Thanks to Black Five, I read the following account by a journalist/photographer of his time in combat in Iraq with the US Marines. It is a gripping read. One thing jumped off the page at me, though:

At this time, another Marine who had rushed out to a second floor balcony moments earlier yelled, "I'm hit." One of several thousands of rounds fired in the opening 30 minutes of the battle had found its target. He gave an agonizing scream and yelled again that he was hit, hoping someone would rescue him.

Sgt. Nunez threw open the door and rushed out, returning moments later dragging Sgt. Magana across the floor by the grab handle on the back of his flak jacket. Confusion ensued. He was eventually dragged into the room where I was hunkered down. He had been shot through the back and was in severe pain.

While corpsman were concentrating on his injury, I could see that he was beginning to fade. His eyes were empty and began to close. He was mumbling about a letter from his daughter and I'm sure he began to concede that his life could end right there on the floor.

I was compelled to grab his hand and assured him that he would see his daughter once again. I looked him straight in his eye, telling him to look back at me, then squeeze my hand so I knew he was still with me. It was all I knew to do.

I felt caught between being an objective journalist and responding as a human being. I apologized to a news crew that was sharing this horror with , "I have to be a human first," I heard myself saying awkwardly. It was a lesson I had learned early on from a photo professor that had a profound effect on my life.

I shot only a few frames to depict the scene; some right as he was being dragged into the room and then some after he began to stabilize. I felt satisfied that I had both done my job and also done what was right in a potentially life and death situation.

What is wrong with a profession in which you have to feel ashamed to act like a human being? To feel ashamed when you offer comfort to a dying man who is asking about his child as he dies? When did the practice of journalism become so morally bereft and debased?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:26 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Vertigo, according to my trusty Webster's, is a "dizzy or confused state of mind". It is also, in my house, a condition brought about by hopping in and out of bed to run back and forth between your bed, if you are 3 1/2, and your parents' room, when your parents think that you are safely ensconced in your bed and headed off to dreamland. We are experiencing a lot of bed time vertigo.

My wife and I leave our bedroom door ajar at night. Slightly more open than cracked. What happens is this, we hear a little creak of the door, and a little golden head slowly inserts itself in the opening and two little eyes come into view as they carefully peer around the edge to see if she might be welcome. Then she bops right in, sometimes interrupting a conversation not really meant for 3.5 year old ears, and announces that she just came in for an extra hug and a kiss.

Last night, I was sitting in one of the chairs we have in our bedroom and she came in, this was the second visit, and informed us of her need to give more hugs and kisses. She looked at me in my chair and said, "you know, Pappa, this would be easier if I climbed up into your lap". I told her that would be fine, got my extra hug, kiss and cuddle and sent her off to bed. Again.

The third time she came in, she said, "I heard a noise. Mamma, did you make a noise? Mamma, det er stille tid", she admonished. For you non-Norwegian speakers, she told my wife that it is quiet time. I barely managed to not laugh out loud. And off she went by herself back to bed after giving my wife a kiss.

My wife and I have a different point of view on these little excursions. My wife doesn't like them. She worries a little about the invasion of privacy, like last night when my wife and I were having a private conversation and the girl child snuck in. I don't worry about that at all. I am absolutely delighted. I love these little flying visits. They are pure joy. I propped her up on the counter during the first visit so she could keep me company while I brushed my teeth. Eventually she will go back to bed and sing herself and her animals to sleep. I treasure every second of these visits. I think it's close to the best part of parenthood so far. I explained this to my wife and she said she'd try to come around to my point of view. She's a little stressed right now but if she says she'll try, she really will try. She's good like that.

I just wonder how it is the girl child's head doesn't spin, hence the vertigo in the title, from all of her ups and downs and ins and outs.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:13 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Don't tell anyone, but I am going to try to play half day hooky today. I'm going, if all the stars are in alignment, to slip out of my office at the noon hour and spend the afternoon with my wife in blissful, child free, irresponsibility. Hmmn, sounds like a nooner, doesn't it? Alas, no, I mean lunch and the beach and a book and an adult beverage and idle chatter and hand holding and the occasional smoochy for no reason at all. Assuming the weather cooperates, it could be glorious. Then an early dinner with some new friends.

