Remembrance of my mother

My mother died a year ago today. I share the remembrance I delivered at her memorial service. Five others gave tributes to her as well, each highlighting different qualities. They all captured a different aspect of my mother; my favorite was my uncle's.

I feel I just transcribed this, and I'm not sure who the author is. After I typed it up but before I actually delivered it, different members of my family came to me and asked that I include this or that. It was strange as not once did they suggest something that wasn't already in there. So I think my mother's spirit had something to do with what is conveyed here:

I speak on behalf of my father, brother Matthew and sisters Beatrice, Eleanor and Olivia, their spouses and for my mother’s grandchildren, Isabelle, Lucas, Austin, Jack, Curtis, Drew, Margot, Sabrina and Ava Angelina, in order to remember our mama as a grandmother and mother.

We and our father are astonished by the outpouring of love and support these last days, especially from this extraordinary place and its people, Oak Knoll. And we are moved by the presence of all of you here. Some came for all of us, some for one of us, some from nearby and some from far away, even against the adversity of some nasty weather. We deeply appreciate you. And hope that first and foremost you TAKE JOY in this celebration of our mother.

She endowed all of us with so many gifts, but I wish to highlight four –
mystery,
magic,
myth
as well as few mandates.

My mother appreciated the sacred and the mystery imbedded in the sacred. She had an awesome mind and such wisdom. She understood much, including that the peace of God passes all understanding, as the liturgy of communion reminds us. Despite the power of her brain or more likely because of, she allowed for that mystery and taught us that not knowing everything was not always a source of frustration but could be an astonishing, valuable gift.

When we were small, in the season of Lent, our parents would stir and wake each of us with a “shhhh” and we’d slip out of our beds and out of our dreams to gather on the steps of the landing for family prayer. We were not allowed to talk until we finished our prayers. We gathered in silence. No words. And so she showed us the power of sacred peace in a small, authentic way.

As we gathered around her death bed, she told Matthew she loved him best, and Beatrice that she loved her best, and Eleanor that she loved her best and Olivia that she loved her best, and of course, me the same. Didn’t make any sense, but we knew it to be true. We enjoyed some initial fake argument over who she said it to first or last and the significance of the order. But she kept saying to us all the time, in mixed up order – no logic or sense. We knew her, and we knew it to be true. Mysteriously, gloriously true.

Mom also valued magic. She loved the magic of the arts, especially the stage, literature, dance, music, most of all jazz. She was always dragging us to New York City to see a film or a concert at Lincoln Center, and we came to appreciate the transcendence of the arts in some of the same ways she did. She gave us magical birthday parties, each with a theme such as dolly sweet sixteen, a circus party, a Laura Ingalls Wilder party, a backwards party and a newspaper party, among numerous others.

And, of course, she loved planning parties for my dad - she gathered friends to “bury his youth” when he turned 30; had him woken at 11 at night for an Old Goat party to mark his 40^th; a 50 hour open house designed also to deprive him of sleep for the 50^th and a beautiful family weekend gathering in Vermont for his 60^th.

She created magic with her family rituals: gathering for breakfast and supper, placing the red plate at our place setting to mark special occasions or accomplishments, cooking specific recipes for holidays, and requiring participation in the annual New Year’s Eve talent show and, of course, always dressing up for holiday dinners. No jeans!

The Christmas season approaches with Advent beginning tomorrow and this time of year was her favorite for she loved nothing more that the magic of Christmas, as several of her grandchildren noted on Wednesday. She and my Dad decided to marry in the Christmas season on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. My dad always said he was the innocent and we never believed him. But writing of hers found and read since Wednesday have led us to consider maybe Dad was right! These things were well hidden while she was alive. By the way, in that same scrap book we also found - a matchbox from the place they went on their first date, a list of things my father liked and disliked; and a newspaper article featuring her when she was a high school senior, 17, in which she declared women should not marry before age 26. She married my father at 19. He magically changed her mind!

When they got engaged, my father wrote his parents, Floyd and Opal, and told them about Angela and how she was a different sort of girl. She didn’t want a diamond engagement ring; she wanted them both to wear simple gold bands. For 25 years, Opal kept that letter, and on a visit east from Ohio she gave it back to her son and said – can you not now afford to buy that girl a diamond? My father listened to his mother, and my mom treasured that letter my father wrote his own mother so many decades earlier.

In this Christmas season, my mom loved the magic of Santa Claus, the magic of lights on a tree and presents under the tree, the magic of so many Christmas carols and the magic and hopeful promise of the candles on the Advent wreath which we lit every night as we awaited the Christ child every year. This time of year was her favorite, and God called her home to Him during this magical time. Though she could not speak, she nodded in agreement when one suggested to her Tuesday night that she’d be our Christmas angel. What a marvelous, magical image!

Mom loved myths. She treasured stories. She was an avid reader and enjoyed stories for themselves, but she also appreciated their power to move, to educate and to connect. She told us and made sure we knew the parable stories of Jesus. We got to know the stories of the Old Testament as we created and assembled a Jesse tree for Advent to show Jesse being the root of Christ, and how those old stories linked with the new ones of Jesus.

On our long summer drives to the Midwest to visit Dad’s family in Ohio and hers in Chicago, she’d entertain us with her own made up stories and mesmerized us - as each of us appeared as a character. We begged for more from our very own, personal storyteller.

And recently, she loved nothing more than to cuddle up with a grandchild to regal them with a story. They often asked, is it a true story, Nini? Their eyes widening with the wonder of her tales pleased her beyond measure. She called them her sugarpusses because their faces were so sweet to her.

And finally, she loved the stories of history, and so our last family gathering was in late June this past year to celebrate my father’s 70^th birthday in Williamsburg , Virginia. She chose that location because she wanted to introduce history, our nation’s history, to her grandchildren in that dynamic place where the stories of our nations are so alive and so accessible.

And finally she left us with some mandates. One of her favorite movies was “I Remember Mama.” She really liked the movie and the book it was based on; it wasn’t just the title. And she wanted us to remember her and for us to make sure that her grandchildren remembered her.

She wanted us to value learning and education, particularly the principles of a Holy Child education as set forth by Cornelia Connelly.

She definitely wanted us to vote Democratic, but even she believed that most important of all was to be an engaged civic citizen. She could not abide those who did not inform themselves about current events and who did not avail themselves of the privilege to vote. And then had the gall to complain.

She allowed bickering but forbade serious arguments. I vividly remember once being annoyed with Beatrice and fiercely arguing with her in ferocious murmurs in the back of the car – angry whispers so Mom wouldn’t hear. And she grew a circle of love and respect among us.

She kept her sense of humor and a twinkle in her eye right to the end, and she’d want us to continue to laugh in our lives. She was self-deprecating and taught us not to take ourselves too seriously.

And last but not least, she passed on to each of us, both in her words and her example, the importance of love that is nurtured in families. A window in our church, Zion, in Vermont is dedicated to that love and depicts the Holy family, and she based the nurturing and safe nest she created for us on that family.

My mom was who she was because of her parents Olga and Tony – particularly her passion, her intelligence and her respect for education. She is with them now.

T.S. Elliot wrote, “In my end, is my beginning.” And also, “All shall be well, and All manner of thing shall be well.”

Her favorite poet was Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem star may lead me
To the sight of Him who Freed me.
Now beginning, and always:
Now begin, on Christmas day.

Rest in peace, dear mother. Do some more magic and be our Christmas angel all year long.

You are with God, and he is with us so we are all still together.

You are with us and will be with us. And we promise you, Mom, that your grandchildren will remember you and the family values you instilled in us. Democratic family values.

We will gather and assemble and connect and stay close with each other and remember you.

We will remember your mystery, your magic, your mythmaking and your mandates. We’ll remember our nini and we’ll remember mama.

Now we worship and thank God for her.

Hillary is Not Electable, Loses to EVERY Republican in New Poll

Think Hillary is the most electable? Think again.

She LOSES to every single Republican contender - even Huckabee! "The questions about her electability have always been there, but as we get close this suggests that is a problem," Zogby said.

Meanwhile - both Edwards and Obama hold narrow leads LEADS against every single Republican contender.

It's a Zogby poll in Reuters.

Defense Sec. Gates Yearns for 'Soft Power'

In speech at a university in Kansas, Gates doesn't sound like the Republicans who've made the messes we live in. He even answered real questions! Finally, some one in the Pentagon talking sense. Not talking about building more anti-ballistic missiles to fight terrorists hiding in caves. It's so refreshing and a relief!

Gates bemoans the lack of "soft power." “It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaida is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America,” he said. “Speed, agility and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications.” Hmmm - wasn't Karen Hughes in charge of this effort?? Until she recently quit.

