MICHIGAN FOOTBALL: Captains Courageous?

Michigan Football: Captains Courageous?

At the height of the Athletics/Academics controversy last year I wrote a piece extolling the scholarly virtues of a number of players I’ve had in the classroom. Namely, Jack Johnson, Jake Long, Peter Vignier, and Chad Kolarik. The point of that essay was to counter the simplistic picture Jim Carty and The Ann Arbor News had painted in terms of the players' commitment to academics.

With this in mind, I thought I’d weigh in on the football team’s current struggles, and what I perceive to be a key aspect in their lack of success.

There’s no question that Coach Rod knows his xs and os, but there are intangible factors that can’t be drawn up on the blackboard. Nor can they be accounted for by a rigorous physical conditioning program or radical assistant coaching makeover.

The problem is this: the combination of implementing a sophisticated spread offense; adapting to a new physical environment; managing a cohort of young, inexperienced players juggling a college level class load and complex playbook; utilizing a group of veteran players from the old regime; and satisfying the lofty expectations of a demanding fan base has created a situation where stability is at a premium.

Given that the resulting condition of these components is a team in flux, there has to be a guiding force that is absolute rather than contingent. What might have provided this steadying pressence would be a core of senior leadership, instead of a rotating captaincy where the hand at the helm is uncertain.

The solution has very much has to do with intellect, wisdom, and experience--attributes keenly demonstrated by the players mentioned above.

This year I have some promising young players we’ll see in the future: Mike Martin, Elliott Mealor, and J.T. Floyd. But last spring I had two players, knowledgeble and experienced, who I think would have provided wise advice to the younger players, and a degree of constancy amid the swirl of a team in transition: Morgan Trent and Mike Massey.

It may have seemed that assigning rotating senior captains was the fair and equitable thing to do, but the resulting lack of real leadership has cost the team in terms of on the field execution, and off the field direction.

Best – Randall L. Tessier

GENDER TERRORISM

“The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practice it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies.”
-- Terry Waite 1939-- : In ‘Guardian’ 20 February 1992

Stoning of Afghan Adulterers: Some Go to Take Part, Others Just to Watch

By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: November 3, 1996


When the Taliban religious movement decided to stone to death a couple caught in adultery, it chose a blazing afternoon in late August.

The suffocating desert heat had pushed temperatures past 100 degrees, but those who were there remember how the townspeople came by the thousands to witness a spectacle not seen in the city of Kandahar for decades.

Long before the condemned couple arrived on the flatbed of a truck, their hands and feet tightly bound, every vantage point around the forecourt of Id Gah Mosque was taken. Still, according to the Muslim traditions of Afghanistan, space was made so that relatives of the condemned pair, including small children, could have a clear view of the type of justice imposed by the Taliban, who now control three-quarters of the country.

The condemned woman, Nurbibi, 40, was lowered into a pit dug into the earth beside the outer wall around the mosque until only her chest and head were above ground. Witnesses said she was dressed in a sky-blue burqa, the head-to-toe shroud with a gauze panel for the eyes that the Taliban require all women to wear are outside their homes.

Nurbibi's stepson and lover, Turyalai, 38, was taken to a spot about 20 paces away, blindfolded and turned to face the Muslim cleric who was their judge.

Those close enough to have heard said the cleric spoke briefly about the provisions for stoning adulterers in the Sharia, the ancient Muslim legal code imposed by the Taliban since they began their rise to power in Kandahar two years ago.

Then, those witnesses said, the judge, following tradition, stooped to pick up the first stone from one of two piles that had been prepared, one for each of the condemned pair.
The first stone, the witnesses said, was thrown at Nurbibi. Quickly, Taliban fighters who had been summoned for the occasion stepped forward and launched a cascade of stones, each big enough to fill the palm of a hand. One of the men who responded to Taliban appeals to step forward and join the stoning, Rahmatullah, 25, recalled that neither Nurbibi nor Turyalai had cried out.

Turyalai, he said, appeared to be dead after 10 minutes, but the killing of Nurbibi took longer, past the point where one of her sons, stepping forward to check, turned to the judge to say his mother was still alive.

''The son was crying,'' Rahmatullah said. ''I could see it.''
At that point, several witnesses said, one of the Taliban fighters picked up a large rock, advanced toward Nurbibi and dropped it on her head, killing her.

Toward dusk, when most of the crowd had dispersed, family members recovered the bodies and took them away for burial in two of the stony plots that serve as cemeteries.
Nurbibi, family members said, was laid next to her father, while Turyalai was buried beside his father, Nurbibi's husband, in a plot bounded by the rubble that is all that is left of much of Kandahar.

Among the score of people who gathered before the mosque to offer their recollections of the stoning, none expressed dismay. To the contrary, all -- men and boys, since women in Kandahar are forbidden by Taliban rules to linger in public or to speak to strangers -- spoke with enthusiasm of the killings.

''It was a good thing, the only way to end this kind of sinning,'' said Mohammed Younus, 60, a teacher.

Mohammed Karim, a 24-year-old Taliban fighter, picked up several stones and threw them in a re-enactment of the executions. ''No, I didn't feel sorry for them at all,'' he said. ''I was just happy to see Sharia being implemented.''

Court-ordered executions of adulterers by stoning have been reported occasionally in revolutionary Iran, and in the Sudan, but since World War II this punishment has been imposed only rarely in Afghanistan -- until the Taliban took power in Kandahar and imposed a harsh version of the Sharia, under which they have also ordered the amputation of hands and feet of thieves.

The Muslim cleric who led the investigation that resulted in the stoning of Nurbibi and Turyalai, Mohammed Wali, says the incident was at least the third stoning for adultery in the Kandahar Province, one of 33 in Afghanistan, since the Taliban took power. Others have been reported in several of the 20 other provinces under Taliban control, although none so far in Kabul, the capital, which the Taliban captured five weeks ago.

Mr. Wali heads the Taliban's religious police, the Office for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prohibition of Vice. Visitors encountered him relaxing with a dozen of his investigators under a mulberry tree in the Kandahar courtyard where the religious police maintain a dumping ground for smashed television sets, stereo systems and cameras, all banned by the Taliban. Mr. Wali, who is 35, is typical of many Taliban, having been educated in a religious school that offers little but years of studying the Koran. He stroked his beard for a few seconds when he was asked about the stonings, then said that they had given him great satisfaction.

''When I see this kind of thing, I am very happy, because it means that the rule of Islam is being implemented,'' he said.

The Taliban take care to see that foreigners, especially non-Muslims, are kept away from stonings and amputations, which Taliban leaders like Mr. Wali describe as religious occasions not to be witnessed by nonbelievers. But the executions of Nurbibi and Turyalai were openly discussed with the visitors outside the mosque and in the Id Gah Bazaar, just down the road, where Turyalai, after years as a guerrilla fighting the Soviet forces that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980's earned a living selling and repairing second-hand motorcycles.

But a first attempt by Western reporters to talk to the family of the victims was angrily aborted by the Taliban. Making their way to the Naido district of the city, an area where thousands live among rubble left when Soviet aircraft carpet-bombed the southern districts of Kandahar in 1986, the reporters found a small boy who led them up an alleyway to a heavy wooden door in a 10-foot-high mud wall.

Moments later, an elderly woman, Sidiqa, who identified herself as Turyalai's aunt, appeared at the door and, with neighbors, began to relate the story of the stoning.

But two young Taliban fighters who had been posted to keep watch on the district, one armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, quickly arrived, ordering the foreigners to leave. When they delayed, one of the fighters turned to the gathering crowd. ''Pick up stones,'' he said.

