Busy Week, But Gratifying

The past week has been a busy one, I had not one but two trips out of town. And mid-week, my oldest son Douglas graduated from college. It was quite a wonderful thing to see him get his degree - a B.S. in biology. He won an academic award for the best research presentation among the seniors graduating from his department (all of whom have to design and conduct an independent research project). And he was named to the all-conference lacrosse team for Sportsmanship. What a great guy!

Bright Moments

Yesterday, my oldest son Doug played in the last home game of his lacrosse career at Nazareth. NAZ lost badly, but the sun shown. And today he called to tell me that his adviser told him he did an "outstanding" job on the Senior Research Project for his Biology Major. It doesn't get better than that.

Four Years

My middle son Jeffrey died four years ago today. This is him holding his baby brother August the prior fall. Among the numerous cruelties of Jeff's death is that August (now 5) will never have the chance to get to know him.

Then there are the little ironies. This afternoon Nazareth played Cortland in lacrosse (a thorough thrashing, it must be said, by Cortland). At half-time we learned - via loudspeaker - that my oldest son Douglas's hard work has paid off. He was named the Nazareth Scholar-Athlete of the year from his team; the award goes to a player who is integral to the team and puts in strong academic performance as well. There is no one who would be prouder of Doug's accomplishment than Jeffrey.

(Among the Reason) Why I Loath Bi-Partisanship

My oldest son Douglas is set to graduate from college this coming May. He has been a good student and an athlete for four years. The obvious consideration at this point is what he is going to do with his B.S. in Biology (minor in Environmental Studies) once he navigates the end of the semester festivities. So, this installment from Paul Krugman hits home with even greater force than it might:

"I still don’t know why the Obama administration was so quick to accept defeat in the war of ideas, but the fact is that it surrendered very early in the game. In early 2009, John Boehner, now the speaker of the House, was widely and rightly mocked for declaring that since families were suffering, the government should tighten its own belt. That’s Herbert Hoover economics, and it’s as wrong now as it was in the 1930s. But, in the 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama adopted exactly the same metaphor and began using it incessantly.

And earlier this week, the White House budget director declared: “There is an agreement that we should be reducing spending,” suggesting that his only quarrel with Republicans is over whether we should be cutting taxes, too. No wonder, then, that according to a new Pew Research Center poll, a majority of Americans see “not much difference” between Mr. Obama’s approach to the deficit and that of Republicans.

So who pays the price for this unfortunate bipartisanship? The increasingly hopeless unemployed, of course. And the worst hit will be young workers — a point made in 2009 by Peter Orszag, then the White House budget director. As he noted, young Americans who graduated during the severe recession of the early 1980s suffered permanent damage to their earnings. And if the average duration of unemployment is any indication, it’s even harder for new graduates to find decent jobs now than it was in 1982 or 1983.

So the next time you hear some Republican declaring that he’s concerned about deficits because he cares about his children — or, for that matter, the next time you hear Mr. Obama talk about winning the future — you should remember that the clear and present danger to the prospects of young Americans isn’t the deficit. It’s the absence of jobs.

But . . . these days Washington doesn’t seem to care about any of that. And you have to wonder what it will take to get politicians caring again about America’s forgotten millions."

Douglas is, in the eyes of his father, indeed one in a million. But that phrase takes on an unhappily ironic cast in the age of bi-partisan political delusion. If it sometimes sounds like my criticisms of Obama and his failure to stand up to the right are personal that is because they are.

Five Years Old

My son August is 5 years old today. This is another of the pictures his brother Douglas took of him when he was visiting last summer. Happy Birthday My Sweet Boy! I miss you.* And don't forget - Papa loves August . . .
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* I have never actually been able to spend August's birthday with him. I thank his mom for that. And of course she continues her campaign for the 'mommy dearest' award by once again refusing to give him the present I sent out. Did I mention she has pulled such things numerous times before? Oh well; nothing to be done.

August by Douglas (Summer 2010)

New Books ~ Solnit/Caron & Pollitt

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I won't divulge my age; we can simply say 'advancing.' In any case, today I accompanied Susan to a local pub to watch the opening match of the World Cup. I say "opening" in the most parochial possible sense - we went to watch England play the U.S., not South Africa versus Mexico. But the whole event is about parochial interests and identities after all, right?

My son Douglas drove cross town to meet us. After the match (let's just say Susan was rightly disappointed with the outcome) Doug took the opportunity to give me two books he'd bought me as birthday presents. Thanks buddy! The books are new and were written by two politically astute, terrifically smart, and talented women. If you stop by the blog much you won't be surprised that these made it onto my birthday list. Here are s a couple of teasers.

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“The Bestiaries, or books of beasts, of almost a thousand years ago contained much that we no long believe. There is no stone in the heads of toads that neutralizes poison and there are no unicorns at all, so the ability of their horns to likewise undo poison is not particularly helpful either. Those old books were compendiums of known and imagined animals, of eagles and dragons and elephants, with lore about their powers, lives and meanings, often moral and religious meanings, They were also compendiums of sheer wonder, but the sense of wonder that emerges from scientific knowledge is at least as great, whether its about Belding’s ground squirrel of the Sierra Nevada that hibernates about eight months a year or the elephant seal that not only can hold its breath underwater for an hour but often does so for twenty minutes or more at a time while sleeping on the shore. Or the blue whale, whose heart is bigger than an American bison and beats about six times a minute, a tenth the speed of ours, or the hummingbird in flight, whose tiny heart beats a thousand times a minute.”*

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From a Notebook
Katha Pollitt**

The final vanity, to think
you're not your life, that even today
as\t the last possible moment
you can walk away; as out of cheap hotel,
leaving ten dollars under the key on the bureau.
Why bother to lock the door? The fuzzy TV,
the footsole-colored bedspread,
the quart of milk souring on the windowsill,
you always new they had nothing to do with you
although you were used to them
and even grateful,
alone as you were, in a strange city.

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* From: Rebecca Solnit & Mona Caron. A California Bestiary. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2009, pages 5-6.
** From: Katha Pollitt. The Mind-Body Problem. New York: Random House, 2009, page 50 .