Last Friday, The New York Times led the way in publishing information about a secret government program “to investigate and track terrorists that relies on a vast international database that includes Americans’ banking transactions.”
On Monday, in Washington, President Bush said the disclosure was “disgraceful.”
Saying such a thing is, of course, irresponsible. It is not a heinous irresponsibility, though Mr. Bush has proven himself capable of that level of irresponsibility (“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”) There never was a president who didn’t seek to politicize the media, when it suited that president’s agenda and political needs. Labeling the press as irresponsible is a way of life in the government-media relationship. It’s the same as saying to the cop who is giving you the speeding ticket, “Don’t you have criminals to chase?”
It doesn’t hurt, though, to point out this mild presidential irresponsibility, when it happens. Like a bad writer with a metaphor, President Bush will beat a media disgrace to death, with a certain constituency latching on to the irrelevance like bulldogs, as Ann Coulter’s rise this week to the top of the best-seller list proves.
Presidents when they say these sorts of things are being irresponsible to the basic fabric of the republic. Thomas Jefferson, a president of the United States, had disagreeable things to say about the media, but he also understood the reality.
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people,” he wrote, in 1787, “the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Interesting that Jefferson wrote this in January, 1787, several months before the convening of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. It illuminates a basic truth about freedom of the press in America, that would become spelled out so clearly in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Abbreviated to the business at hand, the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.” The key word in the amendment is “abridging,” which means “to reduce in scope; to shorten in duration or extent.”
Its presence in the First Amendment meant the founding fathers must have understood that freedom of the press already existed in America. Freedom of the press predated the Constitution, which simply confirmed its eminence as a cornerstone in a free society.
That is awesome power, and yes, the power has been abused, and the abuses have been met with correction, both in the courts and in the court of public opinion. The basic power remains unchanged, and as eminent a cornerstone of American society as was confirmed in 1787 and 1789.
The failure of a president of the United States to acknowledge that power, and its role in the society and its governance, is irresponsible. Mundanely so, perhaps, but always worth noting. Mr. Bush, particularly, would serve himself well to embrace that reality, instead of looking for paths around it. There are no paths around the role of the American press. If he understood that, he would know that a program the size of tracking international financial transactions would not remain a secret for long, and he could plan accordingly, on the basis of our government being an opinion of the people.
June 27, 2006
June 25, 2006
A wind from - where?
In San Diego yesterday, we were fortunate to have the cloud cover. Excessive heat had been forecast for the afternoon, temperatures reaching as high as 100 in our foothills neighborhood, about 13 miles from the coast.
But the clouds kept the heat down. They were created by tropical moisture, called “monsoon” moisture locally, siphoned up from the south by the same features – high pressure centers – that were creating the heat. The clouds even brought a couple of morning showers – most unusual for June – in a couple of places in San Diego County.
At our house, the clouds did nothing more than moderate the heat, with the tradeoff of a slight humid mugginess that is not uncommon in July and August, but yesterday felt strange, and the house felt dark and moody, the way I remember houses feeling in Texas when storms were building.
We had the windows and French doors open, and the little bit of breeze floating through kept us reasonably cool. At about 3, I went from the living room back to the study to check email. The clouds had dissipated some, and hazy sunshine filtered through half-closed shutters. Then something happened. Outside there was a roar, and in the study a feeling of decompression. I looked up and saw everything green outside shaking furiously.
It was a wind, not rising, but bursting: not present one instant, roaring the next, unnatural, without transition. From the other end of the house I heard Karen’s voice, yelling above the roar: “Michael!” I started toward her through the hall between the front and back of the house, which was no longer a conduit of breeze, but a wind tunnel. The living room gives a panoramic view through floor to ceiling windows to the south and west and beyond the shaking foliage I saw in the middle and far distance a strange, dense haze that had not been there minutes before.
We stepped through the west-facing French doors onto the patio. A patio umbrella and several plants in pots were already blown over. There were clouds to the south, and more out over the ocean, but above us it was relatively clear, except for the sudden haze, which I realized was dust, shaken loose from every leaf and surface for miles in every direction.
I couldn’t sense a direction from the wind, or a cause for it. The only winds without cause I had ever seen were all in the movies, and all strange, either biblical or supernatural. In San Diego a few months ago, people experienced a series of strange booms and tremors, like an earthquake, for which a cause has yet to be determined. This wind felt like that.
It persisted for 10 or more minutes; I became busy during that time, holding erect a mature, staked rose tree, whose stake the wind had snapped, until Karen could locate and bring material for repairs. Eventually, by 3:30, the wind had subsided to floating breeze level again. Since that hour, I have periodically checked local weather and media sites; no mention at all in the media, and this morning the National Weather Service site only mentioned a few reports of brief downburst winds, but only in association with showers or thunderstorms.
That may have been our experience, even under a sunny sky that, over us, was only partly cloudy at best. And, yet. I have been in countless winds created by thunderstorms, and this wind did not feel like that. This wind felt like it had been parked in space, waiting until we literally ran into it, which, for some reason, we did, suddenly, and very, very strangely.
The clouds are back today, thankfully, to keep the heat down, maybe even bring a shower. I am certain, though, we won’t again have a wind like yesterday’s; it possesses its own meaning now, like the booms from months ago.
But the clouds kept the heat down. They were created by tropical moisture, called “monsoon” moisture locally, siphoned up from the south by the same features – high pressure centers – that were creating the heat. The clouds even brought a couple of morning showers – most unusual for June – in a couple of places in San Diego County.
At our house, the clouds did nothing more than moderate the heat, with the tradeoff of a slight humid mugginess that is not uncommon in July and August, but yesterday felt strange, and the house felt dark and moody, the way I remember houses feeling in Texas when storms were building.
We had the windows and French doors open, and the little bit of breeze floating through kept us reasonably cool. At about 3, I went from the living room back to the study to check email. The clouds had dissipated some, and hazy sunshine filtered through half-closed shutters. Then something happened. Outside there was a roar, and in the study a feeling of decompression. I looked up and saw everything green outside shaking furiously.
It was a wind, not rising, but bursting: not present one instant, roaring the next, unnatural, without transition. From the other end of the house I heard Karen’s voice, yelling above the roar: “Michael!” I started toward her through the hall between the front and back of the house, which was no longer a conduit of breeze, but a wind tunnel. The living room gives a panoramic view through floor to ceiling windows to the south and west and beyond the shaking foliage I saw in the middle and far distance a strange, dense haze that had not been there minutes before.
We stepped through the west-facing French doors onto the patio. A patio umbrella and several plants in pots were already blown over. There were clouds to the south, and more out over the ocean, but above us it was relatively clear, except for the sudden haze, which I realized was dust, shaken loose from every leaf and surface for miles in every direction.
I couldn’t sense a direction from the wind, or a cause for it. The only winds without cause I had ever seen were all in the movies, and all strange, either biblical or supernatural. In San Diego a few months ago, people experienced a series of strange booms and tremors, like an earthquake, for which a cause has yet to be determined. This wind felt like that.
It persisted for 10 or more minutes; I became busy during that time, holding erect a mature, staked rose tree, whose stake the wind had snapped, until Karen could locate and bring material for repairs. Eventually, by 3:30, the wind had subsided to floating breeze level again. Since that hour, I have periodically checked local weather and media sites; no mention at all in the media, and this morning the National Weather Service site only mentioned a few reports of brief downburst winds, but only in association with showers or thunderstorms.
