the right thing to do. Such an acquaintance as I have with you has been a pleasure to me and I hope we may see more of one another. As for love it is really idle to talk about it.
....Please let us remain friends.
...........Yours always sincerely,
................Mabel Lucey

Then again, despite telling him how to propose, the author of Supreme Letter Writer is also fine with telling the lady how to write an "Angry reply":

Sir:
....I have read your letter with the utmost astonishment. I consider it a gross impertinence. Please do not address me again either in public or by correspondence. You have greatly misjudged me if you consider I will tolerate such liberties. I would have handed your letter to my father to answer if it had not been for the trouble and annoyance it would have caused but if you address me in any way again I shall not hesitate to lay the matter before my parents.
.......Yours truly,
..........M. Lucey

And don't forget that you guys out there must make a lifetime commitment to a woman before you seek permission from her father to "pay her attentions" at all:

Dear Mr. Shaw,
....I am writing about a delicate matter because I feel it is the honorable course to pursue. It is this: I want your permission to pay attentions to your daughter Peggy. I have known your family now for over six months and from the very first I felt sure that Miss Shaw was the only girl I could ever love.

Favorable reply from dad:

Dear Mr. Bently,
....I am in receipt of your letter of the twenty-first, for which I thank you. I consider that you have behaved in an honourable and straightforward manner. Could you come round to my office in Ross Street at five o'clock tomorrow and talk this matter over. If, as I have no doubt will be the case, you can supply me with satisfactory information about your position and prospects, my wife and I shall have no objections to your paying suit to our daughter.

(Just wait everybody! 1929 is coming!)

And if you don't know how you feel about a man's proposal - have Mom tell you!

Dearest Mother,
.......I told him that I could not give him any definite answer then and that I must think it over. I have known him only a short time, and yet I seem to know him so intimately. You will ask me, what are my feelings toward him. Well, that is just what I find it so hard to know. I think I care for him very much but he is so different from anyone else I have ever seen that I sometimes mistrust myself and imagine it may be only the effect of his delightful manner. Dearest mother, what answer should I give him? I resolved I would lay it all before you.
........With fond love
...........from your affectionate daughter
...............Sally

Mom actually seems to be OK with this, though she diplomatically throws in a caution:

My darling Sally,
....Take a few days to think it over but if you are certain that it will be for your happiness do not hesitate to accept him. Remember, dear little daughter, that marriage is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse on earth.
.......Ever your devoted mother
............Mabel Hill

Then again, if the kid has to ask, she shouldn't do it:

.....I am convinced that you will be doing the wisest thing if you refuse him. If he is still resolved to win you, this will not definitely retard him and with a further knowledge of one another you will understand your own hearts better.
............With deepest love
................Your devoted mother

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Middle-aged people, of course, are not troubled by such passions. Or they aren't supposed to let on, even when proposing:

Dear Mrs. Ryder,
....I venture to address myself to you in the following manner because I know you will not misunderstand what I am going to say.
....You and I have both known the joys and sorrows of matrimony. We have both known many years of happiness and we have both lost the partners of our lives. And now in our middle age we are both living lonely lives, with nothing to look forward to but lonely old age. Is it not possible that this may be remedied?
.........Believe me, dear Mrs. Ryder,
.............Your sincere friend
....................Martin Chenney

Hey, if you can't get her interested by other means - depress her!

And in this sample acceptance, is there the subtle subtext of "OK, I'll darn your socks but you're not gonna get any"?

Dear Mr. Chenney,
....I will answer your letter quite frankly. I believe that it would be for our mutual happiness to marry. It would be absurd to pretend that we can look upon it with the same rapture as young people do but I sincerely think that we could be a help and comfort to one another.
........Yours very cordially,
..............Olive Ryder

Last but not least, the kind of letter I'm so very glad my boss can't send me, because I'm self-employed:

Dear Mr. Mason:
....Although I have spoken to you several times about your lax attention to your duties, I have been unable to notice any improvement in your conduct. I have therefore come to the conclusion that I must ask you to leave my service.

Well then, I guess I should get back to work...

Gotcha!

