“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

- Damon Runyon

As I've mentioned here a couple of times I've been considering — and testing — the possibility of making use of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Hiawatha Line for a part of my daily commute. I've ultimately decided to do this starting in August (more on that in a minute). On a micro-level (e.g., my checking account) it makes sense/cents because I can save about $80 bucks a month. I've had my doubts about the macro-savings, both in dollars and energy, of the current public transportation options, but haven't taken the time to dig into it. Fortunately, Bike Bubba did so last week, referencing a report from the Cato Institute:

Metro's buses [Note: St. Louis, MO area. NW] today consume more energy and emit more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, than a typical sport utility vehicle. Its light-rail lines do better, but consume almost as much energy, and emit almost as much greenhouse gas, per passenger mile, as the average car.

Moreover, even where rail operations do save energy, this savings almost never makes up for the huge energy cost of rail construction. Highway construction also consumes energy, but because highways are more heavily used than rail lines, their energy cost per passenger mile is far lower.

If we ignore construction costs, many rail operations do consume less energy than the average auto — but almost none consume less than a Toyota Prius. As Lave suggested in 1979, to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is far more cost effective to encourage people to drive more fuel-efficient cars than to build rail transit lines.

Transit agencies that want to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions should focus on increasing bus loads or reducing the size of their buses. The average Metro bus has 39 seats, yet averages less than 10 passengers. Concentrating service in areas where loads are higher, and using smaller buses in areas or times of day where loads are lower, will do far more to save energy than building rail transit.

So if it's more economically, environmentally and energy-efficient to get people to drive more fuel-efficient cars than it is to get them to build and ride rail transit, how do you "get" them to do so? If only there were some invisible hand that could get people's attention and cause them to act in a more enlightened (or just self-serving) manner! Something like, you know, the marketplace!

While the cost of gas has been driven up due to the oil supply being deliberately restricted, it does create the motivation to look for alternatives. Even as math-averse as I am I can still do it (the math) when I have to, and spending $50 for a tank of gas will get me reaching for a calculator. I think most folks are capable of doing a basic cost/benefit analysis, which brings me to why I'm not going to start my full-time LRT commuting until August.

My parking contract at work requires a 30-day notice to terminate, and can only be given at the first of the month; even if I stop using the ramp I still have to pay for July. Now, if I could get the $39 a month Metropass through my employer it would still be about a push on the savings to pay both parking and transit fee; however I can't get the pass from my employer until the parking comes off the books. I could buy a MTC "GO" pass (actually, recharge the one I've been using) but the rush hour commuting charges would add up to $80 for the month. That means the parking, gas and train fees don't come out in favor of the transit, especially when you add in the extra time and hassle it takes as opposed to driving. So, it's easier on my budget and simpler to drive another month while I satisfy the parking contract, regardless of whatever benefit I perhaps bestow upon the planet (especially dubious given Bike Bubba's revelations). Similarly, in the future if the monetary savings of using transit diminish, or the inconveniences get too big, I reserve the right to change my mind again.

OK, so I guess that it's all about the money for me when it comes to saving the planet. Of course, as Speed Gibson points out, the same goes for the Metropolitan Transit Commission as well.

You've probably heard that transit fares will be rising, probably about 25 cents, probably around October 1st. A number of public hearings are scheduled in July.

Most of us will be paying more for transit July 1, however, when the sales tax goes up 0.25% in Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, Dakota, and Washington Counties. Also starting July 1, you'll be paying a $20 Transit Improvement Vehicle Excise Tax when you sell a vehicle registered in these Counties.

But that's already figured into the projected $15 million shortfall in the fiscal year starting July 1. As I posted earlier, that amount is suspiciously similar to the Light Rail subsidy. Increased business for an enterprise with such high fixed costs should more than cover the rising fuel costs.

So what does Metro Transit do? Raise bus fares, which will reduce ridership by pushing some back into their cars or carpools. And not just this fall, and not just a quarter, mind you. The resolution also would grant authority for another increase of up to fifty cents in 2009.

What else can we do to discourage ridership? Let's expand the morning rush hour to start at 5:30 AM, not 6:00 AM, so we can charge 50 cents more for these early birds. Isn't the purpose of off-peak fares to encourage off-peak ridership?

Oh, and let's make it complicated again, with the return of suburban fare zones to nickel and dime quarter and dollar us further.

All of this of course is just a double shuffle to secretly get more Light Rail subsidies. They're going to need still more money to run the Central Corridor and the Metropolitan Council is willing to further degrade the bus service to get it.

Keep your calculators handy!

Hey, what up, peeps?

I have been doing a lot of baking, even though I haven't done a lot of posting. Sorry! I'll give you the rundown (and no, Jifufu, not the version with The Rock).

Let's see, 2 weeks ago, I made these totally awesome cookies that were posted by a fellow baking blogger. Thanks, Gino!

Along with that, I made Mint Chocolate Chip cupcakes from How to Eat a Cupcake. I had made these two recipes because we were having a barbeque with a bunch of friends. The cupcakes were pretty good, but the kids at our house informed me incessantly that the frosting tasted like toothpaste. I kind of agreed with them, even though I used less peppermint extract than the recipe called for. Maybe next time I'll use even less; or none at all, and just have chocolate buttercream. Mmmmmmm...

Then this past week was poppyseed week! Orange Poppyseed cookies came first. They were completely awesome!! They are the perfect summer cookie.

The second recipe of last week presented itself to me via fanmail. (That's right, I get fanmail*.) It came from the July issue of Family Circle, and was, in fact, on the cover- Giant Lemon Poppyseed cupcakes!
I love pretty much anything lemon poppyseed, and so away I went. I did not make giant cupcakes, because I'm too cheap to order the giant cupcake pan from the magazine, but they were absolutely delicious normally sized. While I was frosting the cuppycakes, Benny was taking pictures, and kind of irking me at the same time. I chased him with my frosting knife. I would post the pics, but I don't know where the little USB thingy is, and I'm too busylazy to find out.





*Thanks, Grandma!

The Night Hens are out for coffee at La Patisserie on Randolph Ave. in St. Paul.
The baked goods are yummy. The coffee is mediocre.

TL: Look, fishnet.
RM: That's chicken wire.
MD: There's a big difference between fishnet and chicken wire. Have you ever heard of chicken wire stockings?

TL: Look, a pair of flip flops.

TL: Since you each had a bite of my hard roll that means I get a bite of both of yours.
MD hands over a piece of cinnamon roll.
TL: See, she gives willingly. You take but you don't give back.
MD: She gave you life.
TL: I didn't ask for it.
TL: There's a book over there called "God knows You're Stressed". It's like "Elmo watches you when you sleep". It's like "They Found Nemo". Yeah, his head was sticking out of a piece of Sushi.

TL: Life would be boring if there were no crazy people.
MD: It would be a lot calmer.

TL: I hate it when the red haired clowns come up to me and say "You must be a relative, you have red hair." And I'm like: (she leans away with a horrified look on her face), and if you come any closer I'll spray you with pepper spray."
TL: Sort of like, 'You wouldn't be caught dead in my shoes!'
MD: Oh, yeah, 'You don't want to wear my shoes. You don't like my shoes! You wouldn't be caught dead in my shoes!!!' *Said with rising impatience*
RM: Um...what?
TL: I said that yesterday when Faith and I were going for a walk.
RM: I'm confused.

MD: I need to practice my singing.
RM: Practice right now.
MD: Not here. I need my piano.
TL: You just need to practice singing in the privacy of your own home.
MD: Until I sing opera.
RM: So, you really are going to be a Diva?
MD: I've always been a Diva.
RM: You know, I knew you when you were really young.

TL: You know, without my input this whole thing would be so boring.
MD: It would be so much funnier, just on a different level.

Join us at some future time when TL says "Look, a giant chicken."

