New Orleans Ladies

New Orleans ladies
A sassy style that will drive you crazy
And they hold you like the light
Hugs the wick when this candle's burning
Them Creole babies
Thin and brown and downright lazy
And they roll just like a river
A little wade will last forever

I remembered Hurricane Betsy in '64, then Hilda in '65. Betsy knocked over a very large pecan tree into the boys room and basement. We had about a month of Pirates of the Caribean in the back yard, until the tree was chopped up and removed.

In '69, my Dad and all of us finished a pier in Bay St. Louis in August, only to see Camille leave only the pile-ons. The thing I remember most was being able to play football in our own domed stadium, St Clare Catholic Church. Camille ripped all of the walls off but left roof of the church. One day Father kicked us out in biblical fashion (like Jesus on donkey and the merchants).

All the way
From Bourbon Street to Esplanade
They sashay by...
They sashay by...

Now the latest lady to pay her visit, Katrina, has come calling. Reports are that much of New Orleans is under water.

Tim emailed from Lafayette that his family and Dad are safe. He will be checking on Julie and family, his own house, Julie's house and Dad's house. No report of damage to Davey's house in Madison. At home in Brandon we only lost a couple of trees, although about ten trees have fallen next door.

New Orleans ladies
A flair for life, love, and laughter
And they hold you like the night
Holds a chill when this cold wind's blowing
Them Creole babies
They strut and sway from dusk til dawn
And they roll just like the river
A little wade will last forever

All the way
From Bourbon Street to Esplanade
They sashay by...
They sashay by...

A War to Be Proud Of

Christopher Hichens is a former liberal who writes with good insight, and usually to educate those from wence he came.

The case for overthrowing Saddam was unimpeachable. Why, then, is the administration tongue-tied?
by Christopher Hitchens
09/05/2005, Volume 010, Issue 47

LET ME BEGIN WITH A simple sentence that, even as I write it, appears less than Swiftian in the modesty of its proposal: "Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad."

I could undertake to defend that statement against any member of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, and I know in advance that none of them could challenge it, let alone negate it. Before March 2003, Abu Ghraib was an abattoir, a torture chamber, and a concentration camp. Now, and not without reason, it is an international byword for Yankee imperialism and sadism. Yet the improvement is still, unarguably, the difference between night and day. How is it possible that the advocates of a post-Saddam Iraq have been placed on the defensive in this manner? And where should one begin?

I once tried to calculate how long the post-Cold War liberal Utopia had actually lasted. Whether you chose to date its inception from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, or the death of Nicolae Ceausescu in late December of the same year, or the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, or the referendum defeat suffered by Augusto Pinochet (or indeed from the publication of Francis Fukuyama's book about the "end of history" and the unarguable triumph of market liberal pluralism), it was an epoch that in retrospect was over before it began. By the middle of 1990, Saddam Hussein had abolished Kuwait and Slobodan Milosevic was attempting to erase the identity and the existence of Bosnia. It turned out that we had not by any means escaped the reach of atavistic, aggressive, expansionist, and totalitarian ideology. Proving the same point in another way, and within approximately the same period, the theocratic dictator of Iran had publicly claimed the right to offer money in his own name for the suborning of the murder of a novelist living in London, and the génocidaire faction in Rwanda had decided that it could probably get away with putting its long-fantasized plan of mass murder into operation.

One is not mentioning these apparently discrepant crimes and nightmares as a random or unsorted list. Khomeini, for example, was attempting to compensate for the humiliation of the peace agreement he had been compelled to sign with Saddam Hussein. And Saddam Hussein needed to make up the loss, of prestige and income, that he had himself suffered in the very same war. Milosevic (anticipating Putin, as it now seems to me, and perhaps Beijing also) was riding a mutation of socialist nationalism into national socialism. It was to be noticed in all cases that the aggressors, whether they were killing Muslims, or exalting Islam, or just killing their neighbors, shared a deep and abiding hatred of the United States.

The balance sheet of the Iraq war, if it is to be seriously drawn up, must also involve a confrontation with at least this much of recent history. Was the Bush administration right to leave--actually to confirm--Saddam Hussein in power after his eviction from Kuwait in 1991? Was James Baker correct to say, in his delightfully folksy manner, that the United States did not "have a dog in the fight" that involved ethnic cleansing for the mad dream of a Greater Serbia? Was the Clinton administration prudent in its retreat from Somalia, or wise in its opposition to the U.N. resolution that called for a preemptive strengthening of the U.N. forces in Rwanda?

I know hardly anybody who comes out of this examination with complete credit. There were neoconservatives who jeered at Rushdie in 1989 and who couldn't see the point when Sarajevo faced obliteration in 1992. There were leftist humanitarians and radicals who rallied to Rushdie and called for solidarity with Bosnia, but who--perhaps because of a bad conscience about Palestine--couldn't face a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even when he annexed a neighbor state that was a full member of the Arab League and of the U.N. (I suppose I have to admit that I was for a time a member of that second group.) But there were consistencies, too. French statecraft, for example, was uniformly hostile to any resistance to any aggression, and Paris even sent troops to rescue its filthy clientele in Rwanda. And some on the hard left and the brute right were also opposed to any exercise, for any reason, of American military force.

The only speech by any statesman that can bear reprinting from that low, dishonest decade came from Tony Blair when he spoke in Chicago in 1999. Welcoming the defeat and overthrow of Milosevic after the Kosovo intervention, he warned against any self-satisfaction and drew attention to an inescapable confrontation that was coming with Saddam Hussein. So far from being an American "poodle," as his taunting and ignorant foes like to sneer, Blair had in fact leaned on Clinton over Kosovo and was insisting on the importance of Iraq while George Bush was still an isolationist governor of Texas.

Notwithstanding this prescience and principle on his part, one still cannot read the journals of the 2000/2001 millennium without the feeling that one is revisiting a hopelessly somnambulist relative in a neglected home. I am one of those who believe, uncynically, that Osama bin Laden did us all a service (and holy war a great disservice) by his mad decision to assault the American homeland four years ago. Had he not made this world-historical mistake, we would have been able to add a Talibanized and nuclear-armed Pakistan to our list of the threats we failed to recognize in time. (This threat still exists, but it is no longer so casually overlooked.)

The subsequent liberation of Pakistan's theocratic colony in Afghanistan, and the so-far decisive eviction and defeat of its bin Ladenist guests, was only a reprisal. It took care of the last attack. But what about the next one? For anyone with eyes to see, there was only one other state that combined the latent and the blatant definitions of both "rogue" and "failed." This state--Saddam's ruined and tortured and collapsing Iraq--had also met all the conditions under which a country may be deemed to have sacrificed its own legal sovereignty. To recapitulate: It had invaded its neighbors, committed genocide on its own soil, harbored and nurtured international thugs and killers, and flouted every provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United Nations, in this crisis, faced with regular insult to its own resolutions and its own character, had managed to set up a system of sanctions-based mutual corruption. In May 2003, had things gone on as they had been going, Saddam Hussein would have been due to fill Iraq's slot as chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Meanwhile, every species of gangster from the hero of the Achille Lauro hijacking to Abu Musab al Zarqawi was finding hospitality under Saddam's crumbling roof.

One might have thought, therefore, that Bush and Blair's decision to put an end at last to this intolerable state of affairs would be hailed, not just as a belated vindication of long-ignored U.N. resolutions but as some corrective to the decade of shame and inaction that had just passed in Bosnia and Rwanda. But such is not the case. An apparent consensus exists, among millions of people in Europe and America, that the whole operation for the demilitarization of Iraq, and the salvage of its traumatized society, was at best a false pretense and at worst an unprovoked aggression. How can this possibly be?

THERE IS, first, the problem of humorless and pseudo-legalistic literalism. In Saki's short story The Lumber Room, the naughty but clever child Nicholas, who has actually placed a frog in his morning bread-and-milk, rejoices in his triumph over the adults who don't credit this excuse for not eating his healthful dish:

"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread-and-milk; there was a frog in my bread-and-milk," he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favorable ground.
Childishness is one thing--those of us who grew up on this wonderful Edwardian author were always happy to see the grown-ups and governesses discomfited. But puerility in adults is quite another thing, and considerably less charming. "You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in al Qaeda. . . . Blah, blah, pants on fire." I have had many opportunities to tire of this mantra. It takes ten seconds to intone the said mantra. It would take me, on my most eloquent C-SPAN day, at the very least five minutes to say that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; that Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam's senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of nuclear physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; that Saddam's agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negotiating to purchase missiles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the great Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting with Tariq Aziz. And these eye-catching examples would by no means exhaust my repertoire, or empty my quiver. Yes, it must be admitted that Bush and Blair made a hash of a good case, largely because they preferred to scare people rather than enlighten them or reason with them. Still, the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem.

I have a ready answer to those who accuse me of being an agent and tool of the Bush-Cheney administration (which is the nicest thing that my enemies can find to say). Attempting a little levity, I respond that I could stay at home if the authorities could bother to make their own case, but that I meanwhile am a prisoner of what I actually do know about the permanent hell, and the permanent threat, of the Saddam regime. However, having debated almost all of the spokespeople for the antiwar faction, both the sane and the deranged, I was recently asked a question that I was temporarily unable to answer. "If what you claim is true," the honest citizen at this meeting politely asked me, "how come the White House hasn't told us?"