The visitors retreated, followed by angry youths throwing stones and rotting corncobs. But at dawn the next day, a visit to the family went unnoticed by the Taliban. Family members and neighbors appeared eager to talk, gathering around to speak of Nurbibi and Turyalai and how their relationship led to death.

By the family's accounts, the events that led to the stoning began 13 years ago, when Turyalai's father died of a stomach ailment. Nurbibi, the father's second wife, was more than 20 years younger than her husband, and was left with two young sons. She remained in her husband's home, with Turyalai, who was the son of her husband by his first wife.

Under Muslim tradition, any intimate relationship between Nurbibi and her stepson was forbidden, and in any event, Turyalai was married and had a growing family of his own.
Nazaneen, Turyalai's wife, who spoke from inside the family home through a half-opened door, said she had long known of the close relationship between her husband and Nurbibi but had not been concerned about it until recently.

''I knew that they were intimate with each other, but I felt it was the relationship of a mother and a son,'' she said. ''But then I became suspicious of them, and finally my suspicions were confirmed.''

''Of course,'' she added, ''I know that Turyalai was not in love with her, but some evil force must have drawn them together.''

Some neighbors hinted that the tip-off to the Taliban came from Nazaneen. But she appeared distressed at her husband's death, hurrying back into her house to fetch an old identity card with a faded passport-sized picture of him during his days as a guerrilla fighter. ''It is the only photograph we have,'' she said. But a man who said he was a cousin of Turyalai said the Taliban had been alerted by Nurbibi's two teen-age sons, Habibullah and Asmatullah, who were angered by their mother's infidelity.

''The two boys went to the Taliban and told them that their mother was having a sexual relationship with her stepson,'' he said.

A few nights later, several family members said, a group of men from the Taliban's religious police hid themselves on the roof of an adjoining house. In summer, many Afghans relax and sleep at night on the flat roofs of their homes, and Nurbibi and Turyalai were alone together on the roof when the Taliban sprang from their hiding place.

''They caught them red-handed,'' one man said. ''There wasn't any doubt about it.''

Under the Sharia, conviction for adultery requires four witnesses; in this case they were the men from the Taliban. Family members say the couple were imprisoned immediately and held for a month before the Thursday in August when they were taken out and stoned. Between them, Nurbibi and Turyalai left 10 children, and all of Turyalai's eight children were age 12 or under.
The oldest daughter, Gulalai, 12, stood listening to accounts of the stoning with her youngest brother, Nadirjan, 3 months, swaddled in her arms, then burst out with her own account.

''I saw it,'' she said. ''I was on a truck and I saw it.'' Then she turned, tears in her eyes, and fled into the house.

HOMELAND SECURITY, TSA, and Me

"Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 206
-- George Orwell, “1984”

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a U.S. government agency that was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19, 2001. The TSA was originally organized in the U.S. Department of Transportation but was moved to the U. S. Department of Homeland Security in 2002.The agency is responsible for security (sic) in all modes of transportation.

VISITOR ANALYSIS
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pnxuser1.tsa.dhs.gov
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Dear TSA (Homeland Security Agency) “Kip”:

What follows is a reprint of my post from July 22, 2008. Since you were so kind to return today for an extended visit, I thought it only fitting that I express my deepest regards and profound gratitude for your thoughtful concern.

Best – Randall L. Tessier

Dear TSA:First, I’d like to thank that most esteemed branch of Homeland Security, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) for visiting my blog yesterday with some frequency. Your, as well as many others, interest in my blog ensures the fact that my site will continue to enjoy its lofty status on Google’s search engine. It is also comforting to know your dot.gov oversight is ever vigilant in tracking subversive clowns such as I, who sow the seeds of intelligence among the subservient masses. It’s good that you perceive my feeble attempts to stamp out ignorance as a threat to the status quo. After all, the dissemination and perpetuation of fear and ignorance has been critical to the maintenance of your neo-conservative agenda. Keep up the good work.

Yours Truly – General Jack Ripper

PS: Always remember, little brother is watching.

Fiction

“To say, for example, that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer.”
-- H. J. Muller 1890-1967: Science and Criticism (1943)

The source of the Yellow Dog is a remote place, a land of isolated hideouts and non-flaneurs. Where the river is a half a mile wide, invisible beneath two feet of ice. Atop the ice, the snow is four feet deep. East and west as far as the eye can see there is unbroken whiteness. Here the sun is felt as an absence, a smokey warm sign that gives the intractable cold its relative value. The landscape is as emotionally seductive as it is physically unforgiving, its strangeness at once beckoning the imagination and warning it to flee.

On this desolate tract, just west of the Huron Mountains and north of Michigame, where the Huron dumps into Lake Superior, there is an abandoned mine shaft. This portal is the entrance to a network of underground compounds. According to Plutonian protocol, these quarters are collectively known as Drang nach Osten.

At Three Lakes, while observing Stilz's driving suspiciously, Bokasa points north. They grind on, winding into the pine through intermitent Birch stands, craggy rock overhangs, and blinding blasts of freezing fir pollen. Careening down the grade, they skid dangerously and come perilously close to sliding into the gulleyed shoulder. Stilz has no touch on the brake and gas, driving the Hummer like a tank instead of a sled. He's leery, wary of the mirrored reflection of a pursuing Navigator, paranoid.

Coming through the S curve at Eagle's Nest they nearly lose it to an enormous Maple, its massive trunk’s invitation-“die here." They barely miss it. The ice from iron bumper smashes the windshield with such force they instinctively duck, the sun blotted out.

As the pinpoint brilliance of the sun bows to the dull glare of brief sunset they arrive, finally, at a half buried Quonset hut that marks the edge of Pluto's domain--Drang nach oster. The barely tolerable chill of day is now a harsh twilight cold, slouching toward the night’s deep bonechill.

"Take me to Peacock," Bokasa barked at no one in particular. Random bursts of condensing vapors obscure them as they entered their voice and palm prints. Inside, the floors are immaculate reflections of obscure Tibetan, Mayan, and Ogibway glyphs that move the eyes toward the lab area. Peacock's techno-lair is a clinically lit, scrupulously anal, glassily sculpted, strategically administered world. And there, Peacock: pear shaped, hair artificially swept across the pate, coke bottle eyeglassed in his wheelchaired flatulence.

As Bokasa jockeyed his withered legs into position to use the catheter, Peacock spoke.

"Please signifier, my rat. Xerxes. Note his agility, his grace on the trapeze and wheel. Hail Xerxes! Don't you see? A miracle."

The half-cocked head signaled that dreaded mix of skepticism and unbridled rage Bokasa was notorious for, but he let Peacock continue.

"We have extracted the immature cells of adult rats, nursed them to grow and implanted them in the gap where Xerxes's spinal cord was severed. Only two weeks ago Xerxes lay paralysed, unable to move. But now, behold! You will walk, Signifier. We will all walk!"

"Hold your tounge," Bokasa whispered menacingly. His wary disbelief voicing a tone of denial so pervasive, so ingrained in that cruel moment of being that was his life, that he now refused to imagine that what he had so long dreamed of.

"How did you do it?"

