In an intriguing bit of original reporting, Confederate Yankee gets to talk directly to the author of a column/hit-piece ["Proof is in the memo: Soldiers died for a lie"] by Middletown, NY Times Herald-Record columnist Beth Quinn. Reading the exchange is like watching two unrelated monologues:

"Your editorial doesn't match what the Downing Street memo said."

"I think Bush lied."

"Your editorial doesn't match what the Downing Street memo said."

"I think Bush lied."

"Your editorial doesn't match what the Downing Street memo said."

"I think Bush lied."

If you read the full text, it's easy to see why this happened. Both sides were more interested in scoring rhetorical points than in discussing the issue. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Frequently the point of a public conversation isn't communication between the principals so much as conversion of undecided bystanders. Much as courtroom advocacy - prosecutor vs. defense - seeks to sway a jury.

Here's how Confederate Yankee opened:

I would like to know how you can write an editorial like " Proof is in the memo: Soldiers died for a lie" and consider yourself a responsible journalist, when you deliberately misrepresent the context of the memo. You make the claim that the original DSM "is a report on a meeting between Rycroft and the White House in July 2002." That is patently false. The DSM was the minutes of a meeting-not a report-among top British officials. The White House is never mentioned, and the only mention of Bush was the comment that "it seemed" he had made up his mind. This is hardly evidence. Furthermore, you ignore the remaining six "Downing Street Memos" that contradict your claim. The David Manning memo to Tony Blair, one of the additional documents leaked, says in a telling line, "Bush wants to hear you [sic] views on Iraq before taking decisions." The Iraqi Options paper (PDF) specifically mentions that the United States is "considering regime change"-specifically indicating that the decision to invade had not been made. You either lied to support your position, or were not well-enough informed to write this article in the first place. Which is it?

Given the accusatory tone of the phrases in bold, it's no wonder Quinn dug in her heels. Choosing between "liar" and "ignoramus" isn't pleasant.

So how COULD Confederate Yankee have done more to encourage Quinn to respond directly to the issue? By including a third possibility - that he, himself, was simply puzzled by an apparent contradiction and was merely seeking clarification. For example:

After reading your "Proof is in the memo" column, I find myself confused. You said the original DSM "is a report on a meeting between Rycroft and the White House in July 2002." However, according to the memo itself, the DSM was actually the minutes of a meeting among top British officials. The White House is never mentioned, and the only mention of Bush was the comment that "it seemed" he had made up his mind. Could your description of the memo have been mistaken?

Also, you wrote that Bush had already made up his mind to invade Iraq. Other sources [cite in detail, as above] indicate that the decision to invade hadn't yet been made. How do you reconcile this with your statement?

When phrased this way, the focus is strictly on the memos and not on the question of Quinn's journalistic integrity. Since the statements are purely factual and the question is merely one of reconciling apparent differences, Quinn has no justification for either lashing out or changing the topic. If she doesn't respond factually, she looks like a partisan hack, especially given the relatively straightforward question. Really, her only way out is to admit some "phrasing inaccuracies" to her statements, at which point the reasons for her "inaccuracies" become fair game for inquisition.

In closing, I want to re-emphasize that I take no issue with Confederate Yankee's more hardball tactics. They have their place, and a public forum is certainly one arena where they can be effective.

I'm just saying how *I* would've handled it.

That's just me.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:28 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 680 words, total size 4 kb.

1 And that's why I read you, you know...

Posted by: Linus at June 30, 2005 12:35 PM (Bf+TD)

2 You mean I shold have asked her to clarify whether she was a liar or an ignoramus? I'll remember that next time... ;-)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at June 30, 2005 07:47 PM (CO4eV)

3 I would have added some profanity to spice up the letter as well

Posted by: Graumagus at July 01, 2005 12:53 PM (R/92X)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

After some private discussions with Paul of Arms Control Wonk, it occurred to me that the issue of how prisoners are treated in Gitmo revolves around the following question:

Does the value of intelligence gathered through using physical coercion to interrogate prisoners outweigh the harm caused by reports of "torture" being used as morale-boosting propaganda by the enemy?

And after phrasing it that way, I realized that I'm probably one of the least-qualified people on the face of the planet to answer that question.

Why?