I do in fact know the answer to this question. So deep and bitter is the split within official Washington, most especially between the Defense Department and the CIA, that any claim made by the former has been undermined by leaks from the latter. (The latter being those who maintained, with a combination of dogmatism and cowardice not seen since Lincoln had to fire General McClellan, that Saddam Hussein was both a "secular" actor and--this is the really rich bit--a rational and calculating one.)

There's no cure for that illusion, but the resulting bureaucratic chaos and unease has cornered the president into his current fallback upon platitude and hollowness. It has also induced him to give hostages to fortune. The claim that if we fight fundamentalism "over there" we won't have to confront it "over here" is not just a standing invitation for disproof by the next suicide-maniac in London or Chicago, but a coded appeal to provincial and isolationist opinion in the United States. Surely the elementary lesson of the grim anniversary that will shortly be upon us is that American civilians are as near to the front line as American soldiers.

It is exactly this point that makes nonsense of the sob-sister tripe pumped out by the Cindy Sheehan circus and its surrogates. But in reply, why bother to call a struggle "global" if you then try to localize it? Just say plainly that we shall fight them everywhere they show themselves, and fight them on principle as well as in practice, and get ready to warn people that Nigeria is very probably the next target of the jihadists. The peaceniks love to ask: When and where will it all end? The answer is easy: It will end with the surrender or defeat of one of the contending parties. Should I add that I am certain which party that ought to be? Defeat is just about imaginable, though the mathematics and the algebra tell heavily against the holy warriors. Surrender to such a foe, after only four years of combat, is not even worthy of consideration.

Antaeus was able to draw strength from the earth every time an antagonist wrestled him to the ground. A reverse mythology has been permitted to take hold in the present case, where bad news is deemed to be bad news only for regime-change. Anyone with the smallest knowledge of Iraq knows that its society and infrastructure and institutions have been appallingly maimed and beggared by three decades of war and fascism (and the "divide-and-rule" tactics by which Saddam maintained his own tribal minority of the Sunni minority in power). In logic and morality, one must therefore compare the current state of the country with the likely or probable state of it had Saddam and his sons been allowed to go on ruling.

At once, one sees that all the alternatives would have been infinitely worse, and would most likely have led to an implosion--as well as opportunistic invasions from Iran and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of their respective interests or confessional clienteles. This would in turn have necessitated a more costly and bloody intervention by some kind of coalition, much too late and on even worse terms and conditions. This is the lesson of Bosnia and Rwanda yesterday, and of Darfur today. When I have made this point in public, I have never had anyone offer an answer to it. A broken Iraq was in our future no matter what, and was a responsibility (somewhat conditioned by our past blunders) that no decent person could shirk. The only unthinkable policy was one of abstention.

Two pieces of good fortune still attend those of us who go out on the road for this urgent and worthy cause. The first is contingent: There are an astounding number of plain frauds and charlatans (to phrase it at its highest) in charge of the propaganda of the other side. Just to tell off the names is to frighten children more than Saki ever could: Michael Moore, George Galloway, Jacques Chirac, Tim Robbins, Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson . . . a roster of gargoyles that would send Ripley himself into early retirement. Some of these characters are flippant, and make heavy jokes about Halliburton, and some disdain to conceal their sympathy for the opposite side. So that's easy enough.

The second bit of luck is a certain fiber displayed by a huge number of anonymous Americans. Faced with a constant drizzle of bad news and purposely demoralizing commentary, millions of people stick out their jaws and hang tight. I am no fan of populism, but I surmise that these citizens are clear on the main point: It is out of the question--plainly and absolutely out of the question--that we should surrender the keystone state of the Middle East to a rotten, murderous alliance between Baathists and bin Ladenists. When they hear the fatuous insinuation that this alliance has only been created by the resistance to it, voters know in their intestines that those who say so are soft on crime and soft on fascism. The more temperate anti-warriors, such as Mark Danner and Harold Meyerson, like to employ the term "a war of choice." One should have no problem in accepting this concept. As they cannot and do not deny, there was going to be another round with Saddam Hussein no matter what. To whom, then, should the "choice" of time and place have fallen? The clear implication of the antichoice faction--if I may so dub them--is that this decision should have been left up to Saddam Hussein. As so often before . . .

DOES THE PRESIDENT deserve the benefit of the reserve of fortitude that I just mentioned? Only just, if at all. We need not argue about the failures and the mistakes and even the crimes, because these in some ways argue themselves. But a positive accounting could be offered without braggartry, and would include:

(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction--a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.

(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.

(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)

(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.

(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.

(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.

(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

It would be admirable if the president could manage to make such a presentation. It would also be welcome if he and his deputies adopted a clear attitude toward the war within the war: in other words, stated plainly, that the secular and pluralist forces within Afghan and Iraqi society, while they are not our clients, can in no circumstance be allowed to wonder which outcome we favor.

The great point about Blair's 1999 speech was that it asserted the obvious. Coexistence with aggressive regimes or expansionist, theocratic, and totalitarian ideologies is not in fact possible. One should welcome this conclusion for the additional reason that such coexistence is not desirable, either. If the great effort to remake Iraq as a demilitarized federal and secular democracy should fail or be defeated, I shall lose sleep for the rest of my life in reproaching myself for doing too little. But at least I shall have the comfort of not having offered, so far as I can recall, any word or deed that contributed to a defeat.

A New Day Has Dawned

Here's one of few media reports that accurately reflects the worldview of the US and the progress that has been made in the War on Terror, from National Review's Jonah Goldberg:

"Insanity,” goes a popular old saw attributed to both Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin (so it must be right), “is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

As a corollary, it seems to me that saying the same thing over and over again, regardless of the results, should be a similar kind of crazy.

For the past few years, we’ve been told (by John Kerry, Howard Dean, and various and sundry editorialists) that George W. Bush has, by fighting the “wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” “created more terrorists” and “isolated America” by inflaming passions in the Middle East.

Cindy Sheehan has amplified this perspective, calling President Bush, among other things, an “evil maniac” and the world’s “biggest terrorist.” In the process, she’s become a hero to those who see pathos in her protest and a sham to those who see bathos in her stunts.

But as Sheehan’s rhetoric exceeds even the heat of the Crawford sun, and as Democrats openly ponder whether she’s the visionary who will lead them out of the wilderness, facts on the ground are changing. If the war has created more terrorists and made the world hate us more, why exactly has Muslim and Arab opinion of the United States improved?

According to the massive Pew Global Attitudes Survey, views of the United States have been improving. We’re not exactly back to the days when Kuwaiti babies were being named George Bush, but the trends are in our favor. The share of people with a favorable view of America went up in Indonesia by some 23 points, in Lebanon by 15 points, and in Jordan by 16 points. Trends in France, Germany, Russia, and India have been moving our way, too.

But the news gets even better. Support for terrorism and Osama bin Laden has been plummeting across the Arab and Muslim world (save for in Jordan, where the large Palestinian population plays a big role). Support for democracy, meanwhile, has improved. According to Pew, “nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries.” The share of those supporting suicide bombings and the targeting of civilians has fallen by more than one-third in Lebanon — where democracy is on the move, by the way — and by 16 and 27 points in Pakistan and Morocco, respectively. Similar declines in support for Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the like have been recorded.

No doubt these numbers are imperfect and hardly speak to a single cause. In Indonesia, our generous tsunami relief helped a great deal. In Lebanon, terrorism isn’t just something that happens to Israelis and Americans — it’s something that could snuff out the rebirth of democracy there (it’s also a reminder of the civil war few wish to return to). And across the Arab world, opinions have been shifted by images of Iraqi “insurgents” slaughtering innocent men, women and children while Americans are trying to build schools and hospitals.

But here in the United States opinions remain fixed. Opponents of the war are convinced that every day we are in Iraq we are making things worse for America and the world. One could certainly argue that we’re making things worse for America, in that the war has not gone as well as many of its supporters had hoped or expected. But even if you could prove that the war was a mistake in every way, to say that it never should have happened is not a good argument for abandoning the project. If a man is stabbed in the chest, you don’t cure him by simply yanking the knife out. In other words, the old talking points on both sides do not matter anymore.

There is an important lesson for President Bush in all this. The message of his recent speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars was that we need to “stay the course.” That has been his talking point for a very long time. And, in fairness, if your policy is to stay the course, then saying “stay the course” has a certain irrefutable logic to it. But on any long journey, even if the course remains the same the terrain may change.

Much has changed in Iraq. The Iraqi army is progressing, even as bombers target recruiting stations. The marshlands have been restored. There’s an enormous car-buying boom in Iraq, which is surely a sign of confidence. Morale — to the consternation of our domestic media — is still very high among American regular troops (less so among National Guardsmen). And, let’s not forget, the messy process of constitution writing is unfolding before our very eyes.

For reasons so imponderable that a cottage industry of West Wing Kremlinologists has sprung up, President Bush seems incapable or unwilling to make his case in light of the new realities. One may stay the course, and cross mountains and valleys. Let’s hear less about the destination and more about crossing the mountains and valleys.

