the fun part of politics

One of my students posted this on facebook and I found it amusing. Also, I love the song:

A Matter of the Heart

Did you ever have one of those days when it seemed you couldn't get anywhere on time, no matter how early you got up or how much you rushed? Well, this was one of those mornings.

I'm sure it's because I was worried and nervous. We were taking Harrison to the pediatric cardiologist at 10, and I was trying to prepare myself for the worst while hoping for the best.

Turns out that’s not really my strong suit. I was playing goofy little mind games with myself, thinking “Well, the doctor said she didn’t think there was anything wrong. This is supposed to be just precautionary. So until I hear otherwise, I need to remember he is a strong, healthy little boy”. Somehow, that was not as settling as it should have been. My intuition was distracting me with contrary vibes that told me otherwise. This was going to be a horrible day and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Now, it’s not that I think I’m some kind of psychic or anything. I’m not sure I even believe in all that. But over the years I’ve learned to rely on my intuition. If I expect a call from someone and he doesn’t call that night, it bothers me. Invariably, he’ll call the next day and tell me he’d been about to call before, but then decided to wait until morning. I also have “feelings” about when important people will come into my life, and when they will pass on or otherwise depart. So far I’ve never been truly surprised by major life events, even when everyone else was. I even have a way of sensing when I am about to have car trouble, and I swear it’s before the clunking and grinding noises start.

Of course, I can’t prove any of this, and I don’t care to. But I do heed my “feelings” about things, especially when they are very strong. So when I circled Tuesday on my calendar a few weeks earlier, and felt that unmistakable tingle in the back of my head shoot through my spine and out my toes, there was no way I could relax about The Appointment.

I could have sworn I was hurrying to get ready that morning, but my body seemed to rebel, stretching preparations out as long as possible. Apparently my subconscious had decided I could somehow slow time and bring it to a stand-still if I just paid extra attention to the minutia of the morning. 10 o’clock would never come, and my son would be a healthy and strong, wonderful little boy forever.

It didn’t work. Time charged forward, paying no heed to my growing internal panic. Onward to the daycare. I must have read ten picture books before finally kissing his whole face and telling the teacher I’d be back to pick him up about 9:30. Much as I loved my job and had to get things done before The Appointment, never had I been so unhappy about going to the office. Where were my priorities, to be leaving him here so I could go get a couple hours of work in? What if after The Appointment, our whole world was different? I would never forgive myself for being at the office instead of with my baby.

It’s just for a couple hours. This is no different from yesterday or the day before. No matter what we find out, we have the whole rest of the afternoon to be together. I continued with my mantra all the way to work, chiding myself for the ridiculous melodrama I was turning this into.

If something was seriously wrong, our pediatrician would have told me what she suspected. That’s one reason I like her. She doesn’t pull punches; she tells you kindly but clearly what is or might be wrong. If there’s something to worry about, she lets you know. This time, she told me she detected a slight murmur, but that it was something relatively common in children this age. She just wanted to follow up with a specialist to be sure she was right.

I believed her. Everyone and everything was telling me that most likely, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Harrison. Even the worst-case scenario they were expecting was nothing so terrible in the whole scheme of things. Frequent checkups, maybe some kind of special precautions when going to the dentist. If he has a problem, how lucky to find out now, so it can be addressed and he can go on to have a normal life – rather than have it abruptly cut short later on.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I could take the whole afternoon off work, if I wanted to. We had a great day of togetherness ahead of us, and lovely weather to accommodate anything we wanted to do.

So why did I feel as if my own heart was about to stop? Why did I have to struggle to breathe normally and go about my usual routine…but I knew why. Because my intuition is never wrong.