The Battle of the Little Big Horn (or Custer's Last Stand) took place on June 25th and 26th of 1876, 132 years ago this week. When I was a boy one of my cousins had a huge painting on the wall of his bedroom depicting some artist's rendition of Custer's Last Stand. I didn't visit there too often, but I was always fascinated by the picture, and would spend a long time studying it each time, moving out from the main action — Custer standing tall in his buckskins and with saber raised in one hand while the other held his pistol reversed like a club — to the other desperate confrontations that spread edge to edge across the canvas; Indians swarming and shooting, soldiers falling, some already stripped or being scalped. It was a rendering from the artist's imagination, of course, but it obviously fired an interest in me for the history of the battle. Something about the desperateness and the inevitable defeat also had an impact on a young mind that until that time had seen only glorious images of warfare.

Later when I was in college I took a series of elective courses "taught" by author, poet and historian John G. Niehardt. Niehardt had been dead for a few years by the time I took the classes, but the University of Missouri had filmed his lectures and used these and his books as the source material. We read his classics, Black Elk Speaks and When the Tree Flowered, and his epic poem, Twilight of the Sioux (nearly 300 pages!) which included Indian accounts of the battle of the "Greasy Grass" and later the messianic millenarianism of the Ghost Dance movement. It was a fascinating diversion from my other studies and while I didn't (and don't) embrace the attractive mythology of the "Noble Savage" as some might have, it did help me picture the humanity of the Sioux and other Plains Indians, with all the good and bad that comes with that.

A few years ago my family took a two-week, multi-state driving vacation across the West and I at last had the opportunity to visit the famous battleground in Montana. After having heard and read (and seen so many bad movies) of the battle I was expecting to be a little underwhelmed by the reality. Instead I was mesmerized by how well the area had been preserved and made into a national park. You can follow a road from place to place throughout the battlefield, easily following the course of the battle across the bluffs and ravines of the valley of the Big Horn. The 7th Cavalry soldiers were buried where they fell when the other troops arrived two days after the battle. When the bodies were recovered a few years later for re-burial, individual markers were placed for each, in some cases even providing the name and rank of the man who fell there.



Because the battleground is so preserved you can understand how manageable the size of the Indian camp (obscured by a stand of trees) may have appeared to Custer from his initial vantage point, and experience for yourself (almost) the shock Reno had to of felt when he led his force along the river and around those trees only to suddenly see thousands of teepees. Besides the soldiers' markers, historians have also been able to survey the battleground in detail after a massive grass fire cleared the area down to the ground in the 1980s, revealing artifacts and human remains and even making it possible to track individual weapons (identified by their spent cartridge casings) as they moved around the field. You can follow the main body of Custer's troops after the initial attack as they fought their way westward along a ridge (individual markers along the way) to "Custer Hill", the site of the the famous "last stand" where they fell to the last man.


The last stand on Custer Hill. Lt. Col. George A. Custer's marker is the one with the black background.

The day we were there it was incredibly hot; the car thermometer registered an outside temperature of 105 degrees. My wife and daughters were more interested in staying in the car than in understanding the place. Frankly, I could feel the sweat rolling down my face and between my should-blades as I stood at various locations, but I couldn't help but feel the weight of the history as well as I slowly turned my head to scan each panorama, picturing myself in the midst of the markers, seeing nothing but roiling clouds of dust and Sioux surrounding me. It's mind-bending (or it could have been incipient heat stroke). I highly recommend making the stop if you're ever in the vicinity.

I'll also recommend the video below. The song is "The Song of Crazy Horse" and is from an album that I had in college. The ballad itself took up the whole first side of the album, and is only excerpted in this video, though it was obviously created with some love by the YouTube submitter. The song has always stirred me, even though some of the lyrics aren't up to the caliber of the story. The imagery, however, and certain musical passages have long been grooved in my memory. It's certainly not one of the better chapters of our history (and I don't mean the battle itself) but it's certainly worth remembering, even 132 years later.

When my wife became a police chaplain we knew we could expect some tense calls in the middle of the night since chaplains are commonly called on for death notifications. We didn't expect that the first call she received would be for someone we know.

Joe was the kind of guy for whom guardrails were invented. Life had thrown him a few curves and he had a tendency to get a little wide through these at times, drifting out on the edges where the traction can be treacherous. The same age as me, he was whippet thin and had a look about his eyes that suggested a dog that had been kicked too many times. There was no doubt he had been.

Kick a dog, or a man, often enough and he can get mean. That wasn't Joe. There was still a level of optimism, trust and forgiveness in him despite all that he had been through. Some of it was the rub-your-neck admission of the things he knew he had brought on himself, and some of it was a faith that things were inevitably going to get better. He loved his wife, he loved his kids, he loved riding his motorcycle.

His father left home when Joe was two; he didn't see him again for more than 30 years. Once when he had had the opportunity and inclination to do the same thing he pointed his bike toward the open road, but couldn't, wouldn't do it. Bad company and bad choices had often been his reality, but there had also been a share of good choices when he said, "I'm turning around."

Including that most important time, that time when he looked into Hell and said, "I'm turning around."

Monday night was a lovely night for a ride, and one of the few things he could afford right now. He and a friend set out into the darkness and at some point he found one last, non-metaphorical guard rail. His shattered wrist watch said 12:15. Our phone rang not long after. Another chaplain had received the original call-out and gone to the house, but when he arrived Joe's wife had asked for Marjorie.

Today a wisp of a song played through my mind, over and over. An older song, sung by someone who shares my name, called "Midnight Wind".

There are dreams that fly in the midnight wind
Souls that cry in the midnight wind
Lovers who try in the midnight wind
You and I in the midnight wind

Sometimes...you can see, feel the edge coming. And sometimes it drops away from you without warning. You, and I, in the midnight wind.

Wouldn't you just know it, it's the shortest night of the year and I'm hosting Manival #9. What does the summer solstice have to do with anything? Well, since I'm the Night Writer, that means this is the shortest window of opportunity for me all year — and there were 36 entries into this week's carnival to be read, reviewed, accepted or rejected!

I've tried to make it easier for readers to sort through these by organizing the posts into categories and providing a brief description of each article (or maybe just to prove that I read them all). There are 22 linked here; the ones that were excluded were also interesting and well-written but were eliminated for one of two reasons. 1) Multiple submissions from the same blogger (I didn't know until I hosted that the Manival limits you to one post per person per week). 2) The topic was interesting, but not "manly" enough; that is, the topic was general enough to be relevant for a large audience, but not specifically geared toward men. That sounds arbitrary (because it is), but hey — my week, my call.

EDITOR'S CHOICE
I was having a tough time picking a favorite from so many worthy entries but, wouldn't you know, the last entry under the wire blew me away. Man Up: Power by Corey at The Simple Marriage Project. Read it first, or read it last, and see if you don't agree.

PARENTING
On the parenting front, David B. Bohl examines The Difference Between a Dad and a Father on his Slow Down Fast blog.

Tony Chen gets "in the zone" with Tiger Woods and I are Pretty Similar over at SavvyDaddy.

Charlie Kondek goes from Thomas the Tank Engine to "Infinity and Beyond" in examining how his son is learning to distinguish good and evil in Daddy, What Does Evil Mean? at Virile Lit.

Totally Consumed is totally touching in Father to Son: an open letter on leadership.

Dad of Divas offers the thoughtful post Time In a Bottle, reminding us that no one has yet figured out how to get that time to stay in the bottle.

Babbo examines the dark twists on the path to enlightenment in his post Was Buddha a Schmuck? over at Daddy Brain.

Oh boy, just in time for the Solstice, Derek offers 10 Things To Do With Your Kids This Summer from the Man Page. (The article link works fine, just don't try to go directly to his blog's home page because the stupid Bill Engvall audio file will crash your browser - or at least it did to mine, repeatedly. But I'm not bitter. Update: Derek fixed the site, click away).