A mimosa tree stands right outside my office window. I get the totally cool experience of having hummingbirds hover 2-3 times a day, a few inches from my foot, with 3 layers of window -- glass, screen, shutter -- between us.

Considering the frequency of these visits, you would think a picture would be easy to get. But mimosa doesn't turn them on enough for them to linger and allow me to turn on the camera,

persuade a cat to get his head outta the blasted way (a much better hummer shot got blocked here by dear Downy),

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and snap. So getting that top shot at all was a joy!

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A problem

Awhile ago my friend Dann posted a blog entry, which in turn referred us to this blog by Michael Yon. It's a long entry and has some interesting stuff and some great photos. But what Dann was understandably disturbed by -- as was I -- was this quote:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

This kind of thing is enough to send a cold chill down anyone's back. And from what we all know of al Qaeda, they're twisted enough in their thinking to use any means to achieve an end.
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But it didn't quite make sense to me. Everything I read about any militant Islamist organization shows them using much more logical tools to gain the trust and participation of the people. They hand out money. They move in where there's war or disaster and turn people against the West with acts of charity that make them beloved and protected as they spread their tentacles through the populus. Do they intimidate or do they recruit? Probably both.

You can't prove a negative. Did it happen? Does it happen? I asked my Israeli friend.

This is a woman who is very politically active. She's a political writer, steeped in news and blog sources, reads all sides. And she deeply loves her country. Like all Israeli citizens, she served in the INF, and her son does now. During last summer's war with Lebanon, she was near the border helping the citrus harvest in the kibbutz in which she was raised. Her husband was reactivated to INF duty and she spent the war in a bomb shelter wondering if he and their son would come home. Neither she, nor any Israeli, will have any liking for militant anti-Israel Islam. She says this and I offer it to you:

Yes, this is a very common regional rumour, and appears from time to time. I personally heard it first about the Syrians back in 1968. Here is an account of it from a right wing [emphasis mine] newspaper:

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56643 It's obviously apocryphal, there is no substantiation of it and it is a very common rumour, as I said. It has appeared from time to time in many situations, from the Inquisition onwards and probably before that. There is a sociological issue, or button, that is pushed whenever cannabalism is mentioned and it is very common to accuse one's enemies of it to demonise them. It's done by most cultures who want to de-humanise their opposition. It has a parallel in the "Jews use the blood of Christian Children to make matzoh" slander common in Poland and other eastern european nations in the 16-20th centuries, also.

It is not true - the story your friend and World Net Daily quoted - and you will notice there is no sourcing, no direct witnesses, etc., so it has all the earmarks of an urban legend. You will not find this story sourced in any legitimate press (and if there was a shred of evidence of it's veracity, believe me, there are a million Fox reporters who would be slavering to report it, as well as Murdoch rags).

One of the tough writing days

I started writing stories as a little kid. Poems too. People asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. "A writer!" I'd pipe, like a true naif who had no idea what she was getting into.

I should be struggling with Chapter Three right now, but after a few hours of the misery (Some days suck), I'm going to knock off for the day and instead write about a mentor.

I owe a lot of people who've inspired my writing efforts. But this is going to be about my babysitter and my friend. Barbara.

That's her, the 18-year-old babe taking care of me and my brother, circa 1962. I'm the 8-year-old Charm School valedictorian there in the foreground.

My dad was an orthopedic surgeon, and performed knee surgery on Barbara when she was 16. My folks wanted a Mother's Helper to keep us watched and un-drowned at the beach, and Barbara came into our lives. Often through the years she babysat us.

God how I wanted to be Barbara! She was pretty and funny and smart. She had a boyfriend, and smoked, and wore Tabu talcum powder. And she could talk me through any pre-teen, or teenage, bout of angst. Social crap. Anxiety about what a new school would demand from me. When my parents sensed something bothering me, they'd invite Barbara over for the evening. Some dinner ingredient was always missing. She'd volunteer to make a grocery store run, ask me along and, as we drove to the A&P, casually bring up whatever my parents had surmised that I was worried about.
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She married the longtime boyfriend when I was in ninth grade and their first child was born a year later. Then she and her husband moved, and we saw them infrequently. It was some time before we had another long talk. In fact, it was 2005.