That may have been our experience, even under a sunny sky that, over us, was only partly cloudy at best. And, yet. I have been in countless winds created by thunderstorms, and this wind did not feel like that. This wind felt like it had been parked in space, waiting until we literally ran into it, which, for some reason, we did, suddenly, and very, very strangely.
The clouds are back today, thankfully, to keep the heat down, maybe even bring a shower. I am certain, though, we won’t again have a wind like yesterday’s; it possesses its own meaning now, like the booms from months ago.
June 21, 2006
Wicked coffee cake
In Kenosha, for Sunday breakfast, Bill, assisted by Andrew (the biscuit smasher) and Caitlin (the sugar roller) made a coffee cake he got from Paula Deen’s show on The Food Network. It is superior kid food, for kids up to 63 years old.
For 4-6 people, you need two cans of refrigerated biscuits, some cream cheese, melted butter, orange zest, sugar, and chopped pecans.
Mix a cup of sugar, the zest off a large orange, and a cup of chopped pecans in a bowl. Melt a stick of butter in a small saucepan.
Pop the biscuit cans (these were large biscuits) and separate the biscuits. Flatten each biscuit, as if you were going to make pizza. Place a teaspoon of cream cheese into the center of the disc and fold over to seal. Manipulate it into a ball.
Roll the balls first in the melted butter, then in the sugar mixture. Position the balls in a bundt pan, in a single layer, then stacking if necessary. Pour excess butter and sugar mixture over, then bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. While it was warm, Bill drizzled a basic sugar glaze over, and it would also be good without.
Serve it by itself, or with eggs and bacon or sausage, or just with the bacon or sausage (nice balance to the sweetness), or with fresh strawberries or peaches. Coffee, of course. And champagne would be great with it.
It is also good left over, either at room temperature or warmed. It would lose too much flavor if it were cold. I had some with red wine on the plane back to San Diego Monday night, and it was super.
I am also thinking about variations. Cook some good sausage, drain, and roll it into the biscuit discs with just half a teaspoon of the cream cheese. Season the melted butter with a teaspoon of Tabasco, roll the biscuit balls in the butter, and stack as before. Sprinkle lightly with oregano, then sprinkle with grated Cheddar cheese and top with grilled onions. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.
Or follow the basic recipe (plenty of pecans), and at the end pour over some canned cherry pie filling, or chopped canned peaches that have been stirred into a quarter-cup of Grand Marnier. Like they say, a recipe is just a place to start.
For 4-6 people, you need two cans of refrigerated biscuits, some cream cheese, melted butter, orange zest, sugar, and chopped pecans.
Mix a cup of sugar, the zest off a large orange, and a cup of chopped pecans in a bowl. Melt a stick of butter in a small saucepan.
Pop the biscuit cans (these were large biscuits) and separate the biscuits. Flatten each biscuit, as if you were going to make pizza. Place a teaspoon of cream cheese into the center of the disc and fold over to seal. Manipulate it into a ball.
Roll the balls first in the melted butter, then in the sugar mixture. Position the balls in a bundt pan, in a single layer, then stacking if necessary. Pour excess butter and sugar mixture over, then bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. While it was warm, Bill drizzled a basic sugar glaze over, and it would also be good without.
Serve it by itself, or with eggs and bacon or sausage, or just with the bacon or sausage (nice balance to the sweetness), or with fresh strawberries or peaches. Coffee, of course. And champagne would be great with it.
It is also good left over, either at room temperature or warmed. It would lose too much flavor if it were cold. I had some with red wine on the plane back to San Diego Monday night, and it was super.
I am also thinking about variations. Cook some good sausage, drain, and roll it into the biscuit discs with just half a teaspoon of the cream cheese. Season the melted butter with a teaspoon of Tabasco, roll the biscuit balls in the butter, and stack as before. Sprinkle lightly with oregano, then sprinkle with grated Cheddar cheese and top with grilled onions. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.
Or follow the basic recipe (plenty of pecans), and at the end pour over some canned cherry pie filling, or chopped canned peaches that have been stirred into a quarter-cup of Grand Marnier. Like they say, a recipe is just a place to start.
June 20, 2006
A hip trip to Kenosha
Interesting trip. It was my first time through an airport security gate with my new metal hip and yes, it sets off the buzzer. I will never fly again without getting wanded and patted down first.
We were on the first American flight to Chicago, departing at 6:17 a.m. It was also the very first airplane to take off that morning. Karen and I both like first flights of the day for two reasons: you know the airplane is already at the airport and not trying to get there from somewhere else; and, the security lines are shorter.
We buttoned up early, pushed back, taxied very slowly to the end of the runway. And sat there. The captain, Don Partridge, told us on the intercom that the Lindbergh Field curfew forbade any flight to take off before 6:30 a.m. I looked at my watch. It was 6:25. “If you can’t take off until 6:30,” Karen wondered, “why do they schedule the flight for 6:17?”
I shrugged. “Hitting for an average. If they schedule it for 6:17, it means they’ll probably get everybody on and seated by 6:20 or so, then make a couple of announcements, push back slowly, mosey down to the end of the runway and get there just at 6:30.”
At 6:29 and 30 seconds, Capt. Partridge nudged the engines and swung the S-80 into takeoff position on the runway and braked again. We waited, and I could imagine the tower counting down: “Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . go!”
And we went. Very first plane out of Lindbergh.
For breakfast, I had brought some cubed pork barbecue and a slice of CostCo’s rosemary bread. You can’t count on the airlines any more. In fact, here is where in-flight service stands now: the lead stew said they would be coming down the aisles with a choice of muffins: blueberry or bran, $2 each. I girded my loins, waiting for the charge for coffee, but it is still free, for the time being.
We were going to Kenosha, Wisconsin, an hour north of Chicago, right on Lake Michigan, to see Karen’s son Bill and his family. Before my first trip with Karen to Kenosha last year, I pictured it as an iron ore town with a grimy waterfront, huge smokestacks and gray streets. Instead it is green and clean with wide streets and manicured parks and shoreline beaches, population about 100,000 and bratwurst shops every half a mile or so. The only smoke in the air comes from cigarettes. Lots of smokers in Wisconsin, indoors and out. You don’t get a real sense of the value of California smoking laws until you visit places without such laws.
We ate well. Bill loves to cook, and for Father’s Day he got a Weber Smokey Mountain cooker, a huge smoker that Karen says looks like R2-D2. He bought a 10-pound brisket and put it in the smoker for nine and a half hours and it was the best home barbecue I ever had. I feel totally faithful to the Weber kettle I have had for 30 years, but that cooker, with its results, has wiggled its way into my thinking.
They do good pizza in Wisconsin, too, and of course the brats. “We should also hit The Spot,” Bill said. “A cheeseburger with grilled onions and a root beer whirl.” Time was getting away and we had not yet hit The Spot when I mentioned it one lunchtime. Everybody was still full from a late breakfast, so I went by myself. The Spot is a low, red, windowless structure on a corner with a painted, wrap-around menu board facing the street. The cheeseburger was $2.29. I pulled in, parked, got out, walked around the corner, looking for the door. I ran into a waitress who said, “Be right with you, hon.”
“You come to me?” I said. “Sure do,” she said. Then I looked again at the cars in the lot. A couple had trays hung from the windows. This was a drive-in! I had not seen a tray hanging from a car window in 40 years. There were three small tables under an overhang and I sat there; too hot in the car for a California boy. I ordered as instructed: “Cheeseburger, grilled onions.” “You want everything on that?” she said. “Yes,” I said.
