No one with an ounce of human decency could fail to be heartbroken at the tragic massacre on campus at Virginia Tech last week. A deeply disturbed, indeed deranged, student, a South Korean resident alien named Cho Seung-Hui, killed 32 students and professors before turning his gun on himself, making this the largest mass shooting in American history.
Students and professors alike demonstrated true courage and even heroism, blocking the murderer with closed doors, piled-up desks, and sometimes even their own bodies. The first victim was a freshman girl, the second her RA (Resident Assistant), who tried to come to her aid. A 76-year-old engineering professor and Holocaust survivor, Liviu Librescu, was killed holding his classroom door closed so that his students could escape.
In the midst of this tragedy and heroism, it is all the more saddening, although predictable, that elements of the gun-ban lobby, in the media and elsewhere, would try to use this horrific event to bolster their agenda. But then, many of the same people attempted to do the same thing after 9/11, in which no firearms were even used. Ideology bows to neither human tragedy nor reason, apparently.
Far from being a showpiece for what is euphemistically called gun "control," this incident clearly demonstrates the futility of expecting laws to stop criminals, who by their very nature transgress laws. Guns are banned on college and university campuses -- but that did not keep Cho from bringing his onto the campus at Virginia Tech. Granted, a person with his psychological profile ought to have been barred from purchasing a firearm. Somebody dropped the ball, somewhere.
Still, I recall thinking sadly, as I received news of this incident, "oh no, guns are prohibited on campus: those students were defenseless, no way to fight back." At least some VT students felt the same: one member of the campus shooting club, interviewed by ABC's Good Morning America, expressed frustration that if concealed carry of a handgun were allowed on campus, he or someone else might have been able to stop the shooter before he'd killed so many.
I am reminded of the woman, some years ago, who watched her mother gunned down in a fast-food restaurant, unable to intervene because she had left her handgun legally locked in her car in the parking lot. Or again, of the high school vice principal who retrieved his handgun from his car parked legally off-campus and was, in fact, able to subdue a shooter who was rampaging through his school.
In fact, as Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt accurately points out, according to UPI, "all the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun." Yet the gun-ban crowd would like to further restrict legal access to firearms. This makes no sense at all.
I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: criminals may be crazed, they may be deranged, but they are not stupid. They are far more likely to pick "soft" targets, places where they know no one is going to be shooting back at them, for their rampages. Would not knowing whether a given victim or bystander would be able to return fire absolutely dissuade all violent crime, all the time? No, of course not. Would it help the situation? I believe it would, and there are statistics to back up this view: see John Lott, "More Guns, Less Crime."
More productive is trying to figure out why so many signals were missed in the case of Cho: an individual who had twice been accused of stalking, who had been examined and found to be mentally unstable, who had frightened classmates and professors alike with his graphically violent and twisted poetry and plays, who was so distant and sullen his tutor said that attempting to communicate with him "was almost like talking to a hole,” according to an AP report. Yet neither the university administration nor law enforcement authorities proved willing or able to step in and prevent the tragedy.
As a hunting safety instructor, and a certified range officer, I will proudly admit my bias: that ordinary, law-abiding citizens clearly have the Constitutional right, and ought to have the means, to protect themselves from deranged, murderous psychopaths like Cho. If this incident at Virginia Tech makes one thing clear, it is that citizens who count only on the authorities to protect them are in for a grievous, and perhaps lethal, disappointment.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
More pithy commentary from Jim Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler, author of several books including The Long Emergency (reviewed below) generally has things to say and is not too afraid to say them. But smart people might do well to listen when he does, because behind the colorful language and ascerbic attitude lurks a guy who would genuinely like us to stop being stupid and engage the problems we're facing with open eyes.
Case in point: "Blowing Green Smoke," his response to well-known columnist Tom Friedman's upbeat and (perhaps excessively) optimistic April 16th article in the New York Times. I think both authors make some good points, and as usual I suspect that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes. I want to see the world the way Friedman does... but I fear that over the medium-to-long term, Kunstler's is the more realistic view. That's decidedly unnerving.
If you want more of Kunstler's take on matters, read his speech to the Second Vermont Republic assembly, in October 2005. Here's an excerpt:
Case in point: "Blowing Green Smoke," his response to well-known columnist Tom Friedman's upbeat and (perhaps excessively) optimistic April 16th article in the New York Times. I think both authors make some good points, and as usual I suspect that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes. I want to see the world the way Friedman does... but I fear that over the medium-to-long term, Kunstler's is the more realistic view. That's decidedly unnerving.
If you want more of Kunstler's take on matters, read his speech to the Second Vermont Republic assembly, in October 2005. Here's an excerpt:
For much of our history, including the first half of the 20th century, we were a resourceful, adaptive, generous, brave, forward-looking people who believed in earnest effort, who occupied a beautiful landscape full of places worth caring about and worth defending.
Since then, lost in raptures of easy motoring, fried food, incessant infotainment, and desperate moneygrubbing, we became a nation of overfed clowns who believed that it was possible to get something for nothing, who ravaged the landscape in an orgy of wanton carelessness, who believed they were entitled to lives of everlasting comfort and convenience, no matter what, and expected the rest of the world to pay for it. We even elected a vice-president who declared that this American way of life was non-negotiable.
We now face the most serious challenge to our collective identity, economy, culture, and security since the Civil War. The end of the cheap fossil fuel era will change everything about how we live in this country. It will challenge all of our assumptions. It will compel us to do things differently - whether we like it or not.
Guess that about covers it...
Top 5 most influential books I've read recently
Here, for whatever interest may be contained, are five books which have strongly influenced -- and in some cases dramatically changed -- the way I view "life, the universe, and everything":
1) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A natural history of four meals, by Michael Pollan.
I list this first in part because I'm reading it currently, and partly because it goes into so much detail about what's wrong with our current industrial food system -- with digressions into resource depletion, greenhouse gases, globalism, biofuels, and other related topics. The health of plants, animals, people, the land, and communities are all covered, and in an engaging and at times even gripping style. Pollan's book clearly illlustrates the ecological principle that "everything is connected to everything else." More than you ever wanted to know about what most Americans are eating these days, and even many of us who consider ourselves fairly aware are probably eating more often than we should... I certainly am. But I know a lot of things I'm not going to be eating, after reading this!
2) Real Food: What to eat and why, by Nina Planck.
Just a heckuva neat book by someone who sounds like a heckuva neat lady, and who is also a successful entrepreneur, in the area of farmers markets and local foods. As the subtitle puts it, this is about what you should eat and why you should eat it. Here's a sample, just to give a "flavor" of the book:
"Sobering" doesn't begin to describe this book. It's flat-out scary. Forget Stephen King, if you want to stay up all night in sheer terror, read Kunstler. But it's not a thriller, it's his insightful discussion of how the approach (if not current fact) of peak oil -- the point at which we are extracting as much oil as we will ever extract, world-wide -- and the subsequent decline in supply and increase in price, will change the way we live, forever. Everything about contemporary American society, from suburbia to surgical supplies, not to mention our food chain, is abjectly dependent upon cheap, plentiful fossil fuels. And that era is over, as what is left will become ever more difficult and expensive to extract, particularly since "much of it is located in countries whose people hate us," as Kunstler ruefully notes. The upshot? Expect significant contraction in all areas of American society, as local communities become not a choice, but a necessity. Want to know more? Read the book!
Note 1: If you absolutely don't have time to read the whole book (you don't have to read it all at once, ferpitysakes), at least read the article-length adaption published by Rolling Stone.
Note 2: I saw Kunstler and heard him speak at the 2007 PASA Conference in February; he is just as inspirational and motivational (in a kick-your-butt sort of way) in person as he is in print, but less curmudgeonly: he comes across as a genuinely decent guy who is genuinely concerned about the way our society seems determined to go. Sssh! Just don't tell him I said so. I think he likes his bad-boy image...
4) Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D.
Sally Fallon is the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF, for short) and Mary Enig is a brilliant but iconoclastic lipids researcher from the University of Maryland. Together, they do a bang-up good job of explaining why most of what you thought you knew about diet and nutrition is completely incorrect... okay, that's too gentle: flat-out wrong. Following in the footsteps of dentist and peripatetic entho-nutritionist Weston A. Price, DDS, Fallon and Enig encourage us to adopt the dietary wisdom of traditional societies, cultures and communities where people regularly lived long, healthy, and productive lives eating whole, natural, and unprocessed foods -- including organ meats, full-fat (and raw) dairy, and other "healthy fats." Vegetables aren't left out of the equation, both in fresh and fermented forms, but Nourishing Traditions points out that there were no traditional vegan societies, and mostly-vegetarian ones invariably supplemented their diets with animal protein and fat in some form. This book is indeed food for thought and body alike.
5) The Untold Story of Milk, by Dr. Ron Schmidt, ND.
Ron Schmidt is a naturopathic doctor who cured himself of digestive and other ailments by adopting a diet rich in raw milk and other un-processed, un-pasteurized dairy products. That led him to an exploration of the history and culture of milk consumption, and especially the industrialization and mandatory pasteurization of our contemporary milk supply. Combining muck-raking journalism with a paean to holistic nutrition and small-scale, natural farming, Schmidt illustrates clearly why pasteurization is so essential in the mass-market commercial milk industry... and why raw milk and other dairy products are not only a viable alternative, when obtained from herds of healthy, grass-fed cows, but strongly supportive of -- perhaps even essential to -- good health.
I could go on and on about other books that have influenced my life, or at least my outlook on life -- and I may post another "top five" somewhere down the road. But these are not only interesting and well-written, but (I believe) timely and incredibly important. I strongly recommend you hie yourself to the local library or bookstore and obtain copies. And when you've read them, I look forward to any feedback or discussion thus generated!
Bonus Book:
If you've stuck with me this far, I may as well add a "bonus" that could just as easily be in the Top 5 in terms of influential -- the only reason I didn't put it there to start with was that it reaffirmed things I already believed rather than challenged or changed my outlook. But who knows? It might just change yours:
The Last Child in the Woods: Overcoming Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv.
This book makes a strong, well-researched, well-reasoned case for something that a lot of us have known intuitively and out of personal experience for a long time: that children need to be outside, playing and having what sociologists and educational researchers call "authentic personal experiences" in the natural world. As Louv puts it, "Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depend upon it." Certainly the mental, physical, and spiritual health of children depends to a large measure, as this book makes abundantly clear, upon direct personal contact with nature during childhood. And that kind of positive child-nature contact may also be vital for nature, as the children of today will be the decision-makers of tomorrow. As G.M. Trevelyan wrote many years ago, "We are all children of the earth. Unelss our spirits can be refreshed by at least intermittent contact with nature, we grow awry." Likely much of the "growing awry" we see in many of today's children and youth can be traced by precisely to what Louv calls "nature-deficit disorder." Want to make a positive difference? Visit the Children & Nature Network to see what you can do.
1) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A natural history of four meals, by Michael Pollan.
I list this first in part because I'm reading it currently, and partly because it goes into so much detail about what's wrong with our current industrial food system -- with digressions into resource depletion, greenhouse gases, globalism, biofuels, and other related topics. The health of plants, animals, people, the land, and communities are all covered, and in an engaging and at times even gripping style. Pollan's book clearly illlustrates the ecological principle that "everything is connected to everything else." More than you ever wanted to know about what most Americans are eating these days, and even many of us who consider ourselves fairly aware are probably eating more often than we should... I certainly am. But I know a lot of things I'm not going to be eating, after reading this!
2) Real Food: What to eat and why, by Nina Planck.
Just a heckuva neat book by someone who sounds like a heckuva neat lady, and who is also a successful entrepreneur, in the area of farmers markets and local foods. As the subtitle puts it, this is about what you should eat and why you should eat it. Here's a sample, just to give a "flavor" of the book:
"Does that mean you should enjoy real bacon and butter not because they're tasty but because they're actually healthy? In a word, yes. Some might mock this as a characteristically American case for real food -- call it the Virtue Defense. [...] Someone else -- a French chef perhaps -- might take a different approach in defense of real food. Less interested in health, he might champion pleasure for its own sake. Great -- I'm all for pleasure. If the sheer sensual pleasure of eating shirred eggs or homemade ice cream is enough for you to shed your guilt, throw away phony industrial foods, and return to eating real foods, all the better. I'll leave the nature of taste and satisfaction, guilt and pleasure to the cultural critics and moral philosophers. This book is about why real food is good for you."3) The Long Emergency: Surviving the converging catastrophes of the 21st century, by James Howard Kunstler.
"Sobering" doesn't begin to describe this book. It's flat-out scary. Forget Stephen King, if you want to stay up all night in sheer terror, read Kunstler. But it's not a thriller, it's his insightful discussion of how the approach (if not current fact) of peak oil -- the point at which we are extracting as much oil as we will ever extract, world-wide -- and the subsequent decline in supply and increase in price, will change the way we live, forever. Everything about contemporary American society, from suburbia to surgical supplies, not to mention our food chain, is abjectly dependent upon cheap, plentiful fossil fuels. And that era is over, as what is left will become ever more difficult and expensive to extract, particularly since "much of it is located in countries whose people hate us," as Kunstler ruefully notes. The upshot? Expect significant contraction in all areas of American society, as local communities become not a choice, but a necessity. Want to know more? Read the book!
Note 1: If you absolutely don't have time to read the whole book (you don't have to read it all at once, ferpitysakes), at least read the article-length adaption published by Rolling Stone.
