Enough already

Look, I know I was nice to Reagan a few days ago, and I do think that he deserves an honorable send off, but please, can they just bury him already?  I've already heard, seen and read more about the man since last Saturday than I did in my whole life to that point combined-and I was a pretty inquisitive guy back when he was president.  You'd think the guy invented sunlight or something.  MSNBC and Fox News aren't broadcasting news anymore.  They're in Love-In mode 24/7 now.

Would you wait three hours in near 100 degree heat just to spend ten seconds walking by his casket?  I have friends and family that I maybe wouldn't do that for.  And what's with the way some of these people are dressed?  I am amazed that this has become an "it" event.  The heck with The Smithsonian, honey.  Were going to look at a pine box instead.

However, it was cool to see Gorbachev there today.  Margaret Thatcher looked a little confused though, sort of how I expect GW to sound when he speaks at the funeral tomorrow.  YOU KNOW I will be watching that.  Eulogies are long enough, with him speaking and pausing after every verb he'll put half the crowd to sleep.  I'm looking forward to listening to Bush 41 speak, though.  He's another in what is becoming a long line of GOP retirees that I have developed a soft spot for, guys like Dole, Ford and Kemp, because they don't take themselves seriously anymore.  Dole especially has demonstrated a fine sense of humor since leaving politics after losing the election in '96.  If he had been that personable before hand he might have won.

I think having an airport and a battleship named for Reagan is enough.  I don't think he belongs on currency, and the idea of him going on Mt. Rushmore is an insult to the men already on there. 

While I am on the subject of things I have had enough of (and do I sound 85 years old today or what?), I have encountered way too many people the last few days who have done an excellent job of making me wonder how you can live so long with no active brain cells.  And how they can manage to drive a car as well.  To wit:

1. I was at the library Tuesday and when I went to checkout a book, the contents of my wallet fell out.  Since there was a line behind me I decided to walk to my car and then put everything back into my wallet.  As I was sitting in the car, not yet having turned the ignition on, a driver waiting for my spot started honking at me.  I ignored her until the third honk, then I got out of the car, opened the trunk, and started rearranging things in there.  She moved on.  Therefore, I have established a new rule: once my car is parked, the space is mine until I have physically driven away from it.  If I want to sit in my car and have a pizza delivered to it, I will.  If I want to read "War and Peace" in that spot, I will.  And if you honk at me, I will read it twice.  It's mine.  Go away.

2. I went to see Madeline Albright at a bookstore yesterday.  She spoke for about twenty minutes and then answered questions before signing books for people, and she could not have been more pleasant and gracious.  Before the event, an announcement was made requesting that people please turn off their cell phones.  During Ms. Albright's talk, I heard at least five phones ring.  So I'm thinking that I should invent a device that can jam cell phone reception in public places.  Even better, maybe I can add a feature that will provide an electric shock to those who have it ring at inappropriate times.  I would find the hysterical yelps of those shocked much less annoying than the ringing of the phones.

3. I've barely avoided three different accidents in the last two days that were the result of another person not bothering to use a turn signal when changing lanes.  I'm not clairvoyant.  When I look before changing lanes and you are not signaling, I assume you are going to stay in the line you are presently in.  And when I cut you off, please notice my signal was on, yours wasn't, and therefore by definition you are at fault.  I notice that there seems to be a new tradition around here where drivers acknowledge that they have made a mistake by holding their middle finger outside their window.  It seems to be really catching on.

Time for my geritol.

Just another day

At the end of last week I felt that I had a bit of a problem with motivation, and alluded that I knew what was costing me the desire to be my normal witty, frequently-updating self, and that it was going to have to be dealt with before long because I had no control over it.

 

So much for drama; I was feeling funky about the impending anniversary of my father’s death.  Today (6/8) marks two years since he died.  I’ve written about him here before, how my life has changed since he left, and how I feel that I have done a fine job adjusting to him no longer being around, so I won’t go into that again.  But I have to admit that I found it troubling that I felt so apathetic about things leading up to this day.