Inspired by these, I'll link to one of my older posts about a painful, but valuable, lesson my daughters and I learned in Duty is Ours. Results are God's.

GUY STUFF & MANLINESS
Looking to beat a manly retreat from the hustle and bustle of daily life? James Hills has a series of posts on "Man Trips" or "mancations", including a review and interview regarding a Stogies and Sticks golf package at the Arizona Biltmore, on his Man Tripping blog.

Dr. Awesome keeps the Male Bag, I mean, Mail Bag, open with another advice column, this time on the topic of what qualify as manly Careers. (Advance warning, male hairdressers may want to start calling themselves "hair wranglers".) You can check it out on To Every Man a Manswer.

I think you can expect Russ to fully accept any bouquets or brickbats that might come his way from his Accepting Responsibility post over on Escaping Enlightenment.

Doug Rutter asks a question: do you want to "have" kids or "raise" kids in his post Koke has Man Shoes on his self-named blog.

Kevin submitted a couple of good selections for this week's Manival, but I chose his tribute to Tim Russert, not because of it's timeliness but because the inspiration Kevin received is timeless. (While you're on the Return to Manliness blog you might want to look around for his "Top 10 First Date Conversations.")

With a blog named Stormbringer's Thunder, and his own straight-forward manly name, you can be sure Bob has little time for sissies in his post What About the Guys? (Bob seems like the kind of guy who never got in touch with his feminine side, probably because of a restraining order it took out on him).

Dustin at dBlogit gave me two posts to choose from and I selected Why Men Hate Chick Flicks And How to Avoid Watching Them. Though some of his criticisms of chick-flick cliches could also apply to more manly buddy-type action flicks, the clincher is he also offers great escapes for when a chick-flick appears inevitable.

There's a reason the classic TV show Home Improvement featured tools prominently: tools are manly. Andrew from Primer magazine submits a list of the 10 Tools Every Man Should Have, so make sure you've got what it takes.

MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIPS
The Manival has a fine tradition of including "How To" posts. This week Cory Huff has some great advice on "how to shoot yourself in the foot" with The Ultimate Guide To Winning An Argument With Your Spouse at A Good Husband.

A wise man I know often says, "You can be happy, or you can be right." Hayden Tompkins carves a trail for you over similar ground in How to De-Escalate Your Marriage at Persistent Illusion.

I beg your pardon; may I suggest you read Use Your Manners by A Husband on the I Am Husband blog? Thank you.

OTHERS
Andrew Scotchmer has to literally walk the talk (or talk the walk) as he uncovers the benefits of becoming bilingual in Do You, Parlez-Vous? at Complete Kaizen. (And no, GSL - Grunting as a Second Language - doesn't count).

GP offers a great photo and a reflection that dreams — and grace — do come true in a post entitled Zen of the West.


If you'd like to be part of Manival #10 submit your blog article using the Manival submission form.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were playing golf with some folks from New Jersey, lifelong East-coasters enjoying a little of the Midwestern experience. During the round a tornado siren went off, startling and somewhat confusing our guests, who wanted to know what the siren was for.

"It's either a tornado warning or lightening in the vicinity," I said, as I matter-of-factly dialed the clubhouse on my cellphone to get more details since the day was still clear and sunny. Ultimately it turned out that this warning was related to the storm that delivered a deadly tornado on the town of Hugo, MN, a dozen miles away from where we were. As we played golf we saw the skies darken and the ominous clouds coming, remarkably, from opposite directions. It was pretty much standard summer fare for my wife and I (we didn't know until later that evening of the net effects of the storm), but our friends from Jersey seemed to find it rather amazing that people live in a place where deadly storms are a routine part of your existence.

Of course, Nature (as far as we know) hasn't sworn to wipe us out.

I thought of this example the other day as I read Yaacov Ben Moshe's post from Breath of the Beast entitled Welcome to Sderot.

Sderot is an Israeli town within range of Hamas rockets and the victim of the leadership policies of both the Israeli government and that of Hamas that requires a macabre calculus of acceptable losses that keeps both groups of leaders in power ... while killing Jewish civilians. Hamas knows that launching rockets on a slow but steady basis, but killing only a few at a time will maintain its political power base with the jihadis, satisfy its foreign sponsors, while not seriously exposing itself to all out countermeasures from Israel.

Simultaneously, Israel's government tacitly accepts a handful of deaths as being below the threshold of requiring dramatic and deadly response, knowing that it will be pilloried by foreign public opinion and seen as the aggressor if it does so. Ben Moshe cites JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) Report 781:

“For Hamas, the key is to keep the rocket attacks below an understood threshold and Israel's response will be tolerable, precise and produce minimal collateral (Palestinian) damage. The Hamas pattern is to fire one, two or three rockets at Sderot. Wait a few days and do it again. Injure two, three, four Israelis. Kill one or two, but not more than that - this week. Increase the range and accuracy of the rockets incrementally. Hit Ashkelon, but just once. Then wait. Hit a shopping center, but if no one is killed, the Israeli response is unlikely to threaten Hamas rule. If Israel does retaliate, the world will probably be more annoyed by the "disproportionate response" than the original rocket attack.”

Ben Moshe continues:

As I was reading, though, something was bothering me. I was still stuck on the seemingly more limited issue of the terror involved. Who are these people who are being killed by the rockets? How do they live knowing that, only if some, unspecified number of them of them are killed and maimed, will their government be moved to do something about the terror under which they live? This dangerous and painful situation is only partially a product of the Arab/Islamist dream of annihilation of Israel. It is made possible by a combination of ruthless internal enemies (e.g. the far left peace movement), clueless dupes (e.g. Olmert, Livni, et al) and shortsighted erstwhile foreign “friends” who do not understand the reality of the threat. This motley assortment of fools and instigators hold Israel’s defense establishment, her regard for her own citizens and, indeed, her very moral, civic, ethical and intellectual integrity hostage.

His point, or part of it, is that the Israeli government has decided that the greater good for the country, or for itself, is to sacrifice a few for the perceived benefit of the many. Ben Moshe's thoughts as he dwelt on this lead to a chilling analogy:

When Shirley Jackson's famous short story The Lottery was first published sixty years ago in the June 26, 1948 edition of The New Yorker magazine, it set off the most violent reaction the magazine had ever experienced. In the story, the reader is gradually drawn into a nightmare- as what seems to be a “normal” American farming village gathers for some sort of annual community gathering. There is a lottery involved and little by little it becomes apparent that it is a “selection process”. The reader’s curiosity gives way to bemusement as the author quietly seeds in ominous details that build a sense of foreboding. Then, near the end of the story there is a sudden shift to horror when we realize that the “slightly too” nonchalant dialogue and mysterious references have been leading up to the revelation of a sacrificial rite. One person in the community is chosen by lottery to be stoned to death- sacrificed for “the good of all”.

It is little wonder that the story caused the explosion of controversy that it did. A scant three years after World War II, the cataclysmic battle against totalitarianism, here was a story that hinted that the enemy was not dead, but could lie ever so close beneath the surface in the most unlikely of places. Is this lottery totalitarianism? I think it is. It is a society that holds itself hostage in a suicide pact. The eerily believable rationalization that the lottery must be carried out because the welfare of the group is everything- the individual is nothing- is the brutal signature of fascism.

The weird, unconvincing quality of the “reason” that stoning one member of the community to death is “for the good of all” is also a dead giveaway. It is true that an oblique reference to the sacrifice having a good effect on the corn is made but there is a dispiriting vagueness about it and nobody seems to endorse it convincingly. In fact, the agricultural pretext is really irrelevant. The central drama of The Lottery is the absence of individual human value. In my post about Islamofascism, I quoted Louis Menand (ironically, writing in the New Yorker), “official ideology can be, and usually is, absurd on its face, and known to be absurd by the leaders who preach it.” This is another hallmark of totalitarian systems. These lottery victims are the moral equivalent of suicide bombers, human shields and hostages. They have no power to achieve anything. Their own genuine emotions and aspirations are anathema to the system in which they live. Only their annihilation is of value. Every one of them is a martyr- most of them just aren’t dead yet. They are, in every sense imaginable, dead men walking.