Note 2: I saw Kunstler and heard him speak at the 2007 PASA Conference in February; he is just as inspirational and motivational (in a kick-your-butt sort of way) in person as he is in print, but less curmudgeonly: he comes across as a genuinely decent guy who is genuinely concerned about the way our society seems determined to go. Sssh! Just don't tell him I said so. I think he likes his bad-boy image...
4) Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D.
Sally Fallon is the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF, for short) and Mary Enig is a brilliant but iconoclastic lipids researcher from the University of Maryland. Together, they do a bang-up good job of explaining why most of what you thought you knew about diet and nutrition is completely incorrect... okay, that's too gentle: flat-out wrong. Following in the footsteps of dentist and peripatetic entho-nutritionist Weston A. Price, DDS, Fallon and Enig encourage us to adopt the dietary wisdom of traditional societies, cultures and communities where people regularly lived long, healthy, and productive lives eating whole, natural, and unprocessed foods -- including organ meats, full-fat (and raw) dairy, and other "healthy fats." Vegetables aren't left out of the equation, both in fresh and fermented forms, but Nourishing Traditions points out that there were no traditional vegan societies, and mostly-vegetarian ones invariably supplemented their diets with animal protein and fat in some form. This book is indeed food for thought and body alike.
5) The Untold Story of Milk, by Dr. Ron Schmidt, ND.
Ron Schmidt is a naturopathic doctor who cured himself of digestive and other ailments by adopting a diet rich in raw milk and other un-processed, un-pasteurized dairy products. That led him to an exploration of the history and culture of milk consumption, and especially the industrialization and mandatory pasteurization of our contemporary milk supply. Combining muck-raking journalism with a paean to holistic nutrition and small-scale, natural farming, Schmidt illustrates clearly why pasteurization is so essential in the mass-market commercial milk industry... and why raw milk and other dairy products are not only a viable alternative, when obtained from herds of healthy, grass-fed cows, but strongly supportive of -- perhaps even essential to -- good health.
I could go on and on about other books that have influenced my life, or at least my outlook on life -- and I may post another "top five" somewhere down the road. But these are not only interesting and well-written, but (I believe) timely and incredibly important. I strongly recommend you hie yourself to the local library or bookstore and obtain copies. And when you've read them, I look forward to any feedback or discussion thus generated!
Bonus Book:
If you've stuck with me this far, I may as well add a "bonus" that could just as easily be in the Top 5 in terms of influential -- the only reason I didn't put it there to start with was that it reaffirmed things I already believed rather than challenged or changed my outlook. But who knows? It might just change yours:
The Last Child in the Woods: Overcoming Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv.
This book makes a strong, well-researched, well-reasoned case for something that a lot of us have known intuitively and out of personal experience for a long time: that children need to be outside, playing and having what sociologists and educational researchers call "authentic personal experiences" in the natural world. As Louv puts it, "Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depend upon it." Certainly the mental, physical, and spiritual health of children depends to a large measure, as this book makes abundantly clear, upon direct personal contact with nature during childhood. And that kind of positive child-nature contact may also be vital for nature, as the children of today will be the decision-makers of tomorrow. As G.M. Trevelyan wrote many years ago, "We are all children of the earth. Unelss our spirits can be refreshed by at least intermittent contact with nature, we grow awry." Likely much of the "growing awry" we see in many of today's children and youth can be traced by precisely to what Louv calls "nature-deficit disorder." Want to make a positive difference? Visit the Children & Nature Network to see what you can do.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Westminster City Council's "green" resolution falls short
A journey of a thousand miles, so goes the old saying, begins with a single step. However, I would add, someone who stops after that first step won't get far on the journey. The decision by the Westminster City Council to adopt a "Resolution on Climate Disrupting Pollution" may be viewed as an important first step in joining the battle against global climate change, but I hope it won't be the city of Westminister's last.
As a Times article on Monday, April 9th, pointed out, the Catoctin Chapter of the Sierra Club had asked the City Council to approve and sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. The agreement, already signed by some 400 municipalities nationwide, is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012: the goal set in the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol. This is admittedly a challenge, but hardly an un-reachable one, as the number of cities signed on attests. Seven Maryland cities, including Sykesville and Baltimore, have already signed.
Instead, the Mayor and Council of Westminster decided to adopt what councilman Gregory Pecoraro described as "sort of a homegrown version of how we want to approach this."
As a general rule, I am all for homegrown, local approaches. However, there are times when local authorities need to band together to deal with problems and issues which are beyond what any of them can solve on their own, when the need for unified action transcends the importance of local autonomy. The crisis we as humans face due to global warming is one of those. Furthermore, the U.S. Mayors Agreement is not something being forced on us from above; it is a voluntary union of equals to accomplish something in our common interest.
Encouragingly, the same edition of the Times reported the formation in Mount Airy of a new “green” organization dedicated to "raising awareness about global warming, rising energy costs and other environmental issues.” Sometimes citizens catch on quicker than their elected leaders.
And there's little excuse for ignorance or apathy. The scope and urgency of the problem has been clearly articulated and reinforced by a whole series of recent articles in the Times. On April 6th, an AP article headlined “Experts say natural wonders at risk from global warming” elucidated threats to “natural treasures” from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforests due to climate change. Some of the damage may already be irreversible.
An article on Easter Sunday focused on mountaineers and ice climbers worldwide who are firsthand witnesses to "vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations, and flood-prone lakes" as a result of rising temperatures. A report from Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday the 11th stated that continued warming could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa. And we think we have immigration problems now.
Yet still some people refuse to either admit that there's a problem, or take ownership of humanity's part in it. It's easier to say, "oh, it's just natural fluctuations" -- despite indications that without human input, the earth would now be in a slight cool-down -- or complain that the costs would be prohibitive. Ironically, doing nothing will likely prove even more costly, in the long run.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is another group that gets it. According to a Capital News Service report, the Council passed a regional climate change initiative that will unite efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses in the National Capital Region. Maryland faces the largest impact from climate change in the region, according to the Council's Stuart Freudberg, due to the amount of Maryland's land adjoining the Chesapeake Bay.
So again, it is a good and important first step that Westminster's Mayor and City Council have passed a resolution to "work diligently to identify and implement such environmentally responsible practices as may be practical… with the goal of conserving energy and reducing the amount of global warming pollutants generated by City operations." But the Devil is in the details, and this provides few of them. In fact, "practical” provides copious wiggle room.
I hope -- and would strongly urge -- that the Council adopt the higher levels of focus, commitment, and accountability represented by the U.S. Mayors Protection Agreement. Doing so would not only provide specific goals and assistance in achieving them, but would send a signal that Westminster is proactive, forward-looking, and committed in facing one of the greatest challenges of the new century.
As a Times article on Monday, April 9th, pointed out, the Catoctin Chapter of the Sierra Club had asked the City Council to approve and sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. The agreement, already signed by some 400 municipalities nationwide, is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012: the goal set in the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol. This is admittedly a challenge, but hardly an un-reachable one, as the number of cities signed on attests. Seven Maryland cities, including Sykesville and Baltimore, have already signed.
Instead, the Mayor and Council of Westminster decided to adopt what councilman Gregory Pecoraro described as "sort of a homegrown version of how we want to approach this."
As a general rule, I am all for homegrown, local approaches. However, there are times when local authorities need to band together to deal with problems and issues which are beyond what any of them can solve on their own, when the need for unified action transcends the importance of local autonomy. The crisis we as humans face due to global warming is one of those. Furthermore, the U.S. Mayors Agreement is not something being forced on us from above; it is a voluntary union of equals to accomplish something in our common interest.
Encouragingly, the same edition of the Times reported the formation in Mount Airy of a new “green” organization dedicated to "raising awareness about global warming, rising energy costs and other environmental issues.” Sometimes citizens catch on quicker than their elected leaders.
And there's little excuse for ignorance or apathy. The scope and urgency of the problem has been clearly articulated and reinforced by a whole series of recent articles in the Times. On April 6th, an AP article headlined “Experts say natural wonders at risk from global warming” elucidated threats to “natural treasures” from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforests due to climate change. Some of the damage may already be irreversible.
An article on Easter Sunday focused on mountaineers and ice climbers worldwide who are firsthand witnesses to "vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations, and flood-prone lakes" as a result of rising temperatures. A report from Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday the 11th stated that continued warming could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa. And we think we have immigration problems now.
Yet still some people refuse to either admit that there's a problem, or take ownership of humanity's part in it. It's easier to say, "oh, it's just natural fluctuations" -- despite indications that without human input, the earth would now be in a slight cool-down -- or complain that the costs would be prohibitive. Ironically, doing nothing will likely prove even more costly, in the long run.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is another group that gets it. According to a Capital News Service report, the Council passed a regional climate change initiative that will unite efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses in the National Capital Region. Maryland faces the largest impact from climate change in the region, according to the Council's Stuart Freudberg, due to the amount of Maryland's land adjoining the Chesapeake Bay.
So again, it is a good and important first step that Westminster's Mayor and City Council have passed a resolution to "work diligently to identify and implement such environmentally responsible practices as may be practical… with the goal of conserving energy and reducing the amount of global warming pollutants generated by City operations." But the Devil is in the details, and this provides few of them. In fact, "practical” provides copious wiggle room.
I hope -- and would strongly urge -- that the Council adopt the higher levels of focus, commitment, and accountability represented by the U.S. Mayors Protection Agreement. Doing so would not only provide specific goals and assistance in achieving them, but would send a signal that Westminster is proactive, forward-looking, and committed in facing one of the greatest challenges of the new century.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The greening of Maryland
Spring is the season of green growing things. And this year, in Maryland, spring seems also to be the season for growing "green" initiatives.
Even as the earth greens up with the coming of spring, so the State House in Annapolis is "greening up" with the combination of an ecologically-friendly Governor with an ecologically-friendly General Assembly. As a recent front-page article in the Washington Post put it, in Maryland this year "it's suddenly very, very easy being green." For those of us who love the earth and care about its welfare, that is good news indeed.
The article delineates a string of eco-friendly initiatives either passed by the Assembly or proposed by the current Governor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Former Governor Bob Ehrlich was more of a conservationist than he often got credit for, but certainly the election of a new governor is a contributor to this greening of the Maryland legislative process. So is the election of Attorney General Doug Gansler, who campaigned heavily on green issues. But, the article points out, there are other factors involved which transcend partisan politics.
One is concern over global warming, popularized by former Vice-President Al Gore's award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient or not, the idea that not only is the earth warming, but that human activity contributes dramatically to that warming, has captured the imagination and awakened the concern of many in state government and the electorate alike.
The article notes that the Global Warming Solutions bill, which would reduce Maryland's emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, has been criticized by the Chamber of Commerce, "which says Maryland businesses shouldn't bear the burden for a global problem." The problem with that idea is that if everyone says they shouldn't have to bear the burden, no one ends up bearing the burden. Global warming is a common problem, it was created collectively, and it needs everyone working together toward a solution.
Closer to home, the deadline for cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has been set for 2010, a goal which now appears impossible to meet. But the looming nature of that deadline has increased both awareness and urgency to do something about the Bay, and to do it sooner rather than later.
One important feature of this move is a new alliance between environmentalists, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and those traditionally seen as opponents of environmental clean-up, such as farmers and watermen. It is not quite correct that, as the article states, "environmentalists decided that cow manure, as bad as it is, is better than the oil, metals, fertilzer, and sewage that flow downstream after a farm becomes a suburb." While true, this statement doesn't tell the whole story.
I wrote an article on this subject for a magazine called Edible Chesapeake, and the reality is that most farmers are genuinely concerned about the land, and will do all they can to enact conservation measures -- as long as they can pay for them without cutting even further into their already tenuous bottom line. The external pressures on farmers -- low commodity prices, foreign competition, pressure from developers -- make it hard enough to keep on farming, and conservation measures only add to the cost. Since the public is largely responsible for these challenges, it makes sense for the public to help farmers meet them.
The new alliance between farmers, watermen, and environmentalists to clean up the Bay points to the biggest reality of the expanding green movement: common problems require common solutions. We all drink the water, we all breathe the air, we all rely on food from the earth. It will take all of us, working together, to make a dent in the host of significant environmental challenges we face in the 21st century.
If we can rise to these challenges with the same level of ingenuity, innovation, and determination we brought to facing the political and military challenges of the 20th century, we could be in the beginning years of a century filled with promise and accomplishment. If we fail, we'll have a rough row to hoe, moving into the third millennium. The choice is ours - but Maryland, it seems, is off to a good start. Let's keep up the momentum.
Even as the earth greens up with the coming of spring, so the State House in Annapolis is "greening up" with the combination of an ecologically-friendly Governor with an ecologically-friendly General Assembly. As a recent front-page article in the Washington Post put it, in Maryland this year "it's suddenly very, very easy being green." For those of us who love the earth and care about its welfare, that is good news indeed.
The article delineates a string of eco-friendly initiatives either passed by the Assembly or proposed by the current Governor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Former Governor Bob Ehrlich was more of a conservationist than he often got credit for, but certainly the election of a new governor is a contributor to this greening of the Maryland legislative process. So is the election of Attorney General Doug Gansler, who campaigned heavily on green issues. But, the article points out, there are other factors involved which transcend partisan politics.
One is concern over global warming, popularized by former Vice-President Al Gore's award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient or not, the idea that not only is the earth warming, but that human activity contributes dramatically to that warming, has captured the imagination and awakened the concern of many in state government and the electorate alike.