Meantime she fought, and beat, breast cancer in around 1994. Her husband left. She returned to school and became a psychologist. In summer 2004 we got word that she had advanced ovarian cancer and had five months to live.

So I was amazed when the phone rang about a year later and Barbara was on the other end of the line, a voice I recognized instantly, even after 15 years. No, she didn't make it. M.D. Anderson cancer center in Houston, which she praised to the skies, gave her an extra year, and a quality one, a year of nature hikes and gardening. And one last talk with me.

We stayed on the phone for over an hour. She asked me if I still wrote.

"Bleah, yeah, I started a novel years ago. I got about half of it written, but I dropped it."

"Why?"

I had to laugh at myself: "Because I wrote all the fun easy parts and now the only thing left is dreary work!"

"You can't look at it that way. You come to it with this negative feeling about it, of course you'll never do it. Instead just sit down and start writing. Don't think of it as the dull hard work, just see what flows."

I know it was because she was so sick that I wanted to do it, more for her than for myself. I gave it a couple more fits of attention.

In winter, it became my own again. A new idea occurred to me and it engaged me as much as the old plot points I'd put in place years before. I planted myself in the chair and made it a daily task.

Barbara got to meet and spend time with her first grandchild. She talked to my parents on the phone too, told them a funny anecdote about hiking in a wild area around Houston and a nice dog following her home. She could laugh and get joy out of any day God gave her. The time came though, when she made the decision to quit chemo. She entered a hospice after Christmas 2005, and died in January 2006.

I'm still not past it. It was stupid and wrong. By the time I talked with her she was past the anger over her original doctor's negligence. I'm not. But there it is.

I finished my first draft in April 2007. It bites in a lot of ways, and my rewrite journey makes me grind my teeth, but completing a draft was a milestone. Eventually it will be what I want it to be. OK, probably never, but eventually I'll feel ready to send it out there to sink or swim. Don't hold your breath.

But there will be 3 dedicatees, and Barbara will be one.

Graymatter Chronicle now up

Man, that turned out a lot longer than I meant for it to -- but Graymatter is not a cat who can be described briefly!

It's the best of times...it's the worst of times. It's life with Graymatter.

Charles Lane has died at ...102!

So Larry and I have just finished dinner, a dvd and a discussion of the rare moments in TV that blew our minds, and I log on and see that Charles Lane has died.

Who?

Here he is in It's a Wonderful Life.

He played Homer Bedloe as a semi-regular on Petticoat Junction. He had regular roles in 5 TV series between 1954 and 1975, including the 1962-3 mutation of The Lucy Show. On Bewitched he guested 5 times as 5 different characters within about a 2-year period. Don't be impressed, I didn't recall all this. I checked imdb and Brooks & Martin's Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. Librarians don't really store a lot of information, they just know where to find it.
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This is the resume of a good reliable portrayer of stock characters. But he was also talented as all get-out, and sometimes got to show what he could really do. I'm not the only one who noticed. Here's somebody else's homage to another of his performances, a small role that made a big impression.
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It was in an episode of St. Elsewhere, in 1987, that he gave a performance that took my breath away..

It's in the imdb. It's called "Weigh In, Way Out." What imdb doesn't tell you was that this was one of the show's unconventional artsy episodes, and one of the best.

In three subplots. the episode takes on three stages of life. There's a maternity ward story, a mid-life story and an old man's death. But the episode didn't use normal short scenes, constantly shifting among them. It gave each subplot long long stretches on camera. And, particularly effective in Lane's segment, it gave actors lengthy real-time scenes, all in one take.

Lane, age 82 at the time, played a man having a "good death" full of years and scrolling in his mind through his life. Lane had to memorize and speak a long passage, increasingly incoherent, moving out of this life and slipping into the next. Such a stream-of-consciousness is extremely hard to memorize, to me anyway, much less to perform with heartaching plausibility. I still remember sitting there as the credits rolled, feeling an excitement that came from having a not-so-common glimpse of true excellence. Lane wasn't all that was good about it. The writing, the direction, it all came together to say something beautiful about the human experience. Maybe I was unduly impressed with Lane's performance merely because of his age-- but no, it was that good.
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One of the commenters in a TV site (I think it was Jump the Shark) said she checked after she watched it, to see if Lane had really died.

