Deep Mourning

Our household is in deep mourning over the Cubs' loss last night and their elimination from the play-offs. We're also in shock over the fact that, three times, they had loaded bases yet couldn't score. As Cubs fans all say, "there's always next year." Perhaps they're waiting for the 100th anniversary of their last championship to win a second. . . ?

Think about it. . . .

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. -- John W. Whitehead

Gratuitous Cuteness IV

Rusty was Mom and Dad's dog and fun-loving companion for many years. The moment they spotted her in the shelter, they knew she had to come live with them. During the summer, her coat was clipped to keep her cool and she seemed to revel in shear/sheer delight after her trims. RIP, Rusty.

Power of the Subconscious Mind

For the past several days I've been struggling with a sense of fear and sadness. Until yesterday I couldn't pin it down to anything specific. Then I read a newspaper article that brought it all back. It was five years ago this month that two snipers terrorized the Washington, D.C. area. They randomly killed 10 people; ten men and women they didn't know, who had done nothing to them and whose families and friends were left in shock and unimaginable anguish. The entire region suffered with them and feared for our own lives. Taking advice from law enforcement, we didn't linger outdoors, in parking lots or at gas stations, trying to keep a car between us and an unknown assailant's bullet. We walked a stooped, zig-zag path to get into grocery stores and avoided unnecessary trips away from home. There was a pall of tension that hung over the region until the snipers were finally caught in an almost serendipitous way. My mind tries to disengage from memories like this, but sometimes my subconscious mind thwarts that. As soon as the sniper memories flowed, the faces of several young adults from Sarajevo (in the former Yugoslavia) came to mind. Years ago, I'd arranged a debriefing for an American Red Cross committee I worked with to get first hand insights on the on-going tragedy in that historic, beautiful, old city. The savagery of shellings and sniper attacks on civilians trying to fulfill basic human needs for food and water was incomprehensible. Each one of these young men and one woman had witnessed friends and family killed. One man told of his best friend being hit by a mortar while both took cover in adjacent doorways. It's not a huge leap to imagine the same things happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can't help but wonder how humans have evolved the capacity to carry-out such atrocities against fellow humans. At one time the four Geneva Conventions were honored, thus saving lives, human dignity, history, infrastructures, and so much more. Waging war also is expensive, so putting limits on damages saves money. Is there simply too much money to be made by the industries that feed conflict and aid in the recovery? I don't want to believe it, but . . .

Honeybees in the Military

I think I now know one reason why there is a shortage of these busy little pollinators -- they've been drafted into the military! The Defense Department put $2 million into the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project. Yup, their keen sense of smell got a bunch of honey bees a gig as explosives sniffers. No joke -- using the Pavlov method, honeybees were fitted with tiny harnesses holding tinier cameras and trained to sniff-out TNT and plastic explosives. They were exposed to different chemicals for a few seconds and rewarded with sugar water when they identified explosives. Now I don't argue with trying to avoid death and mutilation by early detection of explosives, but training honeybees. . . ? I think they're much more effective pollinating plants and should be left to this crucial service.

Happy Pig or Dog -- you choose.

The music has stopped. . .

. . . there will be no dancing in the streets - naked or otherwise - this year. The U.S. Senate failed to rouse enough votes to even put D.C. voting rights on its agenda. Does taxation without representation mean nothing anymore?! The Minute Men must be spinning in their graves! I wonder how other Americans would be feel about paying their federal taxes and having absolutely no say in how they are spent. I would hope that the complacency of many Americans would give way to indignity and loud protests. I just feel like crying. . .

Heroes Inside the Beltway

Despite the seeming pleasure some take in bashing the federal government as a whole, there are thousands of federal employees who labor on in spite of who might be occupying the White House. I live in Washington, D.C. because I love the city. I've never been a federal employee, having spent my working life serving non-profit organizations. Non-profits, like the federal government undergo leadership changes on a fairly regular basis. An unfortunate fact in both arenas is that new leaders often feel compelled to reinvent the wheel -- wasteful and frustrating for long-time employees. Maybe its a power thing, or they just don't get it. Either way, momentum on projects is often lost or worthwhile programs are abandoned all together. STILL, some manage to carry-on and accomplish great things. In 2002, the Partnership for Public Service established the Service to America Medals program to reward the most exemplary federal employees. Following is a sampling of this year's winners: John S. Morgan of the Justice Department created a program that enables local law enforcement to glean and use DNA evidence to close cold cases. Frazer Lockhart of the Energy Department, stationed in Colorado, completed the first successful cleanup of a former nuclear weapons facility $30 billion under budget and 60 years ahead of schedule. Nicole Faison of the Department of Housing and Urban Development created an income-verification program that ended fraudulent payments in HUD's rental assistance program by a cool $2 billion dollars. David Vessely of the Department of Veterans Affairs discovered hormones made by the heart that can benefit treatments for congestive heart failure, cancer, and kidney failure. As in any bureaucracy, there are slackers who don't carry their weight and others who sacrifice extra time and energy because they believe in the mission of their agency. Too often the chiefs take all the credit when it was the Indians who did the work. Three cheers for the Indians!!