...The people of Sderot listen for the sirens all day and all night 365 days a year and all must wonder if today is the day that a rocket will come through the ceiling in a busy dining hall or a kindergarten classroom or a high school auditorium and finally be “enough” to force the government to use the power it has always had- but may not always retain- to eliminate the threat. They wait for the government to act. They pray for the rest of the world to recoil in horror. They face each day with bravery and hope. Just like the people in Jackson’s story, they are hostages.

Ben Moshe goes on to remark on Muslim mathematicians having developed the concept of zero, observing with grim irony that, "...at least under the most fundamental application of their religion-as-political-system, zero is the human condition."

If there was outrage in 1948 over the publication of that short story, how could there not be outrage today when an Israeli government dares Hamas to kill one more Israeli and see what happens and when they do, dares them to kill another one. Over and over again the children of Sderot draw lots and when one of them is torn apart by ball bearings or has a leg blown off, what happens? Is it somehow “for the good of all” that they suffer?

Is it too far a leap to suggest that, of all the grim ironies, the most insidious is that of the West's blindness to its own willingness to trade blood for peace, to cutting off fingers and feeding them to dogs under the table so as not to upset the place-settings?

Do you believe that it is about The Nakba or The Occupation or The Settlements? Do you allow yourself the fantasy that there is a way to stop the madness- a sacrifice big enough to satisfy this ravenous cult?

Then what did the innocent victims die for on 9/11- or Madrid- or London- the Darfur? This is part of the same grotesque lottery that has been going on for 1500 years. In spite of the sacrifice of the innocent victims of 9/11, it is all too easy for us to deny that we are hostages too, but those “zero beings” from the Islamist void will not be happy to delete only Israel. They have "selected" them for annihilation first but it is nothing personal, you understand, just a sacrifice to prove there is no value to human life. There is no value to anything that does not affirm the spiritual vacuum of Islamism. It is not because they worship Allah, nor is it is that they believe Mohammed was a prophet. It is that they believe that he was the only prophet, that they know the absolute truth and that it is their mission to ignore (and destroy) all evidence to the contrary. If you believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they will not rest until they destroy you too.

The Jihadists are not interested in cease-fires or peace. They are happy to tell you what they want. They want the world to live under Shari’a law. They believe that anyone that doesn’t want that is sub-human and deserves to be killed. This is nothing less than another confrontation with the evil of fascist, totalitarianism, and that is a beast whose hunger cannot be sated with souls, nor can its thirst be slaked with blood. The lottery they are holding is to determine not if you will be destroyed but when you will be destroyed. We are all citizens of Sderot- its just that most of us don’t know it yet.

This type of post is hardly my forte. Grasping the political, economic and military realities of this situation is something my friend Jeff Kouba does much better than I. I know, however, that Yaacov Ben Moshe is hardly an unbiased observer, or without his own agenda. Even discounting for his perspective, I still finding myself counting my fingers.

I've been asked to play host to Manival #9 next week. Use the link here if you have a post from your blog that you'd like to share that has insight, humor or edification (or all three!) on the ways of men. You need to send these to me by Monday, as the Manival rides on Tuesday!

I've found a lot of new and interesting blogs by participating in this carnival. It's been surprising and encouraging to see how many men are using their talents and keyboards to inform, entertain and encourage other men and women. Apparently I'm not the only one that has noticed. The Pioneer Press ran an article this week about "Daddy Bloggers" as a contrast to "Mommy Bloggers". It didn't mention any of the blogs I've been reading lately, though, so I thought I'd throw some links out here. Some of these have been added to my blogroll and the rest will be soon.

The Art of Manliness
Dad Gone Mad
Gunfighter: A Modern Warrior's Life
A Good Husband
The Man Page
The Simple Marriage Project
DaddyBrain
To Every Man a Manswer
I Am Husband
Stormbringer's Thunder
Manmail

Okay, Wednesday night I had to stay late at work. A couple of big projects that are due, another project that had started to come down around my ears, AND I have to have my office packed up by the end of this week for the move to the "summer residence" while our normal space is remodeled. So I was checking emails and chucking stuff into boxes and keeping an eye on the post-rush hour LRT schedule, when the train starts to come every 15 minutes.

Here's a difference between being able to walk out to your car and having to fit a precise schedule: I was about ready to leave, with enough time to walk to the station for my desired departure, when it occurred to me that I needed to do one more quick thing; it would only take a minute. Well, two. Out I hustled, walking briskly to the Nicollet Mall station, only to see the south-bound LRT pull up to and depart the station as I was crossing 4th St. In honor of a movie coming out any day now I'll say, "Missed it by that much."

Oh well, it was a pleasant evening, still light out and so I took the latest Sue Grafton mystery out of my briefcase and sat down on the skateboard-resistant concrete ornamental barrier for my fourteen and a half minute wait.

I'm teaching this weekend at Inside Outfitters, so I've got to do some work on my message. As such, no posting tonight other than to let you know that Manival #8 is up and running over at The Man Page.

Some of this week's contributions include a post on How to Have Toe-Curling Sex; Decreasing Your Likelihood of Being Hit by a Meteor; Golfing Your Way to a Promotion; and What Parenting Has Taught Me About Copywriting. There's also a post from a blog called "Dad of Divas" that you just know I'm going to have to check out.

You should, too.

I've pretty much worked out the logic behind converting my commute to a Park & Ride/LRT combo (see last week's post). Unfortunately, I can't get out of my parking contract until the end of July, even if average global temperatures jump 10 degrees. I decided, however, that before I jump through that flaming bureaucratic hoop I better make sure I'm committed.

Now I have a pretty good imagination, and I'm far from inexperienced when it comes to using public transportation on a regular basis. The fact is, however, that I haven't used the bus for years. The possibility remains that there might be some noxious experiences on the LRT that I haven't imagined or anticipated that might make the overall cost savings seem ultimately insignificant. Hence, I decided to take the LRT every day this week to further field test my new plan before giving notice of canceling my parking at the end of the month.

This morning: everything was fine and dandy. A beautiful, soft morning in June.

This evening: There were plenty of seats to choose from when I boarded at the Nicollet Mall stop. I chose one of the somewhat elevated seats and proceeded to dig out my newspaper from my briefcase. Two tattooed teenage girls got on and sat in the seats diagonally behind me. One had some music device that was playing hip-hop loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the car. I thought the current fashion in music devices was to wall yourself off in a socially autistic manner inside your iPod earbuds. This was definitely audible, however. Perhaps it was indeed an iPod, but cranked so loud it could be heard outside the 'buds. She may have turned it up so she could hear it over the volume of the conversation she was having with her friend. It was not a comely conversation. Everyone else, however, seemed to be pretty much ignoring it, so I tried to create my urban shell around myself and do the same. I had a strong hunch these young ladies were on their way to the Mall of America which, unfortunately, was past my stop. As it turns out, my stop was indeed before theirs.

As I got out up to disembark it crossed my mind to say something mean to our would-be entertainers. Based on their grammar, their language, and the nature of what they were listening to, however, I decided their lives were already going to be hard enough without me piling on.

I can't wait to see (or hear) what tomorrow's commute bring.

[Closed circuit to the Reverend Mother: this is one you're not going to want to read.]

This is a pretty grim topic, but I saw a stunning story on CNN today about a man who beat a toddler to death as onlookers tried unsuccessfully to get him to stop; ultimately the man had to be shot and killed by police called to the scene. Further details from later reports indicated that it was a 27-year-old Turlock, California man who beat, kicked, shook, threw and stomped on his two-year-old son.

