Boston Massacre

As I write, three people are dead and 130 are injured.  Those numbers are sure to rise.  Many of the casualties are children.  The bombs were laced with ball bearings to insure catastrophic damage to victims.  There are numerous stories of legs and arms severed by the blast.  Meanwhile, grim-faced politicians give press conferences devoid of information - little more than displays of determination and the need to say "We are here, and we are in control."  And then there is the obligatory pledge to "bring the perpetrators to justice."

Unfortunately, terrorism cannot be fought with search warrants, and courts, and judges.  The agents involved are both too expendable and too replaceable.  Even if you find them and put them in prison, the political damage inflicted is far more severe than the retribution obtained.  To fight terrorism, you must identity the cause of the terrorist and attack that cause.  You must attack it extra-judicially.  You must make the cost to the terrorist cause greater than the benefit it obtains from attacking you.  That's not an easy fact of life for those of us in the West to face.  We want nice clean divisions between guilt and innocence.  Unless we are willing to see repeats of body parts blown across the street, we aren't going to get that luxury.

Reagan's bombing of Gadaffi's compound in 1986 was an amazingly effective response.  It told Gadaffi that the US was willing to kill him and his family in retaliation for his actions.  He got the message.  Wait.  "Kill his family?"  Yes.  The bombs dropped that night could not discriminate.  The US was willing to kill his family over Lockerbie.  But if that's what it takes to keep airliners from being destroyed in mid-air, then that is what you do.  Better his family dies than the people in the next plane.  That is the necessary strategy.  It's hard and it's cold.  But terrorism is hard and cold.  And it's generally secure from the reach of law enforcement.  So you have to deal with it the old-fashioned way.

Do we have the stomach for it?  Well, one thing is for sure.  If bombs keep going off, we will develop the stomach for it.

Let me be Restored

You might have noticed that Tiger Woods has been actively trying to rehabilitate his reputation.  He used to be an advertising money-machine, but that was before he became the marketing equivalent of radio-active waste.  Even so, lots of people have a vested financial interest in Tiger Woods.  The PGA wants to market him again - since he is the only media-relevant golfer on the Tour.  Advertisers remember the market footprint that Tiger once possessed.  But his negatives are extraordinary.  What is Tiger to do?

To begin with, he presents himself in a stable relationship with a new girlfriend in a carefully staged media campaign.  Call this the campaign to recapture female trust.  No more bad Tiger chasing anything with female genitalia.  He has learned the lesson of faithfulness.  Or so the story goes.  This is interesting in itself because there are two contradictory thoughts about the ongoing consequences of the scandal that are commonly expressed by Tiger's self-proclaimed apologists.  "He has suffered enough" quickly followed by "It's a private matter."

But mostly we are supposed to see Tiger winning - under the theory that "Winning takes care of everything."  This is the "Forget the Sex scandal and focus on how great I am" campaign.  This allows Tiger to change the subject.  Instead of talking about his latest golf failure and the causal relationship of that failure to Tiger's sex scandal, we can talk about his latest 30-foot putt for Birdie to win.  That was supposed to be the case tonight.  We were supposed to be hearing claims that "Tiger is back!"  But he lost at Augusta.  Good.  I hope he keeps losing.

The problem with Tiger's rehabilitation is that it is intended to address only the consequences that he himself suffered.  His exposure.  His humiliation.  His damaged reputation.  His financial loss.  More than anything, his collapsed golf game.  It's more an exercise in reclamation than rehabilitation.  But it doesn't address the cost he inflicted on those whom he betrayed and humiliated - his ex-wife and children.  What is he doing to provide restitution to them?  He inflicted permanent cost by virtue of his behavior.  He is attempting to escape permanent consequence by saying "Enough time has passed.  Let me be restored."  If it's only about him, then it is nothing but a self-interested attempt to restore himself to his previous position.

Tiger has become the self-proclaimed poster boy for the trivialization of adultery and sexual betrayal.  It's supposed to be a private matter now.  People are just supposed to 'get over it.'  And if you tell this to one of Tiger's apologists, he will quickly point out that Tiger's ex-wife is doing quite well, thank you.  But not everyone who is so betrayed is so fortunate.  Many are humiliated and abandoned and remaindered to a life of loneliness and isolation and financial deprivation.  They have no advocate.  They have no court of justice.  There is no one to vindicate the wrong that has been inflicted upon them.  It's a private matter now.  They are just told to 'get over it.'  Every woman so treated looks at Tiger as the icon of the man who betrayed her.  And they want him to suffer as they have suffered.  But now we are poised to re-admit him to the world of responsible money-making adulthood.  We are poised to bury the betrayal in an unmarked grave.  And what does that say to the betrayed?