The Comb-Over

A reasonably good looking man crossed the street in front of my stopped car yesterday and he had the most amazing comb-over I've ever seen. My first thought was WHY?! Then I wondered how he could believe no one would notice it. It started about 2" above the nape of his neck, went straight up the back of his head and ended in a remarkable swirl on top of his head. It made the front of his hair look as if it was parted on one side and combed toward the other, but there was no part. I was embarrassed for him! My spouse has a lovely balding head with a few, wispy hairs still hanging on at the top. We joke about it, and he knows I would never trade his sweet-smelling, soft-skinned pate for a full head of hair. Too bad other men aren't comfortable enough to BE themselves. There are some very sexy bald/balding men out there and part of their appeal is that they don't let a loss of hair bother them.

Dancing Naked in the Streets

Several months ago, I proclaimed that I would do the above if D.C. won a vote in Congress. Our next chance is this Tuesday when the Senate finally considers a bill granting D.C. and Utah each one new member in the House. Utah already has a few as well as it's allotted two senators while D.C. has none. Even if the Senate gets it together enough to vote for D.C. residents to have the same rights as every other American, Bush has promised to veto the legislation. I still cannot understand his belief (also held by some senators) that granting D.C. voting representation is unconstitutional. Teddy Roosevelt:

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Racial Tensions at U. of Md.

Recent reports of racially targeted harassment -- specifically, a noose found hanging from a tree outside the Black Student Union headquarters-- triggered deja vu for me. During the Spring semester of 1970, I moved back into a College Park women's dorm I'd lived in the previous semester. It was in a quad of two men's dorms with a dining hall in the center. As soon as I got on the floor several dorm-mates rushed up to tell me that my roommate was Black. Seemed they were worried about that. Having been born and raised in the Midwest and my closest friend in middle, high school and now is Black, I was perhaps a bit naive about race relations. Beverly was already in our room, unpacking, so I introduced myself and started unpacking, too. I was a few years older but that didn't seem to bother either one of us. The College Park campus is huge and it had students of every description. Streakers did their thing in the quad and goofy stuff went on, but nothing nasty -- until someone fired a shot at the president of the Black Student Union. Instantly racial lines were drawn. A dorm meeting was called by the BSU president who was justifiably enraged about the attempt on his life. The tension between Beverly and me was palpable for a while, and she spent more time with Black dorm-mates. I felt ashamed because someone of my race was suspected of the crime. I don't think she ever thought of me as a racist, but pressure from her Black peers strained our relationship. It is such a disgrace that, after 37 years, there are still people who want to divide Americans along racial lines. Of course there are also people who want to divide us on ethnic and religious lines, but that's a whole other despicably, tragic conundrum. Next year it will be 40 years since Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within months of each other. That's half a lifetime! Have we learned nothing from these horrendous events? Discrimination of any sort is stupid, painful, destructive and useless because we harm our own civilization. The United States once represented freedom, tolerance and opportunity. Our reputation as a people is on trial here and abroad. I hope we can restore it before it is irreparably damaged. PEACE. . .

Happiness is. . . Part III

. . . rain at night . . . spouse arriving home safely each evening . . . a spontaneous hug from my teenaged nephew . . . finding a special piece of drift wood . . . bright sunshine on a cold day . . . watching a praying mantis sway with the breeze . . . being serenaded by a mocking bird . . . ridding my PC of a new batch of viruses . . . the mathematical intricacy of a Bach concerto . . . watching tourists watching a great blue heron in the Reflecting Pool . . . the little Indian market where I buy chikki -- sesame seed brittle

Reason for Hope?

A team of California-based scientists studying melting icebergs in Antarctica reported finding blooms of microscopic plants in a radius of up to 2 miles around icebergs. They are released when ice melts in the warmer Weddell Sea. In turn, they feed the phytoplankton, attracting tiny krill upon which whales and fish feed. The phytoplankton also consume excess carbon dioxide. I'm not suggesting that humans abandon efforts to decrease greenhouse gases that are causing the ice caps to melt. Rather, I view this as a sign that perhaps this is one of many cycles the Earth has had and will continue to go through. Human neglect may have sped-up the process, but I believe that The Earth has a way of protecting itself against the abuses of its inhabitants.