The meaning of "courage"

If I see one more article connecting the phrase “Patrick Swayze” and “courage,” I am going to barf.
In case you haven’t heard, the former “Dirty Dancing” star (and “Donnie Darko” standout) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer recently, and has been making himself known on the talk-show rounds. While I sincerely hope that Mr. Swayze, whom I have nothing against personally, as I do not know him, makes a full recovery, I take umbrage at the notion that what he is doing is particularly “courageous.” In order to beat cancer and stay alive, he’ll have to fight it. He doesn’t have a different option to meet that goal. Of course, he could give up, and be all whiny about it, which would also not be courage.
Let’s get one thing straight – courage is what you delve into when you make a decision to do something dangerous when you have other options and could choose to remain safe. Courage is charging a Japanese foxhole to throw a grenade in it. Courage is running into the burning Twin Towers to face immolation. Courage is making a picture-perfect water landing on the Hudson River in a jet (which is highly, highly NOT recommended in any manual). Courage is NOT about choosing to wear a daring dress to the Oscars.
What has happened to the word “courage” is the same thing that has happened to the word “survivor.” You are a survivor if you made it into one of the Titanic’s lifeboats. You are a survivor if you had to eat the dead from a plane crash to survive. You are NOT survivor simply because you’ve won a game show of that title (are you listening, Richard Hatch??). You are NOT a survivor simply because you know all of the words to the Destiny’s Child song and can somehow relate to it.
In a world which, until recently for us anyway, was predictable and soft, throwing around words like the two I wrote about probably gave us a sense of being part of something larger than ourselves. Personally, I think our great-great-great grandparents, the ones who fought a hard life after likely seeing at least one person they knew die during childbirth, would laugh at our notions of what is considered “courage” and “survivorship” today, and eat wimps like us for breakfast. Most of what passes for either these days is likely a laughably pale imitation of what the actual words used to mean.
I think, as the world spirals downward chasing the dollar, that we will see a bit of this begin to change, as more and more Americans start to lead lives closer to the conditions of their great-great grandparents. It may be a bleaker existence than the ones we would have hope for, but I’m looking on the bright side – I look forward to the day when “courage” is defined as something larger than Jennifer Aniston’s attempts to find a stable mate after she turned 40 years old.

Blah blah blah

I think I would have made a good peasant.
At this point in time, I think it’s safe to say I’m overwhelmed by the amount of technology that is competing for my attention. When I come in to work every day, I’ve got voicemail to check, person and private e-mails to be read, an inter-company communication system to sign into, a Facebook to check, etc. etc. It’s hard to keep up with them all, and frankly, I wish I could stop trying. I don’t think human beings are meant to be stretched from so many angles when what they are supposed to be doing is using the technology to “enhance” their lives.
Remember the late 90s? Before everyone and their dog had a phone? I remember very clearly seeing adds for AT&T’s latest creation and finding that I wanted the on-call, on-the-go lifestyle that was portrayed in the ads. Now, nearly a decade later, I find myself in a love/hate relationship with the same technology, loving the fact that I can call for help if I need it, and hating the fact that I feel available all of the time. Oh yeah, people say, you can turn off your phone. But you know what? You’ll just have to listen to the voicemails, sometime or other. Or not, I guess, now that I think about it. But knowing my personality, and how I like to have things finished, I couldn’t stand turning on my phone and not clearing the little “Voicemails” tape-loop icon off the screen. Damn that tendency of mine.
I haven’t done a good job keeping up with my Myspace account. In fact, I still have yet to make any sort of announcement on it that my wife WAS pregnant, let alone had a baby two months ago. It simply seems like too much work, with another system to sign into to check messages from another set of friends who use one of several communications methods.
My point is this – no one who uses this stuff is a bottomless well of worthwhile-reading-creativity. Even Shakespeare would have run out of things to say eventually. So whom are we kidding? Has society become so self-absorbed as to think posting a message about running to the store is something other people want to see? Granted, the curmudgeon in me is writing this column, but sweet Jesus, give me a break. I like keeping in touch with people, but I refuse to constantly update my status or, worse still, Twitter. I simply don’t see the need for any of what boils down to “social busywork.”
So, I don't want to Twit, Tweet, Twoot or whatever the latest trend it. I don't want to Buzz Up a story about the Octomom (a subject for a blog entry in itself). I just want to keep in touch with friends and family. But I could never imagine how much work keeping up with that would entail given the myriad of ways there are to do it.

