We Remember Our Warriors

On Memorial Day I remember my dad who was in the Pacific in WWII and nearly drowned in the typhoon, Mom’s cousin Trevor who died when his plane got shot down, Uncle Don whose ship’s sonar pinged what they believed to be the lost Titanic, and my grandfathers who were in WWI, one in France getting shot at [the mc] and one serving here.

They knew what they were fighting for. But I cry to think of the wasted deaths and the broken human lives that are the result of the lies that got us into this war in Iraq.

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photo by pagedooley at Santa Monica Beach, one cross for each American killed in Iraq.

You Can't Get There From Here

Commenter Carelli on Carolyn Hax's column Tell Me About It has some good stuff to share:

So many people get caught up in following the plan (whatever that is) that they don't realize how unhappy they are. You never know how bad you feel until you start feeling better....

All you have to do is choose what you want to do for the next 5 years or so, because you won't be starting all over (i.e., get another 4 yr degree) if you want to change. We're a fluid society - you have to start somewhere, you did, now go look for what you want.

And it's OK if it's only what you want for 5 years. I can't wait to find out what I'm going to do when I'm 60, and when I'm 80.

[egregious bold]

This resonates with me as I ponder my new single life in California, frequently asking myself, how did it come to this, and what next?

My father was fond of the saying, with regard to giving someone driving directions, "You can't get there from here. You have to go someplace else and start over again."

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photo by Madeleine

Rejoicing: My Car Arrived

Bought a beautiful bouquet of irises, realized a little late in the game that my vase is still ten days away on a moving van.

But a car of this same color arrived yesterday evening. I'm so happy!

The two guys that drove the car carrier were good ole boys from North Carolina, sounded like my Kentucky dad. One of them had a fire/police/rescue shirt on, I imagine he is in the auxiliary as so many of them are there. Different kind of rescue, to reunite me with my beloved car.

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photo by lilcrabbygal

Go Blue!

En route to Michigan. Have a warm feeling in my heart towards the place, nearly went to school there both undergrad and public health.

Grew up with an OSU father who taught us to say "beat Michigan" in the same way that we reflexively learned to respond "beat Army" when anyone said Army. Hope it's ok to change my loyalty and root for Michigan now. Don't worry, still pro-Navy here.

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Photo by DaveChiu

Baptized in an Orchestra Pit

Sunday morning service in the church where our family has baptisms, weddings, funerals. Well, except that the new building was under construction when I was born, so services were at the nearby junior high school. I was actually baptized in the orchestra pit, which is a pretty good beginning for a future musician.

Walked the floor where my father's casket was placed for his funeral. Wandered the halls where Sunday School teachers taught me right from wrong and explained that there were children dying from lack of food and medicine -- which I vowed at age 10 to do something about. Touched the pipe organ that children were forbidden to touch. Walked up to the altar where my soon to be ex husband and I exchanged wedding vows some 30 years ago.

So many emotions from grief to joy, but the overarching sensation was one of gratitude:

For the people who gave sacrificially to build this beautiful place where so much has happened in my life.

For the minister who taught us to be in awe of the astonishing universe God created.

For the teachers who patiently explained lessons of charity and love.

For the kindergarten choir director who had us sing, unbelievably, In Excelsis Deo [Angels We Have Heard On High]. I did years later have occasion to ask him what possessed him to teach such difficult music to 5 year olds. He said he simply didn't explain that it was difficult, and we did it. There's a lesson in there somewhere.


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Photo by Arkansas Wanderer

I've met Libby. Do I hate him?

It might not surprise you to learn that I have highs and lows. Summer, and June in particular, is the season for frequent highs. When things are working well, this is euphoria, thank you God. Sometimes it is high anxiety but in any case is high energy. I try to focus this energy, of whatever form, into my work and my life.

On the occasion of Scooter Libby being remanded to prison, I find myself with mixed emotions. A human being is going to prison. A human being that I have seen in person at the trial, he passed by me several times, and looked at me in the courtroom several times, probably wondering which newspaper I write for. That would be firedoglake for the record. I believe we are the first bloggers to have official journalist credentials in a federal trial. It was my great privilege to be the emergency backup blogger in the courtroom and in the media room three times.

So do I hate this man? As a person, no. I tried to perceive whether there was something evil emanating from him. Answer: no. I don't think at heart he is an evil person. Yet, just as with John Hannah, I must keep in mind that their actions helped send our nation into a war of aggression based on lies, which they helped spread, a war which has killed 3,500 young Americans and blown off arms and legs of 20,000 more and created tens of thousands of post traumatic stress disorder patients who, along with their families, will likely suffer for decades. Hard to see this when looking at him.