Until I can take a real vacation, stealing a little time here and there will have to suffice.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:30 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Last night, I was once again put firmly in my place by the girl child.

She joined us downstairs for a snack after putting on her pj's. Actually, what she called a snack was almost as much as my wife ate for her entire dinner. I don't know where this child puts it. She is so thin that the doctor actually had her tested to see if she was absorbing nutrients. She was. She is in the 90th percentile for her age group for height and the 50th for weight. Tall and thin. I don't have any idea where that comes from. After finishing her "snack", we adjourned to the living room to watch the Yankees/Blue Jays game on mute while we had our story.

She picked two books, one in Norwegian for my wife to read and one in English for me. Mine was "Katy No Pockets", a story about a kangaroo who lacks a pocket in which she can carry her baby. I get tired of reading the same old story all the time, so, I do what any normal father does. I change the words. In Curious George, for example, the Man with the Yellow Hat becomes the Man with the Green Hat. Katy was not searching for a pocket this time, but a backpack. My daughter is way too smart for this kind of thing, though. She catches me every time. She tells me, "Pappa, read it straight, please, not funny."

Last night, though, we finished the book and she decided to make it clear to me just where I went wrong with Katy. She hopped off my lap and came around in front of me. She opened the book to the last page and pointed to the picture of Katy wearing her apron of many pockets and she said, firmly, "see, Pappa, pockets, not a backpack, pockets". She looked at me carefully, as if to make sure I understood, and then took the book back to put on the shelf. Her work completed, we went upstairs to go to bed.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:28 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I've posted before about the impact of the AIDS virus in Africa. About how 2-3 people have to be hired to perform the same job in middle management in South African companies because chances are statistically very good that only one of them will be around to get the job done. Or maybe I haven't posted about this. I have certainly harangued my wife about it. (By the way, the poor dear deserves your sympathy entirely because before I discovered blogging, she was the sole "beneficiary" of my rants.)

There was an article in the NY Times this morning about AIDS in South Africa. Its lead in was about how graves have to be recycled in Durban because of the high number of deaths and the small amount of cemetery space. It included some shocking statistics and I want to bring them out here so that all my readers, all eleven of you (and you know who you are), can share my concern:

*51 of the 53 municipal cemeteries are officially filled to capacity

*"Five years ago, we used to have about 120 funerals a weekend, but this number has now jumped to 600," Thembinkosi Ngcobo, who heads the municipal department of parks and cemeteries, said in an interview this week. "In order to cope with the current rate of mortality - we hope it is not going to increase - we will need to have 12.1 hectares every year of new gravesites." That is nearly 30 acres.

*Roughly one in eight South Africans is H.I.V.-positive

*in Durban, South Africa's third-largest city with about 3.5 million people, a survey two years ago of women at pregnancy clinics found about 35 percent were infected with H.I.V.

This is tragic. I just never contemplated the effects of the deaths vis a vis funerals and cemetery use. I'm glad that the NY Times brought these facts out.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:58 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Thanks to Jim, by the way, for suggesting the titles for these short biographical sketches.

Today's sketch is of Daniel Edgar Sickles. I came across his name while looking at the Hayes/Tilden election. Sickles was, in 1876, the fellow who realized that if the disputed states could declare for the Republicans, Hayes would win the electoral college. Sickles immediately sent telegrams to the governors of those four states, signing the name of the chairman of the Republican Party, who was too drunk to do it himself. When I read about this, I began to wonder, just who was this Sickles fellow anyway? Turns out, he was a pretty colorful character himself and worth a closer look. more...

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:13 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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The following just got taken out of a letter I drafted to send to opposing counsel. I regret its deletion and publish it here:

During the course of our negotiations, I was treated to several unprovoked outbursts of hysterical screaming from you. Indeed, I was forced on several occasions to ask you to calm down. Most recently, on Monday, I had to suggest that due to your obvious overwrought emotional state, we hang up and continue our conversation when you had collected yourself. Based on the foregoing, and based on the vituperative personal attacks you made in your letter to me, I conclude that you have an anger management problem and I urge you to seek professional help.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 04:21 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Until today, if someone said that to me, I'd assume that they were talking about Bush/Gore, dismiss them as either a lunatic or a sore loser and I'd try to back slowly out of the room, keeping my hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. Until today, I thought that this was the first time such an accusation had been levied at the presidential level and such a series of events had taken place in US history. Well, shame on me for being ignorant.