Because I have NO idea what value to place on the intelligence gathered from the terrorists. I don't know what the prisoners are saying. I don't know how the information is being used. And even Pentagon decision-makers can only guess at how many lives have been saved by acting on this information.

On the second half of the question... good luck attaching numbers to the value of morale. The best you can do is guess whether it's trending up or down over time.

So I don't know the answer except to say "it depends". There are people in Washington being paid good money to have a better answer, and for now I choose to trust their judgment.

However, I do know this: every report of "torture" that reaches the enemy has propaganda value for them, improves their morale, costs American lives, and makes it harder for the US to answer "yes" to the intelligence vs. propaganda question.

Some liberals would probably justify their "unintentional" propaganda-spreading by saying "we're not trying to undermine the war effort. We don't intend for any more Soldiers to die. Our target is the US government. We just want to make "torture" an unattractive policy position out of concern for the broader ideal of human rights."

But regardless of their intentions, they ARE undermining the war effort. So the "stop the torture" crowd has its own question to answer:

Does the value of protecting the human rights of non-US-citizens outweigh the increased death toll on US soldiers due the increased morale of the enemy?

Stretching my imagination a bit, I could see myself answering "yes" IF the US government were condoning the physical mutilation or murder of innocent Iraqi civilians on a massive scale.

Of course, if that were true, I'd be ashamed to call myself an American, and I'd move to a civilized nation to apply for citizenship. Same reason Einstein left Germany in 1932.

But to answer "yes" when the balance is "discomforted terrorists" vs. "dead Americans"? AND still live in this country and call myself an American?...

Sorry, my imagination doesn't stretch THAT far.

But I'm not asking anyone to leave.

What I *am* asking is simply this:

If you're going to publicly oppose the government's actions, at least have the intellectual honesty to admit that there IS a price to be paid for doing so, that you're willing to ask American Soldiers to pay it, and that you're willing to accept the consequences for doing so.

Now, to be fair, I'll admit that - because of the physical coercion techniques being used - the "torture" propaganda has more power to increase enemy morale than it would have if no physical coercion were being used at all. This will cost the lives of American Soldiers on the battlefield.

I am willing to ask them to pay this price because I believe that - in the long run - it will save more American lives than it costs, and I accept the consequences of my choice.

Your turn.

Posted by: Harvey at 02:20 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 603 words, total size 4 kb.

Lynn of Reflections in D Minor wonders how Earth folk would react to a visit from friendly space aliens.

Spear Shaker of Shaking Spears wonders if space aliens could be among us.

Which brings up the question: assuming sentient life exists on other planets, why would they visit Earth?

The big problem with space travel is that it's time-consuming. Big distances plus a universal speed limit of 186,000 miles per second means it'll take a few years to get to a new solar system.

So let's say - just for fun - that it's possible to teleport things at faster than light speeds. Relativity doesn't forbid the existence of particles that travel faster than the speed of light (tachyons) and never go slower. I can imagine a "jumpgate" where matter is converted to energy, the energy produces a tachyon signal that's transmitted to a light-years-distant receiver, the signal is interpreted and then local energy is used to replicate the original matter.

It's analogous to how a telephone converts local sound (which travels at about 700mph) to electricity which travels at light speed to another telephone and is converted back to sound.

But even with this technology, the problem is that you STILL have to physically travel to a destination planet to build the first jumpgate. Once it's set up, all future travel to the planet is cheap, easy, and instantaneous, but there has to be something on the new planet that's valuable enough to justify the initial set-up cost.

Which brings up the question: What does Earth have that couldn't be created better, faster, and cheaper closer to the aliens' homeworld?

I don't think it would be anything physical. If their technology is sufficiently advanced to create jumpgates, surely it's advanced enough to construct whatever material they want, sub-atomic-particle by sub-atomic-particle.

So if they don't want our stuff, what DO they want?

Our stories.

TV, movies, books, maybe even our blogs.

*waits for laughter to die down*

Yeah, I know, but here's my reasoning: all sentient beings have one thing in common - the continued struggle for existence. Whether death comes from old age, disease, murder, or even the impersonal accidents of nature, it still comes. So if an alien risked death in an effort to better secure his future existence, he'd surely derive some psychological joy from the accomplishment (well... except maybe on Planet Goth).