As I pulled my car into the parking lot at work, I paused for a moment of prayer. I wasn't very practiced at it, and I wasn't quite sure how you're supposed to word things. Lord, please help me through this day. (It occurred to me that being self-centered in my prayer might look bad to God) Please be with everyone who is facing similar struggles in their day, (uh-oh better make sure I don't sound ungrateful) and help us realize the great bounty you have blessed us with in our loved ones and the world you have given us to share. (Oh man. Might as well come clean - I mean, this is GOD I'm talking to - not like I'm fooling anyone) Sorry, God - I stink at this. Please forgive my self-centered concerns and worries. I know that all things happen according to your plan, but I'm not so good at remembering that. Please be with me today and help me remember. And if my intuition is finally wrong this time, and everything turns out just fine, please help me remember to treasure Harrison every day through health as well as sickness. Don’t let me go back to taking him – or anyone else that I love - for granted. Please help them know how much they mean, and how important they are on this earth.

Well, I'd managed to keep from trying to barter with God - but I'd still brought myself to tears with the histrionics of my prayers...or maybe it was just my frustrated anxiety.

It was going to be a very bad day. My whole world was about to change, and there was nothing I could do but pray.

* * * * *

In spite of my best efforts to stop time and keep events from moving forward, The Appointment was suddenly upon us.

After an agonizing process of testing and the silent exchange of glances followed by low murmurs and consultations outside the exam room, the doctor informed us that Harrison had “…what we call an ‘innocent murmur’. It shouldn’t cause him any trouble, and he’ll probably outgrow it in a few years.”

As his words sank in, I felt an uncomfortable elation in our good fortune. But I wasn't surprised.

You see, my intuition wasn’t wrong, just misdirected. The TV in the waiting room confirmed it before we even entered an exam room. The South Tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed right before we arrived at the doctor's office.

That afternoon, as I watched my perfectly healthy little boy laughing in the sunshine and enjoying the park, I repeated my prayer of the morning. But this time I prayed for the victims of flights 11, 77, 93, and 175; for the rescue workers who died fighting to save others on that bright September morning which had become clouded with fire, smoke and debris; for the families whose nightmares were just beginning; for the military personnel who would also give their lives in whatever might follow. Then I prayed another prayer that my healthy son would still have a world worth growing up in.

© Copyright 2002 JB Wallace. All rights reserved

Baby Bang

Have you heard about the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) Machine?

Apparently some 8,000 scientists from 85 countries have spent the last couple of decades unhindered, seriously working to play God, while stem-cell researchers continue to be badgered and harangued in their efforts to find treatments for debilitating and fatal diseases.

They started it up today - just sending particles one direction at a time. In a month they will be sending particles both ways, eventually inducing a collision.

They don't know what will happen, but they are sure it will be exciting (of course, we must keep in mind that this is a group of people who clapped and cheered and probably wet themselves when they saw the little light they sent into their 17 mile race track come out on the other side successfully, so remember they are able to read more into their results than, say, your average Nascar fan).

They don't know what will happen, but they hope one possible outcome would be to create a small black hole (And really, we can never have enough of those in the universe, now can we?).

They don't know what will happen, but they hope to create post-big bang conditions to learn more about the creation of the universe (all you out there who are screaming at your computer monitor that it's all in the Bible, just simmer down and go back to watching your TiVo'd episodes of The 700 Club. If God could create the universe, he should be able to handle these shmoes just fine, and if there was no "big bang", then they can't recreate it, see?).

So far, my question is: why?

Critics have expressed concern that if they do manage to create a black hole, it could adversely affect our planet (some of the more extreme views suggest that such a man made black hole would absorb our entire planet - if that's going to happen, I hope they find out before I go and do all this laundry).

They don't know what will happen, yet they pooh-pooh expressions of such concern and have declared that any black hole they might create would be so small it wouldn't even absorb an atom. They declare this with conviction and bluster not seen since the days after 9-11, when the Bush administration bullied their way into a war using accusations of WMD.

I have yet to read of any information they hope to glean from this experiment that would have useful application to life on this planet, or in any way benefit humankind. Yet billions of dollars have been poured into this project. Funding that was thus unavailable for medical research or projects that could address world hunger, or research into colonizing other planets in the event ours becomes uninhabitable (perhaps as the result of some multi-billion dollar, 20-years-in-the-making physics project), or development of a car alarm that only goes off when the car is actually being burglarized, or a laser beam the rest of us can use to vaporize cars with alarms that go off in the middle of the night for no reason.