The article notes that the Global Warming Solutions bill, which would reduce Maryland's emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, has been criticized by the Chamber of Commerce, "which says Maryland businesses shouldn't bear the burden for a global problem." The problem with that idea is that if everyone says they shouldn't have to bear the burden, no one ends up bearing the burden. Global warming is a common problem, it was created collectively, and it needs everyone working together toward a solution.
Closer to home, the deadline for cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has been set for 2010, a goal which now appears impossible to meet. But the looming nature of that deadline has increased both awareness and urgency to do something about the Bay, and to do it sooner rather than later.
One important feature of this move is a new alliance between environmentalists, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and those traditionally seen as opponents of environmental clean-up, such as farmers and watermen. It is not quite correct that, as the article states, "environmentalists decided that cow manure, as bad as it is, is better than the oil, metals, fertilzer, and sewage that flow downstream after a farm becomes a suburb." While true, this statement doesn't tell the whole story.
I wrote an article on this subject for a magazine called Edible Chesapeake, and the reality is that most farmers are genuinely concerned about the land, and will do all they can to enact conservation measures -- as long as they can pay for them without cutting even further into their already tenuous bottom line. The external pressures on farmers -- low commodity prices, foreign competition, pressure from developers -- make it hard enough to keep on farming, and conservation measures only add to the cost. Since the public is largely responsible for these challenges, it makes sense for the public to help farmers meet them.
The new alliance between farmers, watermen, and environmentalists to clean up the Bay points to the biggest reality of the expanding green movement: common problems require common solutions. We all drink the water, we all breathe the air, we all rely on food from the earth. It will take all of us, working together, to make a dent in the host of significant environmental challenges we face in the 21st century.
If we can rise to these challenges with the same level of ingenuity, innovation, and determination we brought to facing the political and military challenges of the 20th century, we could be in the beginning years of a century filled with promise and accomplishment. If we fail, we'll have a rough row to hoe, moving into the third millennium. The choice is ours - but Maryland, it seems, is off to a good start. Let's keep up the momentum.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
"War to end all wars" still resonates
"Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word, over there! That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, the drums rum-tumming everywhere -- over there!"
Corny, perhaps, to our jaded modern ears, but those were stirring words to the people of both America and Europe in 1917, when the American Expeditionary Force under General "Black Jack" Pershing landed in France. Brought willy-nilly into World War One by the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat, the United States for the first time intervened in a European conflict.
The isolationism which had sidelined us during the first three years of the war had been overwhelmed by the deaths of American at the hands -- or torpedoes -- of the villainous "Huns." In the wash of patriotism that followed, our intervention was seen as a direct repayment for French assistance in winning our own independence from Britain, less than a century and a half earlier. As General Pershing stepped ashore and saluted the French Field Marshall who greeted him, his words were, "Lafayette, we have returned!"
My paternal grandfather was among those Yanks, the famous "Doughboys" with their khaki uniforms and flat helmets, who fought Kaiser Wilhelm's troops to a standstill and then slowly but steadily pushed back their line until the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Like many, he did not escape unscathed: a mortar shell, exploding near him, broke his leg in fourteen places and flung it up over his shoulder.
Amazingly for the time period, he did not lose the leg, although it healed an inch-and-a-half shorter than the other one. My father tells that, as he grew older and taller, he'd tease his father that he was getting taller than he was. In response, "Pop" Harbold would rock up onto his longer leg, fix his son with a mock glare, and growl, "Not yet, you're not."
What has put me in mind of "the Great War," as it was called -- the "war to end all wars," that signally failed in that ambition? The fact that this Friday, April 6, marks the 90th anniversary of our entry into that war. An article in USA Today, entitled "One of the last: WWI vet recalls the Great War," profiles Frank Buckles, now the ripe old age of 106. He is one of only four surviving members of the 4,734,991 Americans that served in World War One: less than one in a million now surviving.
The articles points out that that although the days of trench warfare and biplane dogfights are long gone, "the first industrialized war set the stage for all that came after. It marked the emergence of the United States as a superpower." Furthermore, the article states, the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ethnic cleansing, weapons of mass destruction -- the terrible chemical weapons that killed or maimed so many during WWI -- as well as globalization, U.S. foreign policy, and even women's rights and controversy over the treatment of surviving veterans, all have roots in World War I.
"If you want to understand the world of today," the article quotes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, "you need to go all the way back to 1914." Yet World War One is largely a forgotten war, today. Veterans of World War Two, including my father, have justly received accolades as member of "the Greatest Generation," that stood against first Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, then fought the long Cold War against the Soviets. Even the veterans of Korea have received recognition.
Ironically, however, echoes of the now little-known WWI continue to resonate in today's world. While the conclusion of World War Two eventually knit the continent of Europe together, and made Japan a staunch ally, the victorious Allies in the First World War not only humiliated Germany into spawning the Nazis, but carved up the former Ottoman Empire into arbitrary nation-states which Yale historian Jay Winter is quoted as saying were "usually made in an afternoon after tea without much thought to ethnic balance or viability of these countries."
These capricious borders, as the article points out, remain to this day, and control the lives of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, and rival ethnic groups in Lebanon. The establishment of Israel can also be linked to the post-WWI Balfour Declaration. "Most of our headaches in the Middle East today are a hangover from the great military binge of 1914-18," notes Ferguson.
An ironic legacy indeed, for the war to end all wars.
Note: A reader wrote to me, after this was published, stating that
Corny, perhaps, to our jaded modern ears, but those were stirring words to the people of both America and Europe in 1917, when the American Expeditionary Force under General "Black Jack" Pershing landed in France. Brought willy-nilly into World War One by the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat, the United States for the first time intervened in a European conflict.
The isolationism which had sidelined us during the first three years of the war had been overwhelmed by the deaths of American at the hands -- or torpedoes -- of the villainous "Huns." In the wash of patriotism that followed, our intervention was seen as a direct repayment for French assistance in winning our own independence from Britain, less than a century and a half earlier. As General Pershing stepped ashore and saluted the French Field Marshall who greeted him, his words were, "Lafayette, we have returned!"
My paternal grandfather was among those Yanks, the famous "Doughboys" with their khaki uniforms and flat helmets, who fought Kaiser Wilhelm's troops to a standstill and then slowly but steadily pushed back their line until the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Like many, he did not escape unscathed: a mortar shell, exploding near him, broke his leg in fourteen places and flung it up over his shoulder.
Amazingly for the time period, he did not lose the leg, although it healed an inch-and-a-half shorter than the other one. My father tells that, as he grew older and taller, he'd tease his father that he was getting taller than he was. In response, "Pop" Harbold would rock up onto his longer leg, fix his son with a mock glare, and growl, "Not yet, you're not."
What has put me in mind of "the Great War," as it was called -- the "war to end all wars," that signally failed in that ambition? The fact that this Friday, April 6, marks the 90th anniversary of our entry into that war. An article in USA Today, entitled "One of the last: WWI vet recalls the Great War," profiles Frank Buckles, now the ripe old age of 106. He is one of only four surviving members of the 4,734,991 Americans that served in World War One: less than one in a million now surviving.
The articles points out that that although the days of trench warfare and biplane dogfights are long gone, "the first industrialized war set the stage for all that came after. It marked the emergence of the United States as a superpower." Furthermore, the article states, the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ethnic cleansing, weapons of mass destruction -- the terrible chemical weapons that killed or maimed so many during WWI -- as well as globalization, U.S. foreign policy, and even women's rights and controversy over the treatment of surviving veterans, all have roots in World War I.
"If you want to understand the world of today," the article quotes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, "you need to go all the way back to 1914." Yet World War One is largely a forgotten war, today. Veterans of World War Two, including my father, have justly received accolades as member of "the Greatest Generation," that stood against first Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, then fought the long Cold War against the Soviets. Even the veterans of Korea have received recognition.
Ironically, however, echoes of the now little-known WWI continue to resonate in today's world. While the conclusion of World War Two eventually knit the continent of Europe together, and made Japan a staunch ally, the victorious Allies in the First World War not only humiliated Germany into spawning the Nazis, but carved up the former Ottoman Empire into arbitrary nation-states which Yale historian Jay Winter is quoted as saying were "usually made in an afternoon after tea without much thought to ethnic balance or viability of these countries."
These capricious borders, as the article points out, remain to this day, and control the lives of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, and rival ethnic groups in Lebanon. The establishment of Israel can also be linked to the post-WWI Balfour Declaration. "Most of our headaches in the Middle East today are a hangover from the great military binge of 1914-18," notes Ferguson.
An ironic legacy indeed, for the war to end all wars.
Note: A reader wrote to me, after this was published, stating that
"I can find no reference to Gen. Pershing saying, "Lafayette, we have returned." I can find reference to, "Lafayette, we are here," being said at the grave of Marquis Lafayette."He did not indicate who said it. I accept the correction as given, since I was operating from memory in that instance (not personal memory, of course, memory of something I'd read). The point remains the same, in either case.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Pause to welcome the coming of Spring
Winter was late in arriving this year, but it made up for its tardiness by lingering longer than is often the case. Most conspicuously, it made a liar out of famed groundhog prognosticator Punxatawney Phil, who allegedly failed to see his shadow on February 2nd, thus ensuring an early spring. As the saying goes... "Not!"
But now at last it seems that spring is finally in the air. That air seems softer, moister, and is graced with the song of birds: both the winter birds that have weathered the cold and storms with us, such as the cardinals, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers, and the newer arrivals, such as American robins, who have returned from wherever they take shelter from winter's cold.
It used to be said that robins migrated south, to return again in the spring; more recently, studies have revealed that our local robins, at least, often seek shelter in wetland thickets, where decaying marsh vegetation moderates the ambient temperature, and clumps of brush break the wind. Another good reason these wetlands should be preserved.
Other migrants are on the move, too: although many of the geese we see in this area are residents, meandering from pond to lake to farm field, also visible -- or audible -- are high-flying V's of migratory geese. The great conservationist Aldo Leopold considered these the surest sign of spring, writing, in A Sand County Almanac:
"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence… But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."
"A March morning," he asserts, "is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese. I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education," asked the man known to his loyal graduate students as "The Professor," "possibly a process of trading awareness for something of lesser worth?"
That question resounds through the decades since it was penned, and may well prove fodder for another column. But for now, it is enough to fling open the windows, step out through the door, and open our awareness to the changing season: winter into spring, the wheel of the year turning from the season of darkness, rest, inwardness, and even, yes, death and decay, toward the season of unfolding, opening, blossoming, growth -- rebirth and burgeoning life.
For all our scientific knowledge, the process by which a bulb sends out a shoot that pushes through the earth to become a crocus, daffodil, or tulip, a tree-bud contains the complete essence of the coming season's growth of branch, leaf, and flower, or a seed unfolds to become an herbaceous plant, shrub, or tree, is still something which smacks of mystery and wonder.
Just as mysterious and wonderful are the guidance systems that steer flocks of neo-tropical migrants, our beloved summer songbirds, from their winter haunts in Central and South America to grace our woods and fields, our backyards and even city parks. They are already beginning their journey, and the next month or two will see a veritable explosion of color and birdsong.
The end of winter and the coming of spring may not have quite the impact on us climate-controlled and industrially-fed urbanites and suburbanites that it did on earlier agriculturalists, nomadic herders, or hunter-gatherers. But the tides of spring still flow in all of our blood, if we could but shut off the flood of external stimuli -- traffic, radio, TV, CDs and DVDs, and the internet, among other sources -- that constantly bombard us, quiet the racing of our minds, and open our windows and our senses to the turn of the seasons.
No matter the stresses and pressures of our workaday lives, let's each take a moment, sometime this week, to go outside, stand quietly on the good earth, close our eyes, open our ears and nostrils, and breathe deeply of the essence of spring. I don't doubt that we'll be the better for it.
But now at last it seems that spring is finally in the air. That air seems softer, moister, and is graced with the song of birds: both the winter birds that have weathered the cold and storms with us, such as the cardinals, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers, and the newer arrivals, such as American robins, who have returned from wherever they take shelter from winter's cold.
It used to be said that robins migrated south, to return again in the spring; more recently, studies have revealed that our local robins, at least, often seek shelter in wetland thickets, where decaying marsh vegetation moderates the ambient temperature, and clumps of brush break the wind. Another good reason these wetlands should be preserved.
Other migrants are on the move, too: although many of the geese we see in this area are residents, meandering from pond to lake to farm field, also visible -- or audible -- are high-flying V's of migratory geese. The great conservationist Aldo Leopold considered these the surest sign of spring, writing, in A Sand County Almanac:
"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence… But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."
"A March morning," he asserts, "is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese. I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education," asked the man known to his loyal graduate students as "The Professor," "possibly a process of trading awareness for something of lesser worth?"
That question resounds through the decades since it was penned, and may well prove fodder for another column. But for now, it is enough to fling open the windows, step out through the door, and open our awareness to the changing season: winter into spring, the wheel of the year turning from the season of darkness, rest, inwardness, and even, yes, death and decay, toward the season of unfolding, opening, blossoming, growth -- rebirth and burgeoning life.
For all our scientific knowledge, the process by which a bulb sends out a shoot that pushes through the earth to become a crocus, daffodil, or tulip, a tree-bud contains the complete essence of the coming season's growth of branch, leaf, and flower, or a seed unfolds to become an herbaceous plant, shrub, or tree, is still something which smacks of mystery and wonder.