The first people who came upon the scene were an elderly couple in their 70s who couldn't physically intervene though they tried to confront the man. Another man who drove by on the rural road was a 52-year-old volunteer fire fighter, who said he was pushed away by the father. Someone called the police and a helicopter happened to be already in the air in the vicinity and it landed in a cow pasture near the assault. Unfortunately the chopper landed on the wrong side of an electrified and barbed wire fence. A deputy who got out of the helicopter was able to get within 10 feet of the attacker and ordered the man to stop. When the man gave the deputy the finger and continued to kick the boy the deputy shot him in the forehead.

The story is certainly bizarre in terms of the savageness of the attack, but there are other unusual circumstances as well. The place where this occurred was on an a rural road, late on Saturday night. Police said it was unusual so many cars drove by the rather isolated spot, and I have to wonder how common it is to have a helo already up and in the area when the calls came in.

I think just reading this has to leave you shocked and outraged so I have to imagine that those on the scene had to be especially off-balance and sickened by what they were seeing. I want to be clear that I place no blame or criticism on anyone but the "father" in what happened, but I also can't help but wonder what could possibly have kept me from rushing in and using whatever force I could muster to stop such an onslaught. Of course, most of us will never know how we'd react in a sudden and desperate situation unless we were suddenly dropped into it. I know I've been in my share of scrapes and physical confrontations in my life in which I'd gotten pretty angry, but nothing near as dire as this. I know I'd been in a crisis situation before and had kept my head, but never in circumstances so evil.

When it comes down to it, I can't say what I would have done in this situation. I know what I would have liked to have done, however.

This was a very full weekend. It started off with my family getting to meet a new-to-us family member, my grandmother's great-niece (not sure what the proper term is — 2nd, 3rd, 4th-cousin?), and fine young woman named DeShae who is spending the summer in Minneapolis with the Youth Works ministry. This has been a season for meeting extended family, as my wife's cousin from New Mexico has two grown daughters currently in the Twin Cities as well who we've enjoyed having over to the house. We're hoping we can have all these lovely young ladies over at the same time.

That will be a good-sized group but still small compared to the crowd that turned out for the first annual Father's Day party hosted by Chief. Besides the opportunity to see many of our MOB friends it gave us the opportunity to give Kevin Ecker his birthday present. Somehow or another, Kevin had gotten the crazy idea that my wife had bought him a howitzer.



Admittedly, that would have been pretty cool, if a bit difficult to gift wrap. Instead my wife had picked up something that made her think of Kevin the moment she set eyes on it.



Unfortunately we couldn't stay late at the party because we had to head up to to Brainerd Saturday evening in order to be on hand to conduct the chapel service during the opening weekend at the Parker Boy Scout Camp. Instead of staying at the camp we stayed at my brother-in-law's nearby lake cabin. It's quite cozy, but surrounded by hordes of hungry mosquitos. We grabbed our bags from the car and made a mad dash to get inside but a couple of dozen of the little blood-suckers made it in the door with us. It could have been a long night, but my daughters decided it was a suitable time to give me my Father's Day gift: the bug bat I had said I wanted a little while back. It looks like a badminton racket, but in place of strings it has wires that you can electrify by pressing a button on the handle. What a fly or a mosquito (or perhaps a parakeet) and ZZZZZTT! — instant crispy critter. I, of course, got to try it out first and if you think my maniacal glee was a bit effusive you should have heard the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly! "Hahlo, I am the Mall Diva, you bit my sister. Prepare to die!" I christened (actually, you shouldn't get it wet) the newest addition to our arsenal as "Old Sparky". This morning we again had to run the gauntlet to the car, during which many more skeeters tried to come along for the ride. The Diva was on the job, however!



The chapel service went great, though we were almost late due to having to take some unexpected detours. The Reverend Mother had planned to do a specific message for this morning, but with the news of the scout camp in Iowa getting hit by a tornado last week (killing four scouts), she decided on a different approach, including a special song by the Mall Diva. She once again was able to work the flash paper into her short message and it went over famously, as always. Afterwards two of the scouts even came up to us and, in unison, shouted "Best church ever!"

After that it was time to come home and complete the Father's Day assignment given by the Mayor of the MOB, King Banaian, in his decree, that being to grill meat. Since we know King is a vegetarian, however, we (Ben, the Diva and I) felt we needed to prepare a special course in his honor:



Finally, it was good that we had so much to do throughout the weekend since it kept me from dwelling too long on the meaning of the holiday. It was the first Father's Day for me without my father, and there were a a few tough moments throughout the weekend when things that happened would remind me of him. I expect this will be an ongoing experience in years to come. There was another first this year as well; I got my first Father's Day card from prospective son-in-law Ben, something I also anticipate more of in the coming years!

... AND LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that all fathers who blog within the MOB will have their children type a blog message on Sunday, June 15 titled "Why We Love the MOB and its Great Mayor" (with spellchecking turned OFF);

This is the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly.

We love the MOB!! Seriously, it rocks.

We love our Mayor!! Long live King Banaian and his decrees (scroll down the first link above).

We love our daddy!!! He's the best daddy ever and the super-coolest blogger ever.

We also did our duty by grilling and eating a member of that sly and evil species: the ninja cow. Mmm-mmmmm!

So it was written, so it was done. Selah.

...And not just my own. I like them because I can make cupcakes with impunity.

Now, I love to make cupcakes and try out new and different things, but the problem with making them (almost) weekly, is having a whole batch of them in my house. They stare at me, calling out my name and reminding me that if I don't do my part to get them eaten within a couple of days, they'll go bad, and that's a shameful waste! So I'll eat one every day, and maybe that's okay for one week, but after a few weeks I start looking a little too good in my fat jeans.

This week was my little cousin Weston's 17th birthday, and today is Princess Flickerfeather's 19th birthday. Yay! Happy birthday!! So I made a batch of lemon curd filled vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to send to our youth group on Wednesday night, because I knew they would be celebrating. Unfortunately, I couldn't go. I think they were well received; the birthday boy said "they were way good". Yay, me!!!

This recipe was my best effort yet! The cupcakes did what they were supposed to, and were aesthetically pleasing.

To fill these cupcakes, I cut a cone out of their center after they were cool, filled them, cut the top off the little cone, and put the top back on the cupcake.





I didn't actually have one of these cupcakes. Instead I ate cupcake guts drizzled with lemon curd and topped with frosting. Mmmmmm!!!!!

Here's a flashback for Fathers' Day: back when the Mall Diva was 2-3 years old her mom worked second shift and the little diva and I spent a lot of afternoons and evenings together, often watching Duck Tales and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One of our most favorite things, however, was to watch the Adrian Belew "Oh Daddy" video, which featured Belew's own 11-year-old daughter, Audie, singing and dancing. I'm betting Mall Diva can still sing every word of that song.

Belew is a fabulous musician who has played on some of my favorite songs from Frank Zappa, The Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel. There's no song, however, that will stir my emotions as much as "Oh Daddy."

I am loathe to fall prey to the hand-wringing and borderline (even self-fulfilling) panic surrounding gas prices. My main vehicle, a '98 pickup, doesn't get the greatest gas mileage but it is paid for so, on an operating cost basis, it's fairly economical. It's certainly not worth plunking $300-$400 a month down on a new car payment in order to save $150 in gas. Furthermore, while I'm as concerned about the environment as much as the next guy (if the next guy is Hamilton Lux), the thought of doing anything remotely "green" just for the sake of being "green" makes me, well, green.

Still, when our monthly fuel bill starts to approach my first mortgage it does make me rub my neck a little. I know there are those who love the idea of high gas prices because they misanthropically hope this will force behavior change on the mindless driving public (just as it mindlessly forces a change in the cost of groceries and quality of life for those least able to afford the lesson), so I purposefully stay cheerful when filling up my truck just to annoy those folks. I wouldn't mind being cheerful a little less often, though.