He's got a few facts wrong. "Gates called for the creation of new government organizations,"
Um - Voice of American and the United States Information Agency still exist. Hello!?! They were gutted along with much of the federal government in the Reagan years (FAA, FCC, HUD, etc, etc, etc). Gates claimed the gutting of happened in the 1990s. Yes, President Clinton continued the downsizing and deregulating and called it triangulation.

Gates also called for more a larger budget for the state department which is 1/10th of the Pentagon (not including the Iraq and Iran war). Note that several reports (one in Vanity Fair last summer) delineate how the Pentagon farms out a bulk of that overblown budget for a mark up to cover former regular Defense Dept. activities to the now infamous private contractors, costing the taxpayer more, enriching scum, outside the normal accountability of law.

Budget is one thing. Just as with the Justice Department under Gonzalez, foreign service agents are fleeing the State Department under Rice. These are career civil servants who have served under both Democrats and Republicans. They are the bureaucrats, technocrats, that make our government work. Oh right, Republicans don't want the federal government to work.

One new thing - anti-war protesters wore t-shirts making "Iraq" a verb - "Don't Iraq Iran." That's good. Even better than Jon Stewart's Messopotamia.

For how an Obama presidency, in one fell swoop, would increase our soft power (and make us safer) - I very strongly recommend again Andrew Sullivan's cover piece in this month's Atlantic Monthly. Sullivan was on This Week yesterday talking about the ideas he outlines in this must read piece.

AP reports on Gates: Defense chief: Fight terrorism with 'soft power.'

Republicans Fleeing the Politics They Created

Today, Trent Lott, MS, announced he is retiring at the end of the year. He wasn't even up for re-election. He's retiring before January so he won't be limited by more restrictive lobbying rules. Those Grand Old Lobbyists!

That makes 6 senate seats that will up, not held by senior incumbents. Who else is leaving?
1. Domenci, NM (implicated in the firing of the Assistant Attorney Generals
2. Craig, ID(bathroom)
3. Hagel , NE(good guy)
4. Warner, VA (another principled guy)
5. Allard CO

Republicans have to defend 23 seats in next year's election, while Democrats have only 12 seats at stake. 4 who are vulnerable in purple states are: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

That 23 does not include Lott. By law there'll be a special election in 90 days. Problem is the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has no money for a special election. Are there any Mississippi millionaires???

You see, today the New York Times reported that the Republicans are so low on cash that they are recruiting millionaires who can afford to finance their own campaigns. You know, because with Republicans money = political power. Entitled, Short of Funds, Republicans Recruit the Rich to Run.

Perhaps Dems will secure a filibuster-proof 60 majority. Imagine - both Houses, the White House. What could be altered - not least of which the tone of politics and the city I love.

Apparently the Republicans have pretty much given up hope for the Senate and feel their only chance to retain power is in the Presidency (that would be if Democrats self destruct and nominate Hillary - see new Zogby poll above). Well, they forget the Federal judiciary which has been stuffed at all levels - District, Apellate and Supreme withe members of the Federalist Society. It'll be a generation (or a FDR inspired court-packing scheme before we recover from 20 years of Republican executive power.

Obama Whams Her

In the last week, I've discussed Barack Obama with a. a taxi driver, b. a CVS cashier and c. a stranger on the stairs. This is why I love DC.

My favorite Obama quote for the day:

"I think the fact of the matter is that Sen. Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn't work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it," Obama said, and added, referring to his relationship with his wife, Michelle, "There is no doubt that Bill Clinton had faith in her and consulted with her on issues, in the same way that I would consult with Michelle, if there were issues," Obama said. "On the other hand, I don't think Michelle would claim that she is the best qualified person to be a United States Senator by virtue of me talking to her on occasion about the work I've done."

He is going to be on Nightline tonight, so tune in. For more, click here.

And if you missed the terrific New Yorker piece on Barack Obama last week, you can read it here. Here's the last sentences, to give you a taste. But read the whole thing; like Obama its inspiring about a new type of politics. Starts with quote and description of Jefferson Jackson Dinner on November 10th.

“If we are really serious about winning this election, Democrats, we can’t live in fear of losing it.” Even many of Clinton’s troops could be seen beating yellow thunder sticks together in appreciation. Obama seemed to be making an argument about the connection between boldness and electability. With Hillary Clinton, he suggested, there is an inverse relationship between the two: she is so polarizing that she is forced to be a milquetoast candidate in order to become an electable one. Obama is not the most liberal candidate in the race, so he’s not defining his boldness strictly in ideological terms but, rather, as a sort of anti-politics that prizes truthtelling above calculation. When I asked him about this new tack, he seemed supremely confident. “I’ve been an observer of politics for two and a half decades, and what I’ve seen is that Democrats have not been able to move their agenda through Washington,” he said. “They have not been able to get the American people to embrace their domestic agenda, and they have been constantly on the defensive when it comes to their foreign-policy agenda. And it seems to me that, you know, if you’re not getting the outcomes you want, you might want to try something different.”

38 DAYS UNTIL THE IOWA CAUCUSES!!!

Why I Canceled My Newsweek Subscription

Rove has is now a columnist for Newsweek, and I wrote the editor and canceled my subscription. (And the person answering the phone knew why I was calling and indicated they'd been getting lots of calls doing the same thing for the same reason).

Dear Mr. Meacham –

With all due respect, Karl Rove is no George Will or George Stephanopoulos or Mary Matalin. I canceled my subscription immediately upon receipt of my issue on Tuesday, and I’ve been a reader of Newsweek for over 20 years.

On Charlie Rose, Tuesday night, Mr. Rove protested he had no idea why he was such a lightening rod. It stretches credulity that he is unaware that his particular brand of partisan policy, ruling from the base, produced the most divided country since the Vietnam War and yes, made him much maligned. He lied repeatedly in that interview on other matters as well.

Rove is responsible, more than anyone, for the incivility that poisons so much of our civil discourse. The act of hiring him goes against the very purpose you state – to conduct debate and disagreement civilly. Impossible with this man You give a liar and a criminal a forum to spread his mendacity and venom.

Even Eugene Robinson, columnist and associate editor at the “Washington Post,” noted how Rove is still a spokesperson for Bush. In an interview Tuesday night on MSNBC on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Olbermann asked: What does this tell us about the relationship of the truth to now, not to the administration of George W. Bush, but the legacy of George W. Bush?

Robinson: I think it will be a tenuous relationship, at best. I think clearly, if you look at everything Rove has said and written since leaving his office in the White House, it‘s been designed to do two things, I think, kind of burnish and preserve the image and reputation of George Bush and burnish and preserve the image and reputation of Karl Rove. That‘s what he‘s doing. I think they‘re intrinsically linked, those two.

I will miss the weekly, and I will particularly miss Evan Thomas, Michael Isikoff (who did terrific work on the Lewinsky scandal), Howard Fineman, Fareed Zakaria, Sharon Begley, Christopher Dickey, Anna Quindlen and Jonathan Alter – great minds and terrific writers and reporters whose names are now sullied by association.

Shame on you and shame on Newsweek. It was a very, very bad judgment call, and Newsweek should reconsider. I find what you did an outrage and an assault, and I am much sadden further about the state of journalism that seems to think any points of view are valid, including those not based on facts, objective facts.

With deep regret -

Cassandra Metzger

Typically, Rove was too busy (self-important) to comment for Politico. And I couldn't agree more with what Paul McLeary of the Columbia Journalism Review had to say about the subject.

Are the Republicans Scared of a Snowman???

Well, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who closely allied himself with the Bush Administration, "suffered a comprehensive defeat." Not just a defeat but a comprehensive one. (sigh here and allow hope to wash over you).

I spent a day with some Aussies a week ago, and we talked of their upcoming election. And of the differences between here and there. I made comment that if Hillary got the nomination I didn't know what I was going to do, I may not vote and I admitted how hard not voting at all would be for me. I was asked if I would "abstain." You see in Australia, by law, you MUST vote. Can you imagine? And so if you don't like any of the candidates you still go and fill out a ballot to abstain. I know this is true in Brazil too thought the penalty there for not voting is nominal.

I also learned that the candidates were flurrying videos to YouTube to directly reach voters. That method got a lot of regular news coverage and then secondarily coverage of the issues that the candidates released videos on. It struck me that here the candidates are not using YouTube nearly enough.

If you know of other voting and political practices in other countries, do share in the comment section below. Americans don't hear enough of how the rest of the world organizes their civic and political affairs.

Speaking of YouTube - the Republican CNN/YouTube debate is finally happening this Wednesday the 28th.

Why so long after the Democrats? Well, originally the Republican YouTube debate was scheduled for September 17th, but candidates kept pulling out. There was much harrumphing that the Republicans were scared to face an a real audience with real questions. I think there's some truth to that, so I expect the debate to be hot and I plan to tune in.

Romney objected to the snowman who asked a question. And the snow man responded:



And Grover Norquist submitted a question, as you can guess, about limiting any tax increases. If you don't know who Grover Norquist is - well, he is another porcine Republican (Rove being the other) who is an under-the-radar organizer of Republicans who held weekly meetings every Thursday to coordinate political attacks.