Stagger on, weary Titan

Although I don't agree with the stated assumptions (it IS in the Gaurdian), follows an interesting comparison in the Gaurdian between the Brits after the Boer War and the US now:

Timothy Garton Ash in Stanford
Thursday August 25, 2005

Guardian

If you want to know what London was like in 1905, come to Washington in 2005. Imperial gravitas and massive self-importance. That sense of being the centre of the world, and of needing to know what happens in every corner of the world because you might be called on - or at least feel called upon - to intervene there. Hyperpower. Top dog. And yet, gnawing away beneath the surface, the nagging fear that your global supremacy is not half so secure as you would wish. As Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary, put it in 1902: "The weary Titan staggers under the too vast orb of his fate."

The United States is now that weary Titan. In the British case, the angst was a result of the unexpectedly protracted, bloody and costly Boer war, in which a small group of foreign insurgents defied the mightiest military the world had seen; concern about the rising economic power of Germany and the United States; and a combination of imperial overstretch with socio-economic problems at home. In the American case, it's a result of the unexpectedly protracted, bloody and costly Iraq war, in which a small group of foreign insurgents defies the mightiest military the world has seen; concern about the rising economic power of China and India; and a combination of imperial overstretch with socio-economic problems at home.

Iraq is America's Boer war. Remember that after the British had declared the end of major combat operations in the summer of 1900, the Boers launched a campaign of guerrilla warfare that kept British troops on the run for another two years. The British won only by a ruthlessness of which, I'm glad to say, the democratic, squeamish and still basically anti-colonialist United States appears incapable. In the end, the British had 450,000 British and colonial troops there (compared with some 150,000 US troops in Iraq), and herded roughly a quarter of the Boer population into concentration camps, where many died.

In a recent CNN/Gallup poll, 54% of those asked said it was a mistake to send American troops into Iraq, and 57% said the Iraq war has made the US less safe from terrorism. The protest camp outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, which grew around the mother of a soldier who died in Iraq, exemplifies the pain. CNN last Sunday aired a documentary with top-level sources explaining in detail how the intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was distorted, abused, sexed up and, as the programme was entitled, Dead Wrong. This will hardly be news for British or European readers, but the facts have not been so widely aired in the US. In another poll, the number of those who rated the president as "honest" fell below 50% for the first time. This week, he has again attempted to bolster support for his administration and his war. It doesn't seem to be working.

A recent article in the New York Times plausibly estimated the prospective long-term cost of the Iraq War at more than $1 trillion. If Iraqi politicians do finally agree a draft constitution for their country today, only the world's greatest optimist can believe that it will turn Iraq into a peaceful, stable, democratic federal republic. Increasingly, the Islamic Republic of Iran quietly calls the shots in the Shia south of Iraq. As the Washington joke goes: the war is over, and the Iranians won.

Meanwhile, oil prices of more than $60 a barrel put the price of petrol at American pumps up to nearly $3 a gallon for basic unleaded fuel. For someone from Europe this is still unbelievably cheap, but you should hear the shrieks of agony here. "Gas prices have changed my life," moaned a distressed Californian commuter. If higher energy prices persist, they threaten not just a still vibrant economy but a whole way of life, symbolised by the Hummer (in both its civilian and military versions). Besides instability in the Middle East, the main force pushing up oil prices is the relentless growth of demand for energy from the emerging economic giants of Asia. The Chinese go around the world quietly signing big oil supply deals with any oil-producing country they can find, however nasty its politics, including Sudan and Iran. When a Chinese concern tried to buy a big California energy company, that was too much - American politicians screamed and effectively blocked the deal.

China and India are to the United States today what Germany and America were to Britain a hundred years ago. China is now the world's second largest energy consumer, after the United States. It also has the world's second largest foreign currency reserves, after Japan and followed by Taiwan, South Korea and India. In the foreign reserve stakes, the US comes only ninth, after Singapore and just before Malaysia. According to some economists, the US has an effective net savings rate - taking account of all public spending and debt - of zero. Nil. Zilch. This country does not save; it spends. The television channels are still full of a maddening barrage of endless commercials, enticing you to spend, spend, spend - and then to "consolidate" your accumulated debt in one easy package.

None of this is to suggest that the United States will decline and fall tomorrow. Far from it. After all, the British empire lasted for another 40 years after 1905. In fact, it grew to its largest extent after 1918, before it signed its own death warrant by expending its blood and treasure to defeat Adolf Hitler (not the worst way to go). Similarly, one may anticipate that America's informal empire - its network of military bases and semi-protectorates - will continue to grow. The United States, like Edwardian Britain, still has formidable resources of economic, technological and military power, cultural attractiveness and, not least, the will to stay on top. As one British music hall ditty at that time proclaimed:

And we mean to be top dog still. Bow-wow.
Yes, we mean to be top dog still.

You don't have to go very far to hear that refrain in Washington today. The Bush administration's national security strategy makes no bones about the goal of maintaining military supremacy. But whether the "American century" that began in 1945 will last until 2045, 2035 or only 2025, its end can already be glimpsed on the horizon.

If you are, by any chance, of that persuasion that would instinctively find this a cause for rejoicing, pause for a moment to consider two things: first, that major shifts of power between rising and falling great powers have usually been accompanied by major wars; and second, that the next top dog could be a lot worse.

So this is no time for schadenfreude. It's a time for critical solidarity. A few far-sighted people in Washington are beginning to formulate a long-term American strategy of trying to create an international order that would protect the interests of liberal democracies even when American hyperpower has faded; and to encourage rising powers such as India and China to sign up to such an order. That is exactly what today's weary Titan should be doing, and we should help him do it.

The Dark Ages

That title is a little over the top. Our comms are down and will be for the next day or so. Has to do with our moving to a new compound...Slowly we turn, step by step...

So, with nothing else clever to say, I will close with this:

Luke: "Now, I'm just gonna make a slight incision here..."
Obi-wan: "Luke, use the force...."
Luke: "Really? I was just gonna-"
Obi-wan: "Luke use the force."
Luke: "Ok." (Guides lightsaber into woman's eye, woman screams and dies.)
Luke: "Are you happy now?"
Obi-wan: "I've never been happy..."

From a game version of Star Wars...

From fog of war a son emerges a soldier

This lady is a very talented writer. She captures perfectly what it means to be a parent to a child growing up...Annie and I see our kids growing up, much, much faster than we'd like.

Follows are a few of the writer's stories about her son, her father and her family. By the time you've read them, you will feel you know them, testimony of Ms. Diaz' writing skills. (I tell Annie all the time -- just write. She has it in her - writing - as well.)

Walking the walk: From fog of war a son emerges a soldier
By Sue Diaz

SAN DIEGO - Through the wavy triple-digit heat of the Mojave in midsummer, the Humvee headed our way up the long sloping road. From the front seat of our parked car, I tracked its progress, stepping outside as it got closer.

"Think that's him?" I asked my husband. "Hard to tell," he said, peering in the same direction.

It was Saturday, late in the afternoon, at the main entrance to the Army's Fort Irwin, near Barstow, Calif. Our son, Roman, a soldier with the 101st Airborne in Kentucky, was there with his unit for three weeks of desert training. When it was finished, they'd be flying back to Kentucky to prepare for deployment to Iraq next month. It would be Roman's second 15-month tour of duty there.

Earlier, just after lunch, he'd called us here at home with news that he'd been given the night off: "You guy's wouldn't by any chance have plans to be near Barstow later today, would you? Because if you did, you know, we could maybe get together for dinner or something."

The invitation was vintage Roman. Wry. Low-key. Unassuming. He knew, of course, that we were as likely to be near Barstow as we were to be planning a weekend in Baghdad. But he also guessed his parents would be happy to make the three-hour drive on the spur of the moment for one more chance to see him. He was right.

The plan wasn't without complications. When we arrived at the guard station at the fort's south entrance, the MP there informed us we wouldn't be allowed on base unless we were accompanied by our soldier.

"Wait over there," the guard said pointing to a paved spot nearby. We pulled over. Parked. Rolled down all the windows. Opened the front doors. My husband used his cellphone to call Roman on his.

"Hey, all right! You made it!" Roman answered. "Soon as I can find a ride, I'll be there."

My husband got out, sighed, stretched, and paced. I unbuckled my seat belt, leaned back, and took in the scene around me: low hills dotted with rocks and scrub, trails etched into the hard, dry terrain. In spite of the small city of boxy buildings a couple miles down the road, and all the cars and trucks passing the guard station on their way out, Fort Irwin seemed to be mostly sky and sand. In a place like that, thoughts have lots of room to wander. Mine did, to Roman - 21 and on the brink of going to war for the second time.

No matter how old our children are, it's hard as a parent not to still think of them as kids. And whenever my son's been home on leave, he hasn't gone out of his way to change this view. He'll typically sleep in. Shuffle into the kitchen in bare feet and baggy jeans. Open the refrigerator, idle there for a while, bypass the V-8 juice in favor of a can of Pepsi. Schlep to the family room sofa for some channel surfing, happy as can be to rediscover SpongeBob SquarePants.