Just as mysterious and wonderful are the guidance systems that steer flocks of neo-tropical migrants, our beloved summer songbirds, from their winter haunts in Central and South America to grace our woods and fields, our backyards and even city parks. They are already beginning their journey, and the next month or two will see a veritable explosion of color and birdsong.
The end of winter and the coming of spring may not have quite the impact on us climate-controlled and industrially-fed urbanites and suburbanites that it did on earlier agriculturalists, nomadic herders, or hunter-gatherers. But the tides of spring still flow in all of our blood, if we could but shut off the flood of external stimuli -- traffic, radio, TV, CDs and DVDs, and the internet, among other sources -- that constantly bombard us, quiet the racing of our minds, and open our windows and our senses to the turn of the seasons.
No matter the stresses and pressures of our workaday lives, let's each take a moment, sometime this week, to go outside, stand quietly on the good earth, close our eyes, open our ears and nostrils, and breathe deeply of the essence of spring. I don't doubt that we'll be the better for it.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The raw facts on raw milk
This essay was originally written as a column in response to a piece appearing in the Carrroll County Times, for which I write. But it was overtaken by other events, and never appeared. Here 'tis:
In a recent Marketplace essay entitled "Risk comes with consuming raw milk, products,” agricultural extension educator Mike Bell asserted that "raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganism that can pose serious health risks to you and your family."
Well, yes. That's true. It can. But -- and this is a big "but" -- there is a long way between "can" and "does." Mr. Bell states that according to the CDC, more than 800 people have gotten sick from consuming raw milk or raw milk cheese since 1998. I'm no math expert, but that calculates out to, on average, less than a hundred cases a year, nationwide.
Liz Reitzig, President of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, reports that "according to the CDC, there are 73 million cases a year of food borne illness, virtually all of which are from regulated, industrial, licensed food products." Of the relative handful in which raw milk is implicated, "most are from raw milk intended for pasteurization, not from a small farmer carefully preparing raw milk for direct consumption." Furthermore, she notes, "Pasteurized milk accounts for several hundred cases of food borne illness each year," again according to CDC figures.
Other assertions are similarly misleading. The question of the role of enzymes in digestion and health is far too complex to fit into a column, but suffice it to say that qualified experts have also challenged and, to my satisfaction, refuted Mr. Bell's assertion that our bodies don't use enzymes contained in food to assist our own metabolic process. It seems quite clear that our digestive system does indeed utilize food enzymes, when present, to spare our own and make digestion easier.
While it is true that pasteurization kills most (though not all) harmful bacteria that may be present, beneficial microorganisms, commonly known as probiotics, are also killed in the process. These would otherwise aid digestion and strengthen the immune system. And while some enzymes, and some beneficial microorganisms, may survive conventional pasteurization, none survive the increasingly common "ultra-pasteurization."
Also misleading were some of the statements in the box entitled "Myths, facts about pasteurization." For example: "Pasteurizing milk does not cause lactose intolerance and allergic reactions. Both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause allergic reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins."
Of course pasteurizing milk doesn't cause lactose intolerance or allergic reactions. Rather, raw milk, which contains the lactase enzyme, is easier to digest for many, though not all, people who are otherwise lactose intolerant. Sensitivity to milk proteins -- casein -- is an entirely different issue than lactose intolerance, and should not be confused with it.
The assertion that "pasteurization does not reduce milk's nutritional value" is just that: an assertion, and a questionable one at that. Many nutritional experts far more knowledgeable than I have contested this assertion, among them Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Ron Schmidt, ND, William Cambell Douglas Jr., MD, Thomas Cowan, MD, natural foods expert and writer Nina Planck, and nutritionist and author Joann S. Grohman. Do your own research, and draw your own conclusions.
Finally, regarding harmful bacteria. Milk simply cannot carry any pathogens that were not present in the cow, or else contaminated the milk after milking. That is why no pro-raw milk activist would ever suggest that pasteurization be abandoned, especially for large, commercial dairies and industrial milk-processing plants. All they are asking is that exceptions be made for small-scale farming operations to sell directly to a small clientele of local customers: face to face, neighbor to neighbor, where accountability is high.
So, can raw milk make you sick? Sure. It's possible. So can sushi. So can raw oysters. So can rare beef, or sunny-side-up eggs. So, for that matter, can raw spinach, or salad-bar lettuce. Pasteurized milk can, too. So what's the big deal about raw milk? If you really want to cover your assets, require a statement, such as appears on many restaurant menus regarding meat and seafood, to the effect of "Consuming raw milk or dairy products may increase your risk of food-borne illness," and then let people make their own choices. Sounds a lot like freedom, doesn't it?
Granting small farmers the opportunity to sell clean, fresh, unprocessed milk to local customers benefits the health of people, local/rural communities, and if the cows are grass-fed, as they should be for healthiest milk, the land itself, including the Chesapeake Bay, and will also help more farmers to stay on the land. It's an idea whose time has returned.
For More Information
Here are a couple of sites I'd recommend:
Campaign for Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
"The Milk Papers" at Nina Planck's Website
Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association
There are plenty of sites and lots of so-called "experts" telling how "bad" raw milk is for consumers. These are a selection of sites providing the alternative view.
In a recent Marketplace essay entitled "Risk comes with consuming raw milk, products,” agricultural extension educator Mike Bell asserted that "raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganism that can pose serious health risks to you and your family."
Well, yes. That's true. It can. But -- and this is a big "but" -- there is a long way between "can" and "does." Mr. Bell states that according to the CDC, more than 800 people have gotten sick from consuming raw milk or raw milk cheese since 1998. I'm no math expert, but that calculates out to, on average, less than a hundred cases a year, nationwide.
Liz Reitzig, President of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, reports that "according to the CDC, there are 73 million cases a year of food borne illness, virtually all of which are from regulated, industrial, licensed food products." Of the relative handful in which raw milk is implicated, "most are from raw milk intended for pasteurization, not from a small farmer carefully preparing raw milk for direct consumption." Furthermore, she notes, "Pasteurized milk accounts for several hundred cases of food borne illness each year," again according to CDC figures.
Other assertions are similarly misleading. The question of the role of enzymes in digestion and health is far too complex to fit into a column, but suffice it to say that qualified experts have also challenged and, to my satisfaction, refuted Mr. Bell's assertion that our bodies don't use enzymes contained in food to assist our own metabolic process. It seems quite clear that our digestive system does indeed utilize food enzymes, when present, to spare our own and make digestion easier.
While it is true that pasteurization kills most (though not all) harmful bacteria that may be present, beneficial microorganisms, commonly known as probiotics, are also killed in the process. These would otherwise aid digestion and strengthen the immune system. And while some enzymes, and some beneficial microorganisms, may survive conventional pasteurization, none survive the increasingly common "ultra-pasteurization."
Also misleading were some of the statements in the box entitled "Myths, facts about pasteurization." For example: "Pasteurizing milk does not cause lactose intolerance and allergic reactions. Both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause allergic reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins."
Of course pasteurizing milk doesn't cause lactose intolerance or allergic reactions. Rather, raw milk, which contains the lactase enzyme, is easier to digest for many, though not all, people who are otherwise lactose intolerant. Sensitivity to milk proteins -- casein -- is an entirely different issue than lactose intolerance, and should not be confused with it.
The assertion that "pasteurization does not reduce milk's nutritional value" is just that: an assertion, and a questionable one at that. Many nutritional experts far more knowledgeable than I have contested this assertion, among them Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Ron Schmidt, ND, William Cambell Douglas Jr., MD, Thomas Cowan, MD, natural foods expert and writer Nina Planck, and nutritionist and author Joann S. Grohman. Do your own research, and draw your own conclusions.
Finally, regarding harmful bacteria. Milk simply cannot carry any pathogens that were not present in the cow, or else contaminated the milk after milking. That is why no pro-raw milk activist would ever suggest that pasteurization be abandoned, especially for large, commercial dairies and industrial milk-processing plants. All they are asking is that exceptions be made for small-scale farming operations to sell directly to a small clientele of local customers: face to face, neighbor to neighbor, where accountability is high.
So, can raw milk make you sick? Sure. It's possible. So can sushi. So can raw oysters. So can rare beef, or sunny-side-up eggs. So, for that matter, can raw spinach, or salad-bar lettuce. Pasteurized milk can, too. So what's the big deal about raw milk? If you really want to cover your assets, require a statement, such as appears on many restaurant menus regarding meat and seafood, to the effect of "Consuming raw milk or dairy products may increase your risk of food-borne illness," and then let people make their own choices. Sounds a lot like freedom, doesn't it?
Granting small farmers the opportunity to sell clean, fresh, unprocessed milk to local customers benefits the health of people, local/rural communities, and if the cows are grass-fed, as they should be for healthiest milk, the land itself, including the Chesapeake Bay, and will also help more farmers to stay on the land. It's an idea whose time has returned.
For More Information
Here are a couple of sites I'd recommend:
Campaign for Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
"The Milk Papers" at Nina Planck's Website
Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association
There are plenty of sites and lots of so-called "experts" telling how "bad" raw milk is for consumers. These are a selection of sites providing the alternative view.
Friday, March 23, 2007
A frog in troubling waters
It has been said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I agree with that assessment. A historical education allows one to detect patterns that are difficult or impossible to discern without that perspective. One of those is the effect of outside dangers and threats, real or imagined, on the development of government, and the transmutation of free societies into authoritarian ones.
This pattern can be detected as far back as ancient Sumeria, where the peaceful, pastoral rule of the archetypal shepherd-king, Dumuzi, gave way to the iron-fisted, brutal rule of the archetypal conqueror and law-giver, Gilgamesh. Similarly, outside threats led to the rise of the first kings in ancient Greece. Invasions or threats of invasions from the Celts, among others, brought ancient Rome from a Republic, to a Dictatorship, to an Empire, as a fearful people willingly agreed to their own subjugation by demagogues who claimed to be able to protect them.
In more recent years, trumped-up threats of attack by Communists and others led to the overthrow of the democratic Weimar Republic in Germany by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen. The pattern is clear: fear, whether justified or not, leads to autocracy and loss of freedom, freedom which is regained -- if at all -- only with great cost and difficulty.
In the United States, however, we have the example of Benjamin Franklin, widely credited with asserting that those who are willing to give up their freedom for a little security deserve neither freedom nor security. Other Founders expressed similar views. Is the United States in danger of becoming another Weimar Republic, rather than the free Republic of our Founders' vision? The signs are troubling.
A recent Justice Department audit recently revealed that the FBI systematically abused its powers to secretly obtain information on American citizens, ostensibly in the name of the war on terrorism. Eight federal prosecutors have been fired, apparently for resisting political pressure on their investigations. A new Homeland Security program called ADVISE will mine already collected data to gather still more information on U.S. citizens.
That's in addition to the sweeping provisions of the inaptly named USA Patriot Act, and various surveillance programs against American citizens, including electronic eavesdropping by the NSA. Some of these have supposedly been shut down or limited under Congressional oversight. But how limited? We don't really know. That information is secret. We're expected to trust the government, and accept their word on it.
Then there's the “Real ID” program, aimed at creating a de facto national identity card, beloved of all authoritarian states. "Papers, please!" used to be a cliche in old war movies. Now it may become a fact of our national life. Although not part of the current plan, modern technology would make it feasible to include a microchip allowing individual persons to be tracked by satellite.
Satellite tracking and GPS location are already part of the National Animal Identification System, which in the name of food security would effectively abolish private ownership of food animals, making all livestock part of a closely-monitored “national herd.” Recent E. coli scares have raised the spectre of similar federal control over vegetable production, too. And whoever controls the food, controls the populace.
More locally, there is the ever-growing number of red-light cameras, now reportedly to be joined by speed-enforcement cameras. Whatever happened to the old dictum that “only in a police state is the job of the police easy”?
For that matter, how often are books like Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World taught in schools, these days? I hope they are, but you don't hear too much about them. Most of what you hear is emphasis on math and science over history and the humanities, and standardized tests that emphasize recalling pieces of data over detailed analysis and thoughtful reflection. Hmmm, you don't suppose that's part of the pattern, too?
It is said that a frog who jumps into boiling water will immediately jump back out again, but a frog swimming in water which is gradually increasing in temperature will stay there until it is too late to avoid being cooked. I worry for our country, and the people of our country, lest we are becoming too much like that frog.
A recent Times editorial suggested that “a majority of Americans are opening their eyes and seeing how they have been duped.” I sincerely hope that's the case, and that we will, as that editorial suggested, “return to the day when America was truly the home of the free.” The alternative is deeply troubling.
This pattern can be detected as far back as ancient Sumeria, where the peaceful, pastoral rule of the archetypal shepherd-king, Dumuzi, gave way to the iron-fisted, brutal rule of the archetypal conqueror and law-giver, Gilgamesh. Similarly, outside threats led to the rise of the first kings in ancient Greece. Invasions or threats of invasions from the Celts, among others, brought ancient Rome from a Republic, to a Dictatorship, to an Empire, as a fearful people willingly agreed to their own subjugation by demagogues who claimed to be able to protect them.
In more recent years, trumped-up threats of attack by Communists and others led to the overthrow of the democratic Weimar Republic in Germany by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen. The pattern is clear: fear, whether justified or not, leads to autocracy and loss of freedom, freedom which is regained -- if at all -- only with great cost and difficulty.
In the United States, however, we have the example of Benjamin Franklin, widely credited with asserting that those who are willing to give up their freedom for a little security deserve neither freedom nor security. Other Founders expressed similar views. Is the United States in danger of becoming another Weimar Republic, rather than the free Republic of our Founders' vision? The signs are troubling.