Knowing Bokasa's intolerance for shade, nuance, and digression, Peacock chose his words carefully. "We took spinal-cord cells that had matured to the progenitor stage from adult animals, developed, or differentiated enough, to belong generally to the spinal cord, but not enough to be assigned to any specific part of the cord. Then, in a petri dish inside an incubator with the proper nutrients, heat, and oxygen supply, the cells regenerated into a large enough population to begin tissue growth. However, at this stage we prevented the cells from differentiating. We hoped that the spinal cord might function in a way that the mass regeneration of spinal tissue would reconnect the severed section. This was in opposition of course to the traditional wisdom, which holds that these spinal connections require a precision anagolous to the reconnection of electrical wires. On this hypothesis we introduced the not-fully differentiated progenitor cells in a four-millimeter break in Xerxes' spinal cord. The motor skills of the creature you see before you are evidence of the gaps' regeneration into a new functional section. We rightly assumed that the undifferentiated progenitor cells, if left to their own devices, would sort themselves into the right order, and produce all the necessary functions. And this is precisely what happened. What we have accomplished is unprecedented."

While Peacock explained, Bokasa imagined himself whole. Not, psychologically, he would never be that, but physically. What new cruelties his mobility might allow him was only a secondary concern. The idea, to walk, to stand, to have others perceive him as whole, unwheeled, freestanding, was overwhelming. He suddenly imagined himself standing, moving freely about, substituting his physical liberation for others'incapacities, envisioning a pent-up vengance yet inflicted. Bokasa's reverie, his blessed, profound distraction, was such that he was unable to hear how Peacock's research had also identified a gene that prevents the brain and spinal cord from rewiring themselves after an injury.

"We have solved the mystery of why the connections in the central nervous system--the brain and spinal cord--can't repair themselves, when the connections in the peripheral nervous system can." Peacock's animated enthusiasm, his ecstatic tone, only heightened Bokasa's self-absorbed incomprehension.

"The answer is that the "Blox" protein, a substance that prevents nerve cell connections from regenerating after they are cut, is present in the central nervous system, but not in other nerves. Our team has created an antibody that blocks the "Blox" protein."

Bokasa listened in stunned silence. It was one of those moments that signal a boundary between what one is and what one is about to become, that epiphany that marks a shift in one's paradigm of self definition, from perception to comprehension, this was that moment for Bokasa. He was re-conceptualizing the harsh reality of disability as a nightmare he might awaken from. Like the chrysalis that becomes a butterfly, he was on the verge of seeing life as a dream, a light that illuminates a dark lifetime of past behavior, offering a beacon into what might be. It was not that Bokasa wouldn’t speak as much as he couldn’t.

"Signifier, Signifier. Are you listening?" Peacock inquired warily. "We have developed a three-pronged therapy involving a 'Blox' blocker, an agent to boost nerve growth, and spinal cord cells transplanted from fresh cadavers that has restored Xerxes's motor skills."

Though Bokasa couldn't know it, the crippled nature of his response system now served him well. If character is given us by our circumstances, and that range circumscribes the possibilities of identity, then Bokasa was given little; but even that limited scope available to him lay unexplored. "What other miracles has your research wrought,” Bokasa said, his singular blend of dispassionate sarcasm disguising his hysterical hope.

"This is only the beginning, Signifier. Not only can we make you whole, we can extend your life, the life of our founder, and the lives of the inner circle." Peacock's unbridled enthusiasm, mirrored in Bokassa's far away eyes, spurred him to newer, even more wondrous revelations.

"We can now control the destiny of human embryonic stem cells--dictate that they become a fresh heart or glistening new muscle. We have found a way to produce spare parts that can prolong life indefinitely. We can clone your cells, Signifier, thus creating an early embryo, which would create spare parts."

"We have acheived the grail of eternal life. The embryonic stem cell is the key to immortaliy. This single cell has the potential--the genetic coding and biological adaptability to become any cell, any tissue, or any organ. We have found the key to triggering its potential to become lung tissue or heart muscle, or retinal cells that cure blindness!

"Each and every tissue derived from these stem cells would provide and exact, immunological match. The single biggest obstacle to organ transplantation, matching tissue, has been overcome. Alzheimers disease, paralytic nerve damage, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy--all disorders that have plagued our Signifiers--will be no more. Virtually every part of the human organism can be replicated. We can stop the aging process at any biological age we choose."

"But even better for our purposes, most Holy one, we can replace the brain, thus manipulating self-identity itself--that thing that defines who we are! And this, Signifier, brings me to the third, and perhaps most important aspect of our three pronged strategy. Besides restoration and reinvigoration, we can also reprogram. We have identified family and ethnic clusters, groups of genetically related individuals who manifest the relevant symptoms, or tendencies to develop certain conditions and behaviors. We can, in genetic terms, harvest these psychological predispositions." "In short, we can dictate the dynamics of our followers' moral value systems, and, in this sense, control the intensity of their ideological conviction--their faith in the Plutonic mission."

Bokasa's eyes lit up with that kind of thoughtful menace cultivated by a life of cruelty; A look of gloating self-certainty; of his unswerving belief that an innate Machiavellian aggression at the most personal level was normal, and not deviant, behavior.

Peacock continued. "As are all animals, we are innately ruthless in our desires; but we are born into a web of arbitrary and inexorable social expectation. We may have the capacity for gentility, but this is no more self-evident than our need to vent aggression, to dehumanize, to inflict pain, to demonize, to torture and murder. This is in our genes. The status of the moral sense--values associated with right and wrong--has no evolutionary foundation. Moral codes are ideological conceptions, not biological dispositions. The myth of a moral inner compass is a construct of competing interest groups. The conquest of the weak by the strong is the decree of nature. The science of evolutionary psychology has opened the way for us to map and control the dynamics of thought, of consciousness as having an organic basis. By manipulating hormones, enzymes and stem-cell factors we can literally produce a world-view. Voila! Instant weltanschaung. Canned conviction. Test-tube faith. Chemically induced philosophies of belief!

We can create criminality. We have isolated genes that bring about mental illness, and discovered how the manipulation of oxytocin levels can control the inclination to love, or hate. Our drives, urges, passions, politics, and spiritual beliefs are reducible to the sciences: genetics, molecular biology, pharmacology, neurology and endocrinology.

The New Republic

"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens."

-- William Henry Beveridge 1879-1963: "Full Employment in a Free society" (1944)

Dear Readers:

For years I subscribed to The New Republic. They have one of the greatest film reviewers of all time, Stanley Kauffmann, a sophisticated arts section, sensational book reviews, and the kind of intellectual reportage that requires critical investment and thoughtful consideration. While I think Harpers Magazine and the Manchester Guardian are better, TNR is far and away superior to The New Yorker and Atlantic. When I knew last fall I would be staying at home with nothing to do but drink, take oxys, and enjoy my chemo, I had Brigitte take all of these magazines (which she kindly paid for).

Why, you may ask, had I let my subscription to TNR lapse? Because even the most intelligent journalism can err in its judgment, making that most fatal choice of confusing knowledge with wisdom. How unwise TNR was when it endorsed George Bush for president! And how much they were akin to the lemming-like public that now clamors to jump back up the cliff they so gleefully leapt from. As if American Exceptionalism might somehow defy gravity. The foolish public that voted this charlatan in now reminds me of Peter's denial after the Crucifixion. Condemning, castigating, and railing mightily against the idiot they put in office, they are now deaf to the cock's third crow. In fact, as it invariably happens, when I ask those who put forth the loudest protestations, remonstrations, and denunciations, "who did you vote for"?, their self righteous yaking becomes not a shout, but a whisper. "Bush," they quietly admit. To which I, in my best Limbaughian pomposity, reply, "then fercrissakes shutup."