Officially, he is president of Americans for Tax Reform. He believes that you starve the beast (the federal government) and then it'll be smaller or collapse. He doesn't seem to care that it would not be shrinkage but outsourcing, with a higher bill to taxpayers, that would occur and outsourcing to incompetent cronies at that.

He infamously remarked just two days after the Kerry defeat in 2004 (I was still sobbing) that Democrats just needed to get accustom to their neutering and Washington would return to civility. It was just a paragraph in the Reliable Source (it's the second bullet under "Squibs), but boy oh boy did it rile folks.

And here's Norquist's question (it's sure to make the cut) Don't you think he sort of looks like a pig?:

When Did You Last Recieve a Love Letter?

The Daily Telegraph reports that Brits are Falling out of Love with Love Letters. Fewer than 1 in 5 Brits received a love letter in the last year. The story goes on to relay statistics of such letters, by demographics and age, and also the habit of writing thank you notes.

I suspect that we are ahead of the Brits in this devolution. A 41 cent stamp and 7 pm delivery is still shocking and may have something to do with the aversion to writing letters. I remember 13 cents and mail delivery twice a day.

This morning NPR did a terrific 12 minute story on the collected letters of the Mitford sisters, including an interview with the last surviving sister. Remember Cold Comfort Farm? also a 2001 Masterpiece Theater production with Anthony Andrews in the perfectly creepy role of 'Boy', Pursuit of Love? Oswald Mosley? Mary Lovell, one of my favorite biographers (Rebel Heart on Jane Digby and Cast No Shadow on WWII spy Betty Pack), has a book on the sisters, too. Quite a window into the history of the last century. The loss to history is another reason to mourn the lack of letter writing.

When was the last time you received a hand written note? Vote in the survey in the right side column. And maybe take the time to write a letter today.

Posters to Slam GOP

Arianna Huffington announced an effort to 'visually blog' on the modern GOP and all that it now stands for after 7 years of King George. The graphics are visually aggressive and effective. I'm not so sure about the words. There are three versions: people, slogans, events.

On the people poster, John Yoo is missing. But both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are in a larger font than George Bush, which is funny. Mike Brown should probably simply be Brownie.

On the slogans poster - they are primarily related to the war. No Child Left Behind is missing. The effect of all the war slogans is shocking.

On the events poster - again dominated by the war. Non-war events include climate change, Katrina and intelligent design. That's it. Signing statements, wiretapping, mine disasters are missing.

Designed by Rich Silverstein, the ad guy who came up with "Got Milk?" the posters are an interesting idea. To check it out for yourself and 0ffer your own comments, check it out here.

Presidential History Revealed

One of the other reasons I love DC and that there is C-SPAN radio. On the dial, it's right between the two major radio stations WAMU 88.5 and WETA 90.9. C-SPAN is 90.1. Sometimes going from one to the other, a political hearing or press conference will catch my attention. It's raw and unfiltered.

Then there's C-SPAN television. Last night I caught their Friday night series on Presidential Libraries. I saw a fascinating lengthy commercial for Ford, which aired on election eve 1976, with Pearl Bailey and Joe Garagiola. Then Ford himself spoke while on Air Force One. It seemed so unscripted.

I also saw George H.W. Bush tour the new Air Force One. It looked like the one depicted in the Harrison Ford movie. And Eisenhower give a speech at the United Nations on nuclear proliferation.

Finally, and most interesting, was an interview Brian Lamb did with the woman in charge of all the libraries at the National Archives. The most visited libraries are Kennedy, Johnson and Reagan (Reagan has the retired Air Force One at his library). Johnson's library is free; Reagan's charges twelve bucks. The budget for all the libraries is 58 millions, supplemented by about 10 million from various presidential foundations. Kennedy's is the most expensive because its in Boston. The foundations are playing a more active role because of budget cuts (thank you Republicans) and new archivists are only hired when there is a new library established.

She also address the controversy of the Clinton library. She explained the status and noted (as have news reports) that Bill Clinton put about 6 categories off limits until he or his agent had a chance to review the documents. One area is the correspondence between him and his wife (remember her brother's pardon. Did you remember her brothers at all?). Another, for example, is any correspondence he got from previous presidents. The Clintons need to get someone down there to review and release. The National Archivist portrayed herself as an advocate of access.

To check out the C-SPAN series and see what's coming up next (Friday November 30th is all about Clinton), click here. The link sometimes work and sometimes doesn't. Keep trying. If you like history and politics, there are some fascinating gems.

Also the National Archives has created a presidential time line of the 20th century. A fun resource, it can be found here.

Ted Sorensen Supports Obama

On the 44th anniversary of the Kennedy assignation yesterday, C-SPAN rebroadcast a program from October 17 which was held at the Kennedy School for Government at Harvard. Ted Sorensen talked of the Cuban Missile crises, which occurred 45 years ago.

The discussion was very good, mostly because the questions from the audience were well informed (well, with the exception of one - a baby boomer who bemoaned the lack of social convulsion that "Kennedy inspired" in the 60s and 70s).

Noting the talk of experience in the current presidential campaign, one asked what of Kennedy's background and experience aided him in foreign policy. Sorensen said Kennedy was a

• A man of peace – religious upbringing and the fact that he lost friends and his brother in the war.
• A man who lived abroad, when his father was the British Ambassador
• A man who believed in communication.

Then he noted that only one candidate currently running fit that bill - and he made the connections directly on each point - and that was Barack Obama.

He also shared that he yelled at a Secret Service agent who was protecting Obama (can you imagine???) after the campaign drove through high winds and rains (later deemed a tornado) at a high speed.

You can watch the program yourself here. Also Sorensen has a book coming out next May in 2008.

What I'm Thankful For

Mostly people. I'm deeply grateful for these people in my life :

• Ali M. – for his generosity of spirit, his time and his care.
• Ali S. – for offering his knowledge and service free to help me get better.
• Ari – for helping me quickly with all my computer ails, doing so cheerfully and efficiently, and liking Obama too.
• Anita - for providing emotional support and information in my endeavor to have a child, and for memories.
• Barbara - her sense of humor, encouraging my writing, her companionship with this endeavor to write, her understanding.
• Cecilia - for making me laugh, her emotional support and trips to Cosco.
• Chantal – for her constant and unconditional support, our long friendship (31 years!), and her resilience which is an inspiration.
• Christina – for her knitting help, for her emotional support, laughter, intelligence.
• Christine – for her checking in on me, her notes, care, and our long conversations and making me laugh.
• Claudette - for always making me belly laugh, being artful, and her loving gift of art that hangs on my bedroom wall.
  
• Connan and Blake - for checking in on me, sharing my love of theater, and for memories.
• Corinne - for checking in on me, encouragement and love.
  
• Elizabeth - for her steadfast example of dealing with loss and challenges with wit and intelligence and generosity.
  
• Emily - for checking in on me, and for memories.
• Erik – for adding to my hip factor, and always calling me with loving messages.
• Francesca - for her encouragement, good sense, and humor
  
• Gabriel - for his constant encouragement to keep me social, for the birthday party he gave me this year, and for bringing me groceries.
• Jen - for encouraging my writing and providing excellent and enthusiastic feedback, and for memories.
• John - for deeming me hip enough to have him as a friend, for checking in, and his sense of humor.
• Juliana- for teaching me yoga and inspiring stability and bringing laughter to my life.
  
• Libby - for her like-minded politics, encouragement and moral support, and visits with lunch, for groceries.
• Maggie - her thoroughness and information about film, arts, books, her companionship on this journey of illness.
• Mercedes - for checking in on me, letting me know when a good film is on TCM, and for her emotional support.
• Monica – for reminding me in ways big and small of my mother, sending me articles, and many phone calls checking in on me, her companionship in and understanding of chronic illness which has been a comfort.
• Nickie – for making me laugh, for working my muscles, for welcoming me so warmly and sharing her family and home.
• Sara - for her information, encouragement and visits with lunch.
• Sally - for informing me about Crossings which gave me the best gift, the gift of a dream about my mother.
• Sheryl – for her professional encouragement, her self-reliance which inspires, and her companionship in dating a Brazilian.
• Shirley - for her love, support, making me dinner and bringing her beautiful kids by for a visit.
  
• For my writing group last summer and this spring - Bill, Matt, Sarah, Tom and Zach - for keeping my mind awake, encouragement, and being funny.
  
• And most of all - my yoga students: Aaron, Ali, Carole B., Carole G. Cissy, Ellen, Jan, Karen, Kate, Laura, Maria, Reid, Sylvia, Tamra and Libby and Sara too - for their patience during this year of mourning.
• My care givers - Abdul and Fatima, Kevin, Rebecca, Nickie, Juliana, Claire, Rosalba, Alan, Jennifer, Karen, Ali, Ali, Dorothy and David.
  
