Sitting Around the Campfire

Beautiful weather for sitting around the electronic campfire with family and friends. It's a funny thing to be in touch with people from so many decades and so many places in my life.

Am enjoying facebook in particular. I have some idea what my delightful nieces and nephews are up to, and don't worry, I won't tell.

My 85 year old mother just joined fb, possibly from the lure of seeing more family pictures. Years ago we would wait weeks to see baby pictures, if not available before the annual Christmas card. Now they're visible right away.

Beyond family it's been wonderful reconnecting with friends from childhood and young adulthood. These are people with stories! I'm basking in their affirmation of me as a capable person during periods of doubt. A great blessing all around.

[This lovely photo by Fiona Shields]

Not Attending Netroots Nation

Hope y'all have a good time anyway. Need to be a mom for a while.

photo by Ivan Makarov

Torture Reaction: They've Never Seen Me Cry Before

Long day at work, when legal memos supporting torture -- and I can hardly type that -- became public showing new depths of depravity of the Bush/Cheney Administration.

So I thought I would get away from things, go for a nice long neighborhood walk. The first neighbor I see, asks 'What's wrong?' and I realize I have leaky eyes. Tough day at work, I say, hope you are well.

The next neighbor: 'Hey are you ok?' and I realize that multitasking today means walking and crying at the same time.

I shared that our staff is hurting from seeing legal memos justifying - almost inviting - torture. This is done in our name. We have worked to elect a different team for the government; we knew the Bush/Cheney administration did bad things, and yet...to see this in writing, from LAWYERS...it is egregious. It is too much. They went too far.

I realized that the neighbors had never seen me cry before. Not from divorce, not from being lonely in a new place, not from other losses. But THIS - this makes my eyes overflow, in public, in a way I have not done since my father died. My father, city prosecutor, HLS, who deeply believed in the rule of law.

Our national honor has nearly died. I hope and pray we can restore it.

*****

photo by margaretv

One - No, Two - Deaths at WalMart

crossposted at firedoglake 30 nov 2008 and oxdown 29 nov



A man was crushed to death and a woman lost her baby in the madness that is post-Thanksgiving shopping.

I am trying to put myself in the place of those who were lined up, eager to shop for certain items that had limited availability, those folks who wanted to be Good Parents for their child and secure the wii or other urgent item.

I've always been leery of the phrase "I would kill for..." because we are not so evolved that we wouldn't. Taught my children not to say the word kill unless they meant it. Words lose their meaning if they are used in mundane ways. Take care to use the words kill, freedom, God, love, "Help!" when it matters so that these words don't lose their meaning.

A man--a temporary employee--was killed, and a baby was killed, so that good parents, well meaning parents, could be the first in line to get the Christmas items their own children desired.

I am trying to imagine the first person who stepped over the body of the fallen man. Or those who rushed past the stricken pregnant -- but pregnant no longer -- woman on their way to the toy counter. It is human. But very dark. Our first story in recorded human history is that we screwed up. Not sure we've evolved very far past that.

Sailing into the wind

Sailing by day, watching the Olympics, listening to Tom Lehrer -- who is surprisingly topical even now -- and playing family games by night. Still some stormy waters from the divorce, though folks are doing their best to focus on the positive, that we are here together for a few days.

*******

photo by thomashawk

It Was a Really Small Plane

It was a really small plane but was able to zoom thru the sky a little faster than the trapeze. Am now in Middletown Ohio where my relatives are competing to offer me Christmas cookies. Life is good.

*******

Photo by Elsie esq

Fly Thru the Air with the Greatest of Ease

I'm flying home to Ohio tomorrow to see my mother and some of the many egrSiblings. This looked like a perfectly pleasant way to go.

If for some reason that doesn't work out, I'll just take a plane like a normal person. Seeya on the flip side.

*******

Photo by Guacamole Goalie

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."

*******