News To Me

Baseball: 2008 Post-Season Preview

Which of the following is the most compelling story line:

 

·       Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! Breaking the dual curses of the Billy Goat and the 100-years.

·       The Red Sox as the Yankees of the 21^st century—high spending team that builds a dynasty (if they win, that’s three wins in five years, right?).  If the Red Sox win, does that doom the Yankees to a near-century of futility (curse of the A-Rod)?

·       The Rays, formerly Devil Rays.  (Best joke about the Rays?  They tried to renegotiate their contract with the Devil.  They wanted the Devil to give them the same deal that he gave the Yankees, but he refused, so they dropped his sponsorship from the team.)  What’s not to like about a team whose star player is often confused for a sex kitten?

·       The Phillies, coming from the losing-est sports city in America, finally winning again (only WS in Philly history is 1980, and the franchise is one of the oldest.  Hear that, Cubs fans—Phillies fans are EVEN MORE TORTURED!)

·       Ken Griffey Jr. finally getting to play in the World Series (assuming the White Sox make it that far).

·       C.C. Sabathia cementing his role as the greatest hired gun in baseball history, pitching the Brewers to post-season success on successive 3-day starts (could that revive days of the four-man rotation? Pretty please?)

·       If the Dodgers win, who gets more credit—Torre, bringing Yankee magic with him, or Manny, bringing Red Sox magic with him? Or do they lose, with Andruw Jones bringing Braves post-season woes anti-magic with him?

·       I see no reason to root for the Angels <smile>.  They’re boring, they’ve won it recently, they contend every year.  Where is the cool story in that?

Obama/McCain Round One

First: debates do not decide elections. At most, in this day and age, debates push people to look up a few more things on the Internet. At worst, people start judging candidates by their appearances, and that is bad. So don't get too worked up by this, or any other, debate.

Second: this was a clear cut case of teacher and pupil.  McCain has been in the forefront of foreign affairs for 20+ years, and knows whereof he speaks.  Obama is like the bright, well-meaning, sit-at-the-front-of-the-class student who keeps saying to the professor, "But what about this? Wouldn't this work?"

And McCain is the professor.  

If you are judging a candidate for president based on foreign affairs strength, there is no debate--well, not a rational one, anyway.  By any measure McCain understands more, has a better grasp of more issues, has greater experience in international negotiations, etc than Obama and Biden put together.  This was supposed to be a foreign affairs debate: if so, score round one for McCain (regardless of the spin from the mainstream media).

The issue in our country is foundational--what is going to be the government's role in domestic issues, such as our current financial mess.  THAT debate should be much more interesting.

Dolly's Small Voice

After my post on my bedtime routine with my Rose-bud, several people asked me about this earlier post, from my other daughter. Since I couldn't find it on my site any more, I decided to repost it.

At 4:30 this morning, my Rachel woke me up with the smallest, meekest voice I have ever heard her use. She said, "Daddy..." in a plea for help so sincere and heartfelt that it woke me from a sound sleep.

I immediately jumped to my feet and ran to her. She was sick, and needed to throw up (which we have spent the rest of the morning doing). But what she really needed was me. She needed to hug me, to lay her head on my shoulder, to feel my cool hand on her forehead and to let me brush the hair from her face and cover her with a warm blanket. She didn't know she was sick, she just knew that she needed me.  Twice more this morning, in her exhausted illness, her littlest voice has said "Daddy..." turning my heart inside out each time. I would have moved heaven and earth to answer that plea.

As I held her in my arms and rocked her back to sleep, I thought of the symbolism of the experience. How many times have I cried to my Father in heaven, with my meekest, smallest voice? "Father...", I have plead, begged, and cried. "I am sick...or sad...or sinful." "Father, I need you to let me lay my head on your shoulder, to feel your Comforter, to bask in the warmth of your love."  

Each time I plead in this sincerity He rushes to me, and He will do so to anyone who truly seeks Him. I imagine that His heart turns inside out as His children cry out to him meekly, and He (quite literally sometimes) moves heaven and earth to answer those pleas.

He promises us that if we ask Him, we will receive. But receive what? Gifts? Riches? Rewards? No, we will receive Him. That is the great gift, the gift of His attention, His presence, His touch.

As I watch my Dolly drift back to sleep, I am content that I have given her what she asked for. Her littlest voice said, "Daddy..." I could not take away the illness or the fever. But I could give her...me. And that is what she really wanted.

Lasts

I have a routine with my one-and-a-half year old daughter.  Each night, whenever possible, I arrange to be the one who puts her to bed.  We start on the main floor of the house, saying goodnight ("Night night!") to everyone (and nearly every thing). We say good night to brothers and to Mom, we say good night to stuffed animals (and live ones) we say good night to toothbrushes and toys.  

Then we go into her room, lights off. If the blinds are open, we shut them ("Night night outside!"), and I gently lay her head on my shoulder.  She sighs a deep sigh, lays down on my shoulder, and I start to rock her gently. Sometimes I sing to her, too; sometimes I simply say, "Night night, Rose," as we rock together.  She sighs ever more deeply, and within minutes she is asleep.

I love this routine.