• I am also grateful for the joy of children, especially my nieces and nephews Isabelle, Lucas, Austin, Curtis, Jack, Andrew, Margot, Sabrina and Ava.
• I am very grateful for the financial support of my father.
  

Boy, that makes me feel pretty lucky. These months have been trying, and I am appreciative of these connections and relationships which have buoyed me in all sorts of ways.

Thanksgiving Service at the National Cathedral

I attended the Thanksgiving Day Holy Eucharist at the Washington National Cathedral today. But two winters ago, on the first weekend in February of last year, I was at the Cathedral College for a weekend retreat on Centering Prayer. That Saturday, cold and rainy afternoon, a single bell tolled from the Cathedral bell tower at least 60 times, slowly and heavily, rotund with emotion. I lost count, but the sound seemed to go on and on and on, like the mist, that afternoon. There was a funeral and after the service the bell tolled in sadness. And I had just learned the night before that my mother had cancer.

It's a tender time now because my mom died less than a week after Thanksgiving last year. The night before we worked furiously with her doctors to get her out of the hospital so we could all have Thanksgiving safely at home. She'd been in the hospital for nearly three weeks and had discovered during that time that the cancer was back. But she was ready to come home and we were ready for her - with a bed, a baby monitor, television set up, flowers, nebulizer, home nurse, oxygen tank, wheelchair - and lots of love.

I can hardly believe that a year has past. It feels like eons and it feels like moments. And it still feels pretty awful. At the Thanksgiving service, despite the fact that I could hardly get through an entire verse, a stranger complemented me on my singing, which was nice, especially because my mom often did.

A Welsh folk tune, borrowed from my childhood hymnal, the Lutheran Book of Worship of 1978 was the hymn before the sermon.

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving to God the creator triumphantly raise, who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us, who still guides us onto the end of our days. God's banners are o'er us, his light goes before us, a pillar of fire shining forth in the night, till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished, as forward we travel from light into light.

The second verse speaks of the "stars in their course and sun in its orbit." And the preacher told a tale of a friend who'd seen the Aurora Borealis and how it'd affected her. It made her slow down, to feel instead of think, to allow her to be aware that she was of something larger than herself. The word "consider" from its Latin roots - means "with the stars" or "to observe with the stars." so that consideration and contemplation was always meant to take you out of your own world, your own universe. (For more on etymology, click here.)

She also spoke of the flower star gazers. And how they represented the life of contemplation, and how stargazers were thought to have arms open to God and arms open in service to our neighbors. You can listen to the entire sermon of Reverend Canon Carol Wade here.

The closing hymn was an Easter tune, Lasst uns efreuen, a melody written in 1623. The introduction started and I recognized it immediately. My religious heritage and understanding is one of my most treasured gifts from my mother. And I thought how appropriate, given where my mind was, that the service would close with a hymn that I associated with the celebration of the resurrection. It was a comfort.

The melody has at least two versions in the Episcopalian hymnbook - #400 and #618. We sang a version of #400 which was set to words of St. Francis of Asssi -

All creatures of our God sing praise, with thankful hearts your voices raid, O sing praises! Alleluia! O Brother Sun with golden beam, O Sister Moon with silver gleam! O sing praises! O sing praises! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

As I left, the bells were ringing more hymns. The day was warm and I sat in the garden while I called my family from my mobile phone. The bells were joyous, uplifting, melodious and quite different from another sound of those bells on a colder, dreadful day earlier last year. The sounds heartened and yielded a glimmer of hope.

A Woman Finds Home in Italy on Thanksgiving

A heart warming tale on Thanksgiving of a woman who traveled alone to Italy at the age of 41 (my age) to see the town where her grandparents were from. And her life changed.

Thank you Maggie for the heads up.

The Difficulties of Chronic Pain

The last three weeks Jane Brody of the New York Times did a series of columns on chronic pain.

Living With Pain That Just Won't Go Away (November 6th, 2007) yes, she mentioned my condition and also delineates the problems chronic pain cause beyond the physical difficulties including the adverse affect on social connect, economic burden and misunderstanding. Most apt statement: "No one in his right mind -- and most patients were in their right minds before the pain began -- would trade a fulfilling life for the misery of chronic pain."

Chronic Pain: A Burden Often Shared (November 13th 2007). Really address to those who have a family member in pain and how to cope. The suggestions struck me as helpful and relevant, if only I had a family who could take steps one and two. Most apt statement: "Whether you are the patient’s primary or intermittent caregiver, it is important not to contribute to feelings of helplessness."

Many Treatments Can Ease Chronic Pain (November 20th, 2007). She doesn't talk about yoga, but does mention meditation. And she didn't mention what for me was the most difficult side effect of painkiller drugs - dizziness. And she mentioned the fentanyl patches but neglects to note that since July 2005 the FDA has been investigating the patch as a cause of death, a report I saw on CNN just tonight.

On a related note, Dr. McCall has a two-part piece on chronic pain on the Yoga Journal web site.

A Literary Mystery Solved?

I love stories like these in the New York Times today, Wharton Letter Reopens a Mystery. A letter from Edith Wharton shows a writer at work, researching her work and revealing her method. Its fascinating that things like this still come to light.

Did Lily Bart, the heroine of The House of Mirth, intend to commit suicide or not?

I tend to agree with Auchincloss (sorry but I'm not going to spoil the mystery here). But to me the most fasicinating part of the piece is that her ending of The House of Mirth wasn't finished as the beginning was being published serially Scribner’s Magazine.

You can also see the actual letter in a slide show at the New York Times web site above, which is really cool

Why Pat Robertson Endorsed Guiliani

The Dean of Grace Cathedral, the Episcopalian cathedral of San Francisco, is Alan Jones, the author of several books. I've read The Soul's Journey, Exploring the Spiritual life with Dante as Guide, which was just terrific! Also - I own, but have not (yet) read Passion for Pilgrimage, Notes for the Journey Home and Reimagining Christiainity, Reconnect Your Spirit without Disconnecting Your Mind.

Jones is erudite, religion and able to write. And he interviewed Gary Wills - a historian at Northwestern University whose many books delve into American history and religion. He is also a frequent and excellent contributer to The New York Review of Books, most recently writing about Ghiberti's doors, "The Gates of Paridise" from Florence, now on exhibit at the Met. He covers the history, the competition, the religious meaning of the images, the art. To read, click here. (It might be restricted to registered subscribers, but some of NYRB articles are not).

Gary Wills has a new book out, Head and Heart: American Christianities. I wrote about it on October 8th and highlighted a radio interview done on NPR. There's also a book excerpt at that link.

And so Wills and Jones talked about American Christianity. Two smart guys talking about an important subject given how religion is being used in politics by the Republicans. They show how uninformed so much civil discourse is (especially when it invokes the religiousness of our Founding Fathers). And Gary Wills explains the apparent mystery of a social conservative's endorsement of nasty Rudy Guiliani. Pat Roberson, and his ilk, believe that we are fighting the devil (in Iraq and the Middle East) and fighting the devil is more important than anything else. And Guilani seems, to them, to be the best person to lead that fight.

To watch the whole program, click here.

To watch a five minute answer to Was America Founded on Christianity, from Wills' talk at Politics and Prose, watch this:

Karen Armstrong's New Book on the Bible

Karen Armstrong has a new book out on the Bible, "The Bible: A Biography." She did a 30 minute interview on Talk of the Nation.

Andrew Sullivan on Why Obama Can Transcend the Hell of our Civic Discourse

Andrew Sullivan has a MUST read in this month's Atlantic Monthly, called "Goodbye to All That: Is Iraq Vietnam? Who really won in 2000? Which side are you on in the culture wars? These questions have divided the Baby Boomers and distorted our politics. One candidate could transcend them."

I couldn't put it down. I don't agree with quite all that he says. I think the left is much more sane, less extremist, than he does - obviously. But I was pleased to see that Alan Brinkley, the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University, agreed in his review of Ron Brownstein 's book The Second Civil War. "But making the same argument about a similar dogmatism and zealotry among Democrats is a considerable stretch," Brinkley writes.

But whether or not Sullivan is off on which side is more entrenched, we need a way out. I'm desperate for that. And this conservative believes Obama can help us transcend baby boomer angst. The last caller on the Diane Rehm Show tried to ask Brownstein about Sullivan's piece last week; Brownstein didn't answer the question adequately. So far, I've not been impressed with Brownstein's book.

This aspect, the ability to get beyond the poison of the 60s, was a visceral attraction for me, but he put my sense of putting the (political) past behind into words, rather well. It's an interesting perspective, strongly expressed, from an unusual perspective.

Let me note that Newsweek cover story is on 1968. Yuck.