For the record, there are people I perceive as being fundamentally evil [not entirely, thank you Quaker ancestors] and there are a small number of people that I hate. What does it mean to hate? That you wish hell upon them. I think I hate the man who carjacked and killed musician Dale Fredericks, Marine Band trombone player, because my own brother played trombone in another service band and it could just as easily have been him. Hate is bad for the soul. I try to move beyond it.

So this human Scooter Libby, that I do not hate, has been told he will be sent to prison, unless his desperate appeals work. Legally he has scant grounds for an appeal. Politically, it may be that people at a high enough level of power will never be sent to prison. But for now, it does seem that there will be justice. My father used to say, as he went off to work at his law office, "Do justice, love mercy. Well, one out of two." It is always harsh to send a human being to confinement. But so many people have worked to bring this case forward, to ensure that justice be done in spite of the power and privilege of the defendant. We rejoice today that our legal system while fragile is still working.

I also had the pleasure of meeting two people today, one at work and one at home. We tend to go in circles thinking that what we have is what will always be, instead of considering that something new and wonderful might come our way. My younger daughter is fond of advocating that we need to look up more often. She means literally up, as in trees and birds and sky and stars, but I think it works metaphorically as well. Let us look up for what is good, what is new, what is next.

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My brother's birth and death day

May 29, 1950, my brother's birth day. And his death day. He lived to be 3 hours. In those days they took the baby away from the mother immediately, she never got to hold him, and she never knew what happened to him. I found where he was buried and got his death certificate decades later. This is a child who was born alive who was simply taken away. But he shaped my destiny.

Surely my work at the St. Petersburg Children's Hospital has multiple reasons for its existence. I was raised as a Christian to "love your enemies" and no one could be more our enemy than the Soviet Union, whose stated goal was that they would bury us. We thought there would be World War III and that few would survive.

And when I talk about love, here is what I mean. When my Dad was a child he wrote a letter to Santa that was printed in the Middletown [Ohio] Journal:

"I am six years old and live at 604 Mary Etta street. You may fill my stocking if you have anything left after you visit the little boys and girls who do not have toys."

This is the definition of love in our family. Dad would give you the grocery money and not think twice. Mother would guide us to do the right thing despite obstacles. Ha! As the oldest in this family I was doomed to be a humanitarian.

Was it my choice? Totally. But the energy pushing me toward this goal was intense. Do something high, something important, something meaningful, something of high moral standards. No pressure. And the sacrifice of my personal, physical, emotional life? No problem. I feel fortunate that I penciled in time to get married and have children. That worked out well. But the guilt remains. How much time for which goals.

So now my lovely children have grown up and are doing wonderful things of their own. I have created a program that has directly saved the lives of 3,000+ children. Is it enough? Dear God I hope so but fear it is not. Do I have enough left in me to go one more round?

And I am not even counting my involvement in things political in order to keep our nation from descending into totalitarianism. I spend much of my time these days working behind the scenes here in Washington to help save what's left of our nation from tyranny. I argue with very intelligent people who don't yet see the danger about what has happened and what can happen. The Republicans in government now have gone too far. Can we keep them from taking control of the elections, of what's left of the Justice Department, I would go on but I'm crying.

GOD HELP US

Plamehouse! So...I'm the cook?

One of the funny things about Plamehouse is while it may be a Vonnegutian karass, it is not a well-ordered home.

Upon my arrival for the blowout Verdict Party yesterday, I took inventory: two over the top giddy bloggers---Hamsher and Wheeler; one enormous bottle of wine from looseheadprop; one regular bottle of wine; and not a damn thing to eat. I mean not a granola bar. Not a cracker.

Open the refrigerator, absolutely nothing. I've seen more food in bachelor apartments. What did these people have for lunch? Turns out neither had lunch. What about breakfast? One of them had no breakfast. [Wait, didn't Jane blog about coffee and pastry at the courthouse? Historians want to know these things. Maybe I’m remembering one of the Stoller DQ crowd who had no breakfast. In any case absolutely no one was interesting in procuring food.]

For the next couple of hours, we drank a wee toast or two to our combined efforts to make the law apply to the high as well as the low. It's been a long time working to understand the details of a complicated legal case. Finally: success. A toast to the hardworking bloggers. A toast to Fitzgerald and team. A toast to the faerie godmother.