A recent Justice Department audit recently revealed that the FBI systematically abused its powers to secretly obtain information on American citizens, ostensibly in the name of the war on terrorism. Eight federal prosecutors have been fired, apparently for resisting political pressure on their investigations. A new Homeland Security program called ADVISE will mine already collected data to gather still more information on U.S. citizens.
That's in addition to the sweeping provisions of the inaptly named USA Patriot Act, and various surveillance programs against American citizens, including electronic eavesdropping by the NSA. Some of these have supposedly been shut down or limited under Congressional oversight. But how limited? We don't really know. That information is secret. We're expected to trust the government, and accept their word on it.
Then there's the “Real ID” program, aimed at creating a de facto national identity card, beloved of all authoritarian states. "Papers, please!" used to be a cliche in old war movies. Now it may become a fact of our national life. Although not part of the current plan, modern technology would make it feasible to include a microchip allowing individual persons to be tracked by satellite.
Satellite tracking and GPS location are already part of the National Animal Identification System, which in the name of food security would effectively abolish private ownership of food animals, making all livestock part of a closely-monitored “national herd.” Recent E. coli scares have raised the spectre of similar federal control over vegetable production, too. And whoever controls the food, controls the populace.
More locally, there is the ever-growing number of red-light cameras, now reportedly to be joined by speed-enforcement cameras. Whatever happened to the old dictum that “only in a police state is the job of the police easy”?
For that matter, how often are books like Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World taught in schools, these days? I hope they are, but you don't hear too much about them. Most of what you hear is emphasis on math and science over history and the humanities, and standardized tests that emphasize recalling pieces of data over detailed analysis and thoughtful reflection. Hmmm, you don't suppose that's part of the pattern, too?
It is said that a frog who jumps into boiling water will immediately jump back out again, but a frog swimming in water which is gradually increasing in temperature will stay there until it is too late to avoid being cooked. I worry for our country, and the people of our country, lest we are becoming too much like that frog.
A recent Times editorial suggested that “a majority of Americans are opening their eyes and seeing how they have been duped.” I sincerely hope that's the case, and that we will, as that editorial suggested, “return to the day when America was truly the home of the free.” The alternative is deeply troubling.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Re: The Fall of Man and the Neolithic Revolution
My good friend "Roland," over at the Two Natures blog, posted a fascinating essay entitled, you guessed it, "The Fall of Man and the Neolithic Revolution." It is a very good piece, and I encourage you to read it before you read my own thoughts on the subject.
I was particularly interested to read this post, as I have been thinking along similar lines myself, for many years. Since at least my college days, in fact.
I actually had posited the (pre-)historical Fall to have occured earlier, when hominids first came down from the trees and began to walk upright, use tools, etc. -- when they first began to exhibit reflective thinking, in other words, rather than relying on instinct. But some non-human primates (chimps, for instance) and even some birds (crows, parrots) seem able to do some of those things. Does that mean that they, too, have the prospect of being "fallen"? That seems unlikely. And Roland makes a good case that it was when we stepped out of our proper "place" in nature, our natural role in the overall scheme of things, that we ran into trouble.
In any case, I have come to believe that creatures living in a state of nature -- that is, living in accordance with their natures, which is inherently also living in accordance with God's intention/will/plan -- are also living in a state of grace. And that included hominids/humans until, as Roland writes, we "left the garden," e.g., gave up living in "our place" in the natural scheme of things and began seriously manipulating Creation (and each other) for our own ends. That was clearly a "fall from grace," and "expulsion from the garden," as we began using/manipulating/destroying the garden (the earth/nature, or as some would have it, Gaia) to suit ourselves.
I think that is a major reason that earth/nature-based religions have never lost their appeal, although they have periodically been driven underground, and why (want to talk controversial!) I believe that Christianity, important as it is, does not and perhaps cannot serve as a complete answer to the spiritual longings of many (most?) humans. Although it contains within itself (mostly from the Old Testament, but there are also hints in certain of Paul's writings) the seeds of a viable theology of Creation, care for Creation, and dynamic, even ecstatic, union with the rest of (non-human) Creation, those seeds have never germinated in any meaningful way.
Christianity's importance, as I see it, is in addressing a) the problem of mortality, an issue in much (though not all) of the ancient world, and b) the problem of sin, also an issue for a number of the ancients, but especially for the Jewish people. And it accomplishes both through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well and good, so far. But one of the reasons I think Christianity is losing ground in the contemporary world (aside from televangelists and others who present it as a caricature or parody of itself) is that neither of those issues -- for better or for worse -- is a major concern for most contemporary Americans, or Westerners in general, for that matter.
Many, if not most, of those in our generation, and those immediately preceding and following us, tend to accept some sort of continuation of life following the death of the physical body as a given. That may be "cultural capital" from Christianity, or it may be an intuited sense of "the way things are, or must be." In either case, immortality is not a major concern for most folks these days, and people who have been exposed to a plethora of cultures and religions since childhood also tend to look askance at the limited/limiting criteria for entering into that afterlife, according to Christianity.
Things which classical Christianity has viewed as sins -- especially sexual and other personal sins, such as individual greed ("whoever dies with the most toys, wins") -- are very clearly not viewed as sins by most people today (again, for better or for worse), and my own opinion is that Christians can talk about them till we're blue in the face, and we're not gonna convince anybody who's not already predisposed to be convinced.
[That doesn't mean they're irrelevant, by a long shot. Christianity is at its best when it is addressing the many ways we fall short, as individuals, of being the kind of person most of us, in our heart-of hearts, know we could and should be. As author Thomas Cahill cogently pointed out, in his book How the Irish Saved Civiliation, "Saint Paul trumps Plato." In other words, whereas Plato idealistically insisted that those who truly know the Good will seek to act accordingly, Paul more realistically lamented that "the good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Romans 7:19, KJV).]
On the other hand, people are looking at things like global warming, pollution of the air and water on a massive scale, widespread species extinction, wars and the oppression of various peoples, corporate greed, and governmental corruption, and seeing that Christianity has little to say -- or little that it's been willing or able to say -- on those kinds of pressing issues, and are becoming understandably disillusioned. Christianity seems to be standing by and acquiescing -- and in some quarters (particularly evangelical protestant/fundamentalist quarters, although I know there are exceptions here), contributing moral support -- to the degradation and destruction of Creation.
I will never forget how appalled I was, and still am, at seeing a poster in my former church picturing the classic view of the Earth from space, with the legend, "Without Christ, it's just a vicious circle." That is, quite frankly, horse hockey -- it's simply not true, on several levels -- but it does an excellent job of encapsulating what is wrong with Christianity, in the minds of many Americans and other Westerners. I think there is an acute and growing sense that, in the words of the old song (was it by Crosby, Stills, and Nash?), "we've got to get ourselves back to the Garden." Otherwise, the human experiment itself might be doomed, and we're almost certain to take a lot of innocent species with us.
So, yes, I agree with Roland that the neolithic revolution -- for all its fascination, benefits, and promise -- undoubtedly was "'the event' that, more than any other, set mankind on a new trajectory that has led to alienation from God, our fellow creatures, and our own nature." The trick is figuring out how to overcome that alienation without a complete cultural, technological and societal collapse that returns a surviving remnant of humans, willy-nilly, to a hunter-gatherer mode of living! Christianity may be able to help in this process, but so far I have not seen a great deal of evidence that it is either willing or able to do so.
Insofar as the "job" of a religion or spiritual path is to give meaning, purpose, and direction to life, and to both express a proper relationship between God, humans, and their physical environment and to encourage/enable people to live into that relationship -- a not-unreasonable set of criteria, I would think -- Christianity has not failed to accomplish this end for contemporary humanity, but it is by-and-large failing, and will fail ever more catastrophically as environmental problems worsen, unless or until it is able to overcome its historical (and rather Gnostic) tendency to define humans as being both over and against the rest of Creation.
We may not want or be able to return to a hunter-gatherer mode of being (although that undoubtedly is the ideal, for humans -- the way of life which is most in keeping with our true natures), but unless we find some way to get "back to the Garden," in the sense of finding ways to live sustainably on this Earth, in communion with Nature and not in competition with her, and unless our spiritual paths assist and promote this transformation, we are probably more-or-less doomed.
As they say on the internet, "imho -- ymmv." *
* "in my humble opinion," "your mileage may vary."
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And as I added to another friend of mine, to whom I forwarded both pieces, Roland's and my own:
As far as attaining/maintaining our fullest humanness, I tend to believe that our "original," hunter-gatherer way of life was (and, where still possible, remains) the ideal. Agriculture is next in line, at least agriculture which is human-scaled and sustainable. Cities are pretty much on the other end of the spectrum. It's possible to be human in a city, it may even be possible to be fully human in a city (although I'm not totally convinced of that), but it requires an immense amount of effort, more often than not. Is it possible to reconstruct cities in more human/humane modes? Probably... but again, it's difficult, because you're fighting the very nature of the urban entity itself (see Dunbar's Number, a.k.a., the "Monkeysphere").As the ol' rocker once said, "what a long, strange trip it's been..."
Monday, March 19, 2007
Some thoughts on Christianity and Culture
I originally wrote the following post for an online forum I frequent; the thread was entitled "Faith, Fellowship, and this Forum." I launched that thread in response to comments from some of its members that the forum was becoming known as a conservative Christian forum, when that was not its intended purpose. The general tenor of the conversation that followed will be apparent from my post. I decided not to post this one on that thread, as I feared it would be too controversial, and throw gasoline on a fire which was beginning to die down... but because some of the points I raised are ones I think are important to raise, I wanted it to be posted somewhere. Well, gee! I have a blog. So here 'tis.
(Warning: this is a long post.)
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First off, I think that E___ and others have the right idea: we don't, or shouldn't, need to be walking on eggshells. I think we should all relax, practice -- as M___ said -- a bit of self-censorship (there were real advantages to the old "no talk about religion or politics in public" policy that used to be common in our society, but there are advantages to being more open about both, too), and most importantly, operate in a spirit of good-will, and assume that others are doing the same. We're all friends, here; there isn't any reason that I know to figure that anyone is acting out of anything but the best motives. Y'know?
That said, I have a couple of observations which I would like to share, also in the spirit of good will and friendliness. I hope that what I'm about to say won't offend anyone, but in case it does, please forget it, and forgive me.
First, I think that Christians in general, and conservative Christians in particular, do get the short end of the stick a lot of the time, in the public square, in the media, and in the news. The whole "Christmas - Holiday" thing is a particular sore point for me. I celebrate Christmas, and I get frustrated, not only at chirpy "Happy Holiday" greetings from cashiers (have you noticed that that's become the standard greeting, even for secular holidays like the Fourth of July? ... it's ridiculous, imho), but from trying to find a Christmas card that actually wishes somebody "Merry Christmas." Even ones featuring churches or other religious themes still often say "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" inside.
If someone wants to wish me a happy Diwali, or Eid, I'll gladly smile and say "thank you," if not "the same to you!" Since I have a fair number of Pagan friends, I do get wished "Blessed Solstice," or whatever the case may be, on a fairly regular basis. I appreciate and return the sentiments. I just don't find it that big a deal. So why is it so much of a problem to wish someone "Merry Christmas," without giving offense, or be wished it, without taking offense? Well, there may be some reasons (see below), but in general I think it's a great deal of ado about really very little.
And Christmas trees are Christmas trees, thank you very much. If you don't celebrate Christmas, and want to call it a "Hannukah Bush" or whatever, that's fine, but the custom of having an evergreen tree in your house toward the end of December was a German custom imported into England and from thence to the U.S. during the Victorian era to celebrate... wait for it... Christmas. It may have Pagan connotations, extending back into the Mists of History, and that's fine, too. But it's a Christmas tree, darn it, not a generic "holiday" one. Again, in my (ever so) humble opinion!
The Ten Commandments are a more complex issue. I can see both sides in that argument, and I'm not going to pass judgement here.
To return to the subject of Christmas, though, I wrote a column last Christmas (not this just past one, but 2005) on the subject of "be careful what you ask for, you may get it." When I was growing up in the 1960s, 70s, and even early 80s, Christmas was largely secularized (as famously lampooned and lamented in Charles Schultz's wonderful classic, "A Charlie Brown Christmas"), but it was celebrated as Christmas.
Over the last twenty years or so, Christians -- largely conservative, evangelical Christians -- have run a massive campaign to "put Christ back in Christmas." I suspect that it is precisely to their success in doing so -- re-linking Christmas with Christ, in the popular imagination -- that we owe the "Happy Holiday-ization" of what was formerly the Christmas season. "Okay, they want Christ back in Christmas? Fair enough, we'll just replace Christmas with something more generic and secular."
That's an over-simplification, of course; there were and are undoubtedly other forces at work. But it does point to the fact that popular opinion, particularly but not exclusively the so-called "intellectual elite" that are represented in/by the governing and "talking classes," are mistrustful of a too-open or too-enthusiastic display of public religiosity.
I can empathize with this, frankly. For one thing, while we are indeed guaranteed "freedom of religion, not freedom from religion," as the saying goes, even within Christianity there is so much variation in doctrine and practice that it's hard to say what a "Christian nation" would look like, even if it were attainable. As an Anglican Christian, I have to say that I would be decidedly uncomfortable with, say, a Baptist theocracy (no offense to any Baptists on-board), simply because some elements of their doctrine and practice are quite different from some of mine.