The importance of stories - the timeless classics that Earthers enjoy so much, wherein a good person struggles against harm and emerges better off than when he started - is that even a vicarious experience of success provides a person with a touchstone of hope. An image to be recalled in times of darkness that life can be good, and that things will get better.

If you've ever struggled through a black patch of despair in your life, you've probably had one thing that you've clung to that helped keep you going. For some people, it's the image of a heroic figure in a story. Whether the story is true or not doesn't matter. It's the vision of hope that the story provides that makes it important.

So what's this have to do with aliens?

They can create an infinite supply of goods, but visions of hope are finite. Earth is a fresh supply of success stories written from a perspective that the aliens can't replicate with a machine. The tales are new, and different, and they can't be found anywhere else.

And considering that a single movie can make upwards of a billion dollars on one planet, imagine the revenue potential across a Galactic Federation.

THAT might be worth making the trip.

By the way, I'm officially denying any rumors that I've signed a book deal with Intergalactic Press, so just ignore anything you hear along those lines.

Posted by: Harvey at 10:18 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 645 words, total size 4 kb.

Blogson Peter of Shakey Pete's Shootin' Shack told the story of a Soldier wounded in Iraq, but he blew a few details.

Ok, more than a few, and not just details.

But Peter apologized for it. Here are some key phrases:

Any stupidity involved rests right behind this keyboard.

I make no excuse.

I should have known better. Indeed I do know better,

The bottom line? I screwed the pooch. I could go on with why but it would really only be lame excuses.

I hope everyone involved will accept my profound apologies.

I only point this out because I think it's instructive to see the difference between the apology of someone who actually means it (Peter) and the apology of someone who's only trying to avoid the consequences of getting caught. Like... say... Dick Durbin:

I sincerely regret if what I said causes anybody to misunderstand my true feelings.

I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust,

I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military

Word of advice, Dick - the word "if" has no place in a sincere apology.

Posted by: Harvey at 08:42 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 220 words, total size 2 kb.

In the comments to this Mother of All Apologies by Gerard of American Digest, TmjUtah of Three Rounds Brisk has the right idea.

A million years ago I told a Gunnery Sergeant that I was sorry for something I'd bollixed.

What an education that was.

"Don't apologize. Marines are NEVER "sorry". Take responsibility, then go fix anything that needs fixing."

I agree.

An apology isn't about words, it's about atonement. An act to repair damage. An act of support commensurate with the act of degredation.

Without it, an apology is just moist sounds in dry air, ephemeral and evaporating.

The bare minimum act is promising not to do it again, and following through on that promise to the very best of your human ability.

From Durbin, that would be, I suppose, something like "I promise never to use Nazi or gulag analogies again unless they're in reference to an actual genocidal dictatorship."

THAT apology I would accept.

[submitted to the Outside The Beltway Traffic Jam]

Posted by: Harvey at 09:01 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 169 words, total size 1 kb.

After 3 weeks of reading, research, consulting with Beloved Wife TNT of Smiling Dynamite, and generally mulling things over, I've reached two tentative conclusions.

First, whatever my next job title is, it'll most likely have the word "Analyst" in it. Poking around Monster.com, it seems like most jobs that fit that description would suit me fairly well. Tapping at a keyboard all day, generating mountains of paperwork that'll get filed or thrown away within 24 hours, keeping busy all day with an unemptiable "IN" basket, and working with people who are trying to get stuff done. Sure beats pretending to be the happy, pampering, servant of whoever walks through the front door like I did for the last 7 years.

Seriously, it's time for me to admit that I don't have the "super-helpful uber alles" mentality to be successful in a front-line retail-customer-service position.

Professional & courteous, I can deal with.

Friendly & cheerful? Stuff a sock in it.

Second, before I become just another gopher in a cubicle farm, I'm going to live the dream.

Or deny the psychosis, depending on how you look at it.

For the next 5 months or so, I'm going to see how close I can come to making a living with my blog.

After some research, it seems that there are four viable revenue possibilities:

1) Google Adsense - relatively unobtrusive text ads that I can stick in the sidebar without annoying the crap out of everybody

2) Private ads - selling sidebar real estate to people who think it would do them good.