I'm the daughter of a city prosecutor, who died exactly 17 years ago as of the verdict. I like to think he is looking down from heaven with a smile on his face. One of his HLS classmates, Kleindienst, was declared guilty in Watergate. He thought this was justice indeed, for the fellow showed up the last day of their group project and just signed his name. My father debated the real Paper Chase professor, Eddie Morgan, until the end of the class, leading to applause for this unusual feat. Should I wonder why my son can argue circles around me?

Perhaps I am just carrying on family tradition. In fact my Republican mother worked for the Boston law firm that took down McCarthy in the early 50's. She worked to register "Negroes" for the vote in the 40's and was surprised to learn that a woman could be fired as soon as she got married.

My mother left the work world when it was time for children, first my brother who died at age 3 hours, right in the middle of law school exams. Then a year later, me, who lived HOORAY! then my 3 sisters and 3 brothers. And you wonder why I work to save the lives of infants. So for the next 30 years my mother cooked three meals a day, tired or not. I felt this was a kind of slave labor and rebelled against this. For my own children, I only cooked them three meals a day until they got to the teen years, and then looked for relief.

So I had to laugh when I realized that these two blogger and media superstars were too absorbed in Verdict Euphoria to deal with such a mundane matter as food. And I, the feminist since 1968, the one who tried desperately to escape the cooking role near the end of my 15 years of full-time motherhood, here I was the one who was going to have to come up with some food.

So I walked out into the unseasonable cold and braved the two city blocks between Plamehouse and a rather decent pizza place. The two pizzas I brought back were the only food available until much later in the evening, when Pach and Stoller and other assorted lovely people assembled for a restaurant excursion. Since I had been up since bolting awake at 5am in verdict mania, it was time for me to sleep.

How I can contribute to the first feminist uprising: refuse to be the only cook. How I can contribute to this political upheaval: be the cook. We live not for ourselves alone.

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A day with Patrick Fitzgerald

What a privilege to have a press pass to the Libby/CIA trial.

Since my father was the city prosecutor, I have a great respect for the law and its deliberative approach to discerning the truth. I tend to favor the prosecution because of this, which makes me not the ideal jury candidate :)

I arrived at Prettyman Courthouse at 8am with only a couple of other people there at that early hour. Have since learned not to give any details about fellow journalists, it's not the accepted etiquette. They can get in trouble if their employers learn that they have been discussing things with other people, i.e., giving away product for free I guess.

But to speak in generalities, the media people were just great. There were differences of opinion yet everyone worked in an atmosphere of congeniality. I compare it to a gathering of ambassadors: you encounter representatives of rival nations, yet you share the same profession, so you have something in common.

I met many people including the Post's Dan Froomkin, who lives up to his reputation as one who is interested in the true story. He disagrees with people but cordially. Have we lost the ability to disagree without being disagreeable? Some of my fellow bloggers would do well to learn from his example of kindness.

For the record David Shuster is very cool. A great guy. The kind of person you are glad you met, the neighbor you hope to have, the man you want your daughter to marry. Integrity plus. Whatever it is he has gone thru, he is the better man for it. And we are the lucky beneficiaries.

Some mainstream media people that I met today are orbiting their own very tiny planets. I will withhold their names to protect the guilty. It wasn't so much a nose in the air---which I understand, they are STARS after all---as an inability to see beyond their existing small worlds. You want to do that, great go be The Little Prince. But spare us your 'wisdom' about matters of war and peace, because you are reading from recycled paper.

Patrick Fitzgerald is a human being. Let me start with that. He clearly hungers for the truth, and for justice. He leans towards the person speaking. He stares into the future. He hurts when things do not go the way of Good. It is a privilege to be on the same planet as such a person, and to speak to him however briefly is my happiness. I said Thank You to him, but I will not describe his reply because I don't want to make him into some kind of an idol, which is forbidden by both Old and New Testaments. But testimony today shows that important people are lying about important matters. I identify with some of them, they remind me of people I went to school with. They are only trying to do their job, and protect their bosses and their administration. Yet while I identify with them, I try to remember that their policies are responsible for the unnecessary deaths of many Americans and many people in the middle East. Judge not, says God; He will judge. I rest my case. I throw this situation His way and beg Him to bless our efforts at obtaining real justice.

I'll be live blogging the Libby trial

Including in the courtroom. Tomorrow. Be there.

My hillbilly father/HLS would be astonished and proud.
You hope yr children will go beyond you, as I hope my
children will. For my dad, I think we're there.