And that's OK. If anyone deserves to be cut some slack, it's a kid who's been to Iraq and back. And is headed there again.

No longer a lowly private, this next time he'll be in charge of a group of men. Most are older than he is, he's told us. Some married, with children.

I tried to imagine the little boy I used to call "Bunky" barking orders to men carrying machine guns. Tried to picture the laid-back teenager I knew now giving instructions in how to clean a weapon, pack a duffel, carry a wounded comrade. Try as I might, I couldn't do it.

And wondered if I'd ever begin to understand what he's been through and how he's changed; if I'd ever be able to see him, really see him, not so much as my son, but as someone separate from my memories, someone coming into his own in the complicated world beyond our backyard. It would require a fundamental shift in perception. And in those families where this sea change somehow happens, it means, I think, not only that the child has grown up, but that the parent finally has, too.

The Humvee we'd been watching stopped about a block away, just before a turnaround point. I saw the door on its right side swing open, a backpack land on the pavement, a tall soldier in camouflage khakis jump out. I would recognize Roman, I was sure, even from a distance, just by the way he moved. I looked for that ambling walk of his I knew so well.

The manner in which this fellow carried himself was something else entirely. Back straight. Chest out. He'd scooped up his pack with one hand, and with the other gave the hood of the Humvee an authoritative thump, then pointed as if giving directions. With a quick, full-arm wave to the guys inside, he turned and headed up the road toward us and the guard station. His stride, smooth and sure.

I shrugged. Not him.

I turned to get back into the car, when somebody called out. "Hey, Mom! Dad!" I heard him say, in a voice familiar as my own.

UPDATE: I did a Google and found a prior article by Sue Diaz, also about her son.

Reunion with soldier son was cheerful - if a bit hair-raising
Monday, August 1, 2005

By SUE DIAZ

WHATEVER it is, let's be cool about it. We can act as if we don't even notice," I suggested. My husband and I were driving to the airport to pick up our 21-year-old son, Roman, an infantryman with the 101st Airborne in Fort Campbell, Ky. Specialist Diaz was coming home to San Diego for 10 days before heading back to Iraq to begin his second 15-month deployment there.

In a call shortly before we left for the airport, his sister, whom he'd just visited, told us we were in for a surprise. But the only clue Anne offered was that it had something to do with her brother's hair.

"Now, Mom, just keep in mind where he's been and what he's going back to. Who can blame him right now if he just wants to have a little fun?"

"New color?" I guessed.

"You'll see," was all she'd say.

Roman's height alone - 6'2" - would have made him easy to spot, standing there near the curb in front of the terminal. But his hair made him impossible to miss. There's something head-turning about a Mohawk - even when it stands no more than an inch-and-a-half high - especially a bright red one, with the tips dyed black.

"Oh," his computer-engineer dad gulped, catching sight of him.

"Oh, my," I elaborated.

But after a curbside flurry of car doors opening and a couple of quick hugs, we simply said to Roman, with all the nonchalance we could muster, "Welcome home!" and "Good to see you!"

On the drive back I turned from time to time in the front bucket seat to ask him about his flight from San Jose, his weekend with Anne and Erick. His dad chatted offhandedly about the weather, asked about the soldiers in the unit he now leads - "my Jedi," Roman calls them.

But there was an elephant in the room. Twenty minutes into the trip, I could ignore it no longer. "Hmmmmmmmm," I said, twisting to look at Roman full on. "I can't quite put my finger on it. But something's definitely . . . different."

"Hmmmmmmmm. What could it be?" he teased, fingertip touching one corner of his smile.

Roman has always had an independent streak. And as far as surprises go, this one was small compared to his decision three years ago to join the Army instead of going to college. It's taken me nearly this long to come to terms with that choice. And I think I have, as much as any mother can.

In fact, just a few days earlier, I'd told friends and neighbors about our soldier's brief visit home and invited them to come say "Hi" at a block party barbecue on Sunday in the cul-de-sac - the same place Roman learned to ride a two-wheeler.

A recent picture of him graced one corner of the photocopied invitation. Smiling in his dress uniform, complete with medals, ribbons, and the blue cord of the infantry, he looked handsome, clean-cut and all-American. His hair was dark brown, not DayGlo red. And in that photo, it still grew on the sides of his head.

The former PTA mom in me wrestled at first with what the neighbors would think. I wondered if I might convince them he was actually a member of an elite, top-secret special-forces unit.

"You've heard of the Green Berets?" I imagined myself saying. "Well, Roman is with the Airborne's Red Mohawks."

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm going to shave it off at the end of this leave. I'll have to," he said. "It's just that I've always wanted to do something crazy with my hair. And I figured this was my last chance."

I trust he was looking ahead to his role someday as a responsible post-Army adult. But like the dark smoke of a roadside bomb, the idea of "lasts" inevitably hovers over a leave like this one and colors it in ways Clairol never thought of. Anyone with someone they love heading into harm's way knows this. War has a way of making clear what really matters in this life. "What the neighbors think" is not high on that list.

To their credit and his, the 60 or so who came to the block party seemed to take Roman's hair in stride. It was a vindication of sorts, if any was even needed. Men clapped him on the back and laughed. Kids said, "Cool." Moms wrapped their arms around him. In spite of differing views about the war, everyone there wished our unconventional soldier well.

I must confess I still thought this new, albeit temporary, look of his was not the most mature thing my son's ever done. And then he surprised me again - with something that was. It came in answer to a question I asked the day before he left.

We'd been talking about how time flies, and how the end date of his four-year stint in the service will come up while he still has three months left in Iraq. "Well, then. Think the Army might let you come back sooner?" I asked. "You know, before the rest of your unit?"

Roman sent me a look that said he couldn't believe I was asking that. "Mom, even if the Army would, I couldn't do that. Say to my men, 'See ya! I'm outta here'? No way. No. I'll come home when they do."

The next time you see a dusty group of U.S. soldiers in the news, remember these stories - the funny hair, the serious conversation. Think about the unique individuals who wear those look-alike uniforms - their goodness and goofiness, their complexity and their courage. Think about all we as a country lose when even one of them falls.

Sue Diaz, a freelance writer, wrote this article for The Christian Science Monitor. Send comments about this article to oped@northjersey.com.

UPDATE, AGAIN: I can't get enough of this writer. I found her website, suediaz.com, and found another article on her son (below), and one about her father (below it), one about her family at the beach (below it), and, finally, one about her kids going to school. All good stuff.

From a Corner of Hell, a Moment of Beauty
by Sue Diaz

I peeked into the sunny bedroom at the end of the hall, and for a moment, it seemed as if the last two years had never happened. As if my son, Roman, had never left home at eighteen to join the army. As if he’d never been deployed for fifteen long months in Iraq. Because when I glanced over at the desk in the corner, there he was again -- in blue jeans and T-shirt, hunched in front of his computer, a bottle of Dr Pepper near his right hand, yesterday’s socks scattered on the floor. But in place of his old high school backpack, a weathered green duffle bag now leaned against the wall.

In the luggage claim area at the airport earlier in the week, I had tried to lift that bag and couldn’t budge it. Roman quickly stepped over and scooped it up with one hand.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been back for a visit since his deployment to Iraq. Six months earlier his dad and I had welcomed him home from the war with a big party. This time the hand-painted banner we’d tacked to the garage door then was taped above the sofa in the family room.

“Hey, Mom,” Roman said catching a glimpse of me at the bedroom door. “Come here. Check this out.”

He wanted to show me the small computer he had bought, packed, and sent here from Germany. That’s where the 1st Armored, the division he’d served with in Iraq, is based, and where he’d lived the past six months. The new orders he’d received in Baumholder a few weeks ago were sending him now to the 101st Airborne in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. That would be his next stop after the 10-day leave he was on here was over.

Roman’s infantry unit with the 1st Armored had the distinction of serving in a combat zone longer than any group since World War II. And now, according to a recent Pentagon announcement, soldiers from the 101st Airborne – where he’s headed – “will make up a significant part of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan starting in 2005.”

We didn’t talk much about the likelihood of his return to the war. Instead we chatted that day about his computer. Its speed. Its size. Its amazing graphics.

“And what are those?” I asked, pointing to two on-screen icons labeled “Iraq I” and “Iraq II.”

“Pictures I took with my digital camera when I was over there,” he said.

“Can I see them?”

With a couple clicks of his mouse, the digital slide show he created began, and its images are seared in my memory:

Hovering helicopters in silhouette against a blood-red sky.

Acres of confiscated mortar shells, AK-47s, rifles.

Humvees with no doors.

Buildings with no walls.

The head of a child’s doll lying in the dust, its plastic face blistered, its tiny ears singed.

The back seat of an empty car, mottled with stains the color of terra cotta tile.

A spider hole, half-hidden by brambles. “The hole Saddam didn’t crawl out of,” my son said with a wry grin.

The only other times he smiled were at pictures of his buddies in Bravo Company. Before each of those photos faded into the next, he’d hurry to name every one of his comrades, even though from most distances, they all looked alike to me -- with their army haircuts and their desert khakis.

“That’s Ramirez. Stanfel. Davis. Sgt. Hurd. . . .” he said, touching the screen again and again with the tip of his finger. As if I would remember all their names. As if he could ever forget.