Anyways, he won't be re-admitted tonight.  He lost again.

Open Casket

I went to a funeral today.  The deceased was a relative of my wife - the son of a cousin of my father-in-law.  I didn't know the man, and in fact I could not place him beyond his name when my wife told me of his death.  We had to the best of my knowledge never conversed.  One attends such funerals for the sake of family obligation. Even so, a funeral is always an opportunity to confront the reality of death, and the awful velocity of life's passage.  It is common to see a slide show of pictures that displays the events of a man's life.  Decades are compressed into five minutes, and thus make manifest the speed at which the grains of golden sand slip through our fingers.

This funeral was unique for me in that my life intersected with his at only two occasions - his wedding and his funeral.  It's odd to see bookends to a story with no connection between the two.  He married after me.  He died before me.  In between he lived a shortened life that was totally invisible.  I clearly remember the wedding, and so my last image before the funeral is of the promise of beginning.  You turn away, and look back again.  The beginning has become the end in the blink of an eye.  The wedding dress is exchanged for a widow's veil, and there is nothing to mediate the difference.

The funeral itself was empty.  There was a random collection of Bible verses tied together by no particular theme.  There was a little talk by a minister that consisted mostly of memories laced here and there with religious happy-speak.  There was the unfortunate invitation for people to get up and 'say a few words' about the dead.  Two songs of a religious nature, and a recessional to a rock song I had never heard before.  That was it.  There was no mention of sin.  There was no mention of redemption.  There was no mention of the Cross.  No mention of the Gospel at all.  The assembly was not confronted with the reality of death.  The funeral wasn't about God at all.  It was about us - or rather those who knew the dead man.

There was one particular moment however that will remain in my memory.  The body was displayed in an open casket in front of the chapel prior to the funeral.  Perhaps 15 minutes before the start of the funeral, the family went to view the body before the casket was closed.  And I saw this man's 14 year-old daughter stand before his open casket to behold the face of her father for the very last time.  I have daughters, you see.  A man with daughters will notice daughters.  I wondered what she was thinking in those minutes.   I wondered what my daughters would think.  A few minutes, and it was time.  The family departed the front of the chapel.  Two members of the funeral home came forward, and closed the casket.   He would never be seen again in this world.

Mike died of a rare infection.  No one quite understands how he contracted it.  Two days before his death, he thought he was past the point of danger.  So he didn't get to say good bye.  He was 45.  He leaves behind a daughter soon to start High School.  He leaves behind a wife of not even 20 years.  He leaves behind bitter tears of hopes and expectations unfulfilled.  Man who is born of woman is short-lived and full of turmoil.  Job 14.1

Prisoner of Paradise

A week or so ago, I watched on Netflix a documentary called Rise of the Double Eagle about Hitler's political emergence prior to January 1933.  Netflix (which except for sports is about all the justifies a TV set anymore) will present you with a list if selections similar to your recent viewings, and I periodically scan these lists to see what the software might have gathered.   Tonight I scanned the list generated by my viewing of the above documentary and was stopped by the haunting image of a man named Kurt Gerron.  The film is called Prisoner of Paradise.  

Kurt Gerron was a German actor and film director in Wiemar Germany.  He was quite famous in his day, but he was also Jewish.  After Hitler's ascent to power, he quickly lost the ability to work.  He left Germany and bounced around Europe, until he finally settled in Holland.  He was there in the Spring of 1940 when Hitler invaded.  Eventually he was transported to Theresienstadt.  Because he was a capable film director, he was forced by the Germans to make a propaganda film conveying a Potemkim image of life in Theresienstadt.  The film was never completed.  

I will not burden you with details, but only recommend Prisoner of Paradise for your consideration.  It haunts you with the happy images of people who will within a matter of weeks be sent to Auschwitz.  Almost everyone seen in the picture will eventually die at that place.  But there was one particular moment that remains with me.  Soon after he left Germany, Kurt Gerron helped a struggling penniless actor named Peter Lorre raise money to go to Hollywood.  When Gerron was in Holland, Lorre - by now established and worried about events in Europe - sought to return the favor and found work for Gerron in the United States.  Gerron agreed to come but wanted the Movie company to pay for First Class Travel.  The Movie company refused.  Gerron therefore declined the position, and stayed in Holland.  It is sobering to think that upon such a decision could hang the difference between life and death.

In October 1944, Kurt Gerron was loaded on the last train from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.  He was killed on 28 October 1944.  Aged 47 years, six months.

Why Do Men Hate Women's Basketball?