Thus the wisdom of our American Founders in refusing to establish a religion, still less a denomination, for this country. I do not happen to believe there needs to be a "wall of separation between Church and State" (a private opinion of one of the Founders which does not appear in any public document of the Founding), but I do think there needs to be at least a semi-permeable membrane, to control and limit what passes from one to the other.
The intentions of our Founders aside, there are plenty of reasons why someone might mistrust or even dislike Christianity. One that I have wrestled with, at various times in my life, is the sometimes excessive zeal with which some Christians attempt to fulfill the Great Commission. Pushy anyone -- salesman or evangelist -- turns me off, personally. And if you link that to the frequent implication (if not flat-out statement) that if you are not "saved," by the would-be evangelist's definition (often including membership in his or her particular denomination or sect), you are thereby damned, you have a recipe for breeding a dislike not only of that proselytizer and his/her church, but Christianity as a whole. Guilt by association, as it were.
Then there is the question of what I like to call an honest agnosticism, which many of us have to a greater or lesser degree. I am no atheist, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do tend to agree with the words of one atheistic author, who recently wrote something to the effect that "religion is the only sphere of human discourse in which it's considered noble to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about." Insistence on belief -- particularly intellectual assent in a literalist way, rather than a more metaphorical or metaphysical understanding -- in things about which no human being could possibly be certain is a good way to turn off many folks with an intellectual frame of mind.
There is also another issue which has probably become more of an issue since 9/11, and that is the stated desire by some Christian conservatives to "restore" or "return" America to its identify as a Christian nation. That's the sort of thing that sounds good when you're saying it within your own faith community, or even when you look at it in historical terms... but whether it's a good idea, in practice, now, is an entirely different kettle of fish.
We are a vastly more heterogenous -- diverse -- people, religiously, culturally, and ethnically, now in 2007 than we were in 1907, and moreso then than in 1807. And the question I raised above returns: to what sort of Christianity are we to "return"? Anglican? Presbyterian? Methodist? Baptist? And which branch of those denominations, at that? Or maybe non-denominational? That would be an a-historical novelty, not a return.
So even if all were agreed that it was a good idea (as, in fact, all are not), there are a plethora of practical and theological difficulties in attaining that goal. I am not, personally, a blind supporter of multi-culturalism as an automatic and absolute good, but I am also cognizant of the fact that, even if we wanted to, a return to a (mostly) WASP culture and religion in the US is out of the question, practically speaking.
And even the idea of America as a "Christian nation" has resonances that seem sinister, for many people, in the age of radical Islamofascism. We are fighting the likes of the Taliban and al-Qaeda; we do not, by and large, want to become them, or a Christian mirror-image of them. But talk of returning to being a Christian nation, with traditional Christian morality, Christian values and ethics, and so on -- particularly when couched in terms like "God-fearing" or "godly living" -- sets many folks' teeth on edge. Translated into Arabic, those kinds of terms and expressions sound a lot like what comes out of Islamist websites.
I am not saying that conservative Christians are Taliban-like, or that a "Christian America" would look like Afghanistan, only without the burkhas. But the danger is there, and more importantly, the perception is there. I think if more conservative Christians could step back and look at how things like praying for mass conversions, or talking about restoring America to Christianity, look to people outside their own faith community, they would see that it can appear quite threatening, even if that is not their intention.
I guess in wrapping up I mean to say that while I believe it is an unfortunate truth, and not just a perception, that Christians (especially of the conservative variety) are often unfairly put upon, censored, etc., this situation does not arise in a vacuum, or simply out of a desire to be mean. I hate to say it, but sometimes conservative Christians' actions and attitudes, words and deeds, can provide ammunition to their foes... or even not necessarily foes, just people who have a broader view when it comes to issues of spirituality, morality, etc., than do those conservative Christians themselves.
And in saying all this, I am certainly not intending to be mean, or judgemental, or anything of the sort, myself! Just trying to provide some context for a situation which often seems to leave folks wondering "why?"
I love all my friends on this board, whatever their spiritual path, and I (along with my mother, while she was alive) have been the grateful recipient of prayers and positive thoughts from folks of a wide variety of faith traditions. I am deeply grateful for the prayers of my Christian friends who have been praying for Ma and me, but I am not less grateful for the prayers, thoughts, energy, etc., of my friends of other faiths. Many threads go into making a strong-but-beautiful tapestry.
And I suppose that, finally, is my message and my hope in writing this: that we will all come to understand each other better, and appreciate each other more. I think we on this board are further along that path than many folks, and I hope we can continue the journey together, all of us. If I have a hope and a dream and a wish for us here, it would be that we could not only talk and share together and with each other openly but non-judgementally, but that we could also pray with and for each other in ways that maintain the integrity of our own faith traditions, but also respect those of others.
In that way we could be even more what we are already: a microcosm and an example of the way the world could, and ought, to be.
(Warning: this is a long post.)
----------
First off, I think that E___ and others have the right idea: we don't, or shouldn't, need to be walking on eggshells. I think we should all relax, practice -- as M___ said -- a bit of self-censorship (there were real advantages to the old "no talk about religion or politics in public" policy that used to be common in our society, but there are advantages to being more open about both, too), and most importantly, operate in a spirit of good-will, and assume that others are doing the same. We're all friends, here; there isn't any reason that I know to figure that anyone is acting out of anything but the best motives. Y'know?
That said, I have a couple of observations which I would like to share, also in the spirit of good will and friendliness. I hope that what I'm about to say won't offend anyone, but in case it does, please forget it, and forgive me.
First, I think that Christians in general, and conservative Christians in particular, do get the short end of the stick a lot of the time, in the public square, in the media, and in the news. The whole "Christmas - Holiday" thing is a particular sore point for me. I celebrate Christmas, and I get frustrated, not only at chirpy "Happy Holiday" greetings from cashiers (have you noticed that that's become the standard greeting, even for secular holidays like the Fourth of July? ... it's ridiculous, imho), but from trying to find a Christmas card that actually wishes somebody "Merry Christmas." Even ones featuring churches or other religious themes still often say "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" inside.
If someone wants to wish me a happy Diwali, or Eid, I'll gladly smile and say "thank you," if not "the same to you!" Since I have a fair number of Pagan friends, I do get wished "Blessed Solstice," or whatever the case may be, on a fairly regular basis. I appreciate and return the sentiments. I just don't find it that big a deal. So why is it so much of a problem to wish someone "Merry Christmas," without giving offense, or be wished it, without taking offense? Well, there may be some reasons (see below), but in general I think it's a great deal of ado about really very little.
And Christmas trees are Christmas trees, thank you very much. If you don't celebrate Christmas, and want to call it a "Hannukah Bush" or whatever, that's fine, but the custom of having an evergreen tree in your house toward the end of December was a German custom imported into England and from thence to the U.S. during the Victorian era to celebrate... wait for it... Christmas. It may have Pagan connotations, extending back into the Mists of History, and that's fine, too. But it's a Christmas tree, darn it, not a generic "holiday" one. Again, in my (ever so) humble opinion!
The Ten Commandments are a more complex issue. I can see both sides in that argument, and I'm not going to pass judgement here.
To return to the subject of Christmas, though, I wrote a column last Christmas (not this just past one, but 2005) on the subject of "be careful what you ask for, you may get it." When I was growing up in the 1960s, 70s, and even early 80s, Christmas was largely secularized (as famously lampooned and lamented in Charles Schultz's wonderful classic, "A Charlie Brown Christmas"), but it was celebrated as Christmas.
Over the last twenty years or so, Christians -- largely conservative, evangelical Christians -- have run a massive campaign to "put Christ back in Christmas." I suspect that it is precisely to their success in doing so -- re-linking Christmas with Christ, in the popular imagination -- that we owe the "Happy Holiday-ization" of what was formerly the Christmas season. "Okay, they want Christ back in Christmas? Fair enough, we'll just replace Christmas with something more generic and secular."
That's an over-simplification, of course; there were and are undoubtedly other forces at work. But it does point to the fact that popular opinion, particularly but not exclusively the so-called "intellectual elite" that are represented in/by the governing and "talking classes," are mistrustful of a too-open or too-enthusiastic display of public religiosity.
I can empathize with this, frankly. For one thing, while we are indeed guaranteed "freedom of religion, not freedom from religion," as the saying goes, even within Christianity there is so much variation in doctrine and practice that it's hard to say what a "Christian nation" would look like, even if it were attainable. As an Anglican Christian, I have to say that I would be decidedly uncomfortable with, say, a Baptist theocracy (no offense to any Baptists on-board), simply because some elements of their doctrine and practice are quite different from some of mine.
Thus the wisdom of our American Founders in refusing to establish a religion, still less a denomination, for this country. I do not happen to believe there needs to be a "wall of separation between Church and State" (a private opinion of one of the Founders which does not appear in any public document of the Founding), but I do think there needs to be at least a semi-permeable membrane, to control and limit what passes from one to the other.
The intentions of our Founders aside, there are plenty of reasons why someone might mistrust or even dislike Christianity. One that I have wrestled with, at various times in my life, is the sometimes excessive zeal with which some Christians attempt to fulfill the Great Commission. Pushy anyone -- salesman or evangelist -- turns me off, personally. And if you link that to the frequent implication (if not flat-out statement) that if you are not "saved," by the would-be evangelist's definition (often including membership in his or her particular denomination or sect), you are thereby damned, you have a recipe for breeding a dislike not only of that proselytizer and his/her church, but Christianity as a whole. Guilt by association, as it were.
Then there is the question of what I like to call an honest agnosticism, which many of us have to a greater or lesser degree. I am no atheist, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do tend to agree with the words of one atheistic author, who recently wrote something to the effect that "religion is the only sphere of human discourse in which it's considered noble to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about." Insistence on belief -- particularly intellectual assent in a literalist way, rather than a more metaphorical or metaphysical understanding -- in things about which no human being could possibly be certain is a good way to turn off many folks with an intellectual frame of mind.
There is also another issue which has probably become more of an issue since 9/11, and that is the stated desire by some Christian conservatives to "restore" or "return" America to its identify as a Christian nation. That's the sort of thing that sounds good when you're saying it within your own faith community, or even when you look at it in historical terms... but whether it's a good idea, in practice, now, is an entirely different kettle of fish.
We are a vastly more heterogenous -- diverse -- people, religiously, culturally, and ethnically, now in 2007 than we were in 1907, and moreso then than in 1807. And the question I raised above returns: to what sort of Christianity are we to "return"? Anglican? Presbyterian? Methodist? Baptist? And which branch of those denominations, at that? Or maybe non-denominational? That would be an a-historical novelty, not a return.
So even if all were agreed that it was a good idea (as, in fact, all are not), there are a plethora of practical and theological difficulties in attaining that goal. I am not, personally, a blind supporter of multi-culturalism as an automatic and absolute good, but I am also cognizant of the fact that, even if we wanted to, a return to a (mostly) WASP culture and religion in the US is out of the question, practically speaking.
And even the idea of America as a "Christian nation" has resonances that seem sinister, for many people, in the age of radical Islamofascism. We are fighting the likes of the Taliban and al-Qaeda; we do not, by and large, want to become them, or a Christian mirror-image of them. But talk of returning to being a Christian nation, with traditional Christian morality, Christian values and ethics, and so on -- particularly when couched in terms like "God-fearing" or "godly living" -- sets many folks' teeth on edge. Translated into Arabic, those kinds of terms and expressions sound a lot like what comes out of Islamist websites.
I am not saying that conservative Christians are Taliban-like, or that a "Christian America" would look like Afghanistan, only without the burkhas. But the danger is there, and more importantly, the perception is there. I think if more conservative Christians could step back and look at how things like praying for mass conversions, or talking about restoring America to Christianity, look to people outside their own faith community, they would see that it can appear quite threatening, even if that is not their intention.
I guess in wrapping up I mean to say that while I believe it is an unfortunate truth, and not just a perception, that Christians (especially of the conservative variety) are often unfairly put upon, censored, etc., this situation does not arise in a vacuum, or simply out of a desire to be mean. I hate to say it, but sometimes conservative Christians' actions and attitudes, words and deeds, can provide ammunition to their foes... or even not necessarily foes, just people who have a broader view when it comes to issues of spirituality, morality, etc., than do those conservative Christians themselves.
And in saying all this, I am certainly not intending to be mean, or judgemental, or anything of the sort, myself! Just trying to provide some context for a situation which often seems to leave folks wondering "why?"
I love all my friends on this board, whatever their spiritual path, and I (along with my mother, while she was alive) have been the grateful recipient of prayers and positive thoughts from folks of a wide variety of faith traditions. I am deeply grateful for the prayers of my Christian friends who have been praying for Ma and me, but I am not less grateful for the prayers, thoughts, energy, etc., of my friends of other faiths. Many threads go into making a strong-but-beautiful tapestry.
And I suppose that, finally, is my message and my hope in writing this: that we will all come to understand each other better, and appreciate each other more. I think we on this board are further along that path than many folks, and I hope we can continue the journey together, all of us. If I have a hope and a dream and a wish for us here, it would be that we could not only talk and share together and with each other openly but non-judgementally, but that we could also pray with and for each other in ways that maintain the integrity of our own faith traditions, but also respect those of others.
In that way we could be even more what we are already: a microcosm and an example of the way the world could, and ought, to be.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Unintended consequences haunt U.S. actions
Okay, I admit it. I was wrong.