Now comes TNR's endorsement of Obama: "The past eight years have been like watching a TV makeover show in reverse. We entered the Bush era a ravishing beauty attracting envious stares. We leave it a gum-smacking sad sack with split ends and an empty social calendar. Over the course of George W. Bush's second term, in particular, the images of our country have not just been unattractive but virtually apocalyptic: a major city destroyed; cars raining into the Mississippi from a crumbling bridge; swaths of exurbia dotted with foreclosed homes; a financial system in ruins; angry emotionalism flooding politics." Can you call the editors of an esteemed national magazine a bunch of stupid dipshits? I suppose the Brits would call this "bad form." Then again, these snaggle-toothed, pallorless, wannabes--the English--have heretofore been our staunchest allies in pursing the folly of Iraq. They should all move to the continent and take civility lessons from the French, Germans, and Swedes.

Congratulations TNR, you've come to your senses. Let's hope your endorsement's not too late to save our ruined country, a nation that's lost its moral compass. "Apocalyptic" indeed!

There is more to being an American than wrapping oneself in the flag and espousing a blowhard terrorist patriotism. There is the matter of being a compassionate world citizen, a person who realizes that, in the words of the "Gonzo Dog Band," 'we're all bozos on this bus.' A sham-tram on which our gangster administration has been asleep at the wheel; recklessly, and unilaterally, mowing down innocent foreign civilians; stripping us of our civil rights; torturing human beings; and ignoring the plight of a suffering world that desperately needs our help.

Instead, our taxes fund senseless wars in faraway places where our sons and daughters die for nothing; lavish AIG soirees and hunting parties; bail outs of an obscenely rich ruling class that comprises 5% of the population and controls 95% of the wealth; donations to outrageously greedy banks; and Saks Fifth Avenue wardrobes for a mindless "let them eat cake" bimbo and her toady and senile lackey .

Horror of horrors! How dare someone--and an uppity quadroon at that--put forth the scurrilous and offensive idea of spreading the wealth around! For shame, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama!

In between whining about our 401K's going down the drain, and the declining value of our homes and portfolios, we might take note of the plight of our fellow human beings and seriously consider the Christian ethic we so righteously trumpet and blindly ignore (click on the photos above): "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Ineffability and the Wisdom of Language

“There’s a cool web of language winds
us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too
much fear.”
-- Robert Graves 1895-1985: “The Cool Web” (1927)

If consciousness is an oceanic aspect of being, then language is like the surface of the rough or placid waters that conceal our thoughts and memories. The hyacinths, submerged stumps, sharks, and dark, silent depths of what compises conscious and unconscious mind can never be fully revealed to those around us, whether strangers, friends, or loved ones--nor, perhaps, should they be. We think we see, collate, and assemble our perceptions in a coherent fashion; and yet dreams, imaginings, fixations, and uncontrollable nightmares and fantasies counter this traditional model/assumption. I can love you while harboring longings and resentments that must never be spoken. The folly of wishing someone close might plug into your mind, or vice versa, may sound romantic, but it would doom the that all important dichotomy between self and other that ensures self-autonomy, and thus the capacity for care and compassion. After all, conciousness loses its purchase without consciousness of others, and there can be no such consciousness without the delineation of self/other. As an example, I might plug into your mind during a private reverie I could never reconcile with your affection for me. Or, you might intrude on my private world during my struggle, while not outwardly manifest, with a severe anxiety or panic attack. The beauty of language, then, is its capacity to filter the swirl of consciousness into a mode that synchronizes human interaction. It allows us to, in a way, create the persona we gift to others by self-editing who we are. This implies we are always uncertain of who we really are, you say. But perhaps a constant uncertainty about our core identity, who we are, is better than a self-absolutism that leaves no room for the fluidity of experience, and the way that flux changes our perceptions of self and other in a kind of Heisenbergian psychonalytical way. The language of my interpersonal exchanges with you functions as a pen that contains my demons as much as a method of social interaction. That thin line between love and hate, or perhaps better, the compartmentalization of the inevitable ambivalence/ambiguity that comes with intimate emotional attachment, is maintained through language, and our choice, or lack thereof, of what to say and when to say it. Would that I had always been able to control my own sea-snakes and subliminal demons. For me, one positive outcome of having been ill has been a keener awareness of the distinction between the inner dynamics of being (contents of consciousness) and the words I choose to externally articulate this in my interactions with others.

Love - Randy

Murder Most Foul!

Dear Readers:

Mike Stadler, a true son of the north, sophisticated intellect, and wonderful singer-songwriter (check out his new CD, "North Country"), has left some interesting comments on substance abuse (see Big Bay Chronicles: Local Color and Oxys in Covington), the sulfide mining controversy (Upper Peninsula Journal: Save Kennicott and Arm the Bears), and BIID (BIID: Philosophical or Medical Issue?).

Mike's post on BIID is a kindly response (take a look at it Bill) to another well educated (St. John's alumnus) friend of us all, Bill Debroux. By the way Bill, thanks for the props on the George Bedard post.

Lastly, some time ago I alluded to the fact that one of our northern brethren was acquainted with John Norman Collins, the infamous Michigan Murderer, who is presently incarcerated in Marquette State Prison. Little did I know that a set of circumstances would arise in which one of Collins's alleged victims from some 40 years ago would become an issue in my circle of friends. As it turns out, a drummer I work with was playing at the club (The Depot House) where, shortly before her body was found, Alice Kalom was last seen on June 7, 1969.

Friends, this is no fiction. I'll post the full details on my next blog entry.

George Bedard

"Good music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and quits the memory with difficulty."

-- Thomas Beecham 1879-1961: speech, c.1950; in New York Times 9 March 1961

Dear Readers:

Tonight George Bedard and the Kingpins will be at the Club Heidelberg. If you are in the Ann Arbor area, please stop in at the 5:30-8:30 Happy Hour and enjoy one of the finest guitar players in the world.

Best - Randy

ficTiOn

“Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins.”
-- Scrope Davies c.1782-1852: letter to Thomas Raikes, May 1835

To realistically convey what happened on the evening of 2011 is impossible, and perhaps inappropriate. A convention of Hell is its unspeakable nature, which sometimes leavens the horrors of the inferno, but which can also torment the imagination in a way that makes damnations fires all the worse. How to describe an act that even the perpetrator disbelieves? How to bring order to the chaos of memories that even to this day Nicole Merryweather refuses to acknowledge?

North of Queen City, in the Village of Birch, Stekel and Nicole became separated. Stekel went to the bathroom and when he returned she had vanished; we know that evening she went in the direction of the docks. On the infamous Waterfront Boulevard she may have wandered into the Roosevelt or Venice. In these dens of Jagermeister and Ecstacy, under the strobe and throb of Finnish Hip Hop, she may have found herself caught in the black light, gazed upon in electric motley, and undressed by violating eyes--but it is more likely that she searched unnoticed, through the obscure streets...

She carefully noted the ways of the tavern women. Finally, she found a group of men from the Plutonist-Zeit-Brigade. Carefully she chose an arch-misogynist she perceived to be a hater of people in general, so that her sin might be mitigated by its moral purpose, and that her crime would be even easier to commit. She signaled the man with a flourish of thigh. He led her through a maze of basement corridors and then down a hallway into a small room illuminated by a single naked bulb. He closed the door.

Time seems suspended in moments of supreme significance, whether this sign is one of desolation or ecstatic joy matters little. The doors of perception, temporal gateways, become unhinged. At these moments the present is forced to bear its heaviest burden; when life is suddenly sapped of the strength to throw the now into the then; when the illusion of chronology is caught in its lie.

In this atemporal suspension, in the eternal present of unconscious perception, did Nicole Merryweather reflect even for a moment on the death that inspired her obsession? It is probable she thought about it just long enough to compromise her plan. She thought (there was no escaping it) that the violation she was now inviting was atonement for her disease, that moment long ago when her body set up her father's death.