Off in the distance in one of those group shots, I couldn’t help but notice black smoke coiling into an impossibly blue sky.

“Were there any places over there that you’d walk through the streets and say, ‘Nice neighborhood’? You know, like here?” I asked.

“No. Not really,” he said, shaking his head. “Not any more.”

Just then a tight close-up of a big, bright-yellow sunflower filled the screen, and just as quickly, disappeared.

“Wait. Go back,” I said. And when he did, I added, “Where’d that come from?”

“The flower? I took that picture one morning after the warehouse we’d been holed up in had taken a lot of enemy fire. It seemed so weird to come out and see something so pretty still standing in the middle of. . .well, in the middle of all that.”

And on the screen, more snapshots from that dusty corner of hell continued.

And now he’s gone again. Roman left a few days after that slide show on another plane heading east, but the improbable beauty of that sunflower has stayed with me. It’s with me still. And through whatever lies ahead for this soldier of ours now with the 101st Airborne, I will hold on to the stubborn hope embodied by that bloom, embodied, too, by the young man who, after one particularly long night at his post in Iraq, put down his machine gun to point a camera at its petals.

On Reading My Father's WWII Diary
by Sue Diaz

Self-appointed Keeper of Assorted Family Artifacts, my older sister, Kathy, mentioned the book off-handedly in a long-distance call, as if, of course, I knew about it. As if I’d known all these years that our father’s D-Day diary rested in a box in a closet in her home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, near the christening dress made from our Grandmother’s wedding gown.

But I had no idea.

“Whoa! Wait a minute! Daddy kept a diary when he was in the war?”

“Yeah. One of those government-issue things. Small enough to fit in a back pocket.”

“And he actually wrote in it?”

I remember my father as a doer, not a chronicler. A reader, not a writer. Essentially, a man of few words. Oh, sure, I often heard him, my mom, and their friends talking politics and Green Bay Packers as they leaned against the rec-room bar he built in the basement of our home on the south side of Milwaukee. But around his three daughters, Frank T. Bindas could be almost shy -- a genial foreigner in our world of Toni home permanents, Beatles songs, and nylons hanging like Spanish moss over the bathroom shower rod.

I asked my sister to send me the diary, thinking it would provide a fascinating first-person account of a pivotal time in history, that it might fill in some of the details Saving Private Ryan left out. And I thought, too, I just might get to know my no-nonsense father in a way that wasn’t possible when I was younger, and he was still alive.

A week later, the book arrives. I slide it out of its cardboard Priority Mailer, run my fingers over the words, “My Life in the Service,” embossed beneath the golden eagle on the creased, blue leatherette cover. Opening it, I draw my thumb across the outer edges of the diary’s lined sheets. They make a fluttering sound, and a faint mustiness rises up from the yellowing pages. For the most part, this diary is empty, except for twenty pages or so in the middle filled with my father’s slanting, elegant handwriting.

June 2, left Plymouth, boarded LC1 (L) 419

My eyes lock on to the next entry – June 6, 1944.

Arrived on D-Day, invasion day on the shores of Normandy, France. Was strafed by the “Jerries” that day. Stayed near the beach area for a few days and found things to be really hot.

That’s it. That’s all my father has to say about what must have been the scariest, most horrific day of his life, a day that changed the course of the war and with it, the history of Western Civilization. No mention of the pounding of his heart as his boat headed toward the beach. Not a word about wading through surf red with the blood of fellow soldiers. Nothing at all about the scream of bullets or the sudden and forever silence of fallen friends.

Found things to be really hot is all this 21-year-old corporal in the Seventh Corps can bring himself to say.

The next time he writes, it’s June 10.

Received first mail here in France. Really boosted my morale.

I continue reading, entry by entry, looking all the while for what I consider the real stuff of history -- the whine of bombs, the heat of combat –- detailed by this battle-tested soldier under the command of Lt. General J. Lawton Collins, or “Joe Lightnin’,” as he’s called in a 1944 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. According to that same article, “Collins’ divisions were given the job of breaking up the bloody, costly hedgerow fighting at the base of the Peninsula. They broke through the German lines west of St. Lo and ripped open a gap through which General George Patton’s 3rd Army made its great drive. Into the boiling cauldron of smoke and dust, Collins sent his infantry.”

A few of my father’s diary entries touch – but only briefly -- on such things.

In early July, for instance, he writes, Spent in a fox hole. Plenty of noise and one of those Fourth of Julys I hope I never have to spend again.

Really have the Nazis on the run, he says on the 25th of that same month.

On November 22, he notes, Buzz bombs came over all day.

But for the most part, my father’s wartime diary chronicles -- in addition to the frequent movements of his division -- a different kind of story. One filled with the beauty of distant hills. Letters and cookies from home. The sweetness of the young ladies he meets and dances with. The news that the Browns beat the Cards, 2-0, in the first game of the World Series. The joy of the liberated Belgian people:

Shall never forget this day and the welcome we received, he writes on September 5. Rode in an open car. People came running and shouting, “Viva La Amerique,” getting in our car, hugging and kissing us, throwing flowers, apples, pears, plums, confetti, beer, champagne, extending their hands for us to shake. Women and men running with their young ones after us. People were so happy. Tears were running from their eyes. Girls were dressed in colors of their flag, throwing ribbons from their hair, kissing us (some were beautiful also), giving us flags. Certainly a happy lot of people, and made me feel the same.

Then, with the formality I recognize as my father’s, he says, once again, I shall never forget this day.

Other entries talk about things like buying eggs from a French farmer and enjoying coffee and doughnuts, compliments of the American Red Cross. There’s champagne, too, plenty of it, left behind by the Germans. And pretty girls who tuck their pictures into the pockets of his Army jacket.

One snowy January day in Belgium my father and a friend, Sgt. Neubrand, hike to the top of a hill for the pure pleasure of it. Took pictures when we arrived at the top where there was a crucifix and got a wonderful view of the town.

Describing a few days spent on leave in a hotel in Brussels, my father notes with obvious delight the hot and cold running water and a real bed with foot-thick mattresses and clean white sheets.

In early February of 1945, he receives a “Dear John” letter from his girlfriend back home. Her name is Dolores, like my mother’s, but she is not my mom. And this jilted soldier writes, Hope I don’t have too much trouble getting over it, but somehow or other, I think we will both see things in the same light.

Good thing for me they didn’t. If they had, I wouldn’t be here. And I wouldn’t have had these moments with the pages of my daddy’s wartime diary. I always thought of my father as a good, hard-working man – soft-spoken, private, unemotional. I knew him as someone who stored household bills in an old cigar box, who loved a thick T-bone, Glenn Miller’s music, and all of us – Mom, Kathy, Janet, and me. He was the grown-up I remember glimpsing one night from the hall as he knelt by his bedside, head bowed in prayer at the end of the day. These impressions still hold.

Yet now I see, too, that beneath those neatly pressed Van Heusen shirts of his thumped the heart of a cock-eyed optimist. A soldier who somehow managed to view the glass as “half full,” even when it was, in fact, completely shattered. My father. Frank T. Bindas. A man who, like so many of his generation, was no stranger to the horrors of war, but who chose to focus instead on the things in this crazy life that are worth fighting for.

The Family on the Beach
by Sue Diaz

We’re sitting in our car, my husband and I, parked near the shore of Torrey Pines Beach, watching the sun slide below the wall of granite-gray clouds rising up from the long line of the horizon out where the ocean ends.

It’s chillier now than when we headed out to dinner earlier this evening. We didn’t think then to bring along jackets or sweaters. So instead of walking off our desserts along this favorite stretch of beach, we decide to take in the scenery tonight from the comfort of two bucket seats, to hear the call of gulls through the car’s open moon roof.

It’s a beautiful evening. Here at sunset the shore is awash with muted pinks, pale yellows, and opalescent grays. Drained of daytime color, this seaside world of breaking waves and wet sand shimmers like the inside of a oyster shell.

Nudging my husband’s arm, I nod toward the young family ambling into view a few yards from the water’s edge. A mom. A dad. A little girl about five. A boy who looks to be three.

The dad, jacket collar turned up, hands deep in the pockets of his Dockers, stops to peer out at a big ship dredging sand about a half-mile offshore. The mom’s gaze wanders from the setting sun to the seagulls overhead to the floppy cloth bag she’s setting down in the sand.

From the bottom of this bag, the boy pulls out a plastic shovel and promptly sets to work -- digging, scooping, patting. With the pointy corner of the shovel, he draws in the sand a circle the size of a center-stage spotlight. His sister, all knees and elbows and Buster Brown bangs, sees this as her cue to jump in and perform for any beachcombers who care to watch what appears to be The Dance of the Purple Leggings. No one notices, least of all the little fellow building aqueducts at her feet.

The boy’s intense focus, the girl’s dramatic flair remind me of our two kids some fourteen years ago.

“Remember when Anne and Roman were that age?” I say to my husband.

“Just barely,” he answers with a bemused laugh.