3) Tipjar - all the people who say that they'd like to buy me a drink would be able to actually buy me a drink... in the virtual sense

4) Merchandise - thinking about the possibilities available with Cafe Press... and not just for Bad Example-themed stuff. I'm a witty, creative, kinda guy who can crank out all KINDS of one-liner humor that would look good on a T-shirt, hat, or bumper sticker. Several themes spring to mind - right-wing, Second-amendment, Pro-War, and, of course, racy innuendo.

The basic idea is to put up more and better quality writing, get serious about drawing in more traffic in accordance with the sacred text, and letting the sidebar clutter - as listed above - do the rest of the work for me.

It may or may not work. I may end up having to go legit come December, cut back on my posting, and let my traffic go to hell. But at least I'll have tried doing something I love; learned a lot about myself, writing, and marketing in the process; and it won't really have COST me anything.

And that's the WORST case scenario.

Slightly better case is that all this writing leads to some freelancing gigs. Maybe something I can put on a resume. Who knows? Maybe even a paid gig as a corporate blogger? That job description is coming, you know. A sincere blog is a great way for a business to get honest feedback from its customers without having to pay for a focus group. Stephen & Heather of BusinessWeek's Blogspotting would probably agree.

Naturally, the best case would be that income from this experiment would be adequate & trending upwards at the end of the year. Probably just a fantasy on my part... but... DAMMIT, I just GOTTA try.

Anyway, now that you know where I'm headed, any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas would be appreciated. I'm sailing off into uncharted waters here, and I could use all the navigational help I can get.

Posted by: Harvey at 11:22 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
Post contains 601 words, total size 4 kb.

1 I have good feelings about this for you.

Posted by: Sissy at June 24, 2005 11:35 PM (uXS+O)

2 w00t! Best of luck, Harv... I'm pulling for you!

Posted by: songstress7 at June 25, 2005 01:08 AM (ie93s)

3 Maybe you could align yourself with instahack's new advertising deal and make a gajillion dollars? I'd be willing to drop you a couple bones for adspace. Ogre and I have been sort of slow on the design gig and could use a pickup in business. ...are you any good a site design? There's always someone willing to slip you a few bucks for that.

Posted by: Jeremy at June 25, 2005 02:50 AM (farnf)

4 Good luck! I think John Hawkings of RightWingNews is in the same boat as you right now, so you might want to check out some of the stuff he's been doing to make an income on his blogs.

Posted by: GEBIV at June 25, 2005 06:51 AM (bcjM+)

5 Check out the Pajamas Media stuff over at Roger Simon. And Good Luck

Posted by: tommy at June 25, 2005 09:07 AM (TWHR8)

6 Congratulation Harv! I would put a nifty quote about Confucious and first steps and juorney's here but it's 9 in the morning and I haven't had my coffee yet so your out of luck Any rate let me know if you want to set up a seperate website for this etc. My partner and I sometimes build pro webpages for folks and host them. Our Demo site is http://www.techography.net I think its safe to say 90% of the bloggers we know have your 6 on this one

Posted by: BloodSpite at June 25, 2005 09:17 AM (ZTGJT)

7 no seminaring huh? Well I am leaving leaving here, with the following song stuck in my head.... California, Uber alles-California- uber alles Yep, I will be singing Dead Kennedys for the rest of the day.

Posted by: ArmyWifeToddlerMom at June 25, 2005 10:22 AM (gKrM7)

8 Yeah! A plan!! All great things start with a plan. You KNOW I'm behind you, no matter what you decide to do. And I'm also glad you can take the time to do what you love. What ever we can do, Daddy-O. What ever we can do!

Posted by: Tammi at June 25, 2005 10:29 AM (F4oo1)

9 I'm guessing you getting one of those pay-per-view webcam thingies...er...nevermind. That would be just wrong.

Posted by: Jeremy at June 25, 2005 11:47 AM (farnf)

10 Excellent! Sounds like a good plan to me. As you say... right now the worst that could happen is that it doesn't work and then you go to work for someone else. Why NOT give this a shot. It's always good to have a plan *grin*

Posted by: Teresa at June 25, 2005 11:59 AM (nAfYo)

11 Dang! You're going to be a "professional blogger"! I'm going to have to re-write my Hobby Horse post now....

Posted by: Susie at June 25, 2005 12:09 PM (PWYyH)