But out of the pyre of this self-degradation, like a Phoenix from the ashes, her personal revenge on the collective violence of the ages, would rise up and sweep away the guilt and sorrow. She thought this with submissive rapture, and then immediately fled to the sanctuary of obliviousness.

The man--an Italian or Finn--did not speak English; he would be Nicole's avenging scepter; as she was his deliverance from carnal desire--but she was an object of pleasure, while he was a mock-sacrificial lamb on the altar of retribution. In Nicole's solitude she dreamed with eyes wide shut.

In her black lace panties was the money he had promised. She flushed the bills down the toilet. While putting on her clothes a mixture of sorrow and disgust welled up in Nicole's soul. In chiaroscuro, the room was light and shadow, the dusk offering a Poe-esque setting. Furtively, she fled the scene. At the Little Garlic Bridge she got into a rented Cherokee, and sticking to her purpose headed north for Squaw Beach.

The onrushing present pushed the memory of what had happened into the blessed past. She rode through stands of timber and granite that assured her of nature's obliviousness to existence. Paradoxically, her abject despair turned to resolve, for it reinforced her commitment to the details of her plan and blinded her to matters of motive and intention.

In the minds of the locals, Claude Guerre was quite simply a psychotic recluse; to those few who knew him well a criminal sociopath. Earlier in that year he had howled at the moon in the Big Bay cemetery, leaving what little money and jewelry he had on one Doris Campbell's headstone. He was notorious for burning money, and had been barred from everywhere but the Corner Store for burning the tips left at the tables. He professed religious conviction; believing he had a psychic conduit to Jesus Christ. In return for his manic prostrations, he was excused from any social obligation. He lived alone in the woods below Clear Crick. On the banks of his secluded swamp he feared real and imaginary demons; tied up on a short chain behind his shack there was a starving Rottweiler, and in his outhouse a double barreled 12-gauge. Head shaved, cadaver thin, and dressed in gothic black with a coal goatee and gray pallor, he was staring at the sunset, talking to the whining mastiff.

He watched her come down from the high ground and descend into the miry mists. He smiled at her detour around the screeching dog. Her lips were moving, as if reciting a devotional mantra. Over and over she scripted the indictment she would make Guerre suffer in the face of his accuser.

Nicole had a vision of this moment. But reality does not a vision make. Over and over, she had rehearsed the pointing of the gun, the coercing of the final confession and plea for forgiveness, the revelation that some divine or natural justice should prevail over human ignorance. She saw herself as an instrument of absolute justice, beyond celestial or terrestrial accountability. She envisioned a blast to the stomach, a gut shot that would give Guerre that moment of grim recognition. But this is not what happened.

Standing before Claude Guerre, Nicole felt (more than an urge to avenge her father) the necessity to compensate the degradation she had purposely initiated--a self inflicted outrage. Now she had to kill him, having suffered an absolute dishonor. The premeditation was over.

Recognizing the look and smell of insanity, she played to Guerre's disease, invoked the demons they shared, mentioned Lina Flately's name, insinuated other victims, and abruptly stopped, feigning weakness, as if overcome by emotion. Her behavior confused him; retreating to the shack, Guerre searched the hovel for the instruments of his criminal madness: the knife and the chloroform.

By the time he returned, she had the 12-gauge. She pulled both triggers at once. Guerre's emaciated torso imploded in a whoosh and whump of cordite and gore. The sheer force of the blast sent the knife through the bottom of his chin and out the crown, impaling his head like a skewered olive. His face contorted in angry astonishment; the bloody mouth gurgling vile obscenities. When the disembodied voice refused to cease, she reloaded and shot him again. She reloaded. The dog, straining at its rusting tether, howled incessantly. A gusher of blood overflowed the broken yellow teeth and spattered his beard and boots.

Nicole now held court over the convulsing body, as she began her long rehearsed indictment: "Retribution is my redemption; my Father is avenged," but it didn't matter, because Guerre was no more. She would never know if he understood his executioner. The dog's maniacal barking shattered her trance-like stupor. The unholy howl trailed off in the whine of the icy lake wind as she headed south along Peep-A-Day road.

Pit Bulls and Fire Hoses

“It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians and, although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”
-- James Baldwin 1924-87: Cambridge Union, England, 17 February 1965 (On the American Dream and the American Negro)

THE MCCPALINATOR EXPRESS

Take a good look at Ricky Thompson here. He’s the kind of banjo playin’ Deliverance He-Bloken, Limbaugh worshippin’, redneck hayseed that fantasizes about a Palin blowjob while contemplating what we should do about the possibility of putting a nigger-terrorist in the White House. Here’s what he had to say about Barack Obama’s racial heritage: “He’s neither-nor. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.” Here’s some more chestnuts from our southern brethren: “I would think of him as I would of another mixed race. God taught the children of Israel not to intermarry.” Thank you Mr. Glenn Reynolds of Martinsdale Virginia. A guffawing James Halsey had this to say: “He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch.” Hardyharhar! Jim Pagans of Roanoke Virginia wisely noted that although Obama was “half-Caucasion,” he had the characteristics of the blacks.” WOW!

Recall this passage from Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention: “And a writer observed, ‘We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity,’ and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.” This “writer” Palin is referring to is none other than the notorious right wing bigot, Westbrook Pegler. Who, you may ask, was Westbrook Pegler? Tiphanie Dickson, a defense attorney who specializes in international criminal law offers a description of Pegler and some of his quotes: “’This Truman,’ Pegler wrote, when Harry was nominated for vice president, ‘is thin-lipped, a hater, and not above offering you his hand to yank you off balance, and work you over with a chair leg, a pool cue, or something out of his pocket.’ Pegler's earlier description of Truman lacks in homespun integrity what it more than makes up for in grit: Truman is portrayed as a pit bull, another of the strongest notes in Palin's speech. Westbrook Pegler was not just a Hearst populist, he was a raving McCarthyite whose hatred of communists ultimately turned his prose into anti-semitic bile.”

But let’s talk McCain. Thomas Dowd, the former Bush strategist had this to say on Tuesday, McCain “ knows that…when this race is over….he put somebody unqualified on that ballot, and he put the country at risk.” On McCain’s stooping to sic the Palinese Mastiff on what turns out to be a not-so-gullible public, Christopher Hitchens writes, “Given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party’s right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama’s position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.” David Brooks called her a “fatal cancer on the Republican Party.” Oh yes, Palin does have one high profile admirer.

In today’s New York Times, Julie Bosman writes: “Perhaps no one else in the media has gushed over Gov. Sarah Palin more than Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host. On Tuesday, Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, returned the favor, calling into his show from the campaign trail in Scranton, Pa., before heading into a morning rally. ‘I tell you, I’m in a quandary here this morning,’ Mr. Limbaugh began. ‘I admire you so much. I really don’t even know what to ask.’” It really wouldn’t matter, since Palin has already shown herself incapable of answering a direct question. Of Palin and Limbaugh I would say this: simple minds think alike.

But I said McCain, so let me get back to that. Nat Hentoff, a truly maverick and bi-partisan intellectual when it comes to standing up for all citizens’ civil liberties, wrote this about Barack Obama’s crediting McCain for his stance against torture:

“His [McCain’s] actual votes in Congress tell a different, shameful story. He voted for the Detainees Treatment Act of 2005 that stripped Guantanamo Bay prisoners of their habeas corpus rights (until the Supreme Court tried to intervene). That law added an "appeal" procedure that prevented prisoners from appealing their conditions of confinement -- where the "coercive interrogations" and brutal force-feeding happened with no objection from McCain. In 2006, McCain voted for the Military Commissions Act after the Supreme Court (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) temporarily restored habeas rights at Guantanamo. That new law essentially overruled the Supreme Court for a time and gave George W. Bush the right, by himself, to interpret the Geneva Conventions, which expressly forbid "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" of prisoners. When the president then, by executive order, continued the "special powers" he had given the CIA in their secret prisons ("black sites") wholly beyond U.S. and international laws, McCain did not object. It was in one of those prisons, we now know, that the CIA practiced waterboarding, a criminal act, according to our (and international) laws.”