It’s not that his mind is going. For a middle-aged guy, it’s actually still quite sharp. Before our daughter headed off to college, she’d often come to him for help with her calculus homework. Our soon-to-be-eighteen son, who currently knows everything, also knows his father can be counted on to answer to any and all questions about microchips and motherboards and computer memory.

But it’s the other kind of memory -- the kind measured in minutes and heartbeats -- that is harder, much harder, to hold on to.

Where does the time go? How is it possible that one minute we’re feeding strained bananas to a little person wearing a Big Bird bib, and the next minute we’re watching in amazement as that same individual finishes off three slices of leftover pizza as an appetizer? How can it be that one evening we’re toting sand toys to the beach, and the next night, or so it seems, we’re asking our teenagers, “So, who are you going with to the dance?” I can’t take my eyes off this family. And for an instant, there is no such thing as time. There is only Life, leaving its footprints on the beach. The tide is on its way in. But at this moment, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is these four people -- with their zippered jackets and plastic shovels, their windblown hair and sand-filled sneakers. And this family is us -- me, my husband, our daughter and son. And we are them.

They won’t know it, but I’ll be there when they arrive back home -- when the dad brushes the sticky sand from between his son’s fingers, and the mom pours a couple capfuls of Mr. Bubble into the warm, running water of the tub in the kids’ bathroom. When the light from the lamp next to the family-room sofa falls on the pages of tonight’s bedtime story, I’ll be there, too. In truth, I already am. My voice is rising and falling, my eyes growing big, as one of these parents adds a bit of extra drama to this day’s rendition of Green Eggs and Ham. Next, I’m following the static-y rustle of the kids’ footed PJs down the carpeted hall. With their mother and father, I’m tucking the covers under their chins, planting a kiss their foreheads, and turning off the bedroom lights with a soft, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

The family’s about to leave the beach now. The dad scoops up the toy bag and reaches for the girl’s hand as he turns to navigate the small incline that leads toward the cars. The little boy, still clutching his shovel, lifts both arms toward his mom. She picks him up. He wraps his legs around her waist, rests a cheek on her shoulder. Faces expressionless, they shuffle past our parked car.

In Thornton Wilder’s Our Town there is a character, Emily, who asks in that play’s final act, Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Wondering that very same thing, I feel impelled to pop up through the moon roof and call after these strangers, Stop! Pay attention! Look, really look, at one another! I want to tell them, Tomorrow your little girl will be a coed at a university hundreds of miles away! The day after that, your son will get his driver’s license! Before you know it, you’ll have a condo in Sun City and five grandchildren! Stop. Stay. Look. Really look.

Of course, I don’t say any of this. Instead, my eyes follow them all as they head toward their car and home -- toward days, nights, and years that will, I’m sure, pass far too quickly. But they can’t possibly know that. Not now. Not next week or even next month. Maybe they’ll have an inkling in another fifteen years or so, when one evening after dinner, this mom or dad or both drive to a nearby beach to watch the sun slide below a wall of clouds rising up from the horizon out where the ocean ends. There they’ll notice a young family stopping near the water’s edge. For a short while that holds within it echoes of eternity, they’ll find they won’t be able to take their eyes off that strangely familiar foursome. And without a word, they’ll watch the long, end-of-day shadows stretching toward them across the sand -- of a little boy and a dancing girl and a floppy bag of beach toys.

First Day of School
by Sue Diaz

Early September, 1988. With a group of other parents, I am lingering on the school yard blacktop, heart in throat, as my youngest child and his new classmates line up for the very first time behind a paper sign that reads: Kindergarten – A.M. When the 8 o’clock bell rings, Roman’s public school education will officially begin. Soon he’ll be learning the rudiments of phonics, new number concepts, and the importance of sharing -- not to mention the second verse of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and where to find the bathroom pass. My little boy -- going out into the larger world. A Milestone Moment.

I sigh, bite my bottom lip, blink back a few silly-me tears. Gazing off into the distance, I square my shoulders and silently vow – for both our sakes -- to be strong.

Suddenly, I feel a small tug on my arm. It’s Roman. He’s slipped out of line and come over to me. Curling his forefinger, he indicates there is something he needs to tell me, something important, but it’s a secret. What? I wonder, bending towards him. Does the little guy, here on the brink of The Great Unknown, need some last minute reassurance? A quick kiss? A kind word to carry with him to the crafts table?

His brown eyes narrowing slightly, he cups his dimpled hand over my ear, takes a deep breath. After a moment’s pause, I hear him whisper, “You can go now, Mom.”

The bell rings. Faster than you can say, “Good morning, boys and girls,” Roman’s back in line. Tossing a crooked grin in my direction, he bustles with the others towards Room B-3. If I want a long last look, I’ll have to settle for the back of his head.

The morning passes with the loose routines of a writing mom who works at home: dishes, laundry, time at the computer. It is close to noon. I’ve come back this time with my mom, Roman’s grandmother, and the two of us are sitting on a low concrete bench near the kindergarten room, waiting to greet him after his first day.

“I don’t see him, do you?” my mother says with a cluck of concern as her eyes scan the line of five-year-olds wriggling its way back from the playground.

“Well, he’s gotta be there somewhere,” I say, “That’s his teacher, Mrs. Bennett, near the front.”

We look again, our eyes bumping across a line that’s advancing with all the precision of a drunken centipede. Arriving at the classroom, Mrs. Bennett smiles benevolently and waits for the last of the kids to disappear inside. Then her arm reaches behind and closes the door.

My mother and I look at each other.

“He wasn’t with them, was he?” I say.

“I don’t think so, dear.”

I get up and peek through the narrow window of the door. I see the children clustered on the carpet, sitting cross-legged, looking up at their teacher. Clearly she is saying Very Important Things. It is also clear to me that my son isn’t in the room to hear them.

“I’ll be right back,” I turn to tell my mom. On a hunch, I head over to the playground. In the distance, on the far side of the slide, I catch a glimpse of a small figure in a red polo shirt sitting in the sand. His head is bent down. I see only the top of it, but I’d know that wispy, white-blond hair anywhere. Roman is hard at play, oblivious to anything but the grains of sand streaming through his fingers.

“Roman, what are you doing?”

He looks up. Smiles.

“Oh, hi, Mom.”

His attitude is ultra-casual, la-dee-da.

“Recess is over, Roman. The teacher called the rest of your class inside. Why on earth are you still here?”

“Well,” he says, patting a growing mound of sand, “No one called me.”

Some kids cling. Others, right from the start, can’t seem to crawl away fast enough. They are who they are, these children of ours. Sometimes early on, life grants us an illuminating glimpse of those traits of theirs that will perplex and challenge us for years to come. On that first day of kindergarten, for instance, I was struck by my son’s self-possession, his singular focus, the strength of his independent spirit. Good things, all. At the same time, too, I couldn’t help but worry, that in marching to the beat of a different drummer, he would also risk missing a good part of the parade.

It’s not easy, finding the right balance between our need to protect vs. theirs to pull away, or our faith in the word “we” vs. their right to say “me.” If I’ve learned anything in the years since that September, it’s that developmental stages may vary, individual needs may differ, but one thing is certain: today, every day, is always the first day of school.

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven...

Today's Gospel concerns the unbelievable weight put upon Peter by Jesus: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Whenever we feel the burdens of life, remember that those burdens are "small change" in comparison to the great burdens of Peter.

The Navy chaplain here at TQ is just fantastic. He hustles too. He serves Mass in three spots on Sunday, and says daily masses all over the base.

Peter's Confession of Christ

13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,[a] the Son of the living God."

17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter,[b] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it.[d] 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[e] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[f] loosed in heaven." 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Letter From a Country Marine Recruit

Dear Ma and Pa, I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc. but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you til noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much. We go on "route marches", which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home.

Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The country is nice but awful flat The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot.

The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none. This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes. Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake.
I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry. Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,
Gail

Teaching Math: Then and Now

Teaching Math In 1950
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005
Un hachero vende una carretada de madera para $100. El
costo de la produccisn es $80.

Hat tip to Nirupa M., an MD in Jackson.

One Man Standing Between Us & Evil

Special Report
Bulletin From Ben
By Ben Stein Published 8/18/2005 1:42:28 AM

A few humble theses:

There is such a thing as evil in this world and such a thing as good. It is simply not true that all is relative and similar. Beheading Iraqi civilians with a saw on the Internet is absolutely evil. Helping children in Mosul get pure water is absolute good. Sending homicide bombers to blow up elementary schools at a kibbutz is evil. Treating the children of your enemies in the finest hospitals in Israel is good.

In Europe and Asia and South America and in much of North America, this idea is unknown. All is relative and the only point is to get away another day without having the evil ones attack you. Appeasing the terrorists, ignoring them and their instigators, pretending that the good guys are the bad guys -- all of these are now standard practice in the capitals of the world, and in the academies of America and in the Democratic Party at high levels.

There is one great man standing between us and this capitulation to evil: that man is George Bush, and he has two great allies, Tony Blair and John Howard. If we did not have George Bush at the helm, if we had a moral relativist like Kerry or Gore, we would even now be playing the same appeasing games as Chamberlain played with Hitler, and which France and Germany, Spain and Italy, Norway and Belgium, tragically, even Canada, play with the enemies of the human spirit.