Like most folks, I've not been too inclined to trade the convenience of having my vehicle at the ready to fit my schedule and whatever immediate needs might come up in order to live my life on the bus company's schedule. This is especially true since a bus commute from where I live requires at least one transfer and twice the commuting time. I swear, I think Frodo and Samwise Gamgee had a more direct route to Mt. Doom than me trying to get to downtown Minneapolis by bus. Given the hours I'm already working that's just not an attractive option; there's more to being "cost efficient" than just price.

I can, however, drive from my southeastern suburb to the light rail (LRT) Park & Ride at Fort Snelling and take the train downtown to within four blocks of my office. I decided to conduct a little experiment by doing just that and comparing how many fewer miles I drove and how much longer it took to get to work, then calculating the difference in cost between my monthly parking bill and a Metropass (unlimited ride). I could have done this on a lovely summer (what passes for summer anyway) day, but why not get a taste of the elements as well? Therefore, I set off yesterday in the pouring rain for the Park & Ride (I brought an umbrella).

Total time to get to the lot: 15 minutes; distance 8 miles (compared to a 12-14 mile drive to downtown Minneapolis, depending on the route I take). The Park & Ride, however, may more accurately be described as a "Park & Walk" as I had about a quarter of a mile jaunt to the depot from my vehicle. I got to the station as a train was pulling up, but the credit card reader on the ticket machine wasn't working. By the time I'd made a couple of attempts and finally resorted to sliding a fiver into the machine and getting my change (oh, so that's what they're doing with all those Sacajawea $1 coins) the train had pulled out. I waited 8 minutes for the next one and it took another 22 minutes to get to my stop downtown. From there I walked the four blocks to my office. Portal-to-portal, it took just under an hour. Driving to work in rush hour takes 40-45 minutes unless there's bad weather or a traffic accident. The LRT also runs every 7 - 10 minutes during the "rush" hours (roughly 6 - 9 a.m. and 3 - 7 p.m.) so there's not too much of a time penalty for "missing" a ride.

How about mileage? Four miles one way isn't much of a savings in distance, but that equals 8 miles a day. Since my truck gets 16 miles per gallon, that's a gallon of gas every two days, or 2.5 gallons in a typical work week. At $4 gallon, that's $10!

As for other costs, I pay just under $80 a month to park downtown, but this will be going up an as yet undetermined amount at the end of the year when my employer stops subsidizing the cost. I can get a Metropass through my employer for $39. So, that's about a $40 a month savings for "infrastructure", plus $10 a week on gas. The net result is that for an extra 30 minutes a day in total transit time I could save $80 a month. I know, I could donate it to the Sierra Club, or to the schools - they never seem to have enough money! (NOT!). Yeah, I know the LRT is heavily subsidized by the State, so the fares are not a true reflection of the actual cost to operate it, but since my tax dollars are already going to support the choo-choo, perhaps I can feel as if I'm getting a little of my money back.

Other trade-offs: not as much opportunity to listen to my favorite radio programs, but more time to read; being perceived as an enviro-weenie when I'm really a rank capitalist; having to admit that money can change my behavior, but also having more money available to buy things that will increase my carbon footprint. Decisions, decisions! I suppose I should also look at the modest exercise benefit of having to walk a little farther in my daily routine vs. the "character-building" experience of getting to walk that extra distance in the potentially arctic temperatures the other 11 months of the year thanks to our "warming" environment.

I don't know, I think I'm coming down on the side of saying "All aboard" and keeping more money in my pocket. Just don't tell my kids (that I've got more money in my pocket)!

You may have heard a guy being described as a real "man's man", but a regular and insightful contributor — wise in the ways of manliness — to the weekly Manivals is actually a woman. Hayden Tompkins at Persistent Illusion lays things out in a direct and refreshing manner. As to why she spends so much time on this particular topic, well, I think I'll let her explain it:

People wonder why, as a woman, I am so dedicated to topics of ‘manliness’ and being a man.

Chances are if you aren’t a man, then your life partner is a man. Whether you want to be a better man - a more inspired husband, an involved father, a successful businessman - or be with a better man, you are probably aware that there is a lack in this country of material on what it means to be a man.

As being a 50’s era breadwinner and head of household is no longer what it means to be a man, so too is retreating from responsibilities and letting the woman of your life handle everything. Being a man today means strength coupled with flexibility; self-knowledge, without ‘forcing’ this self on others or sacrificing it for the sake of your partnership; and fully experiencing life with an open heart, authentically, without cutting your beloved out.

Support of the ‘menaissance’ is critical in creating the breathing room needed for men to take chances and transform their lives and their relationships.

And with better men come better women and with better women come better men and with better men come better women and with better women…

Amen.

Sounds like some cows found the storm around here to be the perfect time to practice their aerial attacks.

I bet they thought the storm would cover everything up, but thanks to a tip-off from Dad, we know the real story.

Remember, act beefy.
Ciao for now!

An AmericInn in Moorhead, MN ended up unexpectedly hosting a "convention" of cleaning products salesmen who thought, perhaps, that they were rock stars. From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Moorhead motel boots 40 salesmen for 'very, very rude behavior'
Associated Press

MOORHEAD, Minn. — About 40 traveling salespeople were thrown out of a Moorhead motel for "very, very rude behavior," a motel manager said.

The salespeople, mostly in their mid-20s, were peddling cleaning supplies, but they sure left a mess behind, said Derek Crockett, front desk manager at the AmericInn Lodge & Suites.

Crockett's staff started getting complaints about the guests less than two hours after they checked in Monday night. The guests were drinking, partying and smoking in nonsmoking rooms, he said.

When staff told them to leave, they "just started getting a little irate" and made threatening comments to housekeepers and security staff, he said.

Police were called but just went there to keep the peace and made no arrests, Deputy Chief Bob Larson said.

Crockett said the guests also punched holes in the walls, ripped a toilet paper holder off the wall and pulled out a couple of window screens. The rooms were still closed off Tuesday so the staff could assess the damage, he said. The guests will be charged for the rooms and the damage, he said

"It's going to be over $1,000," Crockett said.

It kind of reminds me of a true story my grandfather wrote involving a couple of salesmen, the Hotel Madison in Madison, WI, too much alcohol and a strong-willed goose. Not for the squeamish.

The 7th Manival is up and running this week at The Simple Marriage Project. There are four categories this week, and there are several very interesting sounding posts under each. The categories are Fatherhood/Parenting (which includes my own "Dad to the Bone" post), Marriage/Relationship, Recreation, and How-to Guides for Men.

I haven't followed any of the links yet, but how can you resist titles such as "You Don't Mess Around with Dad", "The 'I Don't Want To' Trap", "Things You Don't Scrimp On" and "7 Vital Characteristics of a Man"?

These past seven weeks have been very encouraging and enlightening for me as I've seen the depth and wisdom of men are pouring into the blogosphere. Just when you think the culture, and perhaps even yourself, have become totally self-indulgent and gratuitous you discover that there is a well-spring of wisdom, humor and a desire to serve if only you know where to look. I suggest you go take a look at the Manival series.

The previous Manivals can be found at the following links:

#1 @ The Art of Manliness
#2 @ A Good Husband
#3 @ Schaefer’s Blog
#4 @ The Art Of Manliness
#5 @ The Care & Feeding Of Man
#6 @ Building Camelot

Tonight my thoughts are turning to violence.

No, not that I desire to wreak any such thing on anyone, it's just that there seems to be so much of it in the air. I mean, you've got Ben talking about being in tune with his Spidey-senses and calculating the most destructive way out of the scenario if the Girl Scouts in front of him on the street turn out to be a ninja hit squad in disguise (must be the weight-lifting and all the red meat he's eating); you've got Gino talking about he and his sister standing back to back to teach some rowdies a lesson; and you've got KingDavid in turn reminiscing over getting his own adolescent male ya-yas out and ending up in the principal's office.