Barak Obama on Meet the Press

Okay - he did well. Nothing hit wow out of the park. Not like his speech last night. But he parried ripostes well.

Let me add that while I don't agree that Tim Russert is to blame for Hillary's lame showing in Philadelphia last Tuesday (as the Hillary campaign leaked to the Drudge Report), I have very little respect for Tim Russert. He seems more impressed with his own questions and doesn't listen very well to the answers. His mind seems to be on the next question. I constantly yell at the telly, what about that, ask about that! (yes, I'm usually alone).

His stupidest question was whether or not being gay is a choice or not:
"Do you believe that it is something that you are born gay and that—or that you can change your behavior?"

Obama answered he did not believe it was a choice. But the better answer is that homosexuality's genesis is not a matter of belief. It's a matter of science. And science is increasingly showing us that homosexuality is not a choice.

To watch the interview or read the transcript, click here.

Obama's JJ Speech Echoes MLK and RFK

I watched it live after midnight, early Sunday morning. The Jefferson Jackson dinner is THE Iowa event. And he was break out.

You've got to watch. (it's about 20 minutes). You'll be inspired; This man is an ORATOR. Finally!

Don't Know Thomas Cahill? You Should

In a strange coincidence I pulled Thomas Cahill's Desire of the Everlasting Hills off my bookshelf over the weekend. He opens, "History has much to do with hills," and goes on to site the hill of Zion, Hamburger Hill, Bunker Hill, Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi. I added to that list in my mind - Capitol Hill. The book covers historical Jesus, what Palestine was like before and after Jesus' life and the life of the early Christian church.

My aunt loaned that book to me after I gobbled up Cahill's Mysteries of the Middle Ages - The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe earlier this year. I LOVED it.
And then Bill Moyer's interviewed him on Friday. You can watch or read the interview here.

Here's what Moyer highlights:
Bill Moyers interviews best-selling author and historian Thomas Cahill in a far ranging interview that takes viewers from the Coliseum in Rome to death row in Texas and examines what our attitudes toward cruelty can tell us about who we are as Americans. “We are the only democracy that is still executing. We're it. There's nobody else,” says Cahill, who is best known for his THE HINGES OF HISTORY series of books, which includes the widely read HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION. Cahill says his books ask how we became the people we are: “It's human cruelty that is evil….We're not willing to acknowledge that this is inside of us. It's there,” he says. ”I'm really interested in…what's good about us.”

Reynolds Price on Faith and Reason

Reynolds Price, a literature professor from Duke, offered an engaging interview today on Fresh Air. (It's actually rebroadcast from June 2006, on the occasion of the paperback edition of his book Letter to a Godchild: Concerning Faith. Reynolds Price has written dozens of volumes of fiction, poetry, plays, essays and translations.

Why Madison Square Garden is Nowhere Near Madison Avenue

A long time ago, when I was a little girl I went to the circus at Madison Square Garden with my family. My mother's parents also were there, in separate seats. I volunteered and was selected to be a part of a parade of kids and got a shiny hat which I kept for years. And while going around the ring also got a chance to wave at my beloved grandmother and father whom I spotted in the stands because they were waving insanely at me! It's a treasured memory.

But I always wondered why Madison Square Garden was called that when the facility was no where near Madison Avenue. Well, in another fun bit of New York City history, here's the story from the New York Times. And it has to do with the circus and P.T. Barnum. It's a fun read. And there's a great video at the link too as well as a walking tour to down load and listen to while you walk the city blocks.

Does Ayurvedic Medicine Work?

It did for me. For 6 weeks in 2002 I was cured of my chronic illness. Now a Frontline reporter investigates how health care is delivered in other parts of the world. In this episode, he focuses on India and the practice of Ayurvedic medicine. It's a good overview. And it's a fascinating result.

Rendition is Always Extraordinary

Last week Frontline/World broadcast a story on "extraordinary rendition." It's about a 30 minute video and well worth the time. Keith Olbermann cited the story the next night.

I'm not sure what makes a rendition extraordinary or not. Any rendition is extraordinary. What does rendition mean? It's the practice of scooping up terrorist suspects and putting them into CIA black sites. CIA officers are on trial in Italy for kidnapping a suspect off the streets of Milan.

It's so myopic and short sighted. These terrorists, suspects, criminals - whatever they are - are put into legal limbo and this practice makes holding them accountable impossible. Our government has done this to British citizens, a man who was undercover for MI-6 who basically abandoned him. I'm not saying all these guys are good guys but we hurt ourselves by engaging in this practice - both short term and long term. And we've even scooped up women and children in Kenya via Ethiopia. (Yes, we've got our mits in the conflicts of Somalia and Ethiopia).

Last month at Politics and Prose, Jack Goldsmith noted, correctly, that the first rendition was done under the Clinton administration on September 22, 1995. This fact makes it onto the web site, but not the television program. And the fact that a Bush official can point to the Clinton Justice Department as approving this practice upsets me.

And if you wish to cleans your palette after familiarizing yourself with what atrocities the Bush Administration has committed, check out this book of a literature professor who teaches at West Point about honor. I remember reading that in World War I that German soldiers would search for Americans to surrender to because word got around that the Americans would treat the enemy honorably, more so than the British. That hurts.

Why is Clarence Thomas so Angry?

The answer is self-pity, according to Jeffrey Toobin. The New Yorker published his review of Thomas's memoir, My Grandfather's Son, and it's the best I've seen. Toobin knows enough to be able to point out the inconsistencies of Thomas' wrath, and that makes the review particularly fun. The historical context Toobin provides is also good.

You can listen to a 12.5 minute interview with Toobin here about Thomas and Toobin's book The Nine.

"No Girlfriend of Mine"

I couldn't agree with Maureen Dowd more, quoting Caitlin Flanagan (from today's column, Hillary la Francaise, Cherchez la Femme):
To call her husband a philanderer is almost to whitewash him, for he’s used women far less sophisticated, educated and powerful than he — women particularly susceptible to the rake’s characteristic blend of cajolery and deceit — for his sexual gratification.

In case you're interested in the Caitlin Flanagan's piece in The Atlantic Monthly, that Dowd cites, it's in the November issue (currently on news stands), and if you're a subscriber you can read it here.

You Must Remember This....

From Richard Wolffe's Newsweek analysis of last night's Democratic debate:
But Clinton's campaign is honing its counterattack. Her aides say the opposition isn't just attacking Hillary, but also impugning her husband—a tack they're confident will turn off most Democrats. "I don't think there's a very large constituency in the Democratic Party for that," says Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson. "I think they're misreading the electorate."

Perhaps. Perhaps people don't remember because in contrast to the fiascos since, the Clinton years are easy to romanticize. Or people just don't remember.

But reminders abound in Jeffrey Toobin's book The Nine, which I find hard to put down. I confess I've been skipping around trying to find the discussion on Bush v. Gore (it starts on page 141, at the opening of "Part Two") But I dipped into two other parts first.

The discussion of Kennedy's (a Reagan nominee to the court) evolution, especially in the area of citing international law rivited me as it was pivotal to the overturning of Bowers v. Hardwick - a 5-4 ruling which said the US Constitution does not include the right to practice sodomy. I remember that case from 1986. Lawrence v. Texas overruled that in June 2003 (6-3 - 5 including Kennedy, O'Connor concurring for different reasons than majority and 3 against - Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist). Kennedy cited the European Court of Human Rights, among other foreign sources. And here's the fascinating part - the Massachusetts Supreme Court relied heavily on Lawrence when it ruled five months later that gays must be allowed to marry. Hmm - just in time for the 2004 election. What if Kennedy hadn't been convinced? Would John Kerry have won without gay marriage as a wedge issue? Isn't history interesting?

Then I fell into the pages describing Ginsburg's and Breyer's nominations to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton (to replace Blackman and White). Breyer is even more "ardent internationalist" on the court. There is a real division on whether this examination of the legal practices and customs of the rest of the world is at all relevant to the deliberations of the US Supreme Court. Toobin recounts the oral arguments of Roper v. Simmons, a death penalty case in which the legality of executing juvenile offenders was considered. What sources could be cited to determine what was "unusual" (as in cruel and unusual punishment)? Breyer noted that the framers drew on foreign sources, that Lincoln studied Blackstone (a British legal scholar). The funniest point came when the lawyer arguing the case uttered he couldn't speak for Thomas Jefferson. Lawyers arguing the specifics of their cases are often taken unawares by the larger issues the justices start throwing at each other. The court overturned the law and said that juvenile death penalty was no longer permitted.

Anyone who thinks the Supreme Court is not an issue in the Presidential Campaigns is wrong. It is and should be more discussed and debated. They deal with important issues and the court has real power.