By a great providence, we were sent George Bush. In his mind, there is such a thing as evil. Terrorism is evil. Racism is evil. The murder of unborn babies is evil. Torturing a totally innocent Terri Schiavo to death is evil. He sees it, acts on it, actively works not just to get along day by day, but to keep evil at bay and to overcome it where it can be overcome. As time goes by, I come to realize that George Bush, with all of his faults, is the spiritual heir to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Winston Churchill, to the late Pope John Paul II. How unbelievably lucky we are to have him, and how grateful we should be.

The terrifying part is that he will be gone from power in less than three years. Then what? The evil will remain in men's souls, and who will be there to fight it? We have to start thinking right now of who sees and recognizes the difference between good and evil and start energizing ourselves to make that man or woman President. George Bush's shoes will be terrifyingly difficult to fill.

Update: Here's a letter Ben Stein wrote to his son on his son's eighteenth birthday.

My son turned 18 a few days ago, and of course he is far too busy playing computer games and driving the Jeep we got him for his birthday to listen to me and my preachments, but let's just pretend that he's listening. If he were, this is what I'd say.

Dear Tommy,

How the time flies. How easily I can recall taking you home from the hospital and telling your mother, my wife, all of my hopes and plans for you. It did not dawn on me just how little my plans had to do with your plans, but in the hope that maybe that will change with age, here I go again.

I could tell you to get enough sleep, to eat properly, to study hard, to not drink a lot of caffeine, but I have already told you those a million times already, so I'll just tell you three things about your world.

First, your grandfather on my side, the redoubtable Herbert Stein, was not born comfortable the way you were. He had to work his way through college washing dishes at a fraternity at Williams College that did not admit Jews. He did it without complaint and when I asked him many years later if he was angry about the slight, he said, "I didn't have the luxury of feeling angry. I was just happy to be able to work my way through a great college in the great depression." That is good sense and gratitude in action, and I hope you will learn from it. My father was later an avid supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr., and that's part of his legacy as well -- maybe from washing dishes.

Second, your grandfather on Mom's side, Colonel Dale Denman of Arkansas, was a major war hero in World War II and in Vietnam. I once asked him what it was like before he went into combat. He answered, "I prayed I would not be a coward." His prayers were answered. He fought the SS hand to hand and won the battle and won a Silver Star. This is an example of heroism that makes us all in his family both small and large. I hope you are never in combat but I hope you will always remember his prayer and his heroism.

Third, try to think some day of the number of men and women who died and lost limbs and sanity so you could be a free man. From Saratoga to Iwo Jima to Cho-Sin and now in Mosul and Ar-Ramadi, think of all those who gave up their lives so you could be a free man, because now you are free, and you are a man. They died for you and me, and we have to think every single day what we did to be worth dying for. Did we comfort the lonely? Did we visit the sick? Did we lift up the downtrodden or did we just live for our own selfish luxury? There are so many things to do and I hope that some day soon you will start coming with me to the VA hospital to visit the patients.

I don't expect you to learn all of this right away. It takes years, but there is a time to start and the time is now. Enjoy yourself, but you, like all of us, have a debt to repay to those who went before and who are fighting now.

God bless you, Tommy, and Happy Birthday.

Update #2: And here's Ben's tribute to his father-in-law.

Col. Dale Denman, Jr., US Army Retired, died on September 3 in Heber Springs, Arkansas, eighty two years after he was born in Prescott, Arkansas, about one hundred and fifty miles south. It might seem like a small distance to travel in a lifetime, but in a way, his journey was as big as the story of America and the story of freedom.

In 1940, Col. Denman went to West Point. Duty, honor, country. He wore cadet gray, then graduated to Army blue in 1944 and went off to fight in France and Germany. I once asked him what he was thinking about the night before he was committed to combat. “I prayed that I would not be a coward,” he said matter of factly.

His prayers were answered. He fought hand to hand against the SS and won. As a forward observer, he ran through sniper fire and machine gun fire to call in artillery to rescue his company when it was pinned down. He participated in the liberation of at least two concentration camps. He got pneumonia fighting in the cold, refused to be evacuated and kept fighting. He came home with the Bronze Star, many other medals and a certain way of looking at the world.

“In the Army, we hate war more than anyone else,” he once told me just before I married his daughter in 1968. “We hate it because we’re the ones who get killed.”

“Why do you do it then?” I asked him.

“ So you and my daughter won’t have to,” he said.

After the war, he served in dusty bases out west and on the front lines of the Cold War in Germany. He went on maneuvers in bitter cold getting ready to fight the Red Army. He was away from his family for months on end. That was his job. Duty, honor, country.
When he was in his forties, he went to Vietnam and served as an advisor to South Vietnamese troops. For extraordinary combat bravery, including more hand to hand combat, he won the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Medal. He kept them. When he talked about his friends who died in Vietnam, he cried.

He retired to an idyllic place called Eden Isle, in Heber Springs, Arkansas. He did Meals on Wheels for the elderly, spoke about war at the local high school, interviewed young people for West Point, was treasurer for decades of the First Presbyterian Church, cared for his dying first and second wives. He never said no to any request for help.

They had a memorial for him at the Presbyterian Church in Heber Springs two weeks ago. He had written out in longhand his plans for the service. He wanted his family and friends to remember that he lived his life by the Army code: Duty, Honor, Country. A small honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars handed his widow a folded flag “...with the thanks of a grateful nation...” and fired five volleys and then a man played Taps. A veteran handed Col. Denman’s widow, Sue, a folded flag, “with the thanks of a grateful nation.”

This is a story of one man in a small town in Arkansas. But let’s be clear about this: Without Col. Denman and the men and women like him, we would have no freedom, no country, no Constitution, nothing worth having. We owe him and his fellows our lives. From Cadet Gray to Army Blue to the sky blue of eternity. Rest in peace, Col. Denman. You are my hero.

World Class Mississippi

Paul Harvey has a nice little piece on the misperception that is Mississippi:

"Mississippi is still burning. Times have changed, but the incendiaries won't quit. Mississippi, statistically, could shame most of our states with its minimal per-capita crime, its cultural maturity and its distinguished alumni. But Mississippi has enough residual gentility of the Old South not to rub our noses in our own comparative inadequacy.

The pack-media could not wait to remake the movie MISSISSIPPI BURNING, into a TV version called, MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI. Thus yet another generation of Americans is indoctrinated with indelible snapshots which are half a century out of date. The very idea that anybody from New York, D.C., Chicago or L. A. could launch stones from those shabby glass houses toward anybody else is patently absurd. Lilliputians have a psychological need to make everybody else appear small and Mississippi, too nice to fight back, is such an easy target.

The International Ballet Competition regularly rotates among four citadels where there is a sufficiency of sophisticated art appreciation: Vama, Bulgaria; Helsinki, Finland; Moscow, Russia and Jackson, Mississippi.

Only Mississippi has a satellite art program in which the State Museum of Art sends exhibits around the state for the enjoyment of smaller communities. No state can point to a richer per capita contribution to arts and letters. William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Willie Morris, Margaret Walker Alexander, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs) and John Grisham are Mississippians. As are Leontyne Price, Elvis Presley, Tammy Wynette, B. B. King, Jimmy Rogers, Oprah Winfrey, and Jimmy Buffett.

Scenery? The Natchez Trace is the second most traveled parkway in our nation. With magnolia and dogwood, stately pines and moss-draped oaks, Mississippi is in bloom all year 'round. And the state stays busy---manufacturing more upholstered furniture than any state; testing space shuttle engines for NASA; and building rocket motors.

Much of our nation's most monumental medical progress has roots in Mississippi. The first heart transplant in 1964. The first lung transplant in 1963. The most widely used medical textbook in the world, THE TEXTBOOK OF MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY, reprinted in ten languages, were authored by Dr. Arthur Guyton of the University of Mississippi.

The "Case Method" of practicing law, the basis of the United States legal system, was developed at the University of Mississippi.

Nationally, educators are chewing their fingernails up past the second knuckle anxious about the disgraceful rate of dropouts and illiterate graduates. In Mississippi, the state government and two philanthropic organizations teamed up in 2002 to put computer-based literacy program in every elementary school in the state. Maybe Mississippi is right to downplay its opportunities, advantages and refinement. The ill-mannered rest of us, converging, would surely mess it up."

This is Paul Harvey...Good Day.

Where are the Do-Gooders?

The always intrepid Left Coast Rebel sent me this article that exposes the hypocrisy of the feel-good, do-good crowd. What's the hypocracy? They determine who's worthy of the support. If you are poor and from a country once bludgeoned by a ruthless tyrant that happens to be being freed by an American president these do-gooders hate, well you're just SOL.

fighting words
Losing the Iraq War
Can the left really want us to?
By Christopher Hitchens

Another request in my in-box, asking if I'll be interviewed about Iraq for a piece "dealing with how writers and intellectuals are dealing with the state of the war, whether it's causing depression of any sort, if people are rethinking their positions or if they simply aren't talking about it." I suppose that I'll keep on being asked this until I give the right answer, which I suspect is "Uncle."