Let's jump into the history way back machine for a sec and revisit, in the extended section: The Hayes-Tilden Presidential Election of 1876. more...

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I may have said this before, but it bears repeating. There are times when I interact with my daughter that I fear for my future. She's only 3.5 but I think sometimes she's really a 20 year old trapped in a little person's body.

Last night, she and I were sitting at the kitchen table where I was impatiently waiting for my wife to come downstairs after putting the boy child to bed. I was hungry and wanted to start dinner. The girl child was happy discovering the joys of the lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice dumpling I brought home for her yesterday from Chinatown. Finally, I turned to my daughter and asked her what was taking her mother so long to get downstairs. Here is our conversation:

GC: "Maybe she's doing something upstairs".

Me: "Yeah, but what could be taking so long?"

GC: "I don't know. I'm not upstairs. [pause] Did you think I was upstairs?"

I don't know if she was serious or being sarcastic (my wife votes for sarcastic), but either way, I feel like I'm totally screwed going forward.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:23 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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A very cool find has been reported in Norway: a major Viking burial mound, several actually.

The site contains two monumental burial mounds, one of which contains a large stone casket. The other one is believed to contain remnants of a Viking ship and a so-called "long house," used as communal dwellings.

A Viking ship! That is so cool. If you want to see what other Viking ships look like, this site has some pictures.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:23 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The heat's getting turned up here in July. People are growing increasingly shrill and bitter. We once discussed the existance of the "moderate" on this blog (by the way, I still can't quite get over the fact that I have a blog, that people come read it, and that people seem to enjoy it, it's just astonishing to me). I think us "moderates" are few and far between these days. This presidential campaign is so ugly already with people so polarized that I begin to despair. I get emails from friends on the right questioning every last thing about John Kerry and emails from friends on the left accusing George Bush of having committed every kind of crime known to man, all to further line someone's pockets. Basta! Enough already! Turn down the rhetorical heat, please, before most of us are driven from the political kitchen!

Here's the thing. I am a registered Republican simply because I have felt for a long time that there is no place for me and my views in the Democratic Party. That said, no candidate has ever been able to count on my vote simply because of his or her party affiliation. I tend to vote issues and positions, not (r) or (d). I suspect I'm going to vote for Bush come November, but I want the chance to reflect on it and chat about it. I want some civilized discourse. I want some adult conversation and reflection. I sound like a chick, don't I? I want romance, seduction, etc. No, what I want is for everybody to stop yelling and stop spinning.

At the end of the day, I suspect it will not matter who I vote for or who gets elected president. I expect strong disagreement on this point, but I'll take my chances. I am a believer in the theory that presidents will rise to the occasion. I believe that if there is a national emergency, our president will handle it, no matter which party he's from. I also believe that our country is internally strong enough to resist the effects of four years of bad rule. So, if the candidate I don't like gets in, I think it will probably be ok in the end.

That said, I think that there are significant problems facing us as a country and we might be better off with the Bush approach than the Kerry approach. But I'm going to wait and see a little bit and try my hardest to separate the substance from the spin. I just hope tempers cool a bit by November.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:13 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I stole some time out of my day today. I just reached into my employer's back pocket and plucked it right out. It was about a half an hour, but it was mine, all mine, and it was glorious. It was freedom and it was irresponsible and it had no agenda or address or anything and it was mine, all mine.

I took papers down to court this morning to file with the motion support office at the Supreme Court of the State of New York for the County of New York, (known to us lawyers as Supreme New York or simply S/NY). This courthouse borders on the surreal. No, well, it may, but what I meant to say was that it borders on Chinatown. I handed in my papers which the clerk accepted without a problem (which is always nice and never a sure thing) and headed off with no agenda to wander the streets a bit. Chinatown is congested, smelly (lots of fish markets), filled with tacky gift shops and just downright fun. Probably because of all of those things.