We are rapidly approaching the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Which means that once again ESPN will begin its annual quest to make Women's Basketball somehow culturally relevant.  It will prominently feature stories about the Women's Tournament.  It will broadcast the selection of teams for the Women's Tournament.  It might even televise some games from the Women's tournament - on ESPN2 of course.   Well, a few of them might be broadcast on ESPN in prime time.  ESPN does this every year, and every year it fails.  No one watches.  And yet it continues - year after year after dreary year.

Look I get it.  Basketball is the only major money-making sport in the US that women also play.  If a non-traditional Women's sport (i.e. not figure skating) is ever going to make the big time in terms of money and popularity, it will be Basketball.  But it just isn't going to happen.  And so once again, we will get the same dreary post-Women's Tournament analyses that ask the same dreary question.  Why won't men watch women's basketball?  Why do they in fact seem to hate it? 

Enlightened opinion will wrinkle its fevered brow and ponder this question.  "Basketball is basketball!  It's a different game but an exciting game.  It's pure.  The women exhibit fundamentally more sound skills!"   It will puzzle and puzzle until its puzzler is sore, and then ... once again conclude (year after year after dreary year) that men just have "gender issues."  It will conclude that men need to have their consciousness raised - that if only they are forced to watch it, they will learn to like it.  Cue ESPN to gather its lance and tilt once again at windmills.

You see, that is the source of the problem, and the answer to the question.  Women's basketball isn't a sport.  It's a cause.  Every display of women's basketball on the home page of ESPN is an accusation - a declaration that men are morally deficient for refusing to watch women play basketball.  Every broadcast is a declaration of the Evangel that men and women are inter-changeable parts.  It proceeds from the assumption that a basketball fan should not notice the gender of the players - that noticing the gender of the players is a moral fault and the source of the problem.  Men, who otherwise wouldn't care    one way or the other, feel that accusation and reject it.  In response they learn to despise the source of the accusation.  They wish evil upon it.  They take delight in its poor ratings, and mercilessly mock its failures.

Women's basketball can only become popular when it ceases to be a cause.  Men will not be harangued into watching women play a slower, smaller, less exciting version of the game.  Quit forcing the issue.  Let it earn its place in the sporting world instead of giving it a place it cannot achieve by its own efforts.  But, comes the response, "Men won't watch it. If they aren't trained to watch it, then it will never be able to achieve it's place."  Perhaps not.  But I don't want to be 'trained.'  

Memories of Crew Life - IV

My EWO instructor was Capt Marty Bessant (iirc).  One day during December he wrote a time and a date on the blackboard, and then erased it.  He said it was classified Secret, and it was self-evident he was referring to a missile launch from Vandenberg.  He didn't say why or what.  He just told us the time and date so we could watch for it.  The time was 1700 hours.  The date is gone from my memory.

Vandenberg AFB is dark by 1700 in December, and typically foggy.  The fog was thick that night.  Instead of watching the missile launch, I went to the EWO building to study.  I figured the fog would obscure any view.  I was studying at a table around the appointed time when I suddenly heard the loud report of a rocket engine being ignited.  It continued for some 20 seconds and then there was a loud 'Boom!' followed by silence.  The missile had exploded soon after lift-off.  The noise of that launch and the even the vibration in the building was beyond my expectation.

Years later I discovered that the failed launch was an Atlas F carrying Navstar 7 - one of the early GPS satellites.  The date of the failure is listed as 19 December 1981.  Which is strange because I remember it being a weekday, and 19 December is a Saturday.  Was I really studying EWO at 1700 on a Saturday night?  Memory is a tricky thing.

carl

Memories of Crew Life - III

We started Emergency War Order training during the first week in November.  It's the stuff you really want to learn when you first get to IQT.  How does the US plan to fight a nuclear war?  You get to it during the third week of training.  It takes a little while to learn how to operate the weapon system before you can execute a launch command.

IQT had both class room and practical instruction.  The practical instruction occurred in the Missile Procedures Trainer.  Each trainer ride took about five to six hours.  Two hours of weapon system training, another two hours of EWO training, plus a break, and pre-and post-ride instruction.  Since a missilier acts in a crew, we were all assigned crew partners from the class.  We took all of our trainer rides with the same crew partner.  EWO was introduced on our fifth ride soon after we started EWO training in November.  That was the first time we turned keys.  It was the first time I fought a simulated nuclear war.  I would repeat the exercise hundreds of times over the next four years.

The next day was an academic class, and when we showed up in class there was a piece of paper on the tables in front of each chair.  In contained a short statement saying we understood the nature of the mission we were being assigned, and that we agreed to perform that mission.  We had to sign the paper. If we didn't sign the paper we would be administratively discharged for attempting to qualify our duties. They let us perform one commit before they asked for this promise.  It was reasonable even if the MPT couldn't quite indicate the gravity of the mission.

I signed the paper without hesitation, mental reservation, or purpose of evasion.

carl