Left Behind

Last night, as I was sitting in a comfortable living room watching the Super Bowl, my phone beeped to let me know I had a text message. I ignored it at first, laughing with friends as we played several spirited rounds of “Scattergories.” A few minutes later, I flipped my phone open. What I read took my breath away.
“Mom n dad are in. (A family friend) killed himself.”
I could feel my face slacken as I digested the message’s terrible content. The person in question was the young son of family friends. He’d gone off to college this fall, having shown us all in the years since his birth that he was an incredibly talented person. Now, there are only questions. After I read this text message, I could not help but to stare at my seven-week-old daughter and wonder what it could possibly be like to comprehend that she could one day be taken from me by her own hand. I cannot possibly fathom how parents in this position can go on after such a terrible event.
I am no stranger to suicidal ideations. Even as an eight-year-old, I was fascinated by the sheer drama in the concept. This grew in romanticism as a depressed teenager. I never seriously considered, planned, or tried it, but I knew it was an option, which, in my darkened state at the time, brought me a measure of cold comfort. Only now, years later, do I look at that behavior and realize how impossibly hurtful it must have been to my parents. I understand now, after having the smallest glimpse of parenthood, how hard it is to not be able to comfort a child. In the eyes of a parent, getting a kid through high school cannot be that far removed from comforting them in the middle of the night as an infant, and when that can’t be done, it’s painful for both parties.
When someone commits suicide, they take their own life - but they also take parts of other people’s lives with them. I know our family friend’s parents will never be the same. I know the boy’s two sisters will likely never be the same. I can imagine that they will be haunted by the thought of “Why? Could I have done something to save him?” for the rest of the lives. Will they be able to look back at the boy’s life without a case of “Monday morning quarterback,” wondering if otherwise trivial events could have taken him one step further down the road to the unthinkable?
My thoughts are with a beautiful family today; a family that has gone through many things together, only to be faced with a situation no family ever should.
The first thing I am going to do when I get home is kiss my daughter. And never let her go.

Coping with the present through bad acting and special effects

I was reminded this weekend how much some of us look to the future to get to the present - even if those futures will never exist.
My friend Bryon visited this weekend, and brought with him a huge box of books, several of which were old Star Trek technical manuals. I know, I know - they sound like real page-turning stuff to you non-science fiction types out there, but back in the dark ages of high school middle age, they were godsends. I get asked a lot why I like Star Wars and Star Trek, and after years of wondering, I've finally come up with a good answer.
In science fiction, the last, as the Bible verse goes, come first. Unlike real life, the beautiful and the popular do not matter. In a usual science fiction story, the unlikely (Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins) end up heroes, and everyone gets a chance based on their ability, not where they rank in the social scheme of things. Once the playing field has been tilted, the former-nothings usually get a chance to do something great an extraordinary (blow up the Death Star, destroy the Ring, etc.) It's a complete disconnection from the way things work in the real world, where ideals are often sacrificed in the name of pragmatism, and the bold and the beautiful often come out on top.
Neither Bryon nor I were bold OR beautiful during high school. I think it would be safe to say that we were both Luke Skywalker-types who had our heads in another place and were waiting for the time when we'd be able to show the world what we were capable of. We were nothing special in the eyes of our peers, and so we retreated into a world that didn't exist. Some people say that punk rock saved their lives. For me, it was Star Wars, and the music of John Williams. It was a reminder to me of the power of imagination over circumstance, of how dreams can influence reality, and finally, how the small and rise to topple the might.
For nearly two years, I lived, ate and breathed Star Wars. I listened to the music every day on the cold bus that drove me to school. During study halls, I drew amazing technical drawings of the various technologies that made up the movies. I spend every day of the summer of 1994 watching "The Empire Strikes Back," memorizing the dialog and developing a taste for dark sequels. Needless to say, as enjoyable as these skills are, they don't translate to popularity, good grades, or even good posture. It's a complete case of escapism - an escapism that in some small way drove us to chase our dreams. Bryon recently earned his Green Beret, and I've been a journalist for nearly three years now.
I've toned it down over the years. I don't pester friends to sell me their older brother's attic-bound action figures anymore. I don't bring the "Imperial Forces Technical Manual" with me everywhere I go these days. I don't imagine myself as an X-Wing in every "Death Star" trench-looking hallway I find myself in. Real life has taken over my previously lofty orbit, for the most part. I try not to spend too much time imagining how cool it would be to have a jet pack, like Boba Fett.
But if you find me not paying attention or staring off into the distance at some random instant, it's quite possible that I've slipped the bounds of convention and put myself into a "long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

A new life caring for a new life

It hit me today as I was in the thrift store.

I was going through a rack of t-shirts, looking for blank ones to make into band shirts, when I came across a bundle of shirts about "I love my Daddy" and "World's Best Dad." I'd never really paid attention to them before when they were on other people, but now, they make me look twice. Will I be the kind of father who inspires his little girl to wear such a dorky shirt? I sure hope so. And Father's Day? I suppose it will be different when it roles around next year. Instead of running to the store for the usual last-minute "Dad" gift (A DVD, or some bags of M&Ms), I might actually be on the receieving end this year. A strange thought, I admit.

Life has changed around the house here. Our lives are now devoted to this strangle little creature who plays by her own rules at all hours of the day and gets away with it because she does not understand the concept of good and bad. Yet. She sleeps away most of the day, and spends some hours a night complaining to us in her limited way, about various things that ail her (whatever those could be to a 12-day-old). In her own way, she's already living out the teenaged dream life: sit around, eat, sleep, eat sleep, etc. etc.) The only differences are that she talks less, is smaller, and poops herself more. Other than that, I see a lot of similarities.

