Jim's Guts

Two things worth noting…

Over the last couple of days I've encountered a couple of things that I think are very important. It's frequent to hear the current administration and its apologist say things like "What the boots on the ground think is what's important" and "We depend on our military to give us the full story", with that in mind I'd like to present the following:

First up is Mr. Malcolm Nance. Mr. Nance is a classic case of "been there, done that, seen the movie, and got the t-shirt". In addition to his current job consulting with Homeland Security and US Intelligence agencies, and writing books on terrorism and counterinsurgency, he's a former Navy Chief and was a master instructor at the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school. Basically, the man knows what he's about, and when he says waterboarding is torture, you might want to listen to him.

His very informative article is here, and I can't emphasize this enough, please read the whole piece. While it's a little long, it is by far the most informative and authoritative piece on torture that I've read.

The second item of note is an NPR piece on Lt. Col. Colby Vokey USMC, which can be found here. Lt. Col Vokey is a decorated combat veteran, and until recently the head of the Marine Corps defense lawyer corps, western US. Lt. Col Vokey is leaving the Marine Corps because he has become "demoralized", "bitter", and "fed-up".

The important information here is that both of these were written by men not only of unquestionable patriotism, but also men who have been, as the saying goes "on the sharp end of the spear". If the constant refrain is that we should listen to those on "the front line", here are two men with impeccable qualifications. Maybe it's time we listened to them…

Grief…

Mikey posted this in the comments section of a Sadly, No! post about the anniversary of the September 11^th attacks. At the time I read it, I was moved by how accurate and yet succinct it was, now that Mr. Stout has died, I agree with it even more;

We measure our lives by the love of others, for that is what gives us purpose.
But we trace our history by the prices we pay.
It's hard, sometimes, to saddle up your shit and just keep going.
And it's ok, sometimes, just to remember, and to weep.
But then, in spite of the burden, we go on, for it is the pain that makes the joys real.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts, prayers, love, and support which have meant the world to the L&T and me. Thanks also to Mikey for allowing me to use his eloquent words.

Going on a date…

To say that the L&T and I had an unusual courtship would be putting it mildly. Before she moved back up to Washington State we had either 5 or 6 "dates" none of which were of the traditional guys go pick up the girls' type. Our 1^st date was dinner at my house (and while I have all the memory power of the average 2 year old ["oh look, something shiny…"] I can actually remember quite a bit of our first date). After that and for the rest of the L&T's time in Southern California we either met someplace neutral or at my house.

After she moved back to Washington, we'd fly up or down for a visit and we were pretty much together the whole time.

Then I moved up here and had an apartment on the next floor, but we were pretty much always in one apartment or the other. A little before we were married we shared an apartment (different rooms. Seriously), so there was no going over to pick her up or the like

All of this is a long way of saying that it's probably been close to 20 years since I've gone and picked up a girl for a date. While I doubt it, some might wonder why this is relevant, and that's because the streak ends tonight! No, the L&T has come to her sense and left me, she's cat sitting for our friends Thom and Michael in West Seattle and we've got tickets to go see "Striking 12" in Tacoma tonight (if the show is coming to a town near you, go see this show). All of this means I'm going to pick her up and we're going out on a date! The whole dinner and a show thing, I mean it's a classic adult date!

And it breaks a long dry spell...

“The Prank”

Eastside Family Medicine, where Eric practiced, held a wonderful memorial for him last week. They closed the clinic for an hour and had everyone share thoughts, memories, and stories about Eric and his impact on them and the clinic. It was very touching, but knowing Eric, I'm sure he'd rather that it was a celebration instead of only sad memories, so during a quiet time I asked "Did he ever pull pranks on anyone", which lightened the mood slightly and led to a host of great stories. It also reminded me of the single greatest prank I've ever been involved with…

The medical facility at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego is a very large single building with various departments spread throughout. In addition to an Emergency Room, there was a small inpatient wing, x-ray, lab, and pharmacy departments, regular medical offices, recruit processing offices, an area for sick call, and most importantly for this story, a psychiatrist office. For reasons lost in the mists of time young Mr. Stout and I had a running gag exchange going with the "head-doc" (I think it started when I ate one of their gold fish, but that's another story), and one day we heard him tell someone that the one thing he missed from private practice was wall to wall carpeting. Hmmm…