12 I wish you good luck and smooth sailing! I even promise to click on yur ads!

Posted by: Richmond at June 25, 2005 02:58 PM (WkF4B)

13 I wish you good luck and smooth sailing! I even promise to click on yur ads!

Posted by: Richmond at June 25, 2005 02:58 PM (WkF4B)

14 Not to rain on your parade, but something that you should take into consideration. When people actually hire. Usually around October people stop hiring, this is due to them trying to figure out what positions are going to be open because of the retirements. Businesses usually start hiring again around February, but then come April/May you have to compete with the graduates for jobs, although that may not affect you because of your experience. Just something you may want to take into consideration, because looking for a job around Christmas time is hard because the job opportunities are short on demand.

Posted by: Machelle at June 25, 2005 06:24 PM (ymsco)

15 I think it would be cool to have merchandise with your love letters on them. Not sure about licensing for that, but I am sure some of those are from dead people who don't care anymore.

Posted by: Amy at June 25, 2005 08:21 PM (tPzR0)

16 Look about 4 sections down on this link - Under "Freelance Blog Writer": http://www.freelancewriting.com/forumdir/fjb/index.html

Posted by: Amy at June 25, 2005 08:25 PM (tPzR0)

17 I'm betting that you can make it on your writing, given time. Also the Cafe Press idea would be a good adjunct in the interim (and don't look askance at ads!). From the selling perspective - just a few of the Bad Example logos on Mugs would be big sellers, to start with. I don't know what it takes to get something going on Cafe Press - whether it's best to start with a few designs and bootstrap your way up, or go for a bunch at the start? If you end up returning to the 8-5 workforce, the analyst thing should suit you well ;-)

Posted by: Barb at June 27, 2005 01:43 PM (z9gCU)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

In the comments to this nudity-related post by blogson-in-law Alex of Alex in Wonderland, blogdaughter Machelle of Quality Weenie made this remark about her own nudity:

The big boobies are so impressive that I don't mind looking at the little extra fat on my thighs.

Which made me think about how men look at women, and why women shouldn't be so obsessively self-conscious about their appearance.

A woman will look at herself in the mirror and fret about tiny imperfections:

"My hair's messy!"
"Oh no! A pimple!"
"My gray roots are starting to show!"
"Is that a wrinkle?"
"My ass is HUGE!"
"My pinky toe is crooked!"

And on and on and on...

Good news, ladies - guys don't notice. Here's why.

Men are creatures of very limited focus. We can pretty much only concentrate on one thing at a time. So, when we meet you, we do a quick head-to-toe inventory, consisting mainly of hair, eyes, smile, boobs, ass, and legs. After completing the initial scan, we quickly decide on our favorite parts - for example, let's say the lady in question has it good in the hair, smile, and boobs department - then we'll spend the rest of the time letting our eyes rotate amongst the favorite areas, and completely ignore the parts we don't like.

Got a little belly fat? Don't worry. Our eyes are locked about 6-12 inches higher and they'll never get any further down.

Unless we're checking out your gorgeous ass.

Posted by: Harvey at 12:44 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 259 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Women have hair? (above the shoulders you pervs.)

Posted by: phin at June 24, 2005 01:47 PM (Xvpen)

2 LOL phin! Well, this is good to know. However...I'm thinking I have the top 3 on your list...and that's only on good days. A guy's gotta get tired of staring at a girls head forever!

Posted by: Sissy at June 24, 2005 03:03 PM (uXS+O)

3 I'm trying to decide if this is very good news or very bad news. ;-)

Posted by: Pam at June 24, 2005 03:38 PM (6hz7q)

4 I like a nice ass on a woman... I will ignore just about everything else if they have a nice ass.

Posted by: Contagion at June 24, 2005 06:52 PM (977gQ)

5 I love a smart women in a real short skirt. OK, so I cribbed some Buffet. But there is nothing like a woman who can hold up most of the conversation, allow more time for roaming eyes.

