5 AM at the Stores?

Honestly! Apparently people are willing to get up at 4 AM to go to the store for a bargain. I had a cousin like that. He would spring for just about anything -- as long as it was on sale. "See how much I saved!" he would gloat. Never mind he would have saved even more if he hadn't bought it at all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting a bargain. In fact, I'll troll the Internet looking for bargains -- but only for something I already need or want. Maybe I'm an anacronysm, but I never go "shopping" -- I don't just head out to a store or surf the web just to see what's available. On the other hand, once I have a purchase in mind, I'll walk the aisles to see if there's anything else I can't live without. But not at 5 AM. There's only one thing that gets me out of a warm bed at 5 AM -- the urgent need to relieve myself.

Oh, I've gotten up regularly at or before 5 AM. I detassled corn as a kid. I spent 28 years in the Navy. We had three kids. But now, in the gathering twilight of my life, getting up before dawn requires something in the nature of a life emergency. Anything less will wait at least until 7:30.

Enjoy your early morning bargains, folks. I'll be sleeping.

Baby Girl

I sat down to rant a bit about a murderer (okay, okay, alleged murderer) who had been released on bond who allegedly committed another murder, and the ineffectiveness of the legal system at providing justice for the victims. And they my daughter stopped by and deposited my baby granddaughter, Rebecca. I had agreed to take care of her while my daughter and grandson went to the dentist. Rebecca is five weeks old today, and having her around puts a whole different spin on the world.

See, taking care of Rebecca means the whole focus of your life shifts. The human baby is born the most helpless of creatures. All other mammal babies must be able to do something within the first few minutes of life -- breathe, stand and walk, cling, swim, locate mom and nurse, follow the herd or the troop or the pod. A human baby can't do anything except eat, cry, sleep, and make a mess. Rebecca is totally and entirely dependent on having someone to take care of her and to meet her needs. If she cries I have to figure out whether she's wet, hungry, gassy, or tired, because she can't tell me which it is. And if it's none of the above, I can't go off on her for being fussy or persnickety or crabby. That would just make her cry more.

Father Thomas Keating says in his presentation on contemplative prayer that the the one thing the human baby needs is love, and that love must be expressed concretely. In other words, the human infant, having left the safety and security and serenity of the womb for the big, scary world, needs to know that it is still safe and secure. And the way to show Rebecca that she is safe and secure is to love her by holding her and ensuring her physical and emotional needs are met.

So, when Rebecca wakes up from her nap and cries, she needs to know that someone is there. And good old grandpa picks her up and talks softly to her while he changes her diaper and powders her bottom and makes her bottle. And then we sit down comfortably and I feed her. After she's fed I burp her. And then, because she's now at the advanced age of five weeks and doesn't want to go right back to sleep, I hold her while she looks around and checks out all of the sounds and shapes and colors that make up her world. After a while, she'll get tired. She usually falls asleep on my shoulder, and then I put her in her playpen. And when she wakes up the cycle starts all over again.

Rebecca is totally dependent and to take care of her I must focus totally on her. That's the focus shift -- from TV or books or the internet or whatever other distractions clutter up my life, to Rebecca. It's a shift of consciousness, from anything and everything to one thing -- a baby girl.

And guess what? In five weeks something amazing has happened. Rebecca and I have bonded. When she wakes up from her nap and cries I only have to pick her up and talk to her and she becomes quiet. I continue to talk to her while I'm changing her and she doesn't fuss. As long as I'm talking to her she waits patiently until I've gotten her cleaned up and ready to eat. Even though she's hungry she'll wait, as long as she hears my voice, because she knows food is coming.
And Rebecca has trained me to listen for her cry and to respond appropriately.

And while I'm taking care of Rebecca, nothing else seems to matter. Wars and rumors of wars -- we'll always have them. Disasters come and go. Sometimes we seem to be teetering on the edge of an abyss. I can always rant and rave, because there's so much to rant and rave about. But all to rarely do I focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else, particularly when that one thing requires only one thing -- love.

So I'll treasure these moments when I have Rebecca around, because when I have her, for a little while anyway, all seems right with the world.

Football Morning, 24 November 2005

Two of the grandkids spent the night, so we had a boys' room (Johnathon and me), and a girls' room (Marilyn and Sierra). Unfortunately, I slept like crap and woke up with a severe case of the dizzies, and an unexplainable urge to tape Peter Pan for the grandkids while the wife and two are away at church.

One of my oldest friends in the universe has started (or perphaps re-started might be the better term) a blog that he apparently had some time back. He, like I, likes to rant, although he calls it raving. Take a look.

http://360.yahoo.com/sma_rowdy

Do you find as you get older that you get increasingly removed from the mainstream political spectrum? I certainly have. For instance, I'm for limiting abortion rights, and I'm for calling abortion what it is: legalized murder of the unborn. I'm for a handgun in every pocket except for convicted felons. Yet I'm for abolishing the death penalty and legalizing drugs (and then taxing drug sales just like we now do alcohol and tobacco). I'm for taxing big business and the obscenely wealthy, free prescription medications for everyone, and a medical care system that actually works. Privatize Social Security? -- not on my watch! I believe our greatest concern should be for the least powerful -- the poor, the elderly, and the young. I'm for social programs if they work (which they seldom do), and for encouraging and empowering people to take care of themselves. I'm against the Democrats, who seem to want everyone to be dependent on the federal government, and the Republicans, who seem to care only about the wealthy and powerful. What we need in the oval office is poor rail-splitter who understands what the other 99% want and need. I want term limits across the board, and I think we should draft people into government service (from the President and congressmen to mayors and aldermen) based on their fitness to serve and distain for power. I want higher pay for teachers, police and firemen, and enlisted military, and minimum wage for corporate bigwigs. I want politicians who don't want the job. Oh yeah, I need more channels in high definition!

Keep the faith.

Torture? Who, Me?

Four years and a day after the terrorist attacks and BellSouth.net posts an interesting poll: "Should the CIA be exempt from the Congressional ban on torture." What's interesting is that, as of the time I voted, the respondents are just about evenly divided, with 53% voting yes, and 47% voting no.

It's appalling to me that over half of the respondents voted for the exemption, thereby tacitly approving torture by the CIA, especially given the vast number of assumptions the "yes" voters must make. The question doesn't reveal who the people are who might be tortured, under what circumstances torture might be used, what methods of torture are being contemplated, or what limits (if any) might be placed on the duration of the torture.

While in the Navy, I was subjected to SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) Training prior to being sent to Vietnam. During week 3 of that training, my company was deprived of food, water, and sleep. We were imprisoned in a mock prison camp for 18 hours and interrogated using methods ranging from yelling and shoving to blows and water torture (being placed on a bench, cloth covering the face, and water forced into the mouth -- which creates a sensation of drowning). Our "captors" were fellow sailors. There were strict rules concerning what could and could not be done. The entire exercise was supervised by Navy officers. The result? One "prisoner's" ulcer began to bleed. Another's hand was scalded. Yet another's wrist was broken. Many, including me, suffered subdural hematomas. Everybody was dehydrated to the danger point. Yet this was merely a "training" exercise conducted by our "friends" to help prepare us for the truly unfathomable prospects we faced should we be captured by an enemy.

The written record of torture, from the Inquisition to Nazi Germany to our own POWs in Vietnam, reveals that, under torture, anyone will say anything. Furthermore, torture degrades and dehumanizes not only the one being tortured, but the one(s) doing the torture.

In closing for this morning, I'd like to refer you to the following PBS article: (You'll have to copy and paste until I figure out how to get the link business to work.)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/

Let me know how you feel about torture.