With that knowledge in hand Stout and I started looking around for carpet. Well, not just carpet, but carpet remnants, you know the stuff, those little 1 to 3 foot squares of carpet samples. We collected a lot of them, mixing colors, styles, length, the works, as loud and as mismatched as possible, and then we waited for the weekend. Saturday evening we went into the doc's office, made notes about where things were, and then removed everything except the light fixtures. Now a good prank would be to lay down the carpet on the floor, but this wasn't a good prank, this was an epic prank so not only did we carpet the floor, but we carpeted the walls and the ceiling as well using a staple gun and a ton of staples. When we were done we put everything back where it was, desk, file cabinet, pictures, and degrees, the only thing different was that he had the "wall to wall" (not to mention floor to ceiling) carpet he wanted.

When doc got in on Monday we could hear him yelling from the other side of the clinic. The epilogue on the story is that of course we got busted, I think the punishment was to remove it all, fix the staple holes, and paint the office. In short, our Chief had to discipline us, but as everyone except the doc thought it was funny as hell (and though he couldn't admit it, I think the doc thought it was funny too) he didn't want to come down on us too hard.

To this day, it's the greatest prank I've ever taken part of, one of the best I've heard…

Timing…

Our very good friend Sandi reminded me of something today – Timing really is everything. Eric and I hadn't seen each other much over the last year and some, he was newly married, and we just gave each other space. That changed 3 weeks ago when he went into the hospital with a couple of brain tumors. Since then we reconnected, saw each other daily, reminisced about old times, and made plans for the future. Back in the day, we used to joke about the fact that even though we only saw each other once or twice a year, when we did it was as if no time had passed. The last 3 weeks recaptured that, and I'm only thrilled that it happened, and thankful to be reminded of it.

When I left Eric on Friday, he admitted to me for the first time that he was scared. I wanted to say "no shit, me too" but I didn't. Instead I assured him that like so many things we'd be through we'd get through it together. I told him that I loved him and that I'd see him soon, and while that didn't work out the way I had intended, I'm grateful to have had the last 3 weeks…

Eric C. Stout 04 Oct 1962 – 13 Oct 2007

Mr. Stout passed away earlier this evening, suffering a massive cardiac event that we believe was due to a pulmonary embolism. He was my best friend and he was my Brother, and he will be missed.

“Have you no sense of decency…”

"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Joseph Welch, June 9^th, 1954 to US Senator Joseph McCarthy.

As I've gotten older I've come to realize that politics isn't pleasant. There's no such thing as a "mud" free campaign, you're always going to dig up dirt on your opponent, and when you find something, as long as it's true, I understand the need to use it. Don't get me wrong, I wish that it weren't so, I wish that candidates could have an honest debate about real issues, and not talk about past indiscretions. But I know that's not how it's going to be, and I've come to grips with that.

It's the same thing with punditry… Frequently both the right and left talking heads and blogs discuss policy, ideas, and the like, but there are occasions when both sides get into name calling. I'm fine with this as well, heck most of the time it's quite funny, and I regularly read the more "snarky" websites (see both Sadly No! and The Rude Pundit for excellent examples). The name calling is lobbed by each side at the other and it's a game where everyone knows the rules, and while there are always a few who take it seriously, most understand how it goes. Again no problem with that...

But in much the same way that the House Un-American Activities Committee quickly went off the rails, I'm afraid that some in the right wing punditry class have not only gone off the rails, but have crashed through the neighborhood and into the school. By now most are aware that a couple of weeks ago the Democratic response to Mr. Bush's weekly radio was given by 12 year old Graeme Frost. Young Master Frost told how having SCHIP paid for the medical bills his family faced after a severe accident. We can all discuss SCHIP, we can even discuss wither or not it was wise for Democrats to have a 12 y/o read its response (though please spare me the moral outrage of "Democrats using children", as Republicans do it as well [see Mr. Bush having "snowflake babies" surround him while vetoing the stem cell research bill for the most recent example]), but that wasn't good enough for the Right Wing Professional Punditry Class. No, rather than discuss the merits of the issues, they go after not only the family but the kid as well. They question their medical history, job history, how they educate their children, there is nothing that is out of bounds to them. All of which leads me to wonder – What the fuck is wrong with these people?