Posted by: William Teach at June 24, 2005 09:04 PM (HxpPK)

6 I LOVE that Buffet song....it's my favorite! On subject - Harvey - it's great in theory, but honestly - I don't worry about what a man sees, it's all about how I feel. Hmmmm might have a post brewin' on this one! Damn you! ;-)

Posted by: Tammi at June 24, 2005 09:43 PM (F4oo1)

7 This reminds me of a story (surprise!), that I can't blog on. Well... I personally find all this reassuring.

Posted by: Bou at June 25, 2005 10:09 AM (z7nbM)

8 Tammi is right, it's not about how one looks it's how one feels. There are days when I think I look just great, then there are days in which I feel I look like a fat slob. But like I said, the boobies are so big it's hard to see anything else sometimes. And I know where my hubbies eyes are looking, so those fat thighs don't matter because he never sees them!

Posted by: Machelle at June 25, 2005 06:29 PM (ymsco)

9 What's the other side of this coin though? One of you ladies here needs to email a brother with the answer!

Posted by: littlejoe at June 26, 2005 09:34 AM (QJRRo)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

So I did a funny post about Koran desecration at IMAO, and somewhere along the lines I had a serious & semi-civilized discussion with a liberal commenter.

The only thing I can think to explain Oasis's portion of the conversation is that he has difficulty grasping what non-tactile abstract concepts actually MEAN in real life.

I mean, it's just weird, because it's like we're not even speaking the same language. Are public schools REALLY that efficient at destroying people's ability to make connections between broad concepts and reality? It doesn't seem that he's saying that he doesn't agree that stateside morale is an important factor in fighting an overseas war, it seem's more like he believes "stateside morale" can't exist because it's not something he can touch, like an armored vehicle.

This must be the sort of thing Grau was talking about.

Anyway, the pertinent part of the comment chatter is in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Harvey at 01:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 1017 words, total size 6 kb.

(re-posted from August 17th, 2004, in honor of Father's Day)

In my wedding ceremony, I promised Beloved Wife that I'd love her forever.

That's a lie.

As I have explained to her on several occasions, I consider my obligations fulfilled after 60 years. Yup, after handing her that 720th monthly anniversary rose, I'm leaving her.

Probably for an oxygen tent and a box of Depends (I'll be 92, after all), but still... I'm OUTTA HERE.

Before I leave, though, first I have to live up to what my father accomplished in his marriage, which was extraordinary. My parents were married just shy of 48 years when my mother died, and I figure I'll need the extra 12 years to make up for in duration what he did with sheer guts and devotion.

In 1972, I was 6 years old, and my 48 year-old mother - the vivacious yet diabetic woman who stayed at home, cooked, cleaned, and raised the kids - had a stroke. Not one of those gentle "you'll make a full recovery in a few months" kind of strokes. I'm talking "paralyzed on one side, weak on the other, brain scrambled to the point where you have a tough time remembering your own kids' names and you cry for no reason because you have no control of your emotions" devastatingly ass-kicking kind of strokes.

Which left my 55-year-old factory-worker father with four boys (ages 6, 8, 12, and 15) to raise, a house to keep, and a broken wife to take care of.

A broken wife who was still diabetic and went blind from cataracts shortly afterwards.

To this day, I have no idea how he did it. I was very young, and wasn't privy to all the details. But I do have some memories.

I remember that he took early retirement from the factory, and we lived off his pension (he had 25 years in by this time).

I remember that our house only cost $7500 when they bought it in 1966, which was roughly a year's wages, so the mortgage probably wasn't too big of a burden. I don't know when it was finally paid off.

I remember my father having to go to the county courthouse to sign up for food stamps, and I remember going to the store and buying groceries with those food stamps.

I remember getting those "Thanksgiving boxes of canned goods for poor people" and being very surprised. I thought maybe they had the wrong house. We weren't poor. I had food, clothing, shelter, TV and a library card. How could we be poor? Poor people were dirty, smelly, unshaven, and lived in cardboard boxes. Or so I gathered from TV. Small town Wisconsin didn't have homeless. Although there was that one guy who lived in his car, but we just ignored him.

But even though I don't know how he did the finances, exactly, I DO know how he did other things.

He had supper ready promptly at 5:30 every night. We never once went hungry.

He gave my mother her insulin shots every day.

He did my mother's physical therapy every day - making her walk around a bit, and making her lift a soup can with her bad arm about 20 or 30 times, just to keep the muscles from atrophying. It didn't help her so much as slow the degeneration process, but he attended to it faithfully.