In a few minutes she was back. I unwrapped the cheeseburger, which was piping hot. It was small, a soft, fragrant, bun, the meat bigger than the bun and griddle-fried until its uneven edges were crispy. “Everything” turned out to be pickle slices, mustard and catsup. It was perfect. There are times now – three or four of them in Kenosha, in fact – when I wish it was 30 years ago and I could eat two or three of The Spot’s cheeseburgers.
Bill and Erika’s son, nine-year-old Andrew, went four for six with three RBIs in his two Little League games while we were there. Andrew’s sister, Caitlin, age four, shared with me her concession stand box of popcorn that was as salty as it was half a century ago. The Little League parks were grassy and exceptionally well-groomed, a feeling we had about all of Kenosha. For Father’s Day, Bill took us to Wrigley Field. I wish all ballparks looked and felt like Wrigley Field. Being there was an experience in itself, which was good, because the Tigers hit three home runs in the top of the first and won, 12-3. There were 11 home runs in the game (the wind was blowing out) and one kid, sitting behind the Cubs’ dugout, caught two foul balls.
Coming home, the airline offered a snack box for $4, but I had leftover pizza, brats and coffee cake made from biscuits, cream cheese, orange zest, sugar, pecans and melted butter. Good trip.
We were on the first American flight to Chicago, departing at 6:17 a.m. It was also the very first airplane to take off that morning. Karen and I both like first flights of the day for two reasons: you know the airplane is already at the airport and not trying to get there from somewhere else; and, the security lines are shorter.
We buttoned up early, pushed back, taxied very slowly to the end of the runway. And sat there. The captain, Don Partridge, told us on the intercom that the Lindbergh Field curfew forbade any flight to take off before 6:30 a.m. I looked at my watch. It was 6:25. “If you can’t take off until 6:30,” Karen wondered, “why do they schedule the flight for 6:17?”
I shrugged. “Hitting for an average. If they schedule it for 6:17, it means they’ll probably get everybody on and seated by 6:20 or so, then make a couple of announcements, push back slowly, mosey down to the end of the runway and get there just at 6:30.”
At 6:29 and 30 seconds, Capt. Partridge nudged the engines and swung the S-80 into takeoff position on the runway and braked again. We waited, and I could imagine the tower counting down: “Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . go!”
And we went. Very first plane out of Lindbergh.
For breakfast, I had brought some cubed pork barbecue and a slice of CostCo’s rosemary bread. You can’t count on the airlines any more. In fact, here is where in-flight service stands now: the lead stew said they would be coming down the aisles with a choice of muffins: blueberry or bran, $2 each. I girded my loins, waiting for the charge for coffee, but it is still free, for the time being.
We were going to Kenosha, Wisconsin, an hour north of Chicago, right on Lake Michigan, to see Karen’s son Bill and his family. Before my first trip with Karen to Kenosha last year, I pictured it as an iron ore town with a grimy waterfront, huge smokestacks and gray streets. Instead it is green and clean with wide streets and manicured parks and shoreline beaches, population about 100,000 and bratwurst shops every half a mile or so. The only smoke in the air comes from cigarettes. Lots of smokers in Wisconsin, indoors and out. You don’t get a real sense of the value of California smoking laws until you visit places without such laws.
We ate well. Bill loves to cook, and for Father’s Day he got a Weber Smokey Mountain cooker, a huge smoker that Karen says looks like R2-D2. He bought a 10-pound brisket and put it in the smoker for nine and a half hours and it was the best home barbecue I ever had. I feel totally faithful to the Weber kettle I have had for 30 years, but that cooker, with its results, has wiggled its way into my thinking.
They do good pizza in Wisconsin, too, and of course the brats. “We should also hit The Spot,” Bill said. “A cheeseburger with grilled onions and a root beer whirl.” Time was getting away and we had not yet hit The Spot when I mentioned it one lunchtime. Everybody was still full from a late breakfast, so I went by myself. The Spot is a low, red, windowless structure on a corner with a painted, wrap-around menu board facing the street. The cheeseburger was $2.29. I pulled in, parked, got out, walked around the corner, looking for the door. I ran into a waitress who said, “Be right with you, hon.”
“You come to me?” I said. “Sure do,” she said. Then I looked again at the cars in the lot. A couple had trays hung from the windows. This was a drive-in! I had not seen a tray hanging from a car window in 40 years. There were three small tables under an overhang and I sat there; too hot in the car for a California boy. I ordered as instructed: “Cheeseburger, grilled onions.” “You want everything on that?” she said. “Yes,” I said.
In a few minutes she was back. I unwrapped the cheeseburger, which was piping hot. It was small, a soft, fragrant, bun, the meat bigger than the bun and griddle-fried until its uneven edges were crispy. “Everything” turned out to be pickle slices, mustard and catsup. It was perfect. There are times now – three or four of them in Kenosha, in fact – when I wish it was 30 years ago and I could eat two or three of The Spot’s cheeseburgers.
Bill and Erika’s son, nine-year-old Andrew, went four for six with three RBIs in his two Little League games while we were there. Andrew’s sister, Caitlin, age four, shared with me her concession stand box of popcorn that was as salty as it was half a century ago. The Little League parks were grassy and exceptionally well-groomed, a feeling we had about all of Kenosha. For Father’s Day, Bill took us to Wrigley Field. I wish all ballparks looked and felt like Wrigley Field. Being there was an experience in itself, which was good, because the Tigers hit three home runs in the top of the first and won, 12-3. There were 11 home runs in the game (the wind was blowing out) and one kid, sitting behind the Cubs’ dugout, caught two foul balls.
Coming home, the airline offered a snack box for $4, but I had leftover pizza, brats and coffee cake made from biscuits, cream cheese, orange zest, sugar, pecans and melted butter. Good trip.
June 13, 2006
An Ann Coulter opportunity
Reading Ann Coulter reminds me of watching MTV. I didn’t want to watch MTV, but I felt like I had to, because when my kids were 10 and 15, it was a way to find out what was going on in their world.
Ann Coulter’s point of view is way too out of balance to the right to interest me as reading material, but it would be a way to find out what is going on in that world. She enjoys quite a constituency, I am told, and based on what she is writing and they are buying lately, that world is worth keeping an eye on.
I won’t read her if I don’t have to, and apparently there are sufficient reviewers, critics and other political writers to do that heavy work for me. In several places this past week I have seen reviews and commentary on what Coulter has to say, in her new book, about women who lost their husbands in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“These broads are millionaires,” she writes, “lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”
She says that like it is a bad thing.
By coincidence, last night on television was a 1990s docudrama (based on real events) about a woman whose husband is killed and her son gravely wounded in December, 1993, by a man walking down the aisle of a Long Island commuter train, firing randomly from a 15-round assault weapon.
At the instant their names are known, the widow-mom, whose name is Carolyn McCarthy, becomes a celebrity. The movie makes a point of the media following her everywhere. She resists her celebrity, insisting she be allowed to focus on her grief, and her son’s survival and, later (she is a nurse), his recovery. She refuses entreaties to become part of a movement to get a bill through Congress banning 19 types of assault weapons.
Finally, though, confronted by the damage a single crazed person can do, when he is armed with an assault weapon, she joins the movement, lobbies hard for it in congressional corridors, lobbies and offices, and uses her celebrity – she is no fool – at every media opportunity. The bill passes. Later it is repealed, by – the movie maintains – Republican legislators lobbied hard by the National Rifle Association.