Back to Clinton's Supreme Court nominations: the process was nightmarish and disorganized. As Toobin notes, "Clinton's entire first year was characterized by similarly vertiginous swings of good and bad fortune." (similar to the high of Ginsberg's successful nomination and the low of Vince Foster's suicide, which occurred on the first day of Ginsberg's hearings). He continues, "Politically and otherwise, this president lived on the edge." (p. 74) Okay, so he's not running, she is. And she doesn't live on the edge. In fact, too far back from it.

But let's not romanticize the 90s and Bill Clinton. Like everyone else, I was excited, so excited in 1992 for the first Democrat to take office since I was 10. It was the first and only inaugural I went down to the Mall to witness. But these passages brought me right back to Lani Gunier, Zoe Baird, the travel office, Hubbell's resignation, Hillary's windfall profit in commodities trading (remember that?), Paula Jones, etc. etc. etc. Why do we want to go back there?

In other notes from Toobin's book -

• Clinton (unlike Bush) ran both nominees by Orrin Hatch, the Republican chair of the Judiciary committee. That's what working with Congress looks like King George.
• Justice Kennedy is portrayed as hungry for the Supreme Court to be involved in Bush v. Gore from the start. Toobin concedes that Kennedy was just doing his job, as FL fell into his area of responsibility for procedural matters. Kennedy sent memos to update the other 8 justices on the case. I don't read this quite as Toobin does - hunger for involvement. Not yet anyway. Any lawyer half awake was been fascinated by the case. I was very sick that fall, and I remember being very grateful that such intricate and obscure legal matters were the subject of 24-hours news, as it should have been with so much at stake. I was surprised to be reminded it was only 36 days. Kennedy interest strikes me as natural as breathing, and keeping his colleagues up to date responsible.
  

More on both The Nine and the debate to come.

Notes from the Iran/US Program

First - you can watch the full web cast here. And I recommend it to you. "We must be informed and we are not." "The rhetoric and shrill language must end and the negotiations must begin. For that to happen, the American people must speak up."

The evening was planned 10 months ago to address and get past grievances and current threats of aggression. When the Cathedral College's Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation first conceived of the program, they did not envision the worsening division and intensity. The event had over 200 attendees, including many Middle Easterners.

I came away with lots of information but for me the two most important realizations were

1. the media is failing us now, again, just as they did before the US invaded Iraq. We must inform ourselves.
   
2. Hillary Clinton made a big mistake with her vote in the Senate last week which labeled the Iranian Republican Guard a terrorist organization. Political analysts have noted that if Bush does attack Iran before the Iowa caucus she'll have a big problem. Pragmatism aside, the vote was dead wrong.

Reverand Canon John L. Peterson, Director of the Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation introduced the evening. He acknowledged the rhetoric has been ratcheted up to the point that military actions seems inevitable. "War is the ultimate definition of human failure." They are working primarily through interfaith dialog but also in informal, track two diplomacy. During a recent trip to Iran, he was struck by their hospitality, curiosity about America and pride in their history.

Justice can have two qualities - a retribution, punishment and retaliation. Archbishop Tutu has shown us another way - restorative justice. A justice that emphasizes a healing of relationships. The latter is preferred and helps avoid further conflict. (Exhibit A: The Treaty of Versailles of 1919). We can have a different outcome between Iran and the US. The healing in South Africa is an example of this type of restorative justice.

Participants from both sides need to discuss openly how each country has been wronged by the other. We hope to open the door for healing and allow forgiveness to occur and provide a mechanism to resolve the conflict through non-violent means. "It is our absolute conviction that healing conflicted relationships through personal contact, respectful engagement, storytelling, and the acknowledge of past grievance is a far more enduring, healing and effective strategy than threats, cajoling and unilateral sanctions, surgical military strikes."

Healing needs the chance to tell stories, each side, the one who hurt and feel the pain validated. This is true between individuals or countries. They need to have contact, tell stories, have pain acknowledged.

The Republican moderator, Rep. Gilchrest, "officials and those people who consider themselves righteous" need to consider more. I am reminded of what Pope Urban VIII said, many centuries ago, that is "it would be an extravagant boldness for anyone to go about to limit or confine the divine nature and wisdom of the wonder of God." And so we're not about to confine things tonight but to open things up." Quoting Protestant clergy Martin Luther, "We are all weak and ignorant creatures trying to probe and understand the incomprehensible majesty, the unfathomable light of the wondrous God." So each of us should try to open up and understand our fellow man.

What follows are random notes, with apologies for the disjointedness:
Iranians are the most like the US. The popular support for the US is strongest in Iran than in any other Arab country, by far. The only country that has more Persian speaking citizens than Iran is the US. Ever Iranian has a relative living in the U.S.

When the first boot hits the ground, the first bullet shot, the first bomb dropped, the Iranians will unite behind their government. Just as American citizens united after 9/11, attacking Iran will unite Iranians behind theirs.

The United States has a pattern of overthrowing (or attempting to overthrow) foreign governments:
Cuba (1898, 1961)
Philippines (1948)
Iran (1953)
Guatemala (1954)
Nicaragua (several times, most recently from 1981-1990)

The pattern of this, evolves through three steps
1. in a foreign country a US company or an economic interest is threatened. That becomes
2. a country of anti-American, anti-Democratic, EVIL. These are more political, geopolitical.
3. We're only doing it to help them (Iraq).

#3 is a newer progression, lately added. But one and two have been part and parcel of most of our attempts to overthrow foreign governments.

Iran has the oldest constitution in the Middle East (ridding the country of the old feudal system and creating a Parliament) . 100 years ago, America was well liked. The colonial forces of the Russian and British Empire pressured the Iranians to expel American mission. That ultimatum created sympathy for the US among the Persian and Persians admired the US and the techniques of representational democracy.

"We need old men to talk before they send young men to die."

Media is again asleep. People need to be informed.

What is the difficulty with the US negotiating with Iran? We negotiated with the evil empire (a.k.a. the Soviet Union. We have negotiated with China. So why not Iran?
Two reasons were suggested -

1. the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. On a deep level, that humiliation still irks our psyche. We never retaliated, and on a "kindergarten" level, we still just want to hit them back and bring them down to size. (This ignores the fact, which most Americans have forgotten, that the US shot down 2 Iranian jets in 1984 and took the side of Iraq in 1987-88 with the US Navy bombing Iranian targets)
2. all issues would have to be on the table, including Israel. That's hard for some to accept so it's preferable simply not to sit down and talk.

Another added that there is a growing sense in Israel that negotiation is preferable to war. War always brings unintended consequences (exhibit A: Iraq).

Even, in recent past - 2003 - Iran was our ally. They quickly denounced the 9/11 attacks. They were instrumental with assistance in Afghanistan - both in bringing down the Taliban and in setting up the new government. In early May 2003, a senior Iranian diplomat was sent to Europe with a proposal for the US. They offered to stop funding Hammas, to turn Hezzbollah into strictly a political party, transparency with their nuclear program. What was the US response? Silence. Why? Perhaps hubris - this was weeks after the invasion of Iraq.

Concluding Remarks:
Religion, make no mistake about, is the fault line of every major conflict in the Middle East, yet it is the least addressed by politicians and diplomats and it is to be a partner at the table. The relationship between these two countries is painful.

Books recommended by Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Bishop of Washington:
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to Present by Michael Oren.
Chane: a Jewish scholar - a very thick book. "You should read it."

The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America by Kenneth Pollack
Cassandra: I have some skepticism about this author who also wrote A Threatening Storm. I read that book and it was instrumental in my initial support of the Iraq war - well, that and the New York Times whose motto is "All the News Fit to Print" and stories by Judy Miller.

Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic by Ray Takeyh
Chane: an Iranian, a well informed individual, much respected by the foreign service

Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam by Mark Bowden
Chane: kind of tombish, a very important book to read
Cassandra: Bowden was one of the writers I met at the Atlantic Monthly event last week.

Chane final words: "In the journey we will all take in the years to come, religion will be the fault line...We need to know. God bless you and be people of peace and reconciliation."

Cathedral Hosts Discussion on US & Iran

I gave a tour of the National Cathedral to some friends yesterday morning and discovered that tomorrow night - Monday, October 29 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm, the Cathedral will host a panel discussion entitled, "The U.S. and Iran: A Difficult History." It will be in the nave and is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required.

The bellicose language coming from government officials frightens. I plan to go to broaden my understanding. And I wanted to share news of this interesting event.

Here's the full text of the invite:
Join us for an evening of respectful engagement and open discussion between representatives from the U.S. and Iran where we will focus on the historical dynamics that frame the current relationship between these two countries. Congressman Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-MD) will serve as moderator.

Questions for discussion include "How did the relationship get to this point?" and "Is it possible to have honesty in this relationship?" We will also explore Iranians' lingering grievances wiht and perceptions of Americans after the 1953 CIA-backed coup and , conversely, the grievances American may hold against Iran including and beyond the 1979 hostage crisis.