In the days leading up to the Iraq invasion, I questioned the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive war, on the grounds that it would lead dozens of other countries around the world to preemptively invade their neighbors on a variety of flimsy pretexts. After all, if the great United States thinks it's morally justified to invade because it thinks someone might attack it, why shouldn't others?
This, however, did not happen. Unfortunately, however, what did happen, which I utterly failed to predict, is even worse. Countries around the world started making decisions, and conducting actions, out of fear that we might attack them preemptively.
Iran has been the loudest and most belligerent of those, but North Korea's efforts have been the most successful (read: frightening). Kim Jong Il's autocratic but impoverished family fiefdom has managed to "go nuclear," at least in a minor but worrying way. It has also done pretty well about developing long-range missiles that could, if they get the bugs ironed out, carry a North Korean nuclear warhead all the way to the West Coast of the United States.
Kim is a nut-case, granted. But his histrionic avowals that his nuclear program is only defensive in nature, to avert a U.S. attack, don't ring as hollow as they should, taken in the context of Iraq. Ditto Iran, and its pursuit of a "peaceful" nuclear program. Ditto Syria. Ditto, probably, half-a-dozen other countries that may be surreptitiously trying to create or acquire nukes: the fact that we attacked Iraq, which didn't have nuclear weapons, and did not attack North Korea, which does, is not lost on despotic regimes worldwide.
Most concerning of all has been the reaction of Russia. A few weeks ago, the general commanding Russia's strategic missile forces warned that Poland and the Czech Republic could be targeted by Russian missiles if they agreed to host U.S. anti-missile defenses, according to an AP report. This, despite U.S. insistence that the defenses are aimed at a missile attack from the Mideast, not Russia -- a claim bolstered by the small size of the defense, which Russia could overcome with ease.
It might be tempting to dismiss these threats as the blusterings of a bellicose, vodka-swilling bullyboy (take a look at a picture of General Solovtsov, and you'll see what I mean), were it not for the words of his suave, sophisticated, and coldly dangerous boss not long before.
Vladimir Putin is a shining example of the fact that you can take the man out of the KGB, but you can't take the KBG out of the man. He has the background of a Soviet-era secret police boss, which he was, and the instincts of a Russian tsar, which he appears to be headed toward becoming.
On February 10th, again according to AP reports, Putin accused the U.S. of "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations," and stated that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," and that this was forcing countries opposed to the U.S. to build up their nuclear arsenals, fomenting a new arms race.
Now, one can observe that the Kremlin complaining of American use of force in international relations and overstepping our national borders is a decided case of the pot calling the kettle black. But that does not mean that Putin is entirely wrong, particularly when he notes that "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts."
One can quibble over the use of the word "illegitimate." But it is plain that our post-9/11 tendency to go it alone, or with a shaky coalition of the not-entirely-willing, to believe that preemption is an appropriate response to potential threats, to attempt to solve political and social problems with military force, and to believe that 9/11 gave America the moral right to do basically whatever we felt like in the world, has not only failed to achieve the desired ends, but has destabilized the balance of power both in the Middle East, and in the world as a whole.
We can only hope that the next president, of whichever party, proves more willing to engage in multi-lateral negotiations to resolve problems and threats diplomatically, preserving the option to use force as a last resort, not a first choice -- and that the world situation does not worsen too much in the interim.
In the days leading up to the Iraq invasion, I questioned the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive war, on the grounds that it would lead dozens of other countries around the world to preemptively invade their neighbors on a variety of flimsy pretexts. After all, if the great United States thinks it's morally justified to invade because it thinks someone might attack it, why shouldn't others?
This, however, did not happen. Unfortunately, however, what did happen, which I utterly failed to predict, is even worse. Countries around the world started making decisions, and conducting actions, out of fear that we might attack them preemptively.
Iran has been the loudest and most belligerent of those, but North Korea's efforts have been the most successful (read: frightening). Kim Jong Il's autocratic but impoverished family fiefdom has managed to "go nuclear," at least in a minor but worrying way. It has also done pretty well about developing long-range missiles that could, if they get the bugs ironed out, carry a North Korean nuclear warhead all the way to the West Coast of the United States.
Kim is a nut-case, granted. But his histrionic avowals that his nuclear program is only defensive in nature, to avert a U.S. attack, don't ring as hollow as they should, taken in the context of Iraq. Ditto Iran, and its pursuit of a "peaceful" nuclear program. Ditto Syria. Ditto, probably, half-a-dozen other countries that may be surreptitiously trying to create or acquire nukes: the fact that we attacked Iraq, which didn't have nuclear weapons, and did not attack North Korea, which does, is not lost on despotic regimes worldwide.
Most concerning of all has been the reaction of Russia. A few weeks ago, the general commanding Russia's strategic missile forces warned that Poland and the Czech Republic could be targeted by Russian missiles if they agreed to host U.S. anti-missile defenses, according to an AP report. This, despite U.S. insistence that the defenses are aimed at a missile attack from the Mideast, not Russia -- a claim bolstered by the small size of the defense, which Russia could overcome with ease.
It might be tempting to dismiss these threats as the blusterings of a bellicose, vodka-swilling bullyboy (take a look at a picture of General Solovtsov, and you'll see what I mean), were it not for the words of his suave, sophisticated, and coldly dangerous boss not long before.
Vladimir Putin is a shining example of the fact that you can take the man out of the KGB, but you can't take the KBG out of the man. He has the background of a Soviet-era secret police boss, which he was, and the instincts of a Russian tsar, which he appears to be headed toward becoming.
On February 10th, again according to AP reports, Putin accused the U.S. of "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations," and stated that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," and that this was forcing countries opposed to the U.S. to build up their nuclear arsenals, fomenting a new arms race.
Now, one can observe that the Kremlin complaining of American use of force in international relations and overstepping our national borders is a decided case of the pot calling the kettle black. But that does not mean that Putin is entirely wrong, particularly when he notes that "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts."
One can quibble over the use of the word "illegitimate." But it is plain that our post-9/11 tendency to go it alone, or with a shaky coalition of the not-entirely-willing, to believe that preemption is an appropriate response to potential threats, to attempt to solve political and social problems with military force, and to believe that 9/11 gave America the moral right to do basically whatever we felt like in the world, has not only failed to achieve the desired ends, but has destabilized the balance of power both in the Middle East, and in the world as a whole.
We can only hope that the next president, of whichever party, proves more willing to engage in multi-lateral negotiations to resolve problems and threats diplomatically, preserving the option to use force as a last resort, not a first choice -- and that the world situation does not worsen too much in the interim.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Tribute to my Mother
A Tribute to my Mother
Jean Elizabeth (Reamer) Harbold ~ “Betty,” “Ma”
July 9, 1927 – February 27, 2007
By Tom Harbold
I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
Phillipians 4:13
Jean Elizabeth (Reamer) Harbold ~ “Betty,” “Ma”
July 9, 1927 – February 27, 2007
By Tom Harbold
I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
Phillipians 4:13
At approximately 8:15 on the evening of Tuesday, February 27th, 2007, our kind, gentle, loving, feisty, spirited, and devoted mother passed out of this world and into, we believe, closer communion with a loving God, and reunion with our late father, her parents, and many other loved ones who have gone before. Our sadness is great, but so is our relief and joy that she has been released from the suffering that marked the last portion of her life on this earth.
Much could be said about the strength and determination with which she fought for life, or about the peace and holiness of her final passing. But I would like to direct my gaze further back, leapfrogging over the times of pain and suffering to reflect on who Ma was and how much she influenced my life, and the lives of all her family.
You see, family came first in my mom's life. Having lived through the deprivations and fears of the Great Depression and World War Two, she received an excellent liberal arts education at (then) Western Maryland College, graduating in 1949. Shortly thereafter she married my father, a WW II vet whose family attended the Methodist church where her father was pastor. Ma was always proud to be a Methodist minister's daughter, and she brought up her three sons in the Christian faith she professed.
In the early years of her marriage to my father, Ma was a schoolteacher, but it did not take long for her to realize that her true vocation was to the wellbeing of her family. Although it required a lot of scrimping and saving, especially in the early years, she became a full-time wife, mother, and homemaker, and excelled at all three roles.
I think there is probably no question that all three of us boys took Ma somewhat for granted, growing up. She was simply always present, always directly involved in our lives. She patched up our cuts and bruises. She sent us off to school with a good breakfast under our belts and home-packed lunchboxes in our hands. She was there when we came home from school as well, doubtless keeping us out of at least some of the trouble we might otherwise have gotten in.
She made sure we did our homework, but she also gave us plenty of time to simply be boys -- building models, playing with stuffed animals and other toys, or heading to the woods to explore and build "forts." I will never forget playing out in the woods, a good distance from home, only to hear, about dinnertime, a resounding "TOMMMM!" echoing through the forest, calling me home to dinner. And when I arrived, it was to the mouth-watering smells and (usually, with a handful of memorable exceptions) delicious tastes of a home-cooked dinner.
Nor will I ever forget all the times she stood by my bedside, singing songs and reading stories to me, or sharing poems from "the big blue poetry book." I was plagued by migraine headaches as a child, and I can only imagine the back-strain as she stood patiently at my bed, rubbing my head to soothe my pain. I was grateful to be able to perform a similar function for her, in her last days.
Although sewing wasn't her favorite domestic task, my mom was an excellent seamstress, rather a martinet when it came to keeping the house spic-and-span, and taught us to fold clothes with expertise and make our beds with "hospital corners." And oh, the cakes and pies, cookies and brownies and "marble squares" she baked! Holidays were celebrated with delectable foods and special decorations, and she loved what she called "entertaining" – having friends over for dinner and an evening of talking and visiting.
She was very active in her church: when I was growing up, Mt. Zion (United) Methodist, in High¬land, Maryland. She and Pa both sang in the choir at times, and she was often an officer in the Women's Society, later United Methodist Women. She was also active in the now-defunct Homemakers Club.
Ma was not perfect, of course; no human is. But she was a living embodiment of motherly love, and an amazing example of selfless, sacrificial, and immensely loving devotion to her family, and to all the tasks and duties that go into making a house a home. Thank you, Ma. I will try my best to live up to the example you set. And there will be a meeting again.
My Mother’s Piano
By Tom Harbold
By Tom Harbold
This essay appeared as a column in the Carroll County Times on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006.
Just to the left of the front entrance of the house where I live with my mother is the formal living room: what I call the "parlor," asserting that the true "living room" is the family room, since that's where we do most of our living. Call it living room or parlor, though, the front room's centerpiece is clearly our upright piano. The piano. My mother's piano.
Both of my parents were excellent amateur musicians in their younger days. My father was good enough that, after being wounded in action in World War Two and making his way through field hospitals and the "repple depple" (replacement depot), he was tapped for the regimental band, in which he played both piano and trumpet during the post-war occupation of Germany.
My mother grew up in a Methodist parsonage, where she learned to play both the piano and organ at church services, often assisting or substituting for the regular organist. Both parents sung in the choirs of the various churches they attended, and my father directed the choir at one of them. He gave the piano to my mother shortly after they were married – at the time, a major investment, and a sign of the love which shone so deeply through their marriage until his death in 1999, and continues to shine in her frequent reminiscences of him.
I was a relatively late addition to the family, and by my arrival, the heyday of my parents' musical ventures had largely passed. Largely, but not entirely. My father, as might be expected, could play a rare tune when the inspiration hit him, but it was my mother's more frequent playing – usually of traditional hymns, or classic Christmas carols in season -- that had the greatest effect. There are many reasons, for instance, why both spirituality and the environment are deeply important in my life, but surely listening to my mother playing and singing "How Great Thou Art," her loving voice blending with the movements of her strong but gentle hands on the keys, was an important contributing factor.
I find it interesting and a little curious that I have been noticing my mother's piano, and the void left by its silence, more and more often now that she is absent from the house. Having injured herself in a fall a few weeks before Easter, she has been either in the hospital or convalescing and undergoing physical therapy ever since. As her live-in caretaker, as well as loving son, I miss her presence, of course. But it's been poignant to realize how much I miss her piano-playing, too.
To miss it so much just now is perhaps not entirely rational – due to painful arthritis, her playing has been ever less frequent in recent years -- but rationality counts for little where matters of emotion are involved. And there is something about music, or its lack, which touches our emotions deeply. In a sense, the un-played piano has come to stand for the lack of my mother's physical presence, as well as my regret for the advancing years which have robbed her hands of so much of their former agility, over the past decade or so.
It is never easy, seeing one's parents age. Especially not if you love them. But barring catastrophe, it is inevitable, and as my maternal grandfather aptly put it, "getting older is no fun, but it sure beats the alternative." My mother is doing well in her physical therapy, and if her progress continues, should be home in a week or two. For how much longer, though? That is the question. God willing, she'll be around to love and be loved by her family for a good many more years. But not, necessarily, in this house.
And perhaps that is why my throat gets suddenly and unexpectedly tight, and my eyes a little misty, as I run my hand along the smooth, lightly dust-covered cherry wood of my mother's piano. It's not just for the missing music that I mourn. It's for the end of an era which seems, whatever happens, to be drawing slowly toward its close.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Ma has fought the good fight, she has finished the race
My beloved mother, Jean Elizabeth (Reamer) Harbold, known to her friends as "Betty" and to her sons as our dear, wonderful, and much-loved Ma, passed out of this mortal life and into "a brighter light, upon a further shore" at about 8:15 p.m. this evening, Tuesday, February 27th, 2007.