The movie ends with McCarthy switching parties, from Republican to Democrat, running for Congress against an incumbent Republican, and winning. McCarthy is now in her fourth term in the House of Representatives. Among her honors: Newsday's 100 Long Island Influentials, Long Island Business News' Long Island Top 50, Congressional Quarterly's 50 Most Effective Legislators, Redbook Magazine's Mothers and Shakers, Ladies' Home Journal 100 Most Important Women, and Advertising Age's list of "Most Impact by Women in 1999," and The American Organization of Nurse Executives' 2003 Honorary Member Award. McCarthy’s son, Kevin, is married and has two children.
Watching the credits roll, I felt like I had just been reading about her. It was the Coulter quote. Carolyn McCarthy’s profile matches those of the Sept. 11 widow-moms. The way their husbands died made them all instant celebrities, stalked by grief-arrazis, and lionized on TV. They may not have liked it, but there was nothing they could do about it except beg to be left alone.
At that point, they had a choice: sink, or rise. All bereaved people, whether celebrities or anonymous (beloved husband and father, maintenance supervisor, dies of prostate cancer), arrive at that choice. Most choose to rise, move on, find a new life where waits meaning and enjoyment of some kind. I have made that trip myself in the last six years, and I can tell you, it is the only way to go. I have emerged into a life that is overflowing with meaning and enjoyment.
Celebrities of the McCarthy and Sept. 11 caliber are, by their circumstances, automatically anointed with power. It is their choice to let that power sink, or rise. McCarthy chose rise, and so did the Sept. 11 women that Coulter mentions: Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza, all from New Jersey (Coulter lumps them as “The Witches of East Brunswick”), all familiar in D.C. politics now for advocacy and accountability related to the way their husbands died. Karen, my wife, makes a point worth considering: it is not the women, but their power, that Coulter attacks.
Would they prefer to be home with their husbands? Ask any Sept. 11 survivor: it is a moot point. This world is this world, and in it, you sink, or you rise. Coulter’s business model is so well-known, like MTV’s – be outrageous, sell product – that her words about the widows lose meaning in their transparency, at least out here in Balanceville. This blog is not about her. It is an opportunity provided by her, for a survivors proxy to give a nod to all survivors who choose to rise, that is too good to pass up.
Ann Coulter’s point of view is way too out of balance to the right to interest me as reading material, but it would be a way to find out what is going on in that world. She enjoys quite a constituency, I am told, and based on what she is writing and they are buying lately, that world is worth keeping an eye on.
I won’t read her if I don’t have to, and apparently there are sufficient reviewers, critics and other political writers to do that heavy work for me. In several places this past week I have seen reviews and commentary on what Coulter has to say, in her new book, about women who lost their husbands in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“These broads are millionaires,” she writes, “lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”
She says that like it is a bad thing.
By coincidence, last night on television was a 1990s docudrama (based on real events) about a woman whose husband is killed and her son gravely wounded in December, 1993, by a man walking down the aisle of a Long Island commuter train, firing randomly from a 15-round assault weapon.
At the instant their names are known, the widow-mom, whose name is Carolyn McCarthy, becomes a celebrity. The movie makes a point of the media following her everywhere. She resists her celebrity, insisting she be allowed to focus on her grief, and her son’s survival and, later (she is a nurse), his recovery. She refuses entreaties to become part of a movement to get a bill through Congress banning 19 types of assault weapons.
Finally, though, confronted by the damage a single crazed person can do, when he is armed with an assault weapon, she joins the movement, lobbies hard for it in congressional corridors, lobbies and offices, and uses her celebrity – she is no fool – at every media opportunity. The bill passes. Later it is repealed, by – the movie maintains – Republican legislators lobbied hard by the National Rifle Association.
The movie ends with McCarthy switching parties, from Republican to Democrat, running for Congress against an incumbent Republican, and winning. McCarthy is now in her fourth term in the House of Representatives. Among her honors: Newsday's 100 Long Island Influentials, Long Island Business News' Long Island Top 50, Congressional Quarterly's 50 Most Effective Legislators, Redbook Magazine's Mothers and Shakers, Ladies' Home Journal 100 Most Important Women, and Advertising Age's list of "Most Impact by Women in 1999," and The American Organization of Nurse Executives' 2003 Honorary Member Award. McCarthy’s son, Kevin, is married and has two children.
Watching the credits roll, I felt like I had just been reading about her. It was the Coulter quote. Carolyn McCarthy’s profile matches those of the Sept. 11 widow-moms. The way their husbands died made them all instant celebrities, stalked by grief-arrazis, and lionized on TV. They may not have liked it, but there was nothing they could do about it except beg to be left alone.
At that point, they had a choice: sink, or rise. All bereaved people, whether celebrities or anonymous (beloved husband and father, maintenance supervisor, dies of prostate cancer), arrive at that choice. Most choose to rise, move on, find a new life where waits meaning and enjoyment of some kind. I have made that trip myself in the last six years, and I can tell you, it is the only way to go. I have emerged into a life that is overflowing with meaning and enjoyment.
Celebrities of the McCarthy and Sept. 11 caliber are, by their circumstances, automatically anointed with power. It is their choice to let that power sink, or rise. McCarthy chose rise, and so did the Sept. 11 women that Coulter mentions: Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza, all from New Jersey (Coulter lumps them as “The Witches of East Brunswick”), all familiar in D.C. politics now for advocacy and accountability related to the way their husbands died. Karen, my wife, makes a point worth considering: it is not the women, but their power, that Coulter attacks.
Would they prefer to be home with their husbands? Ask any Sept. 11 survivor: it is a moot point. This world is this world, and in it, you sink, or you rise. Coulter’s business model is so well-known, like MTV’s – be outrageous, sell product – that her words about the widows lose meaning in their transparency, at least out here in Balanceville. This blog is not about her. It is an opportunity provided by her, for a survivors proxy to give a nod to all survivors who choose to rise, that is too good to pass up.
June 12, 2006
The 1959 narcissist
I look at Paris Hilton and can’t for the life of me understand what people find so exciting about her.
Paris Hilton looks at a picture of me and says there is not a single reason on earth why she should try to excite me. Her view is closer to the truth than mine.
Sigh. I live in an old world. My biggest entertainment excitement of the summer is wondering if the CBS Evening News will start showing car commercials when Katie Couric takes the anchor seat in September. It would be the first time since 1993 that the advertising world believes I might actually be interested in buying something you can’t find in a drugstore.
Paris isn’t the narcissistic one. Well, yes she is. Narcissism is her business, and she is very good at it. She was shopping in New York City not long ago, trying on shoes, and one pair she was looking at cost $1,000. She argued to the management that she should be given the shoes, because when others saw her wearing them, they would come in and buy a pair, too. For the $1,000 investment, they might get $15,000 back. They gave her the shoes.
But in our unique relationship, Paris isn’t the narcissistic one; I am. Mine is a narcissism of time and place. The time I was 15, or 20, or 25, was the best time in all of history to be 15, 20, or 25, and if everyone understood that, what a wonderful world it would be.
I need to go sit in a large mall for a couple of hours every day, until I reach a point where I can acknowledge that youth has changed. I just need to let go of June Allyson, Phyllis Thaxter, Donna Reed, Wanda Hendrix and even Jean Arthur, as the femme for whom the hero eventually falls. June Allyson has grown up; the last time I saw her on a screen, she was selling incontinence apparel.