I'm not dismayed or appalled. In fact, it all reminds me of a lesson my father taught me when he said, "You don't have to win, but you do have to fight."

And then I laugh as I remember the time somebody, and I can't remember who, thought it was a good idea to give my brother and I boxing gloves for Christmas when I was in my early teens. These weren't the big, pillowy 16-oz. gloves, either, where you had a better chance of suffocating from a punch in the face as being knocked out. No, these were 8-oz. demolition specials of bright red leather, packing a little padding and quite a wallop over the knuckles. I'm sure they were probably banned from toy stores about the same time as Jarts.

In those days we lived in a neighborhood full of boys and we marked the passing seasons by the games we played. Football in the fall, basketball all winter long (shoveling the snow off the asphalt driveways and turning our hands black in the dribbling), baseball or some mischief in the summer. One summer day of boredom and too many boys we remembered the gloves. Tired of whacking one another around, my brother and I brought them out for the group. It was actually pretty structured. We marked out the corners of the "ring" with lawn chairs in our back yard and matched opponents up by age and weight class. I was far from being the most graceful or athletic but I had a simple yet effective style: absorb the incoming shots as I waded into range and then, Whammo! The matches usually didn't last very long.

One of the younger boys, a wiry and athletic sort who was one of the fastest runners in the neighborhood, and also the biggest trash talker, was offended by my pugilistic style, or lack thereof. His name was Albert. He may have preferred just "Al" or "Bert" but he was the type where we just had to hang the full name on him. Anyway, his own matches in his "weight class" were marked by fancy footwork and flashy flurries, and he'd roll his eyes at me from the sidelines and talk about the "sweet science" as I'd stagger another opponent. He kept talking about how useless I'd be against someone who knew what they were doing. I suggested that, perhaps, he was thinking of himself? He said that, well, as a matter of fact, yes.

"Oh, come off it, Albert. I've got two years and 25 pounds on you."

"But you're slow. You'd never touch me."

And so it was on. Albert laced up and started circling, jumping in and out, throwing leather into my shoulders, or glancing off the top of my head. I turned as well, tracking him like the turret of a battleship surrounded by torpedo planes. A couple of my left jabs came back empty, touching only his laughter. He came in again, and this time I timed it and decided to see how the right hand might fare. Fairly well, actually, as my straight overhand going out met his forehead square as it was coming in. I could almost hear for myself the pinball bells that started ringing inside his head. His forward progress immediately reversed and he was flat on his back, somewhere in the middle of next week. And he wasn't moving.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

Nothing to do for it in that case but to invoke the Diety, or in this case, my mom. Actually, both of my parents were home at the time and my brother ran in and brought them out, no doubt trying to gasp out the hyperventilated words, "boxing", "Albert", "dead", and "It wasn't my fault." They came out briskly and with concern as Albert started to regain what little sense he had before he challenged me. I thought we were all going to get yelled at, but instead my parents were very concerned and solicitous of young Albert, touching his head, patting his shoulders, asking if he was all right, even bringing him a cold glass of lemonade. I'm sure they were thinking thoughts like, "We are going to be so sued," and "I'm going to bury those boxing gloves, preferably with my kid still in them."

Albert revived, and the last thing he wanted to do was let his parents know what happened. Actually, as far as he was concerned, the fewer people who learned what had happened the better. I like to think that it somehow made him a bit wiser, though he continued to be pretty much the same obnoxious kid as our sports seasons continued to turn. Maybe, just maybe though, it was a lesson that took a little time to reach the surface.

It was a valuable part of my education, I know that. Those scrambling episodes in boyhood gave me some useful and — in the grand scheme — not too painful lessons. I learned that life sometimes comes at you pretty fast, and that you're going to have to take some shots, but if you keep your feet and keep moving in you're eventually going to get your chance.

And when you do — Whammo!

From today's Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of the man who wrote the most famous inspirational poem about aviation — a sonnet about aviation — John Gillespie Magee Jr., born in Shanghai, China, in 1922, the son of missionaries. He was an American, but like thousands of other young Americans he served with the Royal Canadian Air Force before the United States officially entered WWII. He had a scholarship to Yale, but after high school he enlisted in the air force, and he was sent to combat duty in England. A month or maybe two months later, he wrote a sonnet, "High Flight," and sent it to his parents on the back of a letter, saying "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed." Three months later, the U.S. entered the war, and just three days after that Magee died in a plane crash. The sonnet was widely copied and distributed, and it is still referenced in novels, television shows, and political speeches. All first-year cadets at the United States Air Force Academy are required to memorize and recite it.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

"High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Public Domain.

So many thoughts this week leading up to Father's Day. It was Father's Day last year when we first faced the possibility of cancer coming back into my father's life. This morning I spoke for awhile with a father of two young girls who is struggling with their discipline, taking me back to the early days with my own daughters...and then naturally to my oldest, now casting major plans of her own for adulthood. So many things, tumbling around, I'm not sure what will come out here in the coming week, but I think I'll start things off with one of the first "fatherhood" posts I ever did here.

Dad to the Bone

Every parent either knows - or feels - by heart the words to the "Sunrise, Sunset" song in "Fiddler on the Roof":


Is this the little girl I carried,
is this the little boy at play?


When I hear this the memory that flashes in my mind is not that of carrying either of my two daughters up to bed, or of piggyback rides. Instead I think of a family photo a few years ago. In it my girls - then about 10 and 5 - and I have been wrestling. I am standing and in each hand I've got an ankle of one of the girls and I'm holding them both upside down and off the ground, not unlike a proud poulterer holding up a couple of prizewinners at the State Fair. Imagining the picture now I can still hear the shrieks and giggles.

At this point in their lives - and for this moment now permanently frozen on film - I am Dad the Undefeated and, in their eyes, larger than life. Meanwhile, in the moments that I write this, the next line from that song is passing through my mind: "I don't remember getting older, when did they?" If asked to reenact the scene today my response would have to be, "One at a time."

As I flip through my mental photo album the girls seem to grow suddenly in a series of jerks and jumps. Of course I know they are really changing everyday, judging by the continuous trips to the shoe store and cries of, "But I just bought you those pants!" I also can't help noticing in this album that as they are getting bigger, I seem to be getting - perhaps ever-so-slightly - smaller.

Once when my oldest was very little and concerned that we might be imminently attacked by bears in our own front yard, she was greatly comforted when I assured her that if any bears came near her I'd grab them and twist their noses. Today the same promise still stands regarding boys, not bears, but it's clear that my powers are coming more into perspective. While there are times when it may seem, in my daughters' eyes, that I can still rise up and blot out the sun, I cannot stop it from moving across the sky. I am shade, however, standing between them and the heat of the world. I will continue to do so as long as I can stand.

Of course, brute force has always been of limited application. To be a proper protector my defenses have had to be - and must remain - more subtle. Jesus once told his disciples that it was better for them that he go away. His meaning was that his power both in their lives and in the world would ultimately be much greater by his living in them rather than with them. I don't construe this to mean my girls are better off without me, but rather that I must devote my time with them to preparing them to live on fruitfully, just as Jesus did in his three years with the disciples. The time together already seems all too short.

When they were little, their well-being depended on instant obedience to my authority and that of their mother. It was not expected or accepted of them to ponder whether or not we meant what we said or whether our instructions supported their personhood or hurt their self-esteem. "No," "stop" and "don't" could keep them from a boiling pot, a busy street or a strange dog. As they get older they are still at risk from natural forces, careless strangers and unpredictable animals interested only in their own gratification. "No," "stop" and "don't" might still have an effect, but it's better to teach them the underlying reasons and standards for moral conduct so they can also work out the "Yeses," "do's" and "go-for-its." In that way my influence can carry on a lot further than my authority will ever be able to.