THE ECONOMY

No amount of bailing is going to keep the Titanic that is the American economy from sinking. Yesterday’s bailout, when the CEOs of the largest banks in the USA were handed a $250 billion dollar credit stimulus, reminded me of the scene from Titanic when Billy Zane asks if there is room for a “gentleman” in the lifeboats loading up the upper crust women and children. He, of course, survives, while the lower class masses in Steerage are delegated to a watery grave. Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at the PNC Bank, had this to say about the giveaway to the rich: “Everything the government has done is not going to prevent further deterioration in the economy. At the end of all this, what matters is what the economy does.” So what if these fat cats have been handed billions to lend. Who can buy anything when no one has a job and unemployment rate is skyrocketing. None of this band aid quick fix crap does a thing for the auto companies, and oh, by the way, any Ford, GM, Chrysler, type of merger would only lead to more layoffs and higher unemployment. Fasten your seat belts folks, the gangster vultures are getting hungry and the public feast is about to begin. Greed is the order of the day. Any fool who’s watched these money-thugs knew that the 900+ gain on Monday would be gone by today (Wednesday). And oh, by the way, as I write this the Dow is down 600+ points. These guys are so addicted to the fast buck they’ll fuck each other, or for that matter their own mothers, on the whimsical possibility of a quick profit. Let’s privatize the profits and socialize the debt. What if they had privatized medicare, or social security? I just checked again, make that down 700+ points. How’s your retirement fund doing friends?

And now a word from Sudsy

Remember when pathetic losers used to yell "Get a job!" or "Go back to Russia!" when we'd protest the Vietnam war? If you have the stomach for it, watch these pathetic losers (McCain supporters) on "The Sidewalk to Nowhere" in Bethlehem, Penn. 

How To Quit Smoking

“A custom loathsome to the eye,
hateful to the nose, harmful to the
brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in
the black, stinking fume thereof,
nearest resembling the horrible
Stygian smoke of the pit that is
Bottomless.”
-- James I 1566-1625: “A Counterblast to Tobacco” (1604)

“The wretcheder one is, the more one
smokes; and the more one smokes
the wretcheder one gets—a vicious
circle!”
-- George du Maurier 1834-96” “Peter Ibbetson” (1892)

WASHINGTON, DC — September 10, 2004 — Smokers risk damage to almost all major organs in their bodies, according to the latest report by the surgeon general (Health Consequences of Smoking, Surgeon General’s Report). The list of diseases caused by tobacco now includes cancers of the kidneys, stomach, cervix, and pancreas as well as leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia, and gum disease. These illnesses are in addition to diseases previously known to be caused by smoking— bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, and throat cancers, chronic lung diseases, coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases, and sudden infant death syndrome.
Smoking also reduces overall health, contributing to conditions such as hip fractures, complications from diabetes, increased wound infections

following surgery, and various reproductive problems.

Smoking cigarettes with lower machine–measured yields of tar and nicotine does not help. “There is no safe cigarette, whether it is called ‘light,’ ‘ultra–light,’ or any other name,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona commented. “The science is clear: the only way to avoid the health hazards of smoking is to quit completely or to never start smoking” (Health and Human Services, Press Release).
By current estimates, tobacco use causes 440,000 deaths per year and costs about $157 billion in health–related losses. An estimated 46,000 adults smoked in 2001. On average, men who smoke cut their lives short by 13.2 years, and female smokers lose 14.5 years. “Since the 1964 surgeon general’s report, more than 12 million people have died from smoking–related illness,” Dr. Carmona said. “These include 4.1 million deaths from cancer, 5.5 million deaths from cardiovascular diseases, 2.1 million deaths from respiratory diseases, and 94,000 perinatal deaths…We’ve known for decades that smoking is bad for your health, but this [latest] report shows that it’s even worse than we knew. The toxins from cigarette smoke go everywhere the blood flows.”

Quitting smoking has immediate as well as long–term benefits, according to the surgeon general’s report. The heart rate drops towards normal and circulation improves. The risk of having a heart attack or stroke or of developing lung cancer diminishes. Even seniors who quit after many years can experience positive effects. A smoker who gives up the habit at the age of 65 reduces his or her risk of dying from a tobacco–related disease by half.

Dedicated to the memory of Bill Behnke, Dale Bergland, Doris Campbell, Mary, Francis, and Roy Tuttle, and all those whose lives have been cut short by smoking.

Peace- Randy

"WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER HERO" Tina Turner

“The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.” Bertrand Russell 1872-1070: “Skeptical Essays (1928)

POLITICS

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Stepford Politics.”

”Does a Sarah Palin really matter? Won't there be countless reinventions of mediocrity to strut and rant upon the media stage? The public remains hypnotized by the sham of so called representation while the true goals of the House and Senate are to increase the wealth of the actual ruling class thereby realizing the logical outcome of capitalism--full scale economic global de-stabilization, a seamless power grab at cyber speed.Welcome to the brave new world of new age acceptance; ain't it empowering to know all your carrots were merely sticks to keep you performing your useless tricks? Political correctness, gender equality, double income, Mcmansion mortgage, whole fool diets, minimum slave wages, union busted, baloney education, oh, and sex, sex, sex! Social "gains" that merely ensure the steady erosion of the individual. Wonderful social engineering! Then unleash a climate of fear and confusion to achieve the final answer -- obedience. Welcome to the New Slave World.”

“WASHINGTON – An investigation by the military has concluded that American airstrikes on Aug. 22 in a village in western Afghanistan killed far more civilians than American commanders there have acknowledged, according to American military officials.” (Eric Schmitt, The New York Times 10/08/08)

“The Bush administration this month is quietly cutting off birth control supplies to some of the world’s poorest women in Africa. Thus the paradox of a ‘pro-life’ administration adopting a policy whose result will be tens of thousands of additional abortions each year—along with more women dying in childbirth.” (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times 10/09/08)

I hate it when my students quote the dictionary, but a recent essay in The New Republic (“Death Defying: Heroism’s grip on the political subconscious,” John B. Judis 10/22/08) has compelled me to do exactly that. My dictionary has 14 different meanings of “character.” The two I want to single out are, 4, moral or ethical strength, and, 9.a., a notable or well-known person. Regarding this second definition, the point of Judis’s article is that “heroism,” as it applies to the American public’s opinion of what makes a good leader, is a far more important aspect of presidential elections than “moral or ethical strength.”

According to Judis, unlike parliamentary governments, where the prime minister dictates policy and oversees legislation, the American president functions as both head of state and political leader. Judis cites George Mason, delegate from Virginia to the first U.S. constitutional convention, in defining the presidency as an “elective monarchy,” which only makes sense if we think of how King George W. Bush has managed the office. This would explain why an actor, like Ronald Reagan, was so attractive to the electorate. We care less about policy issues than matters of character. We would much prefer Shane to Jimmy Carter, or Arnold Shwarzenegger (if he were American born) to Dennis Kucinich.