I need to follow her lead, start to live in 2006, and let Paris be Paris. Matt Leinart has fallen for her, and he certainly is not George Gipp or Monty Stratton or Glenn Miller or an F-86 Sabre fighter pilot with seven kills over Korea. Matt Leinart, falling for Phyllis Thaxter? I need to give myself a break. In Sunday’s “Parade” magazine, some fossil in his own recliner at home took a big gulp off his oxygen bottle and wrote Walter Scott’s Personality Parade, wondering, “Why would quarterback Matt Leinart, the 2004 Heisman Trophy winner, who is going to make millions playing for the Arizona Cardinals, hook up with a total airhead like Paris Hilton?” Walter’s reply: “Because he likes tall blondes and L.A.’s club scene. Next question?”
Thank you, Walter. Your answer was like a pail of cold water thrown in my face. Mattworld and Parisville are not strange places at all, in 2006. I am the one who is strange. I am the anomaly, not Paris. The mall looks so strange to me because I am the only one sitting on the lip of the planter box with my bermudas buttoned at my waist, the hems above my knees, my shirt cut to fit my size, my baseball cap on frontwards, no tattoo on my body, and my cellphone on the kitchen counter at home. From my narcissist 1959 fortress I will peer through a portal at 2006 for an hour today, maybe a little longer tomorrow, and when I am finished I will go over to Marie Callendar’s for a martini and some oatmeal.
Paris Hilton looks at a picture of me and says there is not a single reason on earth why she should try to excite me. Her view is closer to the truth than mine.
Sigh. I live in an old world. My biggest entertainment excitement of the summer is wondering if the CBS Evening News will start showing car commercials when Katie Couric takes the anchor seat in September. It would be the first time since 1993 that the advertising world believes I might actually be interested in buying something you can’t find in a drugstore.
Paris isn’t the narcissistic one. Well, yes she is. Narcissism is her business, and she is very good at it. She was shopping in New York City not long ago, trying on shoes, and one pair she was looking at cost $1,000. She argued to the management that she should be given the shoes, because when others saw her wearing them, they would come in and buy a pair, too. For the $1,000 investment, they might get $15,000 back. They gave her the shoes.
But in our unique relationship, Paris isn’t the narcissistic one; I am. Mine is a narcissism of time and place. The time I was 15, or 20, or 25, was the best time in all of history to be 15, 20, or 25, and if everyone understood that, what a wonderful world it would be.
I need to go sit in a large mall for a couple of hours every day, until I reach a point where I can acknowledge that youth has changed. I just need to let go of June Allyson, Phyllis Thaxter, Donna Reed, Wanda Hendrix and even Jean Arthur, as the femme for whom the hero eventually falls. June Allyson has grown up; the last time I saw her on a screen, she was selling incontinence apparel.
I need to follow her lead, start to live in 2006, and let Paris be Paris. Matt Leinart has fallen for her, and he certainly is not George Gipp or Monty Stratton or Glenn Miller or an F-86 Sabre fighter pilot with seven kills over Korea. Matt Leinart, falling for Phyllis Thaxter? I need to give myself a break. In Sunday’s “Parade” magazine, some fossil in his own recliner at home took a big gulp off his oxygen bottle and wrote Walter Scott’s Personality Parade, wondering, “Why would quarterback Matt Leinart, the 2004 Heisman Trophy winner, who is going to make millions playing for the Arizona Cardinals, hook up with a total airhead like Paris Hilton?” Walter’s reply: “Because he likes tall blondes and L.A.’s club scene. Next question?”
Thank you, Walter. Your answer was like a pail of cold water thrown in my face. Mattworld and Parisville are not strange places at all, in 2006. I am the one who is strange. I am the anomaly, not Paris. The mall looks so strange to me because I am the only one sitting on the lip of the planter box with my bermudas buttoned at my waist, the hems above my knees, my shirt cut to fit my size, my baseball cap on frontwards, no tattoo on my body, and my cellphone on the kitchen counter at home. From my narcissist 1959 fortress I will peer through a portal at 2006 for an hour today, maybe a little longer tomorrow, and when I am finished I will go over to Marie Callendar’s for a martini and some oatmeal.
June 10, 2006
Why We Love, at last
I am reading an interesting new book by Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, titled, “Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.” In the book, she links love to high levels in the brain of a drug called dopamine.
At the end of the third chapter, Dr. Fisher provides an answer to a question that I was first asked in 1958. I was 15, with enough dopamine loose in my head to make my ears glow. Being in chemistry-crazed love was a brand new thing for me, and the cause of it all asked me, “Do you need me because you want me, or do you want me because you need me?”
I remember that I needed her bad, as a matter of fact. We were driving north on Barrow between the stadium and South 7th when she asked this. Dr. Fisher states in her book that it is common for young people being overrun by dopamine to remember such minutiae years later.
At the same time, I didn’t know up from down. “Dope” must be short for dopamine. It was not a good position from which to impress the teen goddess, but I tried to understand the question and decide which was the answer that would cause her to scoot over the last one-eighth inch between us on the seat – no bucket seats in those days – and press her body tightly against mine.
I truly don’t remember what I answered. I believe I liked the “need because I want” option, because want implied brain function and need implied function, period.
Forty-eight years later, Dr. Fisher informs me that “I want you because I need you” is the correct answer. Romantic love, she discovers, is not emotion, but motivation, created by mysterious but observable chemical activity in the brain. Her work over the years shows that a human being’s “basic drives,” such as thirst, hunger, cold, etc., are what are called “primary motivating systems” in the brain. Her new work indicated that romantic love is among these, a primary motivating system.
I didn’t know what kind of grip I was in, that afternoon on Barrow, but I agree completely that it was primary. “Romantic love is a need, a craving,” Dr. Fisher writes. “We need food. We need water. We need warmth. And the lover feels he/she needs the beloved. Plato had it right over two thousand years ago. The God of Love ‘lives in a state of need.’ “
I am glad to know these things at last. The book is very readable, and it will provide you a lot of things you could have told your parents that were true, when you tried to sneak in so late.
At the end of the third chapter, Dr. Fisher provides an answer to a question that I was first asked in 1958. I was 15, with enough dopamine loose in my head to make my ears glow. Being in chemistry-crazed love was a brand new thing for me, and the cause of it all asked me, “Do you need me because you want me, or do you want me because you need me?”
I remember that I needed her bad, as a matter of fact. We were driving north on Barrow between the stadium and South 7th when she asked this. Dr. Fisher states in her book that it is common for young people being overrun by dopamine to remember such minutiae years later.
At the same time, I didn’t know up from down. “Dope” must be short for dopamine. It was not a good position from which to impress the teen goddess, but I tried to understand the question and decide which was the answer that would cause her to scoot over the last one-eighth inch between us on the seat – no bucket seats in those days – and press her body tightly against mine.
I truly don’t remember what I answered. I believe I liked the “need because I want” option, because want implied brain function and need implied function, period.
Forty-eight years later, Dr. Fisher informs me that “I want you because I need you” is the correct answer. Romantic love, she discovers, is not emotion, but motivation, created by mysterious but observable chemical activity in the brain. Her work over the years shows that a human being’s “basic drives,” such as thirst, hunger, cold, etc., are what are called “primary motivating systems” in the brain. Her new work indicated that romantic love is among these, a primary motivating system.