Not even close! 8~)

That performance has stayed with me for 20 years, and goes into my "unforgettable" file. Great fictional TV doesn't change the world, but it gave me a glimpse of what's good about humanity. I need that sometimes.
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Bon voyage Mr. Lane.

Meanwhile - a beautiful song

During a YouTube binge I ran across this tribute to Barbara Stanwyck, set to a Cowboy Junkies song I never heard before. It amazed me. This describes exquisitely the kind of mountain sanctuary Larry and I dream to have someday.

Conquering technology

Another in my list of things other people have probably known for years, but that I just figured out is: some players won't play a translucent CD. Specifically, this computer's disc drive can't see the thing.

NO DISC IN DRIVE

STOP CLICKING RETRY, YOU IDIOT

NO DISC IN DRIVE, AM I TALKING TO MYSELF HERE?

Presumably the light beam goes through instead of being properly blocked.
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And another demonstration that I'm not very observant has taken place because I've owned this disc for at least a decade and never noticed. You gotta hold it up to the light, like this, and by Jove, the problem becomes, uh, clear:

So I grabbed the first piece of scrap paper at hand, cut a circle in it, Scotch[TM] taped it to the top of the disc:

... and the drive finally recognized it and let me pull off two tracks for a homemade compilation.
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I can color in the lines too. Mostly.

Between houseguests (one batch leaves tomorrow. The next, for whom this disc is intended, arrives Wednesday) I'm assembling a nice photo essay on Graymatter. It'll go on the cat blog. Stay tuned.

History gets heavier

What better day to pay homage to the histories of both the U.S. and this blog, than July 4th?

In August 2006, a brief discussion in r.a.c.s. about the increasing textbook weight that kids haul inspired me to raid my slightly weird collection of old schoolbooks and weigh the books to see if they really were getting heavier. I mean, why let a relatively boring topic fade away when it was such a great opportunity for a book collector to be pedantic?
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As I said in that usenet post, US history may not the be the best choice for proving the point. A high percentage of a 400-year-old settlement/200-year-old nation's history will really not have existed in the books of 100 years ago.
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We're a young country. Long may we live to learn from our mistakes and make it a better and better place.
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Anyway, I picked US history for my book weigh-in for the dumbest reason of all: I had the books. I have an eclectic bunch of old textbooks, but only on this topic could I assemble a relatively well-spaced-out timeline of books all geared to a single school level. There are a couple of substantial time gaps, but it provided one of the staples of internet discussion -- anecdotal evidence! And it stacked up:
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1872 - 1 lb, 1 oz. .......7.5 x 5 inches
1941 - 2 lbs, 7 oz. ... 8.25 x 6.25 inches
1960 - 3 lbs, 3 oz. .... 9.5 x 8.5 inches
1991 - 5 lbs, 11 oz. ... 10.25 x 8.25 inches
1998 - 6 lbs, 6 oz. .... 11 x 8.75 inches.
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Why I was also moved to take a picture of them at the same time, I couldn't tell you but there it is. I dimly recall thinking somebody might scoff that I had made up my figures. I mean, what normal person would clog up their home with this stuff and have it on hand? But this at least proved that the books existed. Then I thought, as I had a few times before: "I should start a website or a blog or something, where I could both post pictures and rant."

And a couple weeks later, I took a deep breath and plunged into the weblog world.

Happy Fourth, everybody. It's 9PM, the pyrotechnics have begun, and Downyflake, The Fireworks-Challenged Cat, has just jumped up to inform me that a Comforting Session will be expected.

Don't cross the Goddess

You'll

be very

sorry.

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GRAYMATTER

2005

Cats I've Known and Not - new to the blogroll

In going through his slide collection, Larry has found a lot of pictures from his 30+ year associations with more cats than I can imagine -- he lived with 18 of them, at one time.

So what the heck, he figured, why not start a blog about them? Cats I've Known and Not is now up and running. I've guest-blogged already, sharing some very old pix of several cats who owned friends or neighbors, but deigned to associate with me.