It's ironic that the same people who loudly decried criticism of a 4 star US Army soldier are stalking a middle class family, including but not limited to publishing their home address and driving by their places of business! Look, a lot of Right-Wingnuttery makes me angry, and all of this more so than ever before, but I would NEVER EVEN CONSIDER doing this to the likes of Steyn or Malkin or the rest of that ilk. There are some boundaries that shouldn't be crossed, and some rails that should always be stayed on! What the hell happened to these "people" that would make them do this? Have they become so angry that they don't consider slandering a middle class family or their children to be wrong? Have they become so driven by hate that anything, ANYTHING, they consider wrong is to be destroyed completely? "At long last, have (they) left no sense of decency?"

PS – I'm reminded of the penultimate scene in "The American President" (a schlocky love story, but not a bad movie). After quietly enduring reports and character questions about his girlfriend, "Andrew Shepherd" finally responds with a pretty good shot that I'm going to paraphrase here;

"The Frost family has done nothing to you... They have done nothing but be in a "traditional" marriage, raised two kids through a pretty tragic accident, they've bought a house and paid their taxes, in short they've lived what most on the Right consider to be a "correct" life. You guys want a character debate? You better stick with me, 'cause Graeme and his family are way out of your league…"

Quick Hits…

It's been a busy couple of weeks in the Smith household, and as I'm sure everyone understands blogging has fallen pretty low on the list of things that need to be done. I've been typing at this post for a few days now, but because I'm having a hard time focusing on work right now (lots of projects in various states of hold, and waiting for additional data) I thought I'd try to get it published…

Obviously the biggest thing going on right now is Mr. Stout – The pathology report from his surgery confirmed the diagnosis we had expected, Glioblastoma multiforme or GBM. Currently Stout is still in an inpatient rehabilitation facility, trying to regain use of his left side, the arm and hand are coming along nicely, but the leg is still a little weak. He's getting around very well with a wheelchair, and pretty good with the walker. Thanks to everyone for their help, concern, thoughts, and prayers.

It's good that the weather has turned because I don't feel quite as bad about having not been on the bike in the last couple of weeks. There have been a couple of spinning sessions, but nothing that I could call truly training, mostly it's just turning the pedals around on the trainer. I've gone on exactly one "meet the team ride" (Team Cucina Fresca), but I'm really hoping to go to Saturday's Team Cycle U ride. I'm trying to convince myself that taking October off will help recharge my batteries so that I'm ready to go when my InCycle classes get underway.

Speaking of cycling and bikes, SRAM has finally come out with their newest "double-tap" gruppo, the SRAM RED. I have the entry level set (the Rival) and love it, so you can imagine what I think of the same basic functions for less than half of the weight. Also RED allows you to make individual adjustments to the shifter paddles and brake levers, the rear pulleys now have ceramic bearings to reduce drag. To further lighten the setup, the cassette upfront is actually machined out of a single piece of alloy and appears "hollow" when cut in half. I know it's going to be really expensive, but as far as I'm concerned you can have your Shimano or Campy, I'll take SRAM any day of the week.

I took a brief break on Friday to go see "The Kingdom", which is fantastic and I highly recommend it! The director and writers give the story time to grow rather than trying to load an entire back story in 15 minutes so you can have car chases for the rest of the movie. Instead, the story is grown organically, you're given time to try and figure out who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad ones" and by the time the movie reaches its peak, you've become vested in the story. From start to finish it's one of the better movies I've seen in a long time.

One of the things I'm really sorry I haven't had time to write about is Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" debacle. There are plenty of great posts on the matter (see here or here for a small sample), but it occurs to me that like with so many things in life, this would have been DOA had Mr. Limbaugh just taken a bit of personal responsibility. Right after this story broke, all he had to do was say "I'm sorry, I can see how it could have been interpreted as it was, but that wasn't my intent at all." That's it. Just that little sentence and this would be a non-issue. (Aside – Why is it that the right has "nothing but respect" for our veterans right before they disrespect them? A topic for another post…)