There is a sort of unspoken feeling, underlying the entire debate on the war, that if you favored it or favor it, you stress the good news, and if you opposed or oppose it you stress the bad. I do not find myself on either side of this false dichotomy. I think that those who supported regime change should confront the idea of defeat, and what it would mean for Iraq and America and the world, every day. It is a combat defined very much by the nature of the enemy, which one might think was so obviously and palpably evil that the very thought of its victory would make any decent person shudder. It is, moreover, a critical front in a much wider struggle against a vicious and totalitarian ideology.

It never seemed to me that there was any alternative to confronting the reality of Iraq, which was already on the verge of implosion and might, if left to rot and crash, have become to the region what the Congo is to Central Africa: a vortex of chaos and misery that would draw in opportunistic interventions from Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Bad as Iraq may look now, it is nothing to what it would have become without the steadying influence of coalition forces. None of the many blunders in postwar planning make any essential difference to that conclusion. Indeed, by drawing attention to the ruined condition of the Iraqi society and its infrastructure, they serve to reinforce the point.

How can so many people watch this as if they were spectators, handicapping and rating the successes and failures from some imagined position of neutrality? Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration? The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of "missing" Iraqis, to support Iraqi women's battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?

The New York Times ran a fascinating report (subscription only), under the byline of James Glanz, on July 8. It was a profile of Dr. Alaa Tamimi, the mayor of Baghdad, whose position it would be a gross understatement to describe as "embattled." Dr. Tamimi is a civil engineer and convinced secularist who gave up a prosperous exile in Canada to come home and help rebuild his country. He is one among millions who could emerge if it were not for the endless, pitiless torture to which the city is subjected by violent religious fascists. He is quoted as being full of ideas, of a somewhat Giuliani-like character, about zoning enforcement, garbage recycling, and zero tolerance for broken windows. If this doesn't seem quixotic enough in today's gruesome circumstances, he also has to confront religious parties on the city council and an inept central government that won't give him a serious budget.

Question: Why have several large American cities not already announced that they are going to become sister cities with Baghdad and help raise money and awareness to aid Dr. Tamimi? When I put this question to a number of serious anti-war friends, their answer was to the effect that it's the job of the administration to allocate the money, so that there's little room or need for civic action. I find this difficult to credit: For day after day last month I could not escape the news of the gigantic "Live 8" enterprise, which urged governments to do more along existing lines by way of debt relief and aid for Africa. Isn't there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable "communities" have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable.

And so we watch with detached curiosity, from dry land, to see whether the Iraqis will sink or swim. For shame.

Pictures at Dusk

Here are a few pictures taken at TQ's Russian airplane parking lot...

Army Materiel Command, Iraq Class of 2005...


I'm not sure the gunner in that turret made it out of there...


No love lost across the ocean...

The Fausts

The Fausts. Don and Susie, Donna, Joey, Moira, Karen, Steve, Jenny and Miche. Where do I start.

I'll start with Uncle Don (pictured at left), out of respect for my superior officer. Uncle Don was an Army Colonel and commanded a support battalion in New Orleans. I remember growing up watching from a distance as he served in the Army Reserves. I would always ask him military questions and secretly wanted very badly to join the military. His son Joey and my closest cousin always were proud to say that Joey's dad was a bird colonel, whatever the hell that was. Well, now I know full well what a bird colonel is, in fact I salute them all of the time! I mirror Uncle Don in temperment (fiesty), degree (Economics), and the military.

"Mimi" was Mary Blanchard, my mother's mother, wife to Joseph S. "Bouie" Blanchard, and mother of nine children, Jo (my mother), Susie, Mug, Di, (Sister) Julie, Boots, Al, Trish and Jody. Mimi - all would agree - was the sweetest matriarch this world has ever seen. Of all Mimi's kids, one had the Mimi "sweet" gene: Aunt Susie (Uncle Don's wife, pictured above). I don't want to get in trouble here because all of Mimi's kids (my aunts and uncles) are themselves chip's off the old block, a fantastic combination of Mimi and Poppi's best qualities. But all would agree, Susie is this generation's Mimi. And since my beloved Mom died in 1999, Suzie ascended to family matriarch. My mother was a warhorse, the greatest - ask Susie, but there was only room for one queen while she was alive! (I can see Mimi and Poppi, Mom and Nana, at Heaven's clubhouse, The Divine Divot, laughing at that one over their bourbons and water.)

In any event, Aunt Susie, is this day revered by all who know her -- like we all revered Mimi when she was alive. I remember, growing up, that I liked Suzie's Red Beans and Rice as well as I liked my mom's, but I would never dare tell either!

One thing you can say about the Fausts, in tribute to Don and Susie, is that all of the Fausts are the nicest, most respectful, and giving family I have ever known. Every Faust is nice, every Faust is respectful and would give you the shirt off of their back, thinking of themselves last - always. If my kids learn anything from Annie and I - I hope they learned those traits.

Suzie and Don had seven kids. And since Susie was mom's immediate younger sister, we were close as a family with the Fausts. Donna, the oldest (and the only grandkid of Mimi and Poppi older than me, damn it), was a year older than me. Donna saved money when she was young, made good grades, became a nurse immediately, and was/is sweet in the Mimi/Susie grand tradition. The highlight of growing up in New Orleans was going out with Donna to a couple of Donna's Metairie Road's Irish bars...To this day, I enjoy nothing more. You taught me well, Donna.

Next in line came Joey. Joey and I were and are best friends. We played "hard" in New Orleans growing up. Where Joey was good I was bad. Where Joey was bad I was good. What an unbelievable combination for a friendship. Joey reminds me of Joe Montana, with the looks that drives my wife crazy! (she and Joey dancing is a true spectator's sport) and the ability to effortlessly make all the right decisions. The Big Easy. Growing up, he turned more girls down in one night than I knew. But I will say, that Joey was a chump on the golf course. There, now I feel better.

Joey and I went to Daytona Beach as high school seniors - What the hell were our parents thinking? We went in Joey's hooptie, which had one tape - The Allman Brothers/ Eat a Peach. To this day I am mysteriously hooked on Whipping Post and One Way Out. In any event, we went to houndog women. Period. Two bachelors in the prime of life. Our sales pitch: Hey babe, wanna come back to our campground? Daryl and his brother Daryl. We wonder why we had such a pedestrian trip. Two Not Ready for Prime Time players meandering around the big leagues for chasing women, Daytona. We had no money, so we ate pork and beans (and Spam on Friday night) at every meal. An aside: Joey insisted that I wash the pot in hot water, something Susie must have taught him. I remember we had $19.00 leaving Daytona Beach, just enough gas money to get home and and to buy another can of pork and beans to eat on the way. What's Joey up to now? Troubleshooting electrical operations for Rolls Royce all over the world and stewarding his beautiful daughters, Heidi, Kristen and Suzanne, through life. Ummmm? I wonder who that last one's named after?

For reason of teen-year age differences, I didn't hang around much with the younger Fausts as much. Moira, sweet as she can be, is close in age, and so were Karen and Steve. But they were "kids" to me and Joey. Moira is Down Under now which, for some reason, reminds me of this beer commercial. And Stevie, as we all called him then, is now an architect in Nawlins.

Now Karen, quiet and soft-spoken, who has never raised here voice as far as I know, happens to play a part in the greatest near tragedy in my life, at least up to age seven. All of the Faust kids and the Burns kids (totalling eleven) were playing in the backyard of Susie and Don's house on Page Drive. We also lived on Page Drive. In fact, the whole world until about 1965 revolved around Page Drive, Metairie, LA. In any event, small kids were running around in a frenzie. Joey and I, up to know good, me the planner, Joey the executioner, were playing with a bamboo pole. I told Joey, let's throw it like a javelin. As I remember it, when it became my turn, instead of throwing it, I started running with the bamboo pole like I was getting ready to pole vault. As I ran, Karen , who must have been 3, had the great misfortune of being around me with that pole. As I was running with the pole out in front of me, pointing forward like a cannon, I remember the pole struck Karen directly in the eye, the pole bending upward severly until I thought the pole would snap, such was the force behind the pole. That instant, I remember running out of the yard, down the street as fast as I could, not looking at Kiwaanee, darting across the street to my house. I ran to my room, closed the door, and said Hail Mary's I think. I thought the pole might have killed Karen much less blinded her in that eye. Needless to say, the eye was injured badly and Karen has had several operations (I believe), but can see out of that eye. Karen, and all of the Fausts, to this day, have never said a negative word about the acident.

The accident taught me a great deal about being careless around kids. I'm sure I overprotected my kids as a result. That experience was a doozy for a seven year old boy....and for Karen.

Next is Jenny, the motorcycle-riding Psychology professor at Cal Davis. The sweet braniac of the bunch. Last, but not least, is Miche (pronounced Mish). I remember when Mich was born, many years after Jenny. Joey and I thought at the time, What's up with that? But the Fausts wouldn't be the Fausts without the trailing Miche.

So, now you know more about the Fausts, my closest relatives and a true Southern, genteel family. As you may know from an earlier post, my Mom in heaven and Aunt Susie, her closest sister not only in age, communicate as only two close sisters can (remember the fly story?). For that I am drawn even closer to all the Fausts.

And to COL Faust: Job well done, sir. Huah!