I didn’t know what kind of grip I was in, that afternoon on Barrow, but I agree completely that it was primary. “Romantic love is a need, a craving,” Dr. Fisher writes. “We need food. We need water. We need warmth. And the lover feels he/she needs the beloved. Plato had it right over two thousand years ago. The God of Love ‘lives in a state of need.’ “
I am glad to know these things at last. The book is very readable, and it will provide you a lot of things you could have told your parents that were true, when you tried to sneak in so late.
June 09, 2006
The Grant Diet
I am on the Grant Diet this summer. I am going to tell you about it, but I don’t want you to interpret it as advice. Follow it at your own peril, or pick things out of it you like, such as recipe suggestions.
The Grant Diet is based on sustenance eating and exercise. Sustenance eating is based on the total number of meals in an ordinary week that will be eaten by an ordinary person, which is 21. The diet requires that 17 of those meals be skimpy ones, or “sustenance” ones. The other four are splurge meals, but splurging within reason.
You can’t have gravy or mayonnaise or anything fried, unless the circumstances are unusual. If I go to someone’s home, and they set an oyster po’boy in front of me, I will eat it. Otherwise, eat stuff you like, but not too much of it. For breakfast this morning, I had Grape Nuts Flakes, some Grape Nuts sprinkled on top for texture, five cut-up strawberries, six pecans, broken up (see? not too much of a good thing), and low-fat milk.
This morning, Karen and I walked two miles. We walk three mornings a week and go to the gym three mornings. Twice a week at the gym, Karen swims. I have already pointed out that for me, swimming is the avoidance of drowning. So I ride the cross-trainer and then work at the weight machines.
We are just getting started, so two miles is my walking limit and 21 to 23 minutes on the cross trainer. I haven’t been working out much the last couple of years. First there was prostate removal surgery, which knocks a fellow down for awhile. And the left hip had been deteriorating for several years and it was replaced in January. So this summer is the first time in awhile that I have been in shape to get in shape. In fact I feel better than I have in years, and I’m not even in shape yet. By August, we’ll be walking three miles, or more. No jogging for me; the doctor says only low-impact stuff with the new hip. And I’ll home in on 30 minutes on the cross-trainer, and work up to medium-heavy on the weights.
Each workout will be about an hour. You can’t lose weight on the Grant Diet if you don’t work out. You can’t really feel good in your shoes anyway, if you don’t work out. I am already feeling a whiff of the training effect, and it is a real rush, but what I’m looking forward to is the feeling of weightlessness that comes with balance between body power and gravity.
Breakfast on the Grant Diet may be the cereal arrangement, or a toasted English muffin with peanut butter (that is my in-a-hurry breakfast). Sometimes I’ll have a slice (or two) of bacon or Canadian bacon with an over-easy egg and a piece of toast. Oatmeal is good, with strawberries, no more than six pecans, and low-fat milk. You can mix together plain yogurt, fruit (strawberries or peaches, fresh or frozen), and some Grape Nuts. Also drink a glass of orange or grapefruit juice every morning.
Lunch can be a ham or turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, pickle, etc. but no mayo. Mustard and Grey Poupon are good on sandwiches. Some days have just half the sandwich. I like a few tortilla chips, but no more than nine. You can have a can of soup for lunch. You can have a cheese quesadilla with salsa. Sometimes you can have some cubed ham, or even salami, and cheese, and half a ciabatta.
For dinner, I jack up a Lean Cuisine entrée (Swedish Meatballs is my favorite) with a little extra pasta and vegetables like zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, just cut up and heated in the oven. A small tomato and cucumber salad on the side, and a slice of sourdough. If you drink, you can have a small cocktail before dinner, and a small glass of wine.
The sustenance meals tend to be the weekday routine, with the splurge meals during the weekend. A typical splurge meal is a lean steak with grilled onions and mushrooms, a salad, and a piece of bread. It may be a piece of pork, braised with onions, garlic and tomatoes, with a salad and bread. It can be anything, as long as it doesn’t involve rich sauces or gravies, and isn’t fried. Tonight we are going out for dinner with friends and I will have grilled seabass, pilaf, and vegetables.
When my weight and power are where I want them to be, I’ll eat less Lean Cuisine and do more cooking. That will be about September. By November, I’ll be buff and into the calamari fritti again.
The Grant Diet is based on sustenance eating and exercise. Sustenance eating is based on the total number of meals in an ordinary week that will be eaten by an ordinary person, which is 21. The diet requires that 17 of those meals be skimpy ones, or “sustenance” ones. The other four are splurge meals, but splurging within reason.
You can’t have gravy or mayonnaise or anything fried, unless the circumstances are unusual. If I go to someone’s home, and they set an oyster po’boy in front of me, I will eat it. Otherwise, eat stuff you like, but not too much of it. For breakfast this morning, I had Grape Nuts Flakes, some Grape Nuts sprinkled on top for texture, five cut-up strawberries, six pecans, broken up (see? not too much of a good thing), and low-fat milk.
This morning, Karen and I walked two miles. We walk three mornings a week and go to the gym three mornings. Twice a week at the gym, Karen swims. I have already pointed out that for me, swimming is the avoidance of drowning. So I ride the cross-trainer and then work at the weight machines.
We are just getting started, so two miles is my walking limit and 21 to 23 minutes on the cross trainer. I haven’t been working out much the last couple of years. First there was prostate removal surgery, which knocks a fellow down for awhile. And the left hip had been deteriorating for several years and it was replaced in January. So this summer is the first time in awhile that I have been in shape to get in shape. In fact I feel better than I have in years, and I’m not even in shape yet. By August, we’ll be walking three miles, or more. No jogging for me; the doctor says only low-impact stuff with the new hip. And I’ll home in on 30 minutes on the cross-trainer, and work up to medium-heavy on the weights.
Each workout will be about an hour. You can’t lose weight on the Grant Diet if you don’t work out. You can’t really feel good in your shoes anyway, if you don’t work out. I am already feeling a whiff of the training effect, and it is a real rush, but what I’m looking forward to is the feeling of weightlessness that comes with balance between body power and gravity.
Breakfast on the Grant Diet may be the cereal arrangement, or a toasted English muffin with peanut butter (that is my in-a-hurry breakfast). Sometimes I’ll have a slice (or two) of bacon or Canadian bacon with an over-easy egg and a piece of toast. Oatmeal is good, with strawberries, no more than six pecans, and low-fat milk. You can mix together plain yogurt, fruit (strawberries or peaches, fresh or frozen), and some Grape Nuts. Also drink a glass of orange or grapefruit juice every morning.
Lunch can be a ham or turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, pickle, etc. but no mayo. Mustard and Grey Poupon are good on sandwiches. Some days have just half the sandwich. I like a few tortilla chips, but no more than nine. You can have a can of soup for lunch. You can have a cheese quesadilla with salsa. Sometimes you can have some cubed ham, or even salami, and cheese, and half a ciabatta.
For dinner, I jack up a Lean Cuisine entrée (Swedish Meatballs is my favorite) with a little extra pasta and vegetables like zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, just cut up and heated in the oven. A small tomato and cucumber salad on the side, and a slice of sourdough. If you drink, you can have a small cocktail before dinner, and a small glass of wine.
The sustenance meals tend to be the weekday routine, with the splurge meals during the weekend. A typical splurge meal is a lean steak with grilled onions and mushrooms, a salad, and a piece of bread. It may be a piece of pork, braised with onions, garlic and tomatoes, with a salad and bread. It can be anything, as long as it doesn’t involve rich sauces or gravies, and isn’t fried. Tonight we are going out for dinner with friends and I will have grilled seabass, pilaf, and vegetables.