 

The sun did indeed rise today.  In fact, it’s probably been warmer here today than any day yet this year.  Summer has finally arrived.  There have been no black rain clouds hovering over me, real or imagined.  Today is like any other day, which is a good thing.  So why did I let myself be distracted?  This was not the only thing in my life affected.  I avoided things I normally enjoy, felt aggravation much more easily, and was generally a pain in the butt to myself.

 

Also, I’m not exactly a “mark the date’ kind of person anyway.  I have no problems remembering significant events on the day that they occurred; I just tend to not make that big of a deal about it.  I went through a June 8 without my father last year, so it’s not like I didn’t know what it would feel like.

 

Perhaps that is the answer to my question.  Strike the perhaps, I know that is the answer.  I know what it feels like now to go through anything without my father.  I know how it feels to celebrate Christmas or any other holiday, how it feels to have breakfast in a restaurant (which we normally did together once a week or so) and how it feels on the golf course.  If I may be frank, it sucks.  I hate that he isn’t here for any of that and a million other things, but what can I do except move on?  There aren’t a lot of options out there for people who wish to rise up and denounce the circle of life.

 

Whenever I find myself questioning the way things happen, I go back to the inevitable.  My mind has a default setting that reminds me constantly that everything is finite, that we are all, if I may borrow injury list lingo, “day to day.”  Nothing or no one lasts forever.  And the person who taught me most about that kind of thinking, instilled the realistic point of view that is so present in my everyday thoughts, is the same person that I still wait to find sitting in his creaky desk chair, watching an obscure program about the Boer War on the History Channel and eager to answer any question I might have.

 

And I still have quite a few, and I still struggle sometimes with the knowledge that the person that I went to for answers for so long can’t directly help me anymore.  Of course, if he knew I felt this way, he’d tell me I was wasting my time fretting about it when I could be out there finding the answers for myself.

 

He’d be right, of course, but it was so much easier the other way.  Knowing that affected me quite a bit the last week or so, but it’s time to move on again.  I’ve made a lot of changes in my life in the last two years and until recently thought that I did so in spite of the fact that my father died, but I think I have come to the point where I accept that his death changed me, changed who I am and forced me to look at the things I have done and compare them to what I always thought I’d accomplish.

 

So many questions and so many answers.  It never seems to end, just like the influence of a great (and a greatly missed) man.

Piling on

"Everybody Loves Reagan"

That's all I've seen on television this week.  And it's only Tuesday.

I was never much a fan of Reagan, especially when he was president.  I always felt that his presidency was just his biggest stage, that it was his greatest role as an actor.  I never felt he was being genuine about anything.

I was 13 when he was elected, and 21 when he left office.  I wasn't old enough to vote in either of the elections that he won, though I doubt I would have voted for him if I could have.  But like it or not, as the president during the years that I remember as the transition from kid to adult, he had a strong influence on me.

Like any good politician, Reagan had an agenda, and by getting himself elected at a time when America was perceived as weak as it had been in a generation, he was able to convince a majority of the nation that his agenda was the right way to go.  When I think of Reagan in the early 80's, I picture him riding in on a silver horse with his sword drawn, daring the Big Bad Wolf that was the Soviet Union to go to battle against him.  Then he'd look into the camera and grunt like Tarzan: "Communists evil, grr..."

For a few years there I was convinced that Reagan was going to get us all vaporized.  I'd read about all the new missiles that both we and the Soviets were deploying, and then he'd be on the news calling the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire."  Remember when he joked that he'd "outlawed Russia forever, we begin bombing in five minutes"?  Funny stuff.  His shtick kept us at Def Con 372 for two years.

Ah, but I come to praise Ronnie, not to bury him...as soon as I remind myself that he had no domestic policy for anything except tax cuts and military spending.  He did more to create the divide between the haves and the have-nots and was truly horrible with minority issues.  And it took him almost two full terms to admit that AIDS was a problem.

But I digress.  Reagan gets credit for two big things: the US winning the Cold War, and the fall of communism along Eastern Europe.  My opinions of that have evolved throughout the years.  I think Reagan benefited from the fact that the older generation of Soviet leaders couldn't stop dying.  First Brezhnev, then Chernenko, and finally Andropov.  And that brought Gorbachev.