Representatives from both sides will talk openly about what lies behind the antagonism between the two countries and discuss constructive ideas and solutions for moving forward. Panelists include

• Bruce Laingen, former Iran hostage and State Department official
• Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times bureau chief and author of All The Shah's Men
• Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council and author of Treacherous Alliance: the Secret Dealings of Isreal, Iran and the United States.
• Dr. Abbas Amanat, Iran scholar, professor of history at Yale University and author of In Search of Modern Iran: Authoriy, Nationhood and Culture.

Please let me know if you plan to attend, and I'll look for you.

How to Become "the Enjoyer"

I was working on some yoga and studying the ancient text the Katha Upanishad and came across this passage.

“Now, imagine the Self as the rider in a chariot.
The body is the chariot, the intellect the driver, and the mind the reins.
The senses are the horses and their objects are the road.
When combined with the senses and the mind, the Self becomes ‘the Enjoyer’ – so say those who know.

When a man lacks wisdom his mind is always restless, and his senses are wild horses dragging the driver this way and that.

But when he has become wise his mind is collected, and his sense-horses are tamed, obedient to the driver’s will.

He who lacks wisdom, whose mind is unsteady, whose actions are not pure, such a one never reaches the highest state and will suffer rebirth again and again.”

This passage seems to me to reflect well the causes of our “unsteady mind(s)” and “impure acts.” – which is can be the source of the harm we cause each other. Nobody is wise all the time.

So what to do about it? Sometimes we're simply too tired to gain control of the reins and steady our minds. We forget what we know and how to act on what we know. Sally Kempton in "Give Me Strength," tries to show us "how to tap into your most reliable support."

Barack Obama on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

If you want to hear Morning Edition host Carl Kasell speak on helium, listen to today's retrospective show which compiles some highlights. I got to attend a recording when they came to DC and did a show at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University in May 2006 (featuring former Mayor Anthony Williams).

If you're not familiar with the program, the laughs about the week's news is a welcome antidote. It's usually broadcast on Saturdays.

Of particular interest to me in this weeks' show was Barack Obama's apology to a reporter. It's featured in the third segment of the program (each runs about 17 minutes). I went back to listen to Barack Obama's appearance on August 6th, 2005. Every week they feature a guest in a game called, "Not My Job." You can listen here.

Corcoran Gallery opens Blake Exhibit

Today the Corcoran Gallery opens Wild Choir: The Cinematic Portraits of Jeremy Blake, and NPR reports.

I'd been following his story since the New York Times reported on him missing and then his death last July. A week after his girlfriend Theresa Duncan, a videogame designer and artist, killed herself, Jeremy Blake walked off into the ocean at Rockaway Beach. His body was found five days later on the Jersey Shore.

Jeremy Blake, a local who grew up in Takoma Park and studied at the Corcoran, created digital videos. The exhibit is open until March and you can see a sample of his work at the NPR link above.

Also of note at the Corcoran is an exhibit featuring the work of Ansel Adams and one of the work of Annie Leibovitz

More Americans Believe in Ghosts than in Bush

Keith Obermann reported tonight on an Associate Press poll which surveyed Americans:

What do you believe in more?

• 34% Ghosts
• 31% Bush's leadership in the war in Iraq

Enough said.

"Little Rock's Fort Knox" Report by Isikoff

In the same vein of Bush-like secrecy reported over the weekend by NPR which I highlighted earlier this week, now Newsweek's investigative reporter, Michael Isikoff writes about "Little Rock's Fort Knox." The piece is entitled Papers? I Don't See Any Papers. He says he's 'pro-disclosure,' but Bill has kept Hillary's White House files under wraps.

Both the secrecy and hypocrisy is Bush-like. Remember this...
"The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and the public release of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties." From January 3, 2003 New York Times report entitled, Bush Openness at Issue as Bush Holds Onto Records.

And since then we've learned worse - White House staffers opened RNC email address accounts to do illegal political work out of the White House and then deleted the emails. Washington Post report here.

Okay, so the Clintons are not doing that. At least.

Is that our low standard? Do Democrats want to behave like George W. Bush? Or mimic his behavior in this way?

Come on! If she wants to be elected on her "experience" then how she gained that experience should be open to scrutiny. It's simply how a democracy is supposed to work.

150 Years of The Atlantic Monthly

Wednesday night, writers and editors from The Atlantic Monthly gathered at Politics and Prose for an exciting event. The occasion was the publication of an anthology of collected essays from over the last 150 years. The edition is terrific and a survey of American history and literature. I wasn’t going to buy it, but by the end of the night I had.

First, some background (offered by Robert Vare, the current editor).

Scientific American began in 1845 and Harper’s Weekly and Town & Country just a few years before 1857, when the editors published the first issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Those founders included such luminaries as Ralph Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Lowell, Francis Underwood, James Cabot, John Motley and Moses Phillips.

Nowadays magazines have "an expected life more akin to 150 days, not 150 years." What accounts for The Atlantic Monthly’s longevity? The current editor attributes their vitality to two factors:

The first factor is that The Atlantic’s unusual genealogical tree set a high standard unlike other magazines. Founders were among the great intellects of the 19^th century. And unlike other magazines, then and now, The Atlantic Monthly genesis was not in the business or publishing side of the industry. It’s a writers’ magazine founded by writers, and so it enjoys a culture that attracts writers.

Their pedigree includes

• novelists (Henry James, Edith Wharton, Hemingway, Nabokov, Bellow);
• humorists (Mark Twain, James Thurber, Mencken, Garrison Keillor);
• poets (Robert Frost, Longfellow, Walt Whitman);
• scientists (Einstein, Oppenheimer, Gould),
• economists (John Maynard Keynes, Galbraith, Milton Friedman),
• historians (Robert Caro, Bernard Lewis, Garry Wills, Arthur Schlesinger),
• jurists (Oliver Wendell Holmes).

After buying the book, I noted this list is served up on the front page of the introduction. Most interesting to me were the future US Presidents wrote the magazine before they ever thought of running for the highest office - Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson (John F. Kennedy also had a speech printed posthumously.).

The second factor is the mission statement, the “Declaration of Purpose” that appeared on the back of the very first issue. The Atlantic Monthly deliberated and determined not to be slanted to parties or sects but rather favor “Freedom, National Progress, and Honor, whether public or private.” And, more essentially, the made a decision to “exploring, monitoring, and promoting what the editors called ‘the American idea,’” and they did this without defining “the American idea.”

Christopher Hitchens got up and spoke of Saul Bellow and Bellow’s career and the controversy around the publication in The Atlantic Monthly of “Mr. Sammler’s Planet” – a story about a black pickpocket in 1969. Bellow has been a Trotsky but moved to the right after the social upheavals of the 60s. And this story caused a brouhaha. Hitchens' presentation was shorter than expected, and he was thinner and more handsome too.

Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, read from his piece on Saddam Hussein, "Tales of the Tyrant" from May 2002. Bowden described it as a “plum line into Hussein’s psyche.” Hussein was a “deformed man corrupted by vainglory and power.”

He generously shared his struggles as a writer. Michael Kelly, editor at the time who subsequently died in Iraq (and wrote a terrific book on the first Gulf War, The Martyr’s Day) assigned the piece to Bowden six weeks before 9/11. And on that day, Michael asked him to drop it and focus on a piece on that event. But Bowden resisted in order to follow the advice of his mentor Gene Roberts, former editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the NYTimes, which was: zig when everyone else zags. So he said with his originally-assigned story on Saddam Hussein.

He also reported that all writers borrow from other writers they admire. Bowden had difficulty figuring out how to structure the piece. But he knew Ryszard Kapuściński’s book, Shah of Shahs (1982) which was impressionistic. Kapuściński, who died this past January, took an image and pulled data in around that image. So, inspired by that framework, Bowden took elements of Hussein’s speeches as jumping off points to incorporate the various and disparate anecdotes. This allowed the reader to get personal with Saddam Hussein.

The editor held up “The Fifty-First State,” by James Fallows as an exception to the otherwise more common very poor journalistic inquiry and coverage leading up the war in Iraq. Fallows asked questions of those who knew about occupations.

Published in 2002, Fallows was eerily prescient. I got to tell him personally that the parts about the electrical grid in Baghdad and their vulnerabilities haunted me. I vividly remember reading that work which constructed scenarios of American invasion and occupation. Fallows wrote several follow up pieces which are collected in a book, Blind into Baghdad.

Fallows noted proudly and awkwardly, he’s been at The Atlantic for 1/5 of those 150 years. He can even remember the 100^th Anniversary edition and his father reading James Thurber to him as a boy. He added that he felt that the current owner was the best of the three he has worked under. He also noted that they have to do much of their research and writing 6-8 months out from publication. This requires a particular kind of vision – to find topics that will be interesting and at the same time not done to death in other media.

