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
Post contains 424 words, total size 2 kb.

Jeff Smith, a.k.a the Frugal Gourmet, died almost 2 weeks ago and I didn't notice (Seattle Times obit) Shame on me. Do you all remember him? He had this great cooking show and put out a couple of cookbooks I still like to this day. Here are some of his recipes on the net. He came off the air after allegations surfaced concerning his inappropriate sexual contacts with some young boys. Never proven, mind you, just alleged. But that was enough to get him off the air.

I really liked his show. He may have been a little less nice and approachable in person, though:

He made his name and his money on television and in print selling an image as a man of god, warm and generous and the very model of moral superiority. In my one telephonic encounter, though, he all but told me to go Cheney myself, Madam. Thanks to a starstruck editor in the mid-Eighties, I had to approach him for a recipe for a magazine story and it was if I had dialed Tourette’s Central. Suffice it to say he did not end the conversation with “I bid you peace.”

Anyway, Rest in Peace, Minister Smith.

This kind of got me thinking about the other cooking show I used to really like. Anyone else remember Justin Wilson? He is also dead, unfortunately, but was a fascinating man (obit and here), and boy, could he cook.

UPDATE:

No, they are both still dead, as is Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The reason for the update is that the second page for the Justin Wilson obit has this great link to listen over the web to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage music broadcasts. I am thinking the day is looking up!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:35 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 299 words, total size 2 kb.

If my wife is reading this, I think I found what I'd like as an early birthday present: my very own air craft carrier.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:20 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 32 words, total size 1 kb.

I am not feeling very inspired yet, so I will favor you with a random observation I made while walking to the office this morning. Large patterned tight pants on a woman who may be carrying a few pounds extra may not be the most flattering choice she could make for herself. It also got me thinking, what are some of the fashion mistakes of yore which have happily died out, to be missed by no one but nostalgia fans? I will give you a couple and be curious to see what you add.

*leg warmers
*stretch pants
*lycra everywhere (as a young gay man once said to me as he passed me just after passing a very large woman in lycra shorts, "lycra is a privilege, not a right)
*head bands (picture O. Newton-John in the "Let's get physical" video)
*vests everywhere

What else?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:45 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 161 words, total size 1 kb.

I almost never drink at lunch. It tends to make me sleepy in the afternoon and besides which I am not being paid to drink at lunch. However, I feel that the only mistake I may have made at lunch today was having only one glass of wine instead of two. The wine and a good lunch have cheered me up immensely. How much, you may wonder? Well, let me share with you the post I drafted this morning and I decided not to put up:

* * *

I am in a truly foul mood today. The kind of mood which gives NY'ers a bad reputation among our fellow citizens. The kind of mood which suggests that my last rabies shot just did not take. It is a little shy of being undirected rage looking for an object. I have little to no tolerance or patience today. That is the mood that propelled me up the train platform and into the office today.

When I got to work, I got a call from my wife. She is back safely from Germany. The job she had interviewed for several times went to someone else. She is disappointed but seems to be dealing with it better right now than I am. I think that is because I feel horrible for her, for us, and then I try to imagine how she's feeling and how I'd be feeling in her spot and it just starts all over again. And I feel like I lack any ability to give her comfort, to make it all right, to kiss this boo-boo and make it better. I hate feeling helpless.

Combine all that with the foulness of the temper I am already enjoying and it feels sort of volatile. I can feel the tightness physically in my hands and in the set of my jaw. It is a pugnacious feeling.

Now, I just got off the phone with a client who has broken yet another appointment with me. He's facing something like $18 million in liability over a busted commercial real estate project and I think he lacks a firm footing in reality. I have no idea how I am going to represent him if he keeps blowing me off.

I need more sleep or a vacation.

* * *

Or I needed to self-medicate with a nice lunch, good company, and a glass of wine. There may be a lesson in there with universal application.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:02 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 421 words, total size 2 kb.

1 May I be the first to sign up for the class when you end up presenting the seminar? Next time I have a foul day such as yours, I will strive to turn it around. Could you tell me what wine you were drinking? ;-)

Posted by: Wicked H at July 22, 2004 06:09 PM (7TrL0)

2 Longer lunches and more wine...that's what this country really needs! Hey, let's get a bill passed...

Posted by: Mick at July 22, 2004 10:26 PM (0HJs1)

3 I had a very ordinary tipple of Sauvingon Blanc, which I like very much because of the floral notes and the grapefruit taste. Very refreshing. But what y'all cannot forget is the critical element of good company. Fellowship plus wine may equal happiness. I'd love to host a seminar.