I walked through the park behind the courthouse and observed a beautiful tai chi class conducted to music and using swords in an intricate and very controlled ballet of movement and internal tension. I also was treated to the odd spectacle of Chinese senior citizens, looking very fit, stretching and twisting on the jungle gym. No kids, mind you, but lots of senior citizens. Their teenage grandchildren, quite a bit less fit looking, were screwing around on the basketball court.

Most of my favorite stores were still closed, so I couldn't do any serious shopping. I had decided to see if I could break some international trademark laws and buy my wife a cool knockoff bag. She's been a bit down of late and a bag never fails to cheer her up. Unfortunately, none of the knock off stores were open yet. However, our favorite bakery was open. Ever have coconut cream bread? It is so yummy, being both sweet and salty at the same time. I bought four pieces for the kids, wife and nanny. I also got two lotus leaf sticky rice packages for the kids. The girl child ought to enjoy unwrapping the package and eating the sticky goodness contained therein.

I then ducked into a little galley of a shop, it was long and no more than 7 or 8 feet wide. It was crammed to the gills with food products from: Malaysia; Thailand; Indonesia; and other exotic locales. I bought some new chili sauces and some Thai fried garlic bits and Thai fried red onions. I passed on the Thai anchovy snacks. They were pieces of anchovy fried in palm oil and seasoned with chili, salt and sugar. The owner of the store insisted that I try one out of the open container he had on the counter. He claimed that they were a great seller and good for your bones to boot. It was chewy, spicy, sweet, and tangy. In fact, it was a bit too chewy and dry for my taste. I ate one but passed on the entire package.

I tasted the anchovy snack all the way back to the subway and wondered, is that fishy taste the taste of adventure or the taste you have in your mouth that signals the return to responsibility?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:03 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I am highly amused by the spectacle of Mrs. Kerry telling a reporter to "shove it", shortly after delivering a speech exhorting her fellow citizens to return civility to politics. Whatever you may think of the relative merits of Mrs. Kerry v. Mrs. Bush, Mrs. Kerry appears to be more entertaining. Watch the fun as the Kerry campaign deals with this little issue.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:22 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I feel mojo-less this morning, bereft of topics, out of ideas. I blame the tiredness from the 3 a.m. wakeup call from my wife's new pedometer that she just put the batteries into yesterday. It has an alarm function. It went off at 3:04 a.m. The children gave us a problem free night but the wife's new toy jumped at the chance to fill in.

Yesterday was actually pretty nice. We took the kids in the morning to a farm in Stamford with a great playground to burn off energy on after looking at all the different animals. The boy child appeared unmoved by the animals while the girl child was mostly struck by the smell. She also liked the "baby pigs" the best.

We brought them home for lunch and packed them off for naps. I got a little writing done while they tried to go to sleep. The boy child cooperated. The girl child refused. No nap for her. My wife was exhausted, though, and I thought she really needed a little peace and quiet. So at the risk of being seen to reward bad behavior, I put the girl child into her swim suit and took her down to the kiddy pool.

She flung herself about in the pool for about an hour. The lips turned blue and the teeth started to chatter at about the 30 minute mark. She insisted she was fine up until the hour passed and then she consented to get out and be wrapped in a towel. We then went and got a drink and her some gold fish and sat companionably by the ocean and chatted about the sailboats out on the Sound. It was delightful.

Even more delightful, she rewarded us by going to sleep early and immediately so as to give my wife and I a little grown up alone time as the Yankees got spanked by the Red Sox.

Am I the only one who watched the game and found the pictures of John Kerry mugging for the camera to be distasteful?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Norway is the socialist worker paradise, paid for by the oil resources. This was just fascinating to me -- the Norwegian worker, excluding vacations, misses 4.8 weeks of work a year. That is stunning. It is said that it costs the government some $12 billion a year to cover the costs. Oh, and by the way, some 50% of the work force is working for the government in some capacity or another. How is this healthy for any society, that no one works and that half your work force is engaged in providing monopolistic social services to the other half? Who produces anything? How do you expect a society to grow, to thrive, to create, to do anything at all?

