Webb and Iraq and Iran

I should be happy about the progress being made in the Senate and House Judiciary hearings, and I am to a point. I fell into a funk considering our military situation. Stepping back from the motherblog, I spent some time thinking about more mundane matters such as lovely children and my new Louboutins. It does not create a balance against the horror but I must try to find joy where possible.

But there are matters of war and peace which are slipping away from us. The Webb amendment to give troops adequate rest before being sent away to get shot at: 56 favored this, 41 against. And that means it passed? Oh no, it failed, because this was a cloture vote. Now we see who -really- supports the troops.

The Webb amendment was a compromise between historical ratios of fighting and rest, which are 2:1 for regular forces and much greater for reserves and guard. The bill would set the ratio at 1:1 for regular forces; current troops are fighting for 15 months and off for only 12. The Senate couldn't agree to 1:1? Who will agree to sign up to fight with no end in sight, for a bogus war begun based on lies about weapons of mass destruction?

It is destroying our reserves and our national guard as well. Someday we might need the guard at home. New Orleans anyone?

Then the Senate passed a bill using very provocative language about IraN, using terms like murder of US troops. This is the kind of step that can lead to more propaganda, falling into war, real war, the kind where the other country might actually strike back against us. And for what? Oil, power, our supposed ally in the Middle East?

Spare me. No, better: spare our troops.

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July 4: Everybody Can Do Something

What to do:

Everybody can do something:

Lead. Follow. Support. Teach. Learn.

See something that's not being done? Give yourself a battlefield promotion: you do it, or organize a group of people to get the job done.

See somebody else being an effective leader? Follow their directions and their guidance.

Are there people and groups doing amazing this that you admire? Support their efforts with funds, publicity, and words of encouragement. Hint: firedoglake fundraiser in progress to support the next chapter of Janevision and Marcyvision.

Have you figured out a little of what is going on? Teach others, whether children or adults. Most people do NOT know how far things have gone. Explain it to them.

Do things seem really confused? Learn more. Maybe things will still be confusing, but at a much higher level.

Everybody can do something.

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Libby sentence commuted

Message to fellow firedoglake pups, 8:45 this morning

Fifteen minutes til the White House switchboard is open. Please be kind to the operators, who face a brutal day.

As do the people we are savaging in Iraq.

As do the people we are neglecting in the U.S.

Anger = energy. Use it. Focus.

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Under attack

Kids learn about crime as we are subject of attempted robbery at the house: 7 men zoomed off when we confronted the one closest to the house. One child who clearly has no fear/sense pursued them and got the license plate. Police made a match and we hope to break up a ring.

This might not be the smartest neighborhood to rob. We don't live very far away from the former Plame Wilson home, and a nice young housewife type could turn out to be someone like her, or like me, with weapons training and karate.

Another child wants to know why I don’t seem very afraid after the initial shock. [Those of you who talked me off -that- cliff: thank you.]

Working in Russia and being kidnap potential as known American of means tends to build a reserve of strength against fear. Once you have accepted the risk you need not be afraid any more. Interesting that among bloggers there are so many who have looked death in the face one way or another.

And here is my favorite passage of all times about fear, from Kung Fu Monkey:

[quote]

FDR: Oh, I’m sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we’re coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How’s that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We’ll be in the pub, flipping you off. I’m slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I’m sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike … NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

[end quote]

I'm descended from angry Welshmen. I tend not to scare easily.

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Deserters

For people angry at those in Congress who are now coming over to the Light:

Let's welcome them with open arms. Others are watching to see what happens. Certainly they will be vilified by their own side.

These are people who are crossing the battle line and surrendering. Will you shoot them? Please, accept their new positions with gratitude.

Yes of course it's "too late" but we have them now and must work with the resources and people available to us now, not in some If Only world.

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It's hot today: tempers

The drip, drip of revelations about the Bush/Cheney nightmare can become water torture at times.

I've watched a number of my blogmates at firedoglake become outraged today, as more is revealed about our abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Regulars making hot comments, people dredging up old spats and trying to gain points at the expense of others. The temptation, as with family violence, is to strike out at the nearest available target, someone nearby who has made you angry.

Unfortunately, that has us sniping at each other instead of focusing on the real problems.

There are guaranteed to be more revelations of scandal, corruption, incompetence, and deceit at the highest levels of government. It is our challenge to bring the temperature down and remain calm as these situations develop.

Let's stop the friendly fire. Hold your tempers. Cool it.

I still don't know what I'm doing, but at a much higher level

Like an icebert calving, the political blog MyDD watching an important part of itself break away. Stoller and Bowers are leaving to start another progressive blog endeavor, and we wish them the best of luck.

They do have some ideas about where they are going, but I wonder if the more interesting part of their future is what is possible but unknown. The new group has some serious brainpower and experience, we are all just waiting to see what they are going to do. Perhaps they are wondering themselves.

When people ask me what I am going to do next in Russian medicine, I have a respectable answer. Train the next generation of congenital surgeons, bring the teaching and practice of cardiology and cardiac surgery into the correct century etc. But in fact, I don't really know yet.

A year ago on the occasion of our tenth anniversary at St. Petersburg Children's, they asked me to speak about the future. After the respectable answer came the real one:

[egregious:] When I first started, I didn't know what I was doing. Now I still don't know what I'm doing, but at a much higher level.