Every night, he'd read to her from the local daily paper. I don't know how much of it she really understood, or if she recognized any of the names, but he did it anyway.

And he still hugged her and kissed her, right in front of the kids (EWWW! Mushy stuff!).

After she went blind, he arranged for her to get special records & tapes of unabridged books. Eavesdropping on this introduced me to the works of James Herriot.

He made sure there were still presents under the Christmas tree every year. Including, in 1982, a $300 brand new Tandy Color Computer (with 4k of RAM!) that gave me a SERIOUS leg up in my computer programming class.

But mostly I remember that he never cried. He never complained. He never gave up. He never stopped loving my mom and taking care of her, as long as he was physically able to do so. Dad wasn't exactly in the best shape himself. He had a bad leg (broken & set wrong in the early 60's, so one leg was shorter than the other. He walked with a bad limp, and he needed to have an extra 1/2 inch of sole on his right shoe. Fortunately, Fort Atkinson was still quaint enough to have a shoe repair shop in town where he could get this done), and he battled the onset of Multiple Sclerosis while in his 60's, so he only got around so-so.

Dad managed to hold things together until all his birdies left the nest. I joined the Navy and left home in 1985, and Blogless Brother Tom (two years older than I), stuck around a few years longer, running errands & such as mom and dad coasted toward sunset. I'll leave the final years for Tom to discuss in the comments, if he wants to, since I wasn't there. I'm a little fuzzy on the dates, but I believe mom took a turn for the worse in '89 or so, and dad couldn't care for her anymore. She died of a heart attack in a nursing home in 1990.

Dad passed away in 1994. Cancer. Fairly quick. Six weeks in the County nursing home. He was tired and just wanted to rest. He was 77, and I understood completely. He was an old farm boy, full of self-sufficient pride, and when he couldn't take care of himself anymore, he just kinda quit.

Dad was never a talker. In my whole life, I swear we'd never passed more than a couple thousand words in total. His view was that words were for transmitting information, and if you don't have something that needs communicating, you don't talk. Chit-chat wasn't worth doing.

But he communicated with his actions. Two important lessons, among others.

Keep your promises.

Do what needs doing.

I watched. I learned. I'm grateful that I was blessed to have this man for a father.

And now that I think about it, I may have to stretch that 60 years out a bit if I want to live up to his example.

Posted by: Harvey at 01:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1091 words, total size 6 kb.

Graumagus of Frizzen Sparks is wrestling with an important question:

So what I'm asking dear readers is this: At what point do you stop trying to debate with someone who sees the world so differently than you they might as well be a different species?

At what point do you stop even replying to their idiotic arguments?

At what point do you stop arguing with the same trolls over and over again in the comments of your own blog and others, and simply do what you can to make sure those fools never obtain political power?

My answer is: NEVER.

I don't trot out Ayn Rand quotes lightly, because she's rarely pithy enough to make a good sound bite, but this is a rare exception:

"What can one do? - the answer is SPEAK... do not wait for a national audience. Speak on any scale open to you, large or small - to your friends, your associates, your professional organizations, or any legitimate public forum. You can never tell when your words will reach the right mind at the right time. You will see no immediate results - but it is of such activities that public opinion is made."

Because every once in a while, a mind is at a tipping point between the arguments of left & right. A person's cognitive dissonance is driving him mad, and their seems no way to reconcile the conflict. What usually gives the final push is a single, aptly-turned phrase that summarizes the arguments of the new viewpoint. For example, a person might be undecided about the value of the War on Terror, then read the lines "The war is already started. The terrorists will continue to try to kill Americans. The only question is whether they'll be targeting America's professional soldiers in the Middle East or American civilians in the US."

Maybe this message will bounce right off their thick skulls. But maybe this will be the thing that finally brings things into focus for them.

You fight the battle of ideas by changing one mind at a time. Don't forego getting the few you can just because you can't get them all.

Some people might claim that you'll never convince anyone, and that printing right-wing propaganda is - at best - just "preaching to the choir". All I can say is that even if you can't make any new converts, members of the choir can fall to a crisis of faith, too, and are as needful of a good sermon as anyone else in the congregation.

Preach on, brother.

Preach on.

Posted by: Harvey at 12:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 440 words, total size 3 kb.