For my influence to be effective, however, I have to keep learning and examining myself both for my own benefit as well as theirs. Like it or not, my life will be a standard that my daughters will use to judge men on in the future and I want to set the bar pretty high with no apologies to the young fellas coming along. Perfect or not, it is mine to carry. On one level my girls may see me as "Dad of Dads, Keeper of the Remote and King of Rude Noises," but they should also know at a deeper level that I have laid and will lay down my life for them. As they grow older I hope that they will not settle for any man who will not do the same, even though the kind interested only in the "lay down" part may be all too common.

If you have daughters I think you know what I mean, and I hope you, too, are preparing yourself and them to live by your influence and that of Jesus while submitting to the authority of God. If you have sons, I pray that you are preparing them to a similar standard and helping them grow into their own responsibilities.

And if you have sons that may be hanging around my daughters, you might want to warn them about that nose thing.

"Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits is one of the most haunting songs I've ever know. I bought the album because of the "Money for Nothing" song when it came out back in, what, 1985? I really liked the song, but it was cemented for me when it was used in a memorable episode of Miami Vice entitled "Out Where the Buses Don't Run" (back when using popular songs to help illustrate a TV show was ground-breaking).

I'd never seen a video for "Brothers In Arms" until I stumbled across this. Today, the anniversary of the D-Day invasion, the tone and look of the video seem especially appropriate.

I'm sorry I missed last week. There were too many other things going on, and cupcakes were not high on the list of priorities.

The Queen joined me again this week for the baking of cupcakes, and there was a certain recipe I wanted to try. This one, in fact, so I went to the store for my ingredients. I found out a couple things: #1- You shouldn't go to the store to buy pears the same day you need to use them, if ripe-ness is important to you; and #2- One vanilla bean costs $10. Yep. "So did you buy it", you might ask?

Heck no! I'm no snob, I'll even substitute imitation vanilla! And as for the pear, I bought a can of sliced pears in syrup, then drained the syrup and followed the recipe the same way. I know, I'm a genius!



Do you see how cute the frosting on that cupcake is? That's because my own dear mother bought me an icing piper! It is so awesome! Using it makes me feel like a real cake decorator!!!

They were pretty yummy, but super crumbly. That just means I get to practice more! But the problem with practicing more is that I end up with a bunch of cupcakes that I really shouldn't be eating. The way I solved that problem this week was by bringing a bunch to work with me. The ladies there mostly know about my new hobby, and for the most part are willing to support me by eating the results.



And now I'm sad to say that Chockylit, founder of the Cupcake Bakeshop is closing up shop. I'll be waiting for your next site, and thanks for the recipes!

I've always been on the lookout for films with strong messages dealing with honor and character in this series for teen-age boys, and the stories can be fictional, factual or a bit of both. It's a bonus, however, when we have a chance to see something of a historical nature that can also help us learn something about the world today. Last month our movie was The Wind and the Lion, a mostly historical story with some movie-making embellishments that provided a useful sketch of early 20th century geo-politics while still offering a rip-roaring adventure.

Afterwards the young men seemed to be interested in the Middle Eastern dynamics of that time and how these were still resonating today. Our next class is Thursday night and I've decided to follow up on that with a film I happened to catch on AMC right after Charlton Heston died: Khartoum. It's an amazing and reliably accurate telling of Islamic jihad in the late 1800s that has striking, and sobering, parallels to today.

Here's the set-up for the story: It's the 1880s and most countries in the Middle East are under the influence, if not outright control, of one or another of the European nations. Egypt, supported by England, controls the Sudan, including the capital city of Khartoum. A few years earlier a British officer, Charles George "Chinese" Gordon, had been Governor-General of the Sudan and largely stamped out the slave trade in the country. As this had been the major industry in the land, the economy had subsequently tanked and in the hard times a religious leader, Muhammad Ahmad, proclaimed himself the Mahdi (Expected One) and rallied thousands to holy war to drive out the Egyptians and Europeans. He has early successes and England sends 10,000 men under General Hicks to put down the insurgency (Gordon had been recalled to England a few years earlier), but the Mahdi lures them into the dessert and then wipes out the entire command. This disaster is not well-received back in England where the government of Prime Minister William Gladstone is on shaky ground and the public is outraged at the loss of the expedition but also weary of foreign entanglements, especially on behalf of their Egyptian allies. While England and Gladstone want little to do with the Sudan, they need the Egyptians and especially the Suez Canal.

As portrayed in the movie, Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) wants to wash his hands of the Sudan but is experiencing pressure to rescue the Egyptian and European citizens in the city before it is overwhelmed by the Mahdi's (Laurence Olivier) army. There is no way he wants to commit an army to that cause, however, so he charts a canny course of sending the hero Gordon (Heston) back, alone, to Khartoum to organize an evacuation. Gordon, a national hero with a string of successes in China as well as Africa, is known to be a difficult person to control because of his deep Christian faith and what some described as arrogance and mysticism. He nevertheless accepts the apparently hopeless mission, knowing that he's being sent as a political gesture but also having an agenda of his own. It turns out he grew to love the Sudan and its people during his earlier duty and he couldn't abide the thought of abandoning his city, or of England abandoning its allies, to the foreseen slaughter of the Mahdi.

Upon arriving in Khartoum he does evacuate some of the Europeans, but also sets about rallying the Egyptian troops and the citizenry to defend the city, while playing a brilliant but dangerous game of military, administrative and political chicken, simultaneously keeping the Mahdi at bay while hoping to hold out long enough for Gladstone to change his mind and send relief. While the movie sets up the primary conflict between Gordon and the Mahdi, it really is a 3-way battle with Gladstone showing his own determination and tactical abilities. The Mahdi, despite his own mysticism, recognizes the danger of turning Gordon into a martyr, as does Gladstone but for different reasons. Gordon knows that this is where he has them both. One of the great lines in the movie is when Gordon says, "Every man has a final weapon: his own life. If he's afraid to lose it, he throws the weapon away."

Both the Mahdi and Gladstone, again for their own reasons, try different ways to induce Gordon to leave. By this time, English public opinion is pressuring Gladstone to send a relief column to Gordon's rescue. Ultimately Gladstone makes a big show of doing just that, marching a regiment through London to take ship for Africa, ostensibly to support Gordon but secretly ordered to move slowly in the hopes that Gordon will ultimately "see reason" and abandon his quest. I won't offer a spoiler here on how it comes out (go to your history books if you want that), but the ensuing battle of wills between the three men, plus lots of real battles between armies, makes this a tense and gripping story with some interesting perspectives on the nature of power, the power of belief, and the designs of destiny.

The history is pretty solid in this story and the movie hews pretty closely to what is recorded. There are a lot of resources for historians to refer to, including the newspapers of the time, Gordon's own writings during the 10-months of the siege, and the writings of Colonel Sir Rudolph Slatin, a contemporary and friend of Gordon's who got to spend several years as the "guest" of the Mahdi himself.


Great Quotes:
William Gladstone: "I don't trust any man who consults God before he consults me."

Gen. Charles Gordon: "Every man has a final weapon: his own life. If he's afraid to lose it he throws the weapon away."

Gordon: "I'm known to be a religious man, yet I'm a member of no church. I've been introduced to hundreds of women, yet I've never married. I daresay that no one's ever been able to talk me into anything."

Gordon: "While I may die of your miracle, you will surely die of mine."

About Fundamentals in Film: this series began as a class I taught to junior high and high school boys as a way to use the entertainment media to explore concepts of honor, honesty, duty and accountability. The movies were selected to demonstrate these themes and as a contrast to television that typically either portrays men as Homer Simpsons or professional wrestlers, with little in between those extremes. I wrote questions and points to ponder for each movie to stimulate discussion and to get the boys to articulate their thoughts and reactions to each movie. I offer this series here on this blog for the benefit of parents or others looking for a fun but challenging way to reinforce these concepts in their own families or groups. I'm also always open to suggestions for other movies that can be added to the series. You can browse the entire series by clicking on the "Fundamentals in Film" cate