You cannot, in my view. The problem the Norwegians are now facing, according to the article, is that they are finally being called on this problem as American (you know, the great Satans) are buying or merging with Norwegian companies and not putting up with these practices.

Norwegian intellectuals do not like America or Americans. They are not alone in Europe, of course. But go, if you have a moment, and check out this article by Bjorn Staerk (Bear Strong for you non-Norsk speakers) on the famed Norwegian intellectual who thinks pro-American Norwegians should be put under surveillance and eventually on trial for their crime of supporting America. Truly shocking. I wonder why we bother to have relations at all sometimes with Norway.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:47 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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We have successfully blended two cultures in our house. My wife is Norwegian and I am an American Jew. Last night, my daughter wanted to clink glasses again at the dinner table. So, I turned to her and said: "Skoal, bubbe." My wife just cracked up and I realized we have acheived the melting pot right in our little house.

Welcome to America!

P.S. My spelling of "skoal" is an approximation because I couldn't get the right Norwegian letter on my keyboard at home.

UPDATE: Correct spelling is: Skål.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Hi RP, great story. If you were from down south perhaps it would have been skoal bubba. Blessings on your head to all of you. :-)

Posted by: stolypin at July 25, 2004 09:37 PM (xy2ZU)

2 Ivan, you always crack me up! Thanks for the blessings, we need 'em. And, as we used to say in New Orleans, back at ya!

Posted by: RP at July 26, 2004 10:25 AM (LlPKh)

3 "Skoal, Bubba," said Jethro as he held out the chewin' tobacco.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at July 26, 2004 12:12 PM (BqMSp)

4 Thanks for the reminder to change the spelling, TS!

Posted by: RP at July 26, 2004 02:14 PM (LlPKh)

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Hold the presses: The NY Times has admitted that its coverage is liberal and unbalanced. At least, up to a point, they admit it. They note that they are a walking advertisement for gay marriage and never present the dissenting point of view about it. They note that they present too much by way of diversity issues on the sports page. I am shocked they admit it and shocked that they didn't push it as far as they could have. For instance, the "public editor" who wrote this column wants to leave the political issues of the campaign out of this column and wait until the fall until he can tell for sure. Please. Most of us don't feel the need to wait.

The really interesting thing I take away from this is that the complaints about how one sided the Times' coverage is must be forcing some response. Finally. Stay tuned to see if it ever changes, not that I really expect it to.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My daughter and I were up early this morning and went down to breakfast by ourselves. I asked her what she wanted this morning and instead of telling me, she said:

Give me the beat boys and free my soul. I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.

I was kind of surprised and I asked her where she learned that. She said, "the car, Pappa, the car taught it to me".

So amused.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:19 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Nothing ruffles my wife. Not even my daughter and I treating her and the boy to a quiet, but still probably too loud, rendition of "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Hairy Tushies" during lunch today at our favorite Indian restaurant.

At the conclusion of the song, my daughter turns to my wife and asks:

Hairy tushies, do they taste good? I bet they don't.

My wife just laughed. I suspect my daughter is right but disclaim enough knowledge of the subject to opine with any authority.

One of the nice things about raising kids in this area is the most important diversity of all: culinary. My daughter, aged 3.5, could discuss with us today whether she wanted Mexican or Indian or even Thai. This is just one the best parts of immigration -- good ethnic eats.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:07 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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This is a test of the Madfish Willie block quote script I have seen on other people's blogs and really liked.

If this works, it will look really sharp!

So, let's see.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:52 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Dude, I just have to have MT now. Those boxes are cool.

Posted by: kb at July 23, 2004 06:44 PM (WxDFb)

2 I'm guessing that it looks like what you wanted! I actually prefer the "indented" blockquote for some reason. Maybe it's that the border around the quote makes it seem just a little bit too-oo-oo-oo remote for my own good.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at July 24, 2004 01:12 AM (tpVOv)

3 Very aesthetically pleasing, indeed.

Posted by: Wicked H at July 24, 2004 10:23 AM (7TrL0)

4 TS, how do you do the indented block quote? Is it an html tag or command? KB, I'm sure that could be arranged.

Posted by: RP at July 26, 2004 10:30 AM (LlPKh)

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