Although she had been in considerable respiratory distress the last two days, and this afternoon and evening was particularly difficult, her final passing was a peaceful one, as the Lord she has loved and followed all her days sent His angels to safely escort her kind and gentle spirit home.
She never made it to hospice, but was given comfort care at Carroll Hospital Center, and she passed into the next world attended by all three of her sons -- my brothers and myself -- along with one of her daughters-in-law and her youngest niece. My brother John and sister-in-law Susan had prevailed upon me to take some time from Ma's side and come home to have dinner with them, which I did... difficult though it was to leave her. In the meantime, we later learned, my other brother Mark had been joined by his daughter Hannah, who read Ma some of her (Ma's) favorite poems from our "Big Blue Poetry Book," as we always called it -- thus undoubtedly easing her grandmother's final time on this earth.
When John, Susan, and I returned, it was to find Ma breathing far more slowly -- and, thankfully, entirely without distress. Her skin had lost its feverish flush, and was in fact already beginning to fade to pale. Realizing that the end was very near, we rallied around her, holding her hands and resting our hands upon her. I read the final commendatory prayers at the time of departure from the Book of Common Prayer. At some point during or shortly following those prayers, Ma breathed her last, slipping quietly away in utter peace, with prayers in her ears and poems in her heart.
She spoke no word, nor did she open her eyes -- but earlier today her eyes were wide open and tracking, drinking in everything she could of us... perhaps to strengthen herself for her final battle? She even fought her way through the fog of morphine to look deeply into my eyes, communicating her love without need for words. We, all of us, were given a final opportunity to say "goodbye." What a blessing. What a grace.
Those of you who know my mom, and the struggles, pains, and travails she's been through in the last year-and-a-half, especially, and really since the accident in 1999, will understand that while our loss of Ma is a loss that cannot be mended -- she was such a major presence in my life, especially, and the solid core and pillar of our family -- and I am suffering great grief and deep sadness, I am also experiencing feelings of relief and gratitude, that her long suffering is over.
There will be no more interminable visits to the doctors, no sudden hospitalizations, no poking and prodding and IV "sticks," no dressing changes or walkers or unappetizing nursing home food. She will not suffer pain in her back, her legs, or anywhere else; there will be no more pyoderma gangrenosum, no more osteoporosis, no more piles of pills to somehow swallow. Her lungs will never again fill with fluid, her legs swell, or her poor vertebrae compress. She will have no fear of atrial fibrillation or congestive heart failure. She will be in no danger of falling, and will suffer no difficulty swallowing. She need not fear the loss of her mental acuity or her dignity with the progression of dementia (which I think would have particularly appalled her). No nurses or techs will bother her at odd times of the night to check her vitals, and she won't have to wait for somebody to help her when she needs it.
She is free, and at peace. The "long goodbye" is over.
Now it just remains for me to learn how to live without her... and that won't be easy.
I have been Ma's caregiver for so long that I have nearly forgotten how NOT to be her caregiver. I will undoubtedly have more time to myself in the days ahead, and the nights too. I will undoubtedly have more freedom of action, of travel. But I would gladly trade it all for the sight of Ma's smile, or the twinkle in her eyes, or a hug, or the chance to read poetry to her again (or, going further back, one of her home-cooked meals, or a fresh-baked cake with homemade icing). As I used often to put it, modifying the familiar saying, "She's not heavy, she's my mother." I threw myself body and soul into caring for Ma, and it will take some time to learn to drag myself back out.
Please pray for me, friends. And for all the family, as I am not the only one who will be suffering grief and sadness at her loss. But please also rejoice with me that Ma's pain and suffering is at an end, and she is at peace.
And if you possibly can, please do love your parents, and show them that you care. They gave you life -- and if they're even halfway decent, very much more, often at great sacrifice to themselves. You never know when they'll be taken from you. Give 'em a hug, for me.
Tom
Although she had been in considerable respiratory distress the last two days, and this afternoon and evening was particularly difficult, her final passing was a peaceful one, as the Lord she has loved and followed all her days sent His angels to safely escort her kind and gentle spirit home.
She never made it to hospice, but was given comfort care at Carroll Hospital Center, and she passed into the next world attended by all three of her sons -- my brothers and myself -- along with one of her daughters-in-law and her youngest niece. My brother John and sister-in-law Susan had prevailed upon me to take some time from Ma's side and come home to have dinner with them, which I did... difficult though it was to leave her. In the meantime, we later learned, my other brother Mark had been joined by his daughter Hannah, who read Ma some of her (Ma's) favorite poems from our "Big Blue Poetry Book," as we always called it -- thus undoubtedly easing her grandmother's final time on this earth.
When John, Susan, and I returned, it was to find Ma breathing far more slowly -- and, thankfully, entirely without distress. Her skin had lost its feverish flush, and was in fact already beginning to fade to pale. Realizing that the end was very near, we rallied around her, holding her hands and resting our hands upon her. I read the final commendatory prayers at the time of departure from the Book of Common Prayer. At some point during or shortly following those prayers, Ma breathed her last, slipping quietly away in utter peace, with prayers in her ears and poems in her heart.
She spoke no word, nor did she open her eyes -- but earlier today her eyes were wide open and tracking, drinking in everything she could of us... perhaps to strengthen herself for her final battle? She even fought her way through the fog of morphine to look deeply into my eyes, communicating her love without need for words. We, all of us, were given a final opportunity to say "goodbye." What a blessing. What a grace.
Those of you who know my mom, and the struggles, pains, and travails she's been through in the last year-and-a-half, especially, and really since the accident in 1999, will understand that while our loss of Ma is a loss that cannot be mended -- she was such a major presence in my life, especially, and the solid core and pillar of our family -- and I am suffering great grief and deep sadness, I am also experiencing feelings of relief and gratitude, that her long suffering is over.
There will be no more interminable visits to the doctors, no sudden hospitalizations, no poking and prodding and IV "sticks," no dressing changes or walkers or unappetizing nursing home food. She will not suffer pain in her back, her legs, or anywhere else; there will be no more pyoderma gangrenosum, no more osteoporosis, no more piles of pills to somehow swallow. Her lungs will never again fill with fluid, her legs swell, or her poor vertebrae compress. She will have no fear of atrial fibrillation or congestive heart failure. She will be in no danger of falling, and will suffer no difficulty swallowing. She need not fear the loss of her mental acuity or her dignity with the progression of dementia (which I think would have particularly appalled her). No nurses or techs will bother her at odd times of the night to check her vitals, and she won't have to wait for somebody to help her when she needs it.
She is free, and at peace. The "long goodbye" is over.
Now it just remains for me to learn how to live without her... and that won't be easy.
I have been Ma's caregiver for so long that I have nearly forgotten how NOT to be her caregiver. I will undoubtedly have more time to myself in the days ahead, and the nights too. I will undoubtedly have more freedom of action, of travel. But I would gladly trade it all for the sight of Ma's smile, or the twinkle in her eyes, or a hug, or the chance to read poetry to her again (or, going further back, one of her home-cooked meals, or a fresh-baked cake with homemade icing). As I used often to put it, modifying the familiar saying, "She's not heavy, she's my mother." I threw myself body and soul into caring for Ma, and it will take some time to learn to drag myself back out.
Please pray for me, friends. And for all the family, as I am not the only one who will be suffering grief and sadness at her loss. But please also rejoice with me that Ma's pain and suffering is at an end, and she is at peace.
And if you possibly can, please do love your parents, and show them that you care. They gave you life -- and if they're even halfway decent, very much more, often at great sacrifice to themselves. You never know when they'll be taken from you. Give 'em a hug, for me.
Tom
Living life in the "ready room"
On U.S. aircraft carriers during World War Two, fighter pilots who were on duty but not actually in the air waited in “ready rooms” until the time they were called to launch themselves into action. By all reports, the atmosphere in these rooms was a mixture of boredom, tension, nervous anticipation, memories of past actions, and fears and concerns about future ones. The pilots typically put on a brave, even blasé, front, but undoubtedly fooled no one, not even themselves.
As my mother's health problems have advanced over the last year-and-a-half or more, both the number and variety of her ailments and the number and variety of her hospitalizations increasing all the time, I have been experiencing my own version of what I've come to recognize as “ready room syndrome.” Nervousness, tension, fearful anticipation of the next incident, and a mix of unpleasant memories and worries about the future have become a part of my day-to-day life.
I am not complaining when I say this, I am merely noting the fact. My mother has always been my best friend and confidant. After the loss of my father back in 1999 in an accident that left her injured, and perhaps jump-started the series of health problems that led to her current situation, I have felt ever more responsible for her, and protective of her.
My brothers, both of whom live reasonably close, and their families have helped, of course, and I am deeply grateful for their efforts. Without them, the situation as a whole, and my stress level, would be vastly worse than it is now. However, they have families of their own, and so their efforts, energies, and attentions have necessarily and rightly been divided.
Since I am currently single, and have furthermore been living in the home I've shared with my mother (and my father, while he was still alive) since 1989, Ma has been the major focus of my life since her health started to decline. Again, this is not a complaint, merely a statement of fact: I love my mother, I am deeply grateful for all she has done for me throughout my life, and I consider it a privilege to return some of the love and care she lavished on me when I was growing up. To slightly modify the familiar saying, “she's not heavy, she's my mother.”
Nonetheless, I cannot deny that it has been a strain at times, especially recently, as her overall health has declined still further. I have spent ever more time, it seems, in the ready room, less time below-decks in the crew quarters or wardroom.
Recently it has come to me that I need to be much more intentional about practicing what is known as “self-care.” This is not selfishness, it is an awareness that if I am constantly stressed out -- and thus run down -- not only can I not function as well in other necessary areas of life, of which there are many, but I am also not in condition to provide the best possible support to Ma when she does need me.
Unfortunately this is easier said than done. It is hard to get out of that ready room mentality, to force oneself to relax -- a seeming contradiction. It is essential, though. And so I am trying hard to practice better self-care: to eat fewer meals out, get less carry-out, and cook more at home; to get in bed earlier, rather than stay awake until exhaustion overtakes nervous tension and forces me to bed, and even to find or make time for an occasional nap; to practice spiritual disciplines that are relaxing and centering; to take time to spend time with friends.
Has it helped? A little. You can't undo patterns of 18 months duration or more in a few days or even a few weeks of trying. But I'm making progress. That's the important thing. And so I want to encourage other caregivers who may be in similar situations to do the same: it's easy, I've found, all too easy to let the cares and strains of caregiving interfere with other aspects of life.
It's important to eat right, sleep enough, exercise and/or spend time outside in nature, where the largeness of the natural world helps put our human issues in perspective, pray or meditate, and as the saying goes, “let go and let God.” It's not easy, but it's essential. You can't spend your whole life in the ready room.
As my mother's health problems have advanced over the last year-and-a-half or more, both the number and variety of her ailments and the number and variety of her hospitalizations increasing all the time, I have been experiencing my own version of what I've come to recognize as “ready room syndrome.” Nervousness, tension, fearful anticipation of the next incident, and a mix of unpleasant memories and worries about the future have become a part of my day-to-day life.
I am not complaining when I say this, I am merely noting the fact. My mother has always been my best friend and confidant. After the loss of my father back in 1999 in an accident that left her injured, and perhaps jump-started the series of health problems that led to her current situation, I have felt ever more responsible for her, and protective of her.
My brothers, both of whom live reasonably close, and their families have helped, of course, and I am deeply grateful for their efforts. Without them, the situation as a whole, and my stress level, would be vastly worse than it is now. However, they have families of their own, and so their efforts, energies, and attentions have necessarily and rightly been divided.
Since I am currently single, and have furthermore been living in the home I've shared with my mother (and my father, while he was still alive) since 1989, Ma has been the major focus of my life since her health started to decline. Again, this is not a complaint, merely a statement of fact: I love my mother, I am deeply grateful for all she has done for me throughout my life, and I consider it a privilege to return some of the love and care she lavished on me when I was growing up. To slightly modify the familiar saying, “she's not heavy, she's my mother.”
Nonetheless, I cannot deny that it has been a strain at times, especially recently, as her overall health has declined still further. I have spent ever more time, it seems, in the ready room, less time below-decks in the crew quarters or wardroom.
Recently it has come to me that I need to be much more intentional about practicing what is known as “self-care.” This is not selfishness, it is an awareness that if I am constantly stressed out -- and thus run down -- not only can I not function as well in other necessary areas of life, of which there are many, but I am also not in condition to provide the best possible support to Ma when she does need me.
Unfortunately this is easier said than done. It is hard to get out of that ready room mentality, to force oneself to relax -- a seeming contradiction. It is essential, though. And so I am trying hard to practice better self-care: to eat fewer meals out, get less carry-out, and cook more at home; to get in bed earlier, rather than stay awake until exhaustion overtakes nervous tension and forces me to bed, and even to find or make time for an occasional nap; to practice spiritual disciplines that are relaxing and centering; to take time to spend time with friends.
Has it helped? A little. You can't undo patterns of 18 months duration or more in a few days or even a few weeks of trying. But I'm making progress. That's the important thing. And so I want to encourage other caregivers who may be in similar situations to do the same: it's easy, I've found, all too easy to let the cares and strains of caregiving interfere with other aspects of life.
It's important to eat right, sleep enough, exercise and/or spend time outside in nature, where the largeness of the natural world helps put our human issues in perspective, pray or meditate, and as the saying goes, “let go and let God.” It's not easy, but it's essential. You can't spend your whole life in the ready room.
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