I give Reagan all the credit possible for working with Gorbachev and changing his opinions, and more importantly his rhetoric, towards the defense buildup.  Reagan went from overseeing a huge defense increase to a man who worked for disarmament, and if he had not been so dedicated to the idea of SDI (Star Wars missile defense), he and Gorbachev might have eliminated both countries arsenals.  Reagan's willingness to change his mind (can you say "flip flop"???) brought the world back from the fears of a generation, my generation, that we would not get the chance to see us survive long enough to make a difference.  In 1998 when I was in Reykjavik, Iceland I took a walk down to the home where Reagan and Gorbachev met twelve years earlier, and while the house was not open to the public, I took a walk around it outside and remembered how I felt reading about their accomplishments there along with their disappointments (it was at Reykjavik that Reagan's refusal to give up SDI caused a prolonged stalemate).

I may never agree that the Cold War was "won."  I think it was a threat that was eliminated, and I am willing to give Reagan as much credit for that as anyone else involved, though Gorbachev must receive equal credit as well.

However, it drives me nuts that Reagan gets as much credit for ending communism in Eastern Europe that he does.  Giving him the credit for the fall of the Soviet Bloc is an insult to the people of those places that had the courage to demonstrate and gather in public despite the possibility that their actions would bring tanks into their cities, as it did in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.  Reagan's words for some reason outweigh the bravery of thousands, and I don't understand why.  Communism left that part of the world due to economic and social opportunities, not because of an American president.

Reagan's death has reminded me of his willingness to compromise, use diplomacy and seek peaceful solutions to conflict.  Ironic, I suppose, because we are living in a time in this country where the sitting president does none of that.  I find that I would prefer a man like Reagan in the White House now, instead of the pseudo-cowboy who currently resides there.

I will stomach the rest of this week, and the inevitable tribute that will be a part of the Republican convention this summer.  I will not be surprised if images of Reagan show upin a few RNC advertisements on television this fall, as we live in times where we must politicize everything.  But let me also say this: many of Reagan's Republican contemporaries will praise him continuously this week, and then go back to being steadfastly against stem cell research.  I do not understand that.  No man, whether ex-president or ex-convict, deserves to spend the last years of his life as Reagan did.  We should do everything we can to further scientific technology so that we can eliminate the suffering that Mr. Reagan and his family had to endure.

Anyway, in hindsight, while I disagreed mostly with his domestic agenda, Reagan was essentially the right man at the right time to deal with the foreign policy challenges, and for that I find that I respect the man as the leader of this nation.  He has grown on me as I have aged and have seen more of the world.      

Hello? Is this game on?

No disrespect to anyone in Florida, but how is it that Tampa Bay wins the Stanley Cup instead of Calgary?  Hockey is Canada's national sport, kids play it all the time.  They don't even have winter in Tampa.  This is like a team from Iceland beating the Yankees for the World Series.

Calgary got jobbed-with-a-capital-J Saturday when what would have been the Cup winning goal was disallowed.  It's easy to say in hindsight, but as soon as game 6 went to overtime, I knew Tampa would win the championship in 7.  Losing that game at home in OT was a collective punch in the stomach and by the time they got their wind back the series was over.

My guess is that most people don't care.  Hockey's done a great job of messing itself up.  There's more teams in places where ice never forms naturally than there are in Canada.  Here in Chicago, hockey is dead and has been for a long, long time.  It's too bad, I used to love going to Blackhawks' games.  It rivaled baseball as the best sport to see live, but I won't go again until the team is sold.

There's a good chance that there won't be a season in the NHL next year due to contract squabbling between the players and owners.  But like I said, I'm not sure that anyone really cares.  If a game collapses on itself but there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? 

A few quick thoughts

1. Big surprise, George Tenet has resigned as head of the CIA.  I half expect GW to put his daddy back in control of the department he headed back in the 70's.  Why would anyone want this job, especially in today's world?  Let's give it to William Hung.  Someone please make him go away.

2. I'm being pre-emptive and have decided to start building an ark.  I've never seen more rain than we've got here in Chicago this past month, and I was out of town for the worst of it.  I will start collecting animals shortly.