In essentially applying a Freudian psychoanalytical reading to the uniquely American psychological attraction to heroic candidates, Judis argues that stories like McCain’s “resonate with Americans’ deepest fears and hopes about their own mortality.” In other words, our fear of death, what Freud described as our repression of the death instinct, “thanatos,” is assuaged by those who live with risk, overcome danger, and altruistically resurrect themselves after surviving a rite of passage that results in a state of rebirth rather than death. If Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” were to run, she would win in a landslide (would that Sarah Palin demonstrate Dorothy’s wisdom). Judis, of course, cites Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a Thousand Faces,” but he might just as well have quoted Mircea Elliade, or Clifford Geertz on the Christian (supernatural and monothestic) co-option of pagan (anthropomorphic and polytheistic) hero-stories.

Judis’s point is that because our innate fear of death must be constantly repressed, lest we walk around in a paranoid psychosis over our ultimately impending doom, we look for embodied analogues (other humans) that represent what it means to ignore our own fear of death.

What we should take from this is that, in the words of Tina Turner, “we don’t need another hero.” And so as Bush rides off into the sunset, we need to radically reinvent ourselves, which is, after all, a quintessentially American trait; and reject the long held American-Frontier-Western-Myth of redemption through violence which can only undermine the repositioning of America’s place in the post-twilight of empire; and courageously shout at the top of our collective lungs, “Shane, DON’T come back.”

Larry Campbell

Stop All the Clocks ...

by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”
-- Vladimir Nabokov 1899-1977: “Pale Fire” (1962)

I first met Larry Campbell when he was 10. I was about to marry his sister, Marcia, and, since I like most kids, except sometimes my own, we hit it off fabulously. Like his beautiful mother, Doris, he loved nature in every way. He knew where to find Whooping Cranes, Chanterelles, Partridge, Sulphur Shelf, wild Watercress, Chicken-in-the-Woods, Loon, Morels, Deer, Trout, Ducks, and all that makes this world sacred. No doubt he got this from his sainted mother. Doris didn’t talk to the animals, but I have to think she came closer to this miracle than even St. Francis of Assisi. Here was a hockey mom that could’ve run the world, but Doris was above such hubristic nonsense. She was a photographer, conversationalist, master chef, and naturalist, intuitively gifted in all of these things. After Jim and Larry would fish Big Bay, she’d prepare a fish boil whereby she would bring a spicy delicious cauldron of water to a bubble and gently cook the fish to perfection. She also made Brandy Manhattans that I have yet seen topped, even in Manahattan itself.

Larry was a fantastic hockey player. Having played in the state finals at U-M’s Yost Arena in Ann Arbor in, I think, 1977 (I have photos of those games), he held a number of records at Marquette High that stood for years. After that he graduated from Michigan State University and subsequently worked with the Michigan DNR and Department of Fish and Wildlife. One time I saw Larry working the Lamprey weir on the Iron River. Recognizing my kids’ curiosity, he fished out one of the slithering eels and showed us its suckerlike mouth, causing the children to be taken aback by that wondrous disgust that so delights the young. Another time, I took George Bedard out to Presque Isle, where we stopped at Black Rock cove. So, we’re standing there, admiring the sublime majesty of Gitchee Gumme, when lo and behold, an entity reminiscent of the creature from the black lagoon emerges from the water looking like something out of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea! It was Larry. Yes, he was also an accomplished scuba diver.

As a personal testament to Larry’s knowledge of field and stream, I offer two examples. He once took my kids, Russ and Sarah, fishing on Lake Independence, where they promptly limited out on Walleye. He then skillfully fileted them and presented them as a Chinese dish much akin to Red Fish with Hoisin sauce. Yummy! On another occasion, we needed a garnish for a particular venison mushroom delicacy he prepared. No problem. We hopped in the Scout, drove down 550 to 510, and parked above Clear Creek, where Larry quickly scooped up the wild watercress needed for our repast. Mmmm…good! Having worked as a chef at the exclusive Huron Mountain Club, Larry was, like his mom, an excellent cook.

Given my avowed atheism, it may surprise some that I believe in angels and demons. How, you may ask, can this be? It’s simple, I see these entities as terrestrial phenomena, that is to say, of this world. For me, angels are physical, outward manifestations, in that they take the form of people. Doris was one such angel. Demons, on the other hand, are internalized, psychological behaviors and characteristics, something that all but the most blessed of us must deal with and struggle against. I wish I could count myself as a part of that blessed group, but I can’t.

When I die, I have told those close to me that I want my ashes spead across the waters off Squaw Beach. And then, I too might join Larry in that bliss of an hereafter with no void or vacuum. A state of nothingness where no demons lurk and peace prevails, free from the grips of this mortal coil. We love you, Larry.

Peace - Randy

Stepford Politics

“Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.”
-- Lewis Carroll 1832-98: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” (1865)

Yep, it’s Me again. It’s a Sunday morning, praise God, and I’m going to experiment with presenting a rhetorical editorial salad that combines quotes from the columnists, Charles M. Blow, Bob Herbert, Gail Collins, and Steven Pinker. All passages are from the op-ed page of the Saturday, October 4, New York Times. You will also find the sage analysis of Me Interspersed among the quotes. So here goes.

Let’s take the lipstick off the pig. Impenetrable, that’s the only word I could think of in listening to Sarah Palin’s performance in the veep debate. Remarking on Palin’s perceived success with her conservative base, Charles M. Blow had this to say: “In truth, after her horrendous performance with Katie Couric, anything short of her head spinning around and spewing vomit would have been considered an improvement.”

She presents a run-on word jumble that out sudokus the hoodoo man. Some kind of weird Rubik's-cube-speak. Say what? No wonder she said, “I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear.” Bob Herbert had it wrong when he raised the frightening possibility that “the country could be left with an exclamation point as president.” I think “ex-claymation” is a better description of Palin’s public image. “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” Why did this non-sequitor admonition leave Biden looking like Kevin Kline during that orgasm in “A Fish Called Wanda.” Here’s Herbert: “Of course [Biden] didn’t know where to start because Ms. Palin’s words don’t mean anything. She’s all punctuation.” The only constituency that might possibly have understood her were the Joe six-pack voters sleeping on couches with a football game blaring in the background. She even had Shadow cocking her quizzical little head.

Gail Collins writes: “In an airplane hangar in Ohio recently, she told the people of Youngstown she was happy to be there because Alaska has, per capita, the nation’s most ‘small planes and small pilots.’” This was obviously a Freudian slip, much like her “drill baby, drill,” mantra, which I’m sure she intones when she’s atop her Eskimo-pie daddy. The Russians can probably hear them from Kamchatka. K2 comes to Denali. Of course the Palinator, dyslexic has she is, still thinks the locals call it Denial. Anyway, no doubt her reference to “small pilots” is a swipe at Ohioan men's small dicks. Which is why them rutting, buckeye, he-cops in their Smokey hats have to vote for Obama. I mean she’s implying that Terelle Pryor has a mini-wang. “Say it ain’t so, Sarah.”

Steven Pinker contends that Palin fared much better than in her face-to-face interview with Katie Couric “because in a one-on-one conversation, you can’t launch into a prepared speech on a topic unrelated to the question….When the questioner is 30 feet away on the floor and you’re on a stage talking to a camera, which can’t interrupt or make faces, you can reel off a script without making faces.” This made it easier for her insane Stepford grin to Svengaliize a public Ostrich that momentarily reared it’s sandy head. As Blow put it, “Palin launched into her charm offensive—winking, smiling, dodging questions and speaking in her signature Sarah-phonics, a mash up of sentence fragments and colloquialisms glued together with misplaced also’s and there’s—gibberish really.” If Palin meant to emphasize the desperation fueled Republican theme that, as Pinker puts it, “expertise is overrated, homespun sincerity is better than sophistication, [and] conviction is more important than analysis,” she was golden. So what does intellect and critical thinking amount to in the McCain scheme of things? Here’s Pinker: “Being able to see Russia from Alaska, then, means you have an understanding of foreign policy; living in an Arctic state means that you have an understanding of climate change. In Mr. McCain’s case, it means, as he wrote last month, understanding technology policy because he flew airplanes in Vietnam and being concerned about the ocean’s health because he served in the Navy.” It’s worth remembering, as “Rolling Stone’s” Tim Dickinson reminds us, Bush was a better pilot than McCain.