After 9/11, The Atlantic considered two places for William Langewiesche - to cover the Northern Alliance or to cover the recovery of New York City. He went to New York first and got unique access to the obscure city agency in charge of the clean up. Observing the hand buckets, human chains of workers, he'd asked, "Who's bringing in the heavy equipment?" The DDC was the answer. He learned that was the Department of Design and Construction. Kenneth Holden, the head of the DDC, got a cold fax from William Langewiesche, and it turned out the Holden was a fan of Langewiesche's work. He was in. And the only one in.

From that pivotal connection, a three part, 70,000-word piece, the longest ever published, appeared and won a National Magazine Award. That writing has been compiled in American Ground.

By that time, William Langewiesche had been working for The Atlantic for 10 years. A former pilot he was tired of airline stories and declared he'd never write another one. Sarcastically, he suggested one about how to turn an airplane. That story, The Turn, published in 1993, turned out to be very well received. (One wonders who read that exactly).

The idea for his work following 9/11 was to put a guy on the ground for nine months and follow "the garbage, granted emotional garbage, big garbage."

I remember his writing vividly. "The scene was not strange to him, but familiar. " And with that he had my full attention. He echoed my feelings about New York City. I grew up in its shadow east in New Jersey. The sun rose over there, down the hill from Summit. Langewiesche called New York City - the supreme, the ultimate city on earth. It's part of America but not. It's New York. Very New York. Learned committees were out; soldiers excluded. Civil servants performed excellently. Money was flowing, but that was not the motivation. At every level there was action and invention. People worked 7 days a week, and Langewiesche did too.

If he had one regret it was that with that intense immersion, he had no idea what else was going on in the rest of America. He had no time to read newspapers. This gave him an optimistic point of view. Probably overly optimistic. He regretted that he had not been more aware and should have acknowledged in some way the broader perspective. For me, the optimism reflected in the stories around the clean up of that disaster heartened me when I read the three lengthy pieces.

Langewiesche conclude by recommended the essay "The Illusion of Security" by George Kennan.

Carla Cohen concluded the evening, noting that the night was a celebration of writing.

Which Branch of Govt defends What, With Bill Moyers

I wrote about this subject earlier in the week and I'm not the only one looking at what "defense" means and who has the power to do that.

I got this notice this evening:
How far can a President go to defend the nation? BILL MOYERS JOURNAL examines the unprecedented Presidential power that some say is being amassed by our current Administration and kept secret in the name of national security. Moyers gets perspective from Charles Fried, who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard Law School and served as solicitor general in the Reagan Administration, and Fritz Schwarz, who served as chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee, which led by Frank Church of Idaho uncovered decades of abuse by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

The program airs tomorrow night on PBS (check local listing, usually 9 pm). There'll also be a follow up their story on Blackwater which aired last week and that I summarized here.

Blackwater is also the subject of a front page New York Times piece. Note that "Columbian" soldiers are guarding the Blackwater compound in the Green Zone, despite Prince's assertion that they are not mercenaries. (The New York Times did not point this lie out).

Law & Order: SVU Educates on Terror and the Law

Some have derided popular television, but it's not all bad. The best educates while the stories entertain. On the other hand, the first (and only) comment on the International Movie Database views the episode as a liberal polemic. If you're not familiar with www.imdb.com, the resources on film, television and actors is unrivaled.

I argued in a lengthy law school paper that stories have a better chance at changing minds than legal opinions or OpEd pieces or essays. I referred to novels, but the same goes for any story telling whether in literature, film, television, comics. Why? Because stories get beneath and beyond the dogmatic knee jerk responses that often prevent listening and sympathy. When you care about a character and are drawn into his or her world, you can understand his or her perspective. When you read an Oped piece, it often become easy to dismiss and think "oh that old soapbox again."

This idea is not new. Dickens did knew this, wrote Olivier Twist and child labor laws resulted. The Jungle (published in 1906) and the government enacted the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Investigative pieces and their use of fictional elements to create a story out the news make them not only more readable (so the reader actually takes in the news) but more convincing because the heart is convinced as much as the mind. I argue that stories convince the heart and keep the mind from interfering when it shouldn't.

Last night's episode of Law & Order: SVU (Special Victims Unit), entitled Harm, told the story of an Iraqi citizen who was tortured in Iraq by a New York doctor and who later died as a result of his torture. The viewer learns the particulars of how torture affects the victims. And not water boarding but what is called "light torture." It was meant to be affecting, and it was.

The first legal threshold was jurisdictional: did NYC have the jurisdiction to prosecute the doctor for criminally negligent homicide? And they brought in Hamdan v. Rumsfield! The prosecutor argued that the courts determined that the US President doesn't declare what's legal (constitutional) or not. Meanwhile the defendent's lawyer cites an executive order. This point - who declares what the law is - is exactly that Jack Goldsmith's book focuses on and even the first question he got was on Hamdan.

So the viewer learns about what we are really doing in Iraq as well as the legal foundations for what we are doing. Kudos. Catch the repeat, usually on Saturday evening. Elizabeth McGovern guest stars.

On a related note, Law & Order: SVU wouldn't even exist but for Robert Chambers who was on the front page of the New York Times again. He's been arrested for selling drugs. Linda Fairstein (A fellow Vassar grad who is now writing really bad crime novels) prosecuted Chambers when he was 19 for the murder of Jennifer Levin in the so-called Preppy Murder case. Fairstein served as the Bureau Chief of the pioneering Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit on which SVU is based.

The Crime of Illness

Two recent personal stories of cancer and the inability to pay for the drugs and care to survive have been highlighted in the national press over the last few days.

First in Newsweek, Geraldine Ferraro writes, How to Mend a Sick System: A Politician Learns Firsthand the Need for Health-Care Reform.

Second in the New York Times, on the Oped page, Bob Herbert on Tuesday relayed a heartrending tale in The Long Dark Night.

The stories are upsetting and infuriating. The state of affairs is deeply wrong.

Remember the Republican Congress in 2005 reformed the bankruptcy laws to make it more difficult for consumers to discharge personal debts. In August the New York Times reported that, "In recent years, the use of high-interest credit cards to pay big medical bills has become a leading cause of consumer bankruptcy."

Do you trust that Hillary Clinton learned from her mistakes in 1993? There's too, too much at stake.

Would President Hillary appoint Obama to Supreme Court?

I hate Charlie Rose from my time working with him at PBS,

BUT

Jeffrey Toobin is on tonight (it repeats during the day in most markets) and talking about The Nine. He repeats many of the stories and ideas he talked about in the Book TV interview I saw two weekends ago and referred to below.

Again - he talks of how liberals assumed that because Roberts was smart he was a really a closet moderate. He suggests that if Hillary was elected she'd nominate Barack Obama (get rid of him by promoting him - it is SO Machiavellian). He talks of O'Connors regrets around Bush v. Gore. He discusses how peculiar it is that Thomas so rarely speaks during oral arguments. I got to witness oral arguments at the Supreme Court once in my life (thank you Dan) and I assumed it was because he was not clever and couldn't think on his feet. He apparently has offered several accounts for his reticence; none are very plausible, notes Toobin.

If I can catch a repeat, I'll try and give a fuller executive summary. At some point, you'll be able to view the interview at this site, supposedly.

Which Branch of Govt Defends What?

An oped piece, Lawbreaker in Chief, in the New York Times today written by a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School, Jed Rubenfeld, is worth a read. He addresses who has the power to decide when a law is constitutional - the executive or the courts or Congress. This power was supposedly determined definitively by Marbury v. Madison - the subject of my undergraduate thesis at Vassar - to rest with the Supreme Court.

Bush and his lawyers have argued that his "authority to defend the nation" trumps his obligation to obey the law. (Goldsmith, see below, does not believe the Presidency is above the law but he would use the term responsibility to defend the country rather than authority and remind us that it is a responsibility that hangs heavily).

Rubenfeld cites the US Constitution and notes that the job to defend the country is expressly listed as a job for (and assigns the power to) Congress. See Article I, Section 8, in pertinent part (emphasis added):
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Article 2 sets forth what the President is supposed to defend (emphasis added):
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Funny, isn't it? Or one might say Orwellian.

Note the preamble that sets out the purpose of the Constitution, the purpose of uniting the states. And contemplate how our union now dysfunctions - how none of the goals are now being achieved.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We have an imperfect union.

We have a union fiercely divided by the likes of Rove in this country. We have unfair legal access that results in injustices. We have domestic turmoil - floods and fires and foreclosures. We have a weak defense with an overextended military and a overpaid wasteful privatized military. We have increasingly limited freedoms with wiretaps as well as the moralistic intrusion of government into medical research and our bedrooms. And we have uneven posterity - if you are diagnosed with cancer and rich you live, if poor you don't.

Do we promote the general welfare - ensure the faring well of generally all of us? No, the Republicans don't believe in general welfare; it's everyone for him or herself.

This sad state of affairs supports the argument for a constitutional convention.