3. Cubs play Pittsburgh three times this weekend, and I'm banking that at least five Cub batters will be hit by pitches in retaliation for last weekend in Pittsburgh, when Cub pitchers hit ten Pirate batters in four games.  Then it's four with the Cardinals in Chicago.  It would be nice to see the boys go 6-1 over the next week.  Realistically, I hope for 5-2 but expect 4-3 or even 3-4.  The magic still isn't there.  I'm not hyperventilating yet.

4. My writing has been crap lately.  There is something going on inside my head that is affecting my desire to update this, not that I have lost the drive, but that I have no idea to adequately express what I am feeling lately.  This is why you get a poor attempt at a "bullet points" entry.  I don't have the attention span to write about anything meaningful at the moment except when prompted to write about something specific (see previous entry).  I know what the issue is, and it is going to come to a front very soon, and I am sure that the resolution will result in a torrent of entries.  In fact, I can just about guarantee it.

Pleased to read me

The question has been asked "what book would you select to describe you to a total stranger?"

Wow.  I read the question about ten hours ago and it has been on my mind since.  It's a great question, and after a lot of thought, I think I have my answer.

I'd go with Wally Lamb's "I Know This Much Is True", which I just read last summer.  It's a long book, over 900 pages, and I was not thrilled with the way it ended, but I identifed so much with Dominic, the narrator and main character, that it really affected me.

The thing is, I can't tell you why I identify so much with Dominic.  We have nothing in common.  Dominic is a twin (his brother is mentally ill), divorced, a father grieving his dead infant daughter, trying to figure out who his father was, and coming to terms with his relationship with his borderline abusive stepfather.  And that's just the start.

Needless to say, my life is nothing like that.  But as I read this book, I felt that the author knew me every time I read Dominic's words and thoughts.  We share a lot of the same opinions on society and are always trying to figure out why things have happened and will happen.

There is an overlying theme in this book about self-reflection; people who would benefit from it but can't bring themselves to do it, people who ignore it, and people who benefit greatly from it.  Dominic learns a lot about himself in this book, understands how some of the things that have happened in his past affect his present, and why he has the relationships that he does.  I feel like I have spent the last few years of my life in a state of constant self-analysis, and there were many times where I felt an eerie connection with Dominic.

The book I WISH described me to a stranger would be either Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" (Jake-minus the, ahem, "war wound") or "A Moveable Feast" (Who doesn't want to be a part of a lost generation?), but that is pure fantasy.

Extra credit: the book I did not like that most people said was great?  Easy-"The Bridges of Madison County."  Maybe not because it's a bad book (I think it's average) but more so because the way people described it to me, like reading it would mean that the skies would open up and I'd immediately ascend into Heaven.  I kept waiting for the "revelation."  I'm still waiting.

And I ruined the movie for a few people when I saw it in the theater, but that's a story for another time.

 

My kingdom for a decent umpire

I think I have handled the Cubs steady slide in the NL Central standings well.  The season isn't even a third over yet, and they've been crushed by injuries this last month.  All they need to do is keep within reasonable striking distance; when the team gets healthy again in a few weeks they should be playing better.

Injuries happen.  No one wants to use them as an excuse, and I'm not using it either.  The Cubs just haven't played well lately, and teams ahead of them, notably Cincinnati (Cincinnati?) and St. Louis are on a roll.  After tonight's 5-3 loss at home to Houston, the Cubs are 3.5 games out of first.

I did not see tonight's game, but I saw the one highlight-a ground all to second with two outs in the top of the second, fielded by the Cubs second baseman who through in time to first to get the out that should have retired the side, except that the umpire at first base ruled that the throw was wide and that the first baseman did not stay on the bag.  You can guess what happened next: a two run double, Astros win 5-3.

That call was awful.  Every replay I saw showed that the foot was on the bag and that the runner was obviously out.  I realize that even if the right call was made that the game was still tied and there is no guarantee that the Cubs would have eventually won, but seldom does anything in the game irritate me as much as such an obvious missed call.  The game is supposed to be decided by the players, not the umpires. 

So I'm irritated and pointing fingers at umpires, which is what you do when it's late and you can feel things slipping away.