Our lives have shifted from "being served" to "serving." In a way, I'm glad. I won't claim to know much about parenting, as I've only been a parent for 12 days, but I've learned the following things so far.

1.) Read the instructions on whatever devices you get for your child. Especially breast pumps. They don't work so well when the gaskets are installed wrong because the directions were translated from French.

2.) Babies don't care what you talk about as long as you talk to them. Use this to your advantage, as the baby is likely far more interested in hearing your theories about Star Trek than your spouse is.

3.) When you air out the baby's bottom, make sure to put a diaper under whatever she is sitting on. What can go wrong usually does.

4.) Don't look at a dirty diaper as an annoyance. Instead, look at it as a minature Picasso (or, in some cases, Pollock) painting on a miniature canvas.

An early Christmas gift to the far-right

It seems George W. has given the far-right an early Christmas gift.

In the waning days of his administration, the president declared that “doctors, hospitals, and even receptionists and volunteers in medical experiments [have the] right to refuse to participate in medical care they find morally objectionable,” according to a Dec. 19 L.A. Times article. This “Conscience Rule” includes, of course, abortion, a hot-button, no-solution issue that has served the G.O.P and the Christian Right very well over the years.
This latest ruling is another example of Bush pandering to the religious right and conservative elements that have put him in office. With his political capital and popularity at low levels, he has nothing to lose, and many seem to dazzled with the prospect of President-Elect Obama’s coming to power that George W. doesn’t get the attention he used to. In fact, I think the last time I saw him on the news was when the White House issued the last “Barney’s Christmas at the White House” video, in which George woodenly recited lines to the black little canine.
What really bothers me about this “conscience” rule is that there isn’t really any other job in the world (as far as I know) where you can decline or refuse to do something simply because it is “against your morals.” This is especially where customer service (which, after all, medicinal practice is to a degree) is concerned. For example, what would happen to me if I refused to serve an obese person at McDonalds? I would be fired. What would happen if I refused too help someone at Toys ‘R Us because my personal belief is that video games will make their kids lazy? I would be fired.
I can appreciate people’s feeling on this polarizing issue. But what I do not condone is a way for people to get out of doing something that is part of their job description simply because it goes against their morals.
And as far as being a “pro-life president,” George W. is a sham. It’s obvious the man doesn’t practice what he preaches. As governor of Texas, Bush pardoned one out of 153 prisoners executed on death row during his time in office. Even if a man is convicted by a jury of his peers and is executed, is it not still death? Has not a life, however much the dark side of the human soul calls for blood, still been taken? Even with terrible things on its conscience, a life is a life.

Perhaps it is just easier to fight for the rights of the cute white babies we see on the pro-life billboards on the sides of the nation’s freeways.
I guess I should not be surprised. Bush’s pro-life (which, in my opinion, should be more accurately termed “anti-choice”) policies seem a simple matter of political pragmatism and nothing more. How many lives will that pragmatism end up affecting?

Happy Birthday, Adolf Hitler Campbell!

Looks like little Adolf Hitler Campbell, 3, will be getting a birthday cake with his name on it after all.

I found an article about this (“Cake request for 3-year-old Hitler namesake denied”) published by the Associated Press recently. The child's father, 35-year-old Heath Campbell of Hunterdon County, N.J, claims that he isn't a racist. I find that difficult to believe considering he named his son after Hitler and named another child JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell.
"They need to accept a name,” Campbell said in the article. “A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."
Yes, Heath, a true point; but why do I get the feeling he'd be more than happy should this turn out to be the case?
Apparently, Campbell's wife called the local ShopRite with the cake naming request. The supervisor there, in a completely understandable and rational decision, said it was something they wouldn't do. So, the Campbell's went to Wal-Mart, who were of course happy to do it (why am I not surprised?)
Part of the irony of Campbell's complaining about the matter is that he's asking for tolerance towards his son's name - the same tolerance that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party withheld when they systematically humiliated and murdered millions of human beings between 1933-1945. Tolerance isn't exactly a Nazi virtue. The fact that his daughter has “Aryan Nation” as part of her name makes me less willing to write him off as a random crank. I think Mr. Campbell is narrow minded, and that his children will suffer for it. The article states:
“[Campbell] said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children differently.
'Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That's fine, I don't really care," he said. "That's his choice.'”
A choice Mr. Campbell is simply go along with? I doubt that. What makes Mr. Campbell's comments interesting in this article is that they try hard to sound like they are not coming from someone who is an obvious racist. He crouches behind lofty phrases, like “I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they've been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past," that distract from the issue.
I think what really makes me frown after reading this is that an adorable little boy has been named after one of the most evil and forbidden men from the 20th Century, and he has a father who is bending over backwards to justify that choice.

Who wants to be friends with Hitler? How will that work on the playground?