I don't know how much longer she will allow me to do this. Sometimes I worry that when I am away, on business for example, she will get out of the habit before I get back; so far that hasn't happened, but it could. I worry that someone will force her to sleep without her habit, or worse, let her cry herself to sleep so that the bond of trust will have been broken.

Because I worry about these things, each night I relish our routine--one more night of "night night"-ing and rocking and snuggling. But one night, in the not too distant future, it will be The Last Time I get to do this particular routine. She is growing up (daily, it seems) and someday she won't let me lay her head on my shoulder, or she won't want to say "night night" any longer.  

We don't often measure Lasts--the last time that we do something.  Firsts are easy: if you have never done something and you suddently do it, then it is a First.  We measure Firsts all the time: your first kiss, the first time on a two-wheeler, your first job, your first house, the First Born. Firsts hold a special place in our memory as milestone events.

Lasts don't often call out to us. For example, a colleague of mine recently died after a somewhat lengthy battle with cancer. Though her death was not a surprise, she did take a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse, and seemingly died quickly. That left me with a memory--the last time I had seen her, one month before her death.  When I met with her then, I had no idea that that would be the last time. I commented on how well she was getting along, and we talked of her return to work. Nothing special marked that Last Time.

But Lasts may be even more important than Firsts. I have heard it said that you should live each day as if it were your last. Hogwash--if this were my last day on earth, I wouldn't go to work, I wouldn't worry about my bills or the lawn the needed cutting or any of the mundane things that make up a life. But what if this event that I am living right now were the last time I got to write a blog post? Wouldn't I take it more seriously?

There is a story of a young mother dying in the hospital, begging to go home to "change one more diaper." If she had known that a particular diaper was going to be the Last one, wouldn't she have relished even so mundane an experience? In sports we often talk about the Last play, or shot, or pitch, and athletes many times try to come back and do it again, because they can't stand the finality of a Last (see Favre, Brett, for a recent example). Today is the Last Game at Yankee stadium, and they are making a big fuss over it. But we don't usually know when the Lasts are occurring, and so often we miss them.

Tomorrow will be another day at work for me. I relish my interactions at my job--my friends and colleagues, the tasks and projects we are undertaking, the collective efforts on behalf of our company.  While I expect to have many more days in my current job, I am going to relish the events of tomorrow (the meetings, the emails, the conversations) as if they were the last time I was going to have those interactions.

Relishing each interaction or event as if it was the last time that thing was going to happen does not cheapen it, but deepens it. 

And so, tonight, I will again put my Rose-bud to bed, "night-night"-ing to the world, and snuggling together. And I will hope it is not the Last time I get to do this; but if it is, I will have relished it and cherished it forever.

Rise in Defense

I love the writing of Bill Whittle (see my sidebar). He has a way of cutting through the muck of "common" opinion for some uncommon commentary. He works in Hollywood as a film/TV editor (you can even find him on IMDB). 

National Review has tapped him to write some columns for them.  Here is his latest, with some excerpts:

A few years before Tolkien put pen to paper [to write The Fellowship of the Ring], an event took place that a man of his education would have undoubtedly been aware. On February 9, 1933, the ruling elite of the world’s great Civilization held a debate in the Oxford Union. With thunderclouds growing dark across the English Channel, at a time when resolute action could still have averted the worst catastrophe the world has ever known, these elites resolved that “This House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”

The Resolution passed by a vote of 275 to 153. Needless to say, this vote did not avert the fight. It guaranteed it.

This is akin to saying that we should cut and run in Iraq, or sit down with terrorists with "no preconceived agenda."  Whittle continues:

If you step far enough back to look at the whole of human history, you will begin to see a very plain rhythm: a heartbeat of civilization. Steep climbs out of disease and ignorance into the light of medicine and learning — and then a sudden collapse back into darkness. And it is in that darkness that most humans have lived their lives: poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

The pattern is always the same: at the height of a civilization’s powers something catastrophic seems to occur — a loss of will, a failure of nerve, and above all an unwillingness to identify with the values and customs that have produced such wonders.

Are we facing that moment--that "loss of will" or "failure of nerve"? Certainly Michelle Obama's assertion that she had never before been proud of her country until it nominated her husband for President states clearly a disdain for, nay an absence of patriotism. Standing up to that kind of opinion about our country

we find an old warrior — an old, beat-up warhorse standing up in defense of his city one last time. And beside him: a wonder. A common person… just a regular mom who goes to work, does a difficult job with intelligence and energy and grace and every-day competence and then puts it away to go home and have dinner with the family.

Whittle makes my blood boil--not with anger but with a desire to serve my country, and stand up for all its greatness against this sea of negativity.  I agree with Whittle (when don't I?) when he says:

When all is said and done, Civilizations do not fall because of the barbarians at the gates. Nor does a great city fall from the death wish of bored and morally bankrupt stewards presumably sworn to its defense. Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls; that ground lost may never be recovered; and that greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren. Yes, our betters tell us these things daily. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe it.

Read the whole thing.  And then decide what you are going to do to increase those things that made our country great: self-reliance, hard work, community, integrity and common sense.