On the issue of global warming, she was only interested in discussing how to limit its impact, and not the issue of causality. And this makes perfect sense if your overarching political agenda involves finding ways to maximize profits while continuing to pollute the earth. Responding to Dick Cheney’s bizarre, Strangelovian notion that the vice president is a part of both the executive and legislative branches of government, Palin offered up this pre-simian response: “Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position.” Say what? A lot of “there’s” and “agenda’s” there. Given that folks like Palin, Antonin Scalia comes to mind here, see the constitution as an “enduring,” that is to say, static document, one can only ask who watched these “founding fathers’” slaves while they were in Philly, and how Palin feels about the fact that women were not given the constitutional right to vote until the 20th century. Should we not have abolished slavery and given women equal rights? Collins has a point in seeing Palin’s ascendancy as a consequence of the women’s liberation run amok, as its dark side: “This entire election season has been a long-running saga about the rise of women in American politics. On Thursday, it all went sour.”

Palin had this to say about the possibility of using atomic weapons: “Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, and end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.” Can you imagine Palin’s finger on the button. Praise God! Nevermind that North Korea just started up their nuke production again after Bush lifted all sanctions against a country that has a starving population and absolutely no regard for human rights. And, speaking of “dangerous regimes” posing global annihilation, none is more threatening than our anti-terrorist ally, and a country about to be overrun by maniacal fanatics, Pakistan. Lastly, that most dangerous of regimes, and the one with far and away the greatest nuclear arsenal is, of course, the United States. We have met the enemy, and they are us!

Next time I’ll tell you how I really feel.

Love - Me

PAIN versus SUFFERING?

“About suffering they were never
wrong,
The old masters: how well they
understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or
opening a window or just walking
dully along.”
-- W. H. Auden 1907-73: “Musee des Beaux Arts” (1940)

A good physician has four central tasks: ascertain what the ailment is (diagnosis), get to the bottom of why it occurred (cause), prescribe a course of action (treatment), and, related to treatment, forecast the consequences (prognosis). But there is a danger in isolating this chronology from a fifth, and often overlooked, component—the suffering person. The traditional, and fundamentally flawed, assumption is that, while people may be different, diseases are static entities. In other words, lymphoma is lymphoma, no matter who has it. But as any doctor worth her salt knows, the sufferer and illness aren’t discrete entities, and to treat them as such is tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As an example of this, I would cite an incident from my own cancer experience.

During the course of my chemotherapy, my physician, Dr. Asra Ahmed, would regularly consult with her boss, the world renowned lymphoma expert, Dr. Mark Kaminski. At one point, because of some extremely high AZT/liver levels in my blood work, and because of the complication of my having hepititis C, she asked Kaminski about lowering my chemo dose. His response was that (and he may have been right) based on my history and past blood enzyme levels, I could take the toxic hammering. Now, I don’t know if my current state of health and continuing remission can be attributed to Dr. Ahmed’s decision, but I would say what she elected to do was based on her medical intution, as well as the experiential component of the doctor-patient relationship. She lowered the chemo dosage as a kindness to my gizzard, err, liver, based on a purely subjective equation that weighed the potential future damage to my liver against the success of the chemo in eradicating the cancer. To my mind, this amounted to a holistic decision. In a sense, she took the calculated risk of, at once, keeping me off the transplant list and eliminating the cancer. Good job, Asra. My point is that the dynamic between disease, sufferer, and I would argue, doctor, is always unique and unprecedented.

Regarding palliation, the treatment of disease and alleviation of suffering can’t be separated. As I recently told a friend, a physician can be a good doctor, but a poor pain manager. The treatment of illness requires more than knowing the nature of the disease and the science that accounts for it; it also demands a compassionate understanding of the person who is ill. Again, consider another example from my own experience. One of the paradoxes of modern medicine is that suffering is commonly the result of the treatment rather than the disease. In brief, I found there are two components to cancer suffering, pain related to symptoms, that which drives you to the doctor, and pain related to the treatment, that which results from the side-effects of chemo (which I’ve discussed in some detail at other times in this blog). Regarding treatment suffering, cancer patients are typically given palliative medications should they experience specific discomfort, like bone, nerve, or tumor pain. But aside from the specific physical pains, there is an existential pain, a general feeling of feeling crappy about feeling crappy, if that makes any sense.

Key here, is my struggle to name exactly what kind of discomfort I experienced. This is where Eric J. Cassell’s definition of suffering as “the state of severe distress associated with events that threaten the intactness of person” seems apt. He found that while there are many references to pain in medical and social science literature, there is a dearth of information on suffering. Because suffering is associated with mind in the traditional Descartian paradigm, Cassell writes, “as long as the mind-body dichotomy is accepted, suffering is either subjective and thus not truly “real”—not within medicine’s domain—or identified exclusively with bodily pain.” It’s no accident that nurses and physician’s assistants would invariably ask, ‘where, specifically, is your pain? To say ‘I’m suffering,’ rather than I’m in pain would, no doubt, draw a blank, and affect a return to the issue of specific pain. Which is why I always had a readily available laundry list of specific pains, should I encounter a skeptical nurse (of which there are many) trying to disabuse me of what she considered to be my somatic misconceptions.

In my case, I made the decision to use pain--don't call them suffering--meds, which I self-monitored in a controlled way, as a way of allowing myself a distraction from the general malaise which so often accompanies prolonged illness. My doctor could have questioned this decision. She might have staked out a moral high ground to which I could only aspire. She didn’t, and I’m glad. There is no greater mistake a doctor can make than to assume a knowledge of someone else’s pain based on cruel and barbaric assumptions related to intellectual and moral paternalism.

Cassell’s influential book, “The Nature of Suffering And The Goals Of Medicine” (1991) makes the case that the task of medicine in the 21st century is to learn more about the relationship between healing and personhood. Focusing on the historically intractable assumption that the subject is unknowable, Cassell contends that the similarity of our ideas, language, customs, and cultural beliefs allows us to know much more about who we are as individual persons than is commonly thought. He argues that just as the focus of the 19th and 20th centuries was on the “power of the body,” our future aim should be on the person who is sick as much as the sick person. Cassell believes that the modern prejudice that all knowledge apart from scientifically arrived at facts is not real, has delegated any subjective inquiry into what individual suffering entails as invalid.

Cassell writes: “Our perceptions of other persons are not based on elemental facts alone but also on values and aesthetic criteria….[v]alues are not mere prejudices but a kind of information that can be consistently and reliably employed in our knowledge of persons. Were it not so there would be no stability in our personal or social lives. Aesthetic criteria, which at first might seem foreign to medicine, are also essential for knowing whole persons within space and across time. Values and aesthetics raise the specter of subjectivity so worrisome to medicine and medical science.”

What Cassell emphasizes is that experiential knowledge, as much as scientific expertise, must act in concert if the physician is to be successful in relieving pain and suffering. If passion and emotion must enter into the equation, so be it. It bears remembering that people treat people, and that machines, medicines, and chemical remedies can never provide that central ingredient in the alleviation of suffering—empathetic understanding.