Again, I have to ask: why?

Perhaps in anticipation of criticism, the experts have been quick to point out that this is only a "baby step"; that it is "pure science", as has been historically conducted by this and that other notable scientist. They generally spout names that clearly belong to their heroes in high-science. I keep waiting to hear about Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, or even Leonardo DaVinci - but their references are always far more obscure and unpronounceable, making them impossible to Google. The experts also take great pains to be clear that they will need many more years (and billions more in funding) in order to figure out what to do with any data they eventually obtain from colliding these subatomic particles.

Well, that many scientists and that much money, surely they aren't wrong that nothing can go wrong, right? I mean - the nuclear physicists who developed the atom bomb were stupid scientists, and that's why they didn't foresee the adverse applications of their technology. And there are many positive applications of nuclear energy (many of them medical) that somebody somewhere could probably argue would not exist today if technology hadn't been advanced through development of weaponry.

So the children of the fifties and sixties had to practice ducking under their desks. If not for the threat of nuclear annihilation, Japan might have continued its uppity attacks on the United States. Plus, some of our best movies would never have been made, and Patrick Swayze wouldn't have had Red Dawn on his resume' to prove he was more than a handsome dancing ghost. Ok, maybe they could have come up with that plot, anyway. But don't tell me Brandon Frasier's Mummy movies would have graced our planet if he hadn't had the stellar Blast from the Past to kick off his career. Ok, maybe they could have come up with some other Rumpelstiltskin adaptation. But you have to admit that Fat Man and Little Boy really needed an atom bomb to carry the plot. And don't even get me started on the boost in refrigerator sales that followed the most recent Indiana Jones flick.

So, ok, you smarty pants scientists! Bring on the risks and let's pooh-pooh them together. All Hail Science! Huzzah! (By the way, you might want to spend the next 4-6 weeks stocking up on canned goods and water, just in case). But if we can create another whole universe underground in Switzerland, just think of the possibilities! No, seriously... everybody think...there are some - we'll find them...let's all just hang in there...

Maybe I am looking at this from the wrong perspective, but the more I hear about it, the greater my sense of unease, and the farther I seem to get from an answer to my question:

Why?

LHC for dummies (Wikipedia)
Radio Netherlands Worldwide Article
National Geographic Article
Wired Science Article
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Telegraph.co.uk article

Additional Reading courtesy of Slate:
Did America's Tevatron beat LHC to the "scoop"?
If the Earth gets destroyed, I'm suing.
Death by Black Hole
Why it's not front page news.

Dia de los Abuelos

Grammy and G-Boy were sick today, so we didn't get to have the special celebration we were planning in honor of Grandparent's Day. I've also been a little discombobulated lately, and not mentally in a good place to write the "homage" to them that I had planned to post today. So please go back and read what I wrote for their anniversary on August 22 (Celebrating Mr. & Mrs. Shaffer), and wait patiently for me to get back "on my game", at which time I will write something more fitting than this lame excuse.

Happy Grandparent's Day, Mom & Dad!

Feliz Dia de los Abuelos, Abuelito y Mamita!

Something About September

What is it about the change in seasons that seems to wreak havoc? One year ago I was tending to the needs of my ailing (dying) companion of 16 years, my beloved dog, Yuxia. So naturally, the coming of September has been, for me, tainted with a melancholy resurfacing of grief, compounded by the still-recent death of Tom, and the seems-like-yesterday-and-how-can-it-really-have-happened passing of my beloved "sister/mother", Aunt Bobbi.

I'm also a summer-lover, so I've always "mourned the passing of summer". But this year, it seems like the onset of fall has gotten to more people in my universe than usual. Julio's coworker (RB, mentioned in my post a couple days ago) took his own life. Then I learned on Friday that one of my favorite students, a smart, vivacious young person who seems to have the world by the horns, was hospitalized for depression. Another couple I am close to is having marital problems and may be headed for divorce.