When my weight and power are where I want them to be, I’ll eat less Lean Cuisine and do more cooking. That will be about September. By November, I’ll be buff and into the calamari fritti again.
June 06, 2006
Getting the right tood
How’s your food tood?
I am modifying mine this summer – again. I am both happy and sad that food has to become an attitude in one’s life. When we were young, we ate what we wanted to and burned it all off at the normal pace of a 10-to-25-year-old life. As we age, our normal pace slows, and we don’t burn it off, even though we aren’t eating what we want to any more.
I say that from the advantage of a man born in 1943. Men born at that time ate what they wanted to, which essentially was what our elders placed on the table. It was the post-Depression era, and householders in those days had become deeply imprinted with the necessities of making a little go a long way.
From that reality emerged pinto beans, smothered steak, corn bread thangs and back yard vegetable gardens with chickens running through them. A typical Sunday supper would be green beans and tomatoes from the garden, along with one of the chickens, who this morning had a name and this evening lay on the dining room table, fried. My gosh, that was life on another planet. If a mom went into a back yard today and killed a chicken for supper, the child would be plunged into therapy and neighbors would sue for public cruelty. (I do retain vivid memories of the chicken going down under my grandmother’s quick, practiced hands, but I accepted it as just the way of doing things.)
So it was a privileged time, compared to today’s pre-packed, fast food spreads. We were also privileged to have nothing to do after breakfast (cornmeal mush was my favorite), lunch or dinner but go outside and play. We are just about the last generation – 12 years old in 1955 – for whom our world was our sovereign neighborhood. We went out of our houses into this world; today the world comes into houses and keeps the kids inside.
It was a golden age, but by 30 food had become a tood. Balance, once automatic, now became a function of tood, which involved will. Instead of asking, “Can I go outside and play?” now I have to be commanded: “Just do it.” If my tood was to wear 36 jeans, I couldn’t eat what I wanted to, and I had to go work out. I had first-class inspiration. I was a sports writer at The Abilene Reporter-News in 1969 when an Air Force major named Kenneth Cooper came through town, promoting his new exercise book called “Aerobics.” I interviewed him and wrote a story, and I followed his counsel in the book. I lost 30 pounds in three months. I have done it again several times since, and Dr. Cooper now heads the world famous Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.
His target for us was the eight-minute mile. It was hell, but when I got there, running three miles in 24 minutes and weighing 185, life was heaven. Today, I can’t go out and get the papers and get back to the kitchen inside of eight minutes, but the tood is still there. It is always there, whether you have it or not. Today, I have it. I am modifying it this summer to eat what I don’t want to, and work out six times a week. No more eight-minute miles, though. Hell, I can’t even jog, after hip replacement. Dr. Cooper says you can do aerobics by swimming, too, but that’s not for me. To me, swimming is the avoidance of drowning. So I’ll walk, and ride the cross-trainer, and pump the machines, and by August I’ll weigh 195, (down from 215), and by November, 190. That’s as low as I’ll go. You’ll see why, when I tell you what I plan to be eating by September.
©Michael Grant, 2006
I am modifying mine this summer – again. I am both happy and sad that food has to become an attitude in one’s life. When we were young, we ate what we wanted to and burned it all off at the normal pace of a 10-to-25-year-old life. As we age, our normal pace slows, and we don’t burn it off, even though we aren’t eating what we want to any more.
I say that from the advantage of a man born in 1943. Men born at that time ate what they wanted to, which essentially was what our elders placed on the table. It was the post-Depression era, and householders in those days had become deeply imprinted with the necessities of making a little go a long way.
From that reality emerged pinto beans, smothered steak, corn bread thangs and back yard vegetable gardens with chickens running through them. A typical Sunday supper would be green beans and tomatoes from the garden, along with one of the chickens, who this morning had a name and this evening lay on the dining room table, fried. My gosh, that was life on another planet. If a mom went into a back yard today and killed a chicken for supper, the child would be plunged into therapy and neighbors would sue for public cruelty. (I do retain vivid memories of the chicken going down under my grandmother’s quick, practiced hands, but I accepted it as just the way of doing things.)
So it was a privileged time, compared to today’s pre-packed, fast food spreads. We were also privileged to have nothing to do after breakfast (cornmeal mush was my favorite), lunch or dinner but go outside and play. We are just about the last generation – 12 years old in 1955 – for whom our world was our sovereign neighborhood. We went out of our houses into this world; today the world comes into houses and keeps the kids inside.
It was a golden age, but by 30 food had become a tood. Balance, once automatic, now became a function of tood, which involved will. Instead of asking, “Can I go outside and play?” now I have to be commanded: “Just do it.” If my tood was to wear 36 jeans, I couldn’t eat what I wanted to, and I had to go work out. I had first-class inspiration. I was a sports writer at The Abilene Reporter-News in 1969 when an Air Force major named Kenneth Cooper came through town, promoting his new exercise book called “Aerobics.” I interviewed him and wrote a story, and I followed his counsel in the book. I lost 30 pounds in three months. I have done it again several times since, and Dr. Cooper now heads the world famous Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.
His target for us was the eight-minute mile. It was hell, but when I got there, running three miles in 24 minutes and weighing 185, life was heaven. Today, I can’t go out and get the papers and get back to the kitchen inside of eight minutes, but the tood is still there. It is always there, whether you have it or not. Today, I have it. I am modifying it this summer to eat what I don’t want to, and work out six times a week. No more eight-minute miles, though. Hell, I can’t even jog, after hip replacement. Dr. Cooper says you can do aerobics by swimming, too, but that’s not for me. To me, swimming is the avoidance of drowning. So I’ll walk, and ride the cross-trainer, and pump the machines, and by August I’ll weigh 195, (down from 215), and by November, 190. That’s as low as I’ll go. You’ll see why, when I tell you what I plan to be eating by September.
©Michael Grant, 2006
June 05, 2006
Back in Parking Lot Heaven
This morning I unhooked my red temporary Handicapped Parking placard from my rear view mirror. It expired yesterday, June 4, five months less one day since the date of my hip replacement surgery.
I don’t mind seeing it go. I must admit, it got me into some great reserved parking spaces, at choked parking lots next to shopping malls, and on the nights we went to the ball game and the opera. But I got just a short sample taste of what it might be like to qualify for the placard permanently. Mobility restriction, after hip surgery, goes on long enough for the mind to start to adapt. It is a sobering moment, notable mainly for relief in realizing that all this trouble, trouble that I’m starting to get good at, is going to be temporary.
So this morning, five months to the day after my surgery, I unhooked the card with a sense that I was going home again, back to parking spaces in a different area code from the store or the restaurant or the event, from which walking is a genuine measure of freedom.
I’m still not totally familiar with my new left hip. For 62 years, I walked slightly on the outside of my foot, so the heels of my shoes wore down off-center. Now my left foot wants to roll in slightly, and it is the strangest feeling. Karen says I walk with a little hitch on that side, and I tell her it’s just temporary, until I know without thinking how my foot is going to land.
The strangest thing is the pain. There is none. For five years, I managed all the positions of daily living according to what the pain told me to do. It took energy. I have estimated that managing the pain in my hip consumed about half of my energy. Walking from the parking lot to my office was a trek. Walking from the house out to get the newspapers was a trek. I kept both feet planted, unless there was some absolute need, like walking, to move them, and I always knew where things were that I could lean against. I would never step over anything, and I couldn’t move furniture – a table or a chair – without lifting it, taking a step, setting it down, planting my feet, taking another step, setting it down.