A toast to our future! Whatever it may be.

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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mcEgregious learns the Mac

It might not surprise you to learn, after hearing me rave about all things Scottish with the possible exception of haggis [sorry Marcy], that I am a Mc. This weekend I had the opportunity to learn about another kind of mac.

Learning to use a new computer, a new operating system, and new software during a work emergency should be a breeze right? It worked out in an unexpected way. Story of my life.

I started work as usual at 7 in the morning. That alone should be enough to alarm family and friends, since historically and until very recently I was quite the night owl, working til 2am not uncommon.

At a critical moment I couldn't access my files. Good old microsoft IE at its best. Yes, I was going to have to get up to speed immediately on the new mac, which had been slowly assembled and tested over a couple of weeks. I'm not against technology, I just want to understand things in depth before allowing them into my life. Is that so unreasonable?

The good news is that both my working partner and my best friend are mac people. They have been beating on me encouraging me for months to come over to the Light. I finally purchased one when my 5 year old thinkpad developed vertical lines so wide I couldn't always read what was on the screen. These two people saved me and my work from chaos.

After four hours of tutorial, I was ready to fly solo. Good thing, because the work situation was imploding. Don't know what I would have done without the mac. It ended up being a 15 hour work day, if you count the morning lessons, but that's ok. It all worked out, and time off can be put off for another time. I do notice how it rarely is that other time...hm....

Takehome message: yay friends and coworkers. Thank you.

"No You Can't Vote Here"

Ready to do my civic duty and vote today, I set off for my regular polling place only to find there was nobody there. We vote in the local elementary schools, so I asked the secretary if maybe the polls had closed early or something.

Sec: "No, you can't vote here, they only have a few places open today."

Me: "But it's the Democratic primary and this is my official legal voting place."

Sec: "Well they only have a few places open during these minor elections."

Me in bubble over my head, thinking: "A year ago was the primary where Webb defeated Miller. That was a total mob scene. Minor elections??"

Me, politely: "Do you happen to know where I -can- vote, then?"

Sec: "Let me see if I can get someone on the phone."

This was interrupted by a mom who came to pick up an injured child and I decided that was a vastly more important use of the secretary's time. Thanking her, I left and drove home in quite a huff. My time wasted, my inclination to participate in elections thwarted.

The candidate I wished to vote for had urged me to vote on June 12 and provided a web link to where the polling places were. Something was wrong here. A phone call to the campaign predictably got the answering maching, they of course were out working.

As I was dialing the State Board of Elections to ask about the situation, a tiny little light went on over my head. [the aforementioned bubble had gone away.] What if this was not, in fact, my candidate?

Needed to marshall the facts. Ok candidate literature which had cruelly taken me away from my couch and blog in order to do my civic duty. Checked to see which district: yes, the xy-th district. That's mine. Then checked to see who the incumbent was. Say WHAT? He's in a different place, one town over.

Turns out I had not read the campaign literature very carefully. I do in fact live in the xy district: for the state senate. Said candidate is running in the same numbered district: for the state house. Headsmack.

After being sufficiently bewildered, I had to admit the joke was on me. For this is one of my most favorite categories of mistakes [which I collect]: insufficient separation of the variables.

For a few minutes I had a taste of what many Americans of color experience when they try to vote: "No, you can't vote here." It was a moment I will remember when working for electoral reform in the future.

If I as an educated, politically aware [HA!] suburban voter couldn't keep things straight, I feel sorry for those with less time to figure out the truth from the lies in the pamphlets that tell them they can't vote either. Is this any way to run a country?

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

egregious family advances science

Ach.

I'm so proud of my family I don't know which to publish first. We will start with my nephew who is part of the CERN experiment in Geneva, on the front page of today's science section of the New York Times. He is likely missing an urgent family gathering in order to participate in this unique experiment, and I hope all will forgive him. This is history in the making. Godspeed [little joke about particle physics, and their speed]. Yo Alan!!

Only in this light can my cousin being featured in an article in The New Yorker come in second place. Did I mention we are a science and engineering family? My cousin is an expert on the Great Wall, which turns out to be a line not a wall, do I have that right David?

My own humble observation relates to my congenital surgery work in Russia. I have not posted much in the last few weeks because of being in Russia, trip #30, then recovering, then attending back to back conferences on congenital and thoracic surgery. Ho hum such a boring life :)

On my way home from that torture that is individual training at the gym, I saw an ambulance with siren and lights on stuck in traffic. Immediate impulse was to calculate how to eliminate the obstacles. It struck me, that's exactly what I do in Russia. Figure out what are the obstacles to saving more lives, and slash thru them. By the fired o'glake if necessary.

During this aha moment the song on my radio was Josh Groban, a beautiful addition to any moment, but it seemed to describe how I am trying to support the surgeons working in St. Petersburg:

"When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

"You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

"There is no life, no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But then you come, and I am filled with wonder;
Sometimes I think, I glimpse eternity."

*******

My cousin looking back over the millenia,
my nephew sacrificing something very dear
to come close to the mysteries of eternity.

Me, I'm just trying to wrap up the Cold War,
bring a great city and a rising nation
back into the fold of civilized countries.
It's only been, what, 100 years?

Psalm 90/Isaac Watts:
"A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone
Short as the watch the ends the night
Before the rising dawn."

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