Posted by: RP at July 23, 2004 10:31 AM (LlPKh)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

I am not a television news type. I am a throwback (which is not the same as a toss-back, thank you very much). I get my news by getting my hands smeared with news print or by clicking through the web. I may have to reconsider, especially if it means I am missing moments like this with "Shepard Smith, the clean-shorn host of the No. 1–rated Fox Report":

But it was on the set of The Fox Report in November 2002 that Mr. Smith became infamous among cable news watchers for his gaffe involving Jennifer Lopez. In a story about her hit song "Jenny From the Block" and the reaction it was getting from her childhood neighborhood in the Bronx, Mr. Smith was prompted to read that they were more likely to "give her a curb job than a block party."

But it turned out to be a real mouthful, and the hapless anchor instead read that J. LoÂ’s neighbors were more likely to "give her a curb job than a blowjob."

Now that's great television.

Source.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:04 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 181 words, total size 1 kb.

Either you are going to intuitively understand this post deep down inside, like you could have written it yourself, or you just ain't never gonna get it.

We accumulate things, my wife and I. Well, maybe me more than my wife. In any event, we don't throw out a whole lot of stuff. This urge to preserve spans whole categories of items and I don't intend to address the range of pathologies. No, I'm going to limit myself to the kitchen.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I blame my parents for this. Ok, no, not really. But they have gently aided and abetted by only recently starting to inquire when I was going to drive the ten miles over to their house and clean out my childhood room. They are kind and understanding for the most part and also quite accomplished little clutter bugs themselves so the pressure has been gentle thus far. But notice has been given and since I really did move out when I left for college, it's about time I boxed up the old high school yearbooks and other momentos. Pardon the digression, back to the kitchen.

We keep stuff in our cabinets that we treat like national treasures. Old cans of coffee, bottles of hot sauce from vacations, weird spices, stuff picked up on sale, etc. You never know when you are going to see that jar of capers packed in salt again, so you buy it and you keep it. You might want to bake chocolate chip cookies at odd hours when the market is closed and you need to make sure you have every possible ingredient for said cookie. You also never know when you might need that odd tin of Norwegian "horn salt". I actually have no idea what horn salt is, why we have it, what you use it for, when we got it, and I have never seen my wife use it. But it has faithfully followed us for our last two moves. We have this spectacular "piri piri" sauce we bought in Portugal (ten years ago!) and a great collection of Guatemalen hot sauces. I think we still have a jar of prickly pear jam we bought on our honeymoon, lo these many moons ago.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that we like to go to supermarkets when we travel. Foreign supermarkets are huge fun and I think are just as culturally enriching an experience as visiting a museum. You see stuff you've never imagined before, you get a glimpse of how the other people really live (nothing tells you more about a society than its selection of toilet paper), and you can buy inexpensive and unusual gifts and souvenirs.

So, we cart this stuff home and we put it in the cupboards. And there it sits. Never to be used. Why? Because it cannot be replaced once we open it, I suppose. Or because we never intended to open it? Or because while we still have that bottle of Hungarian brandy we still have a tangible connection to that trip. Beats me. Maybe we just like to have lots of stuff.

So, that coffee can I titled this post with was a can of Cafe du Monde strong as heck coffee we brought from New Orleans. Here is an interesting link about coffee in New Orleans. We had run out of the good, freshly ground stuff and were in a desperate place. I opened the pantry cabinets and there sat the can of Cafe du Monde. And I realized, the memory that can represented needed to be sacrificed on the alter of our coffee emergency. You know what? It wasn't so bad and I don't think I'll even miss having the can as much as I will treasure the new memory of that can stepping up to the plate (er, coffee maker) in our hour of need.

Besides, I can now buy another yellow can to put in its place, if I am so inclined.

My wife is leaving today on a business trip to Germany and I am going to take the opportunity afforded by her absence to ruthlessly cull our cabinets. I'm not actually going to throw anything away (that would be mean), but I'm going to put all this stuff in boxes and let her decide if we should keep it. Who knows, maybe we'll even get some stuff off the counters! Or maybe we'll just create more room for more stuff.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 771 words, total size 4 kb.

I struggle with impulse control every day. Usually, I succeed. My most recent victory is as follows:

* * *

Telephone Call. Ring, ring.

Reception: "Big Fat Advertising Company" (client)

Me: Mr. Big Fat Executive, please

Reception: Who may I say is calling?

In stunning display of impulse control, I did NOT say the following:

Me: Ramon from the clinic. I have the results of his, test, if you know what I mean. Should I just give them to you?

* * *

This was merely a test of the impulse control system. If this had been a real impulse control failure, you'd either by fired by now or on your knees thanking whatever god you pray to that Mr. Big Fat Executive has a good sense of humor and an appreciation for 80's film references* (in this case, Beverly Hills Cop).

* Editorial Change: "references" replaces the word "allusions" in the original post as per the suggestion of Grammar Queen in the comment section. Thanks, GQ.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 171 words, total size 1 kb.