01/05/2012

To the Window

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to pay closer attention to the weather.  Not the climate, the weather and not for professional or environmental or scientific reasons, but for the pleasure of it, for the purpose of rooting myself in this particular place I’ve chosen as my home.

I’ve paid enough attention to the weather in past years to know it changes every day and not in the obvious way: one day cloudy and the next clear.  I mean that by looking at a photo, I might see clues that tell me it was taken in northwestern Vermont in the second month of winter, rather than the first or third.

This is easy enough in the other three seasons of the year, merely by looking at the state of vegetation (although I still have much to learn then, too), but winter is more subtle and thus, more rewarding to the patient observer.  The quality, quantity and location of the snow most immediately present to the eye, but these metrics grow more unreliable each year.  (Alas, this is where climate and my professional life intrude.)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
12/29/2011

To Appease the Gods

So the last Americans pulled out of Iraq, eight and a half years later, leaving an uncertain nation with an even more uncertain future.

As I watched the video of the last trucks crossing the Kuwait border, all I could see were the black hulls of the Greek ships sailing away, gray smoke still hanging in the ruined walls of Troy.

Not that Iraq is currently in ruins, but the Trojan war has been on my mind for the last decade, since George W. Bush, like Agamemnon before him, began gathering reluctant allies for a headstrong military adventure that brought grief to nearly everyone associated with it.

To appease the gods for sending a military force to make war on a society in which non-combatants on only one side would be at risk, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia.  (His wife would later kill him for having done that.)  Mr. Bush made no such sacrifice, nor did he ask the majority of his countrymen to make any sacrifice on behalf of the soldiers he commanded.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Iraq Invasion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
12/22/2011

The Christmas You Get

Last weekend I realized I’m heading into my 51st Christmas.  Not that I don’t have 50 of every other day of the year under my belt, but we tend to remember holidays in ways the third Thursday of April can’t match.

As I began remembering Christmases, I wondered how many years could I pin to a specific memory, how many could I put in order.  (Another thought: does it really matter?)  I mentioned this to Adrienne and some friends and if nothing else, it’s a great conversation starter.  “That was the Christmas that….”

I have no memory of my first Christmas, although there is a home movie of me, just up on wobbly legs, suddenly sitting down and crushing a model gas station my father painstakingly assembled the previous evening.  (Even then, it seems, I had it in for oil companies.)

Nineteen sixty-six was the year I managed to remove a fingertip in a kindergarten accident.  I remember staring through a window in the surgeon’s office at the image of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on top of Rochester General Hospital, trying not to cry as the dressing on the wound was changed.  I do not associate Rudolph’s image with pain, which must be some sort of Christmas magic.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Comments (0)
12/15/2011

Daddy Issues

Whatever happened to Leslie King, Jr?

He grew up to be president of the United States, but we know him as Gerald R. Ford, Jr.  Mr. Ford’s mother left his father (who was said to be abusive) 16 days after little Leslie’s birth.  Two years later, she married Gerald Ford, Sr. and though the future president was never formally adopted, he changed his name to reflect the shift in family.

I got to thinking about this when I saw a reference to Newton MacPherson, now known as Newt Gingrich.  Mr. Gingrich’s mother wed at 16 just long enough to get pregnant, left her husband and married Robert Gingrich, who adopted Newt, a few years later.

Mr. Gingrich is trying to usher Barack Obama into unemployment.  Mr. Obama, we all know, grew up a black kid in a white family, his African father leaving shortly after Mr. Obama’s birth.  His name, including the middle name Hussain, stayed the same, but he later wrote of the pain and dislocation caused by the absence of Barack senior.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Electoral Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
12/08/2011

A Goon’s Brain

I have lived most of my life within 100 miles of the Canadian border, i.e. hockey country.  So I read John Branch’s excellent New York Times series on Derek Boogard’s brain damage with interest and the response from the National Hockey League with dismay.

A post-mortem examination of Mr. Boogard’s brain – he died at 28 from an accidental overdose of alcohol and drugs – showed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).  The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University has studied the brains of four deceased hockey players and found each suffered from CTE.  Three of the four, including Mr. Boogard, were goons – that is, they were recruited not for their skill with the puck, but only to beat people up on the ice.

In Wednesday’s Times, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Todd Fedoruk, a retired goon and friend of Mr. Boogard, defended fighting in North America’s professional hockey leagues. (Sanctioned fighting exists only in N. American pro leagues; college, European and Olympic players face ejection and potential multi-game suspensions for fighting.)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)
12/01/2011

Shut Up and Pay

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera hinted Monday at something that’s been on my mind for a while, but he didn’t come right out and say it.

His column was on the European money crisis and the gist of his argument is this: it makes economic sense for Germany (Europe’s economic powerhouse) to bail out Greece (Europe’s irresponsible brother-in-law).

The Greeks have gotten themselves – and are dragging the Euro and the Eurozone nations – into this mess with too little austerity and too many early retirements.  It’s the hardworking ants of the Baltic versus the sun-drenched grasshoppers of the Mediterranean.  It’s in Germany’s self-interest to save the Greeks, because if Europe returns to a patchwork of currencies, then those low-value drachmas and lire and pesetas will buy fewer German products.

The Germans, however, resist this logic not for economic, but moral reasons.  “If we bail you out, how will you learn your lesson?” the Germans ask, “Why would you not repeat your mistakes?”  It’s like the parent, about to punish the child, saying, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” and in this case it might be true.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Economy | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)
11/24/2011

Things We Do Not Have

We woke to three inches of snow Wednesday.  “Back to normal,” I thought.  Winter is the norm in the north; other seasons are a fantasy.  Not very nice snow, either.  Heavy, wet stuff.  So, no Thanksgiving eve potato roast.  We might be northerners, but we’re not going to sit in the slush.

People who are not from the north (and many who are) lament the coming of snow, short days, constant cloud cover.  I suspect they push back against winter mentally be being unprepared for it.  I was not surprised when a transplanted Floridian was still mucking about with snow tires as late as Monday, but discouraged to have a Vermont native cancel an appointment yesterday due to inadequate treads and fear of venturing out on the roads.

The feature of the aborted potato roast was to have been sweet potatoes, so we have a surfeit in the kitchen, many of which will be baked for this afternoon’s dinner with the neighbors.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)