Many who aren't being affected emotionally seem to be taking a physical hit. Harrison has already had a sick day this year, as has Deedee's stepson Alex. Grammy and G-Boy took ill this weekend, and of course our young warrior, Ben, continues to fight his battles (with the help of his Mommy and Daddy and baby brother). I caught some kind of "let's be exhausted all the time" bug, and finally gave up trying to sleep it off. Even the soprano in our praise band has been out for several weeks, fighting some kind of respiratory infection.

Well, at least I haven't been working on my wedding thank-you's lately, so I can't add all these recent dilemmas to the circumstantial-superstition-enforcing-evidence that working on anything related to our wedding causes trouble for my loved ones. (Unless planning times to work on the thank-you's when Julio can help counts as working on something related to the wedding...eep).

Like Father, Like Son

In January of 2007, we were at Mom and Dad's house at the same time Bobbi was visiting. She had brought over her new laptop, and Julio was "looking at it" while the rest of us talked. Then Bobbi glanced over at Julio and broke out laughing. He was sitting quietly in the corner, making faces at Bobbi's laptop. When we asked what he was doing, he confessed, with an embarrassed blush, that he was playing with the built-in webcam and photo software, to make ... self portraits. Harrison then got in on the action, and when they were finished, we saved the two "best" shots.

I just came across them as I was cleaning out one of my flash drives, and with so many people I'm close to having difficult times, I really felt like it was important to post these pictures, to cleanse our emotional palates.

So, these are my boys. I am so proud.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The dolphins evacuate earth after trying to warn humans of the imminent destruction of the planet. Their parting words?

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

(click for song)

Those were the words on RB's email autoreply today.

During a meeting this morning, it was announced that RB had himself... evacuated the earth.

Perhaps he intended the lyrics of the the song at the beginning of the movie (based on the book by Douglas Adams) to be his parting message:

So long and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear

You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that
grow around you

So long, so long and thanks
for all the fish

The world’s about to be destroyed
There’s no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve

Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your
pregnant women

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long and thanks
for all the fish

I wonder if he felt invisible. Or maybe he felt false - that the person everybody thought they were seeing was a facade that he couldn't escape. What was it that made living just too hard or painful?

Nobody suspected that RB was contemplating suicide. Maybe they should have (we tried to warn you all but oh dear).

Could somebody have made a difference for him? Would a smile, or invitation to go out for drinks after work, have made him reconsider his plans? What was the "straw that broke the camel's back" for him - and who dropped it there?

It makes you wonder, as you go about your day, if you've unwittingly been the person to drop the straw, or if you've somehow managed to ease the load just in time. I don't know that I'm the type to be able to ease the load, but I'm going to try to be mindful to at least not drop the straw.

Labor Day

“Man, I hate Labor Day!” he snarled
then stalked back to his cubicle
to mourn the passing of summer
and I couldn’t help but wonder why it mattered.

Climate controlled buildings with no windows
don’t know weather.
Then I went for a walk on my lunch break,
and decided to experience the seasons.

I’m going to swim until the water is
warmer than the air
then I’m going to dig out my rollerblades
and wear down the wheels
and find out where to catch a hayride and
bob for apples while dressed as a ghoul.

I’m going to deep fry a turkey
and host the whole family
then put on my sweats for a game of
touch football in the yard
and see who can go highest in the swing before ejecting into a pile of waiting leaves

I’m going to learn to ice-skate
and build a massive snow fort
then go cross-country skiing
and have a caroling party
and greet the New Year from Times Square

I'm going to take a sleigh ride
in Vermont with my valentine
then come home to fly kites in an open field
and dance in the warm rain while hiding
colorful plastic surprise-filled eggs

Before I know it, long days of sunshine will return.
Then my friend can emerge from his cubicle
and brush up on his golf game
and finish working on his house,
maybe even enjoy some fireworks.

I grabbed a quick sandwich
on my way back to the office
then ate it at my desk while I
checked my voice mail, returned calls
and read the new email from my boss about mandatory overtime effective in September.

“Man I hate Labor Day!” I muttered to myself
then stalked to the copy machine as I
mourned the passing of summer.


© Copyright 2002 JB Wallace. All rights reserved.