“Every step an agony,” I liked to tell Karen, and I was only half-kidding.
Now that pain is gone. But the habits are not. I am re-learning chair carrying, and stepping over puppies. I can do yard work! I trimmed a hedge all by myself yesterday, bagged the trimmings, carried them to the street as if it were the most normal thing in the world. We are back into regular exercise, walking three times a week and hitting the gym three times a week, and by the end of the summer I expect the new hip will have 15 fewer pounds to haul around.
Everyone with any experience said this surgery would change my life, and it has. I feel like I have received a new start. If you are contemplating it, go ahead and do it. The first month is not fun, and the restrictions do go on long enough that you start to get used to them. Believe me, the five-month payoff, taking the red placard off your rear view mirror, will make all that worthwhile.
I don’t mind seeing it go. I must admit, it got me into some great reserved parking spaces, at choked parking lots next to shopping malls, and on the nights we went to the ball game and the opera. But I got just a short sample taste of what it might be like to qualify for the placard permanently. Mobility restriction, after hip surgery, goes on long enough for the mind to start to adapt. It is a sobering moment, notable mainly for relief in realizing that all this trouble, trouble that I’m starting to get good at, is going to be temporary.
So this morning, five months to the day after my surgery, I unhooked the card with a sense that I was going home again, back to parking spaces in a different area code from the store or the restaurant or the event, from which walking is a genuine measure of freedom.
I’m still not totally familiar with my new left hip. For 62 years, I walked slightly on the outside of my foot, so the heels of my shoes wore down off-center. Now my left foot wants to roll in slightly, and it is the strangest feeling. Karen says I walk with a little hitch on that side, and I tell her it’s just temporary, until I know without thinking how my foot is going to land.
The strangest thing is the pain. There is none. For five years, I managed all the positions of daily living according to what the pain told me to do. It took energy. I have estimated that managing the pain in my hip consumed about half of my energy. Walking from the parking lot to my office was a trek. Walking from the house out to get the newspapers was a trek. I kept both feet planted, unless there was some absolute need, like walking, to move them, and I always knew where things were that I could lean against. I would never step over anything, and I couldn’t move furniture – a table or a chair – without lifting it, taking a step, setting it down, planting my feet, taking another step, setting it down.
“Every step an agony,” I liked to tell Karen, and I was only half-kidding.
Now that pain is gone. But the habits are not. I am re-learning chair carrying, and stepping over puppies. I can do yard work! I trimmed a hedge all by myself yesterday, bagged the trimmings, carried them to the street as if it were the most normal thing in the world. We are back into regular exercise, walking three times a week and hitting the gym three times a week, and by the end of the summer I expect the new hip will have 15 fewer pounds to haul around.
Everyone with any experience said this surgery would change my life, and it has. I feel like I have received a new start. If you are contemplating it, go ahead and do it. The first month is not fun, and the restrictions do go on long enough that you start to get used to them. Believe me, the five-month payoff, taking the red placard off your rear view mirror, will make all that worthwhile.
June 01, 2006
Katie at CBS
Some people love Katie Couric, some people can’t stand her.
In my opinion, she is a regular person with very good news sense, and a totally commercial personality. Most of all, she is a gamer. A gamer is a player who always shows up when the chips are down. Joe Montana was a gamer. Reggie Jackson was a gamer. Tony Gwynn was a gamer.
A gamer in television news who is also a totally commercial personality is worth her weight in gold. If Katie weighs 130 pounds, and gold is $650 an ounce, Katie in gold is worth $1,352,000, a month, which is just about what CBS is paying her to become anchor of the Evening News, which is just about right. CBS isn’t paying her all that money because some people love her. CBS just wants the Evening News to improve in the ratings, so advertisers will pay more, and CBS and National Amusements will make more money.
It’s always all about money. If the criterion is content, or meaning to the world, The Today Show essentially is insignificant. If the criterion is money, The Today Show is the most lucrative programming on television, and that’s what made Katie so valuable. We can just be grateful she’s also a gamer. I’ll bet there isn’t a newspaper publisher in the country who wouldn’t pay an arm and a leg (somewhere in the middle-upper five figures, in newspaper values) to have a Katie Couric clone covering City Hall.
The CBS Evening News will be different with Katie as anchor. At least it better be. Having Katie Couric read news is like having Greg Maddux pitch batting practice. She is going to be an interviewer as well as an anchor, and she will be reporting live a lot, both hard and soft news, even the very soft but compelling stories that Charles Kuralt used to find. I can’t see this new show being contained to a half-hour. I wonder if the CBS Evening News will be expanded to an hour and become a fusion of the old Evening News, the Jim Lehrer News Hour without the propriety, and “On the Road.”
CBS has to figure out a legitimate way to keep Katie’s totally commercial personality on the field. That is where her everyday value is. Being a gamer is great, but a gamer shows up only in the really great games, and there aren’t too many of those in the daily news, thank God. If CBS is going to get its bang for the buck, she is going to have to emerge, somehow, in the viewer’s mind as “America’s Evening News Sweetheart,” highly likeable, highly mobile, highly diversified, and highly respected. God help them if they advertise her that way, but that is the end effect of putting all her skills to use, as ways to maximize ratings, which is the only thing that matters.
In my opinion, she is a regular person with very good news sense, and a totally commercial personality. Most of all, she is a gamer. A gamer is a player who always shows up when the chips are down. Joe Montana was a gamer. Reggie Jackson was a gamer. Tony Gwynn was a gamer.
A gamer in television news who is also a totally commercial personality is worth her weight in gold. If Katie weighs 130 pounds, and gold is $650 an ounce, Katie in gold is worth $1,352,000, a month, which is just about what CBS is paying her to become anchor of the Evening News, which is just about right. CBS isn’t paying her all that money because some people love her. CBS just wants the Evening News to improve in the ratings, so advertisers will pay more, and CBS and National Amusements will make more money.
It’s always all about money. If the criterion is content, or meaning to the world, The Today Show essentially is insignificant. If the criterion is money, The Today Show is the most lucrative programming on television, and that’s what made Katie so valuable. We can just be grateful she’s also a gamer. I’ll bet there isn’t a newspaper publisher in the country who wouldn’t pay an arm and a leg (somewhere in the middle-upper five figures, in newspaper values) to have a Katie Couric clone covering City Hall.
The CBS Evening News will be different with Katie as anchor. At least it better be. Having Katie Couric read news is like having Greg Maddux pitch batting practice. She is going to be an interviewer as well as an anchor, and she will be reporting live a lot, both hard and soft news, even the very soft but compelling stories that Charles Kuralt used to find. I can’t see this new show being contained to a half-hour. I wonder if the CBS Evening News will be expanded to an hour and become a fusion of the old Evening News, the Jim Lehrer News Hour without the propriety, and “On the Road.”
CBS has to figure out a legitimate way to keep Katie’s totally commercial personality on the field. That is where her everyday value is. Being a gamer is great, but a gamer shows up only in the really great games, and there aren’t too many of those in the daily news, thank God. If CBS is going to get its bang for the buck, she is going to have to emerge, somehow, in the viewer’s mind as “America’s Evening News Sweetheart,” highly likeable, highly mobile, highly diversified, and highly respected. God help them if they advertise her that way, but that is the end effect of putting all her skills to use, as ways to maximize ratings, which is the only thing that matters.
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