The Daily Brief

Charlton Heston has passed away, at 84 years of age.

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Heston lent his strong presence to some of the most acclaimed and successful films of the midcentury. “Ben-Hur” won 11 Academy Awards, tying it for the record with the more recent “Titanic” (1997) and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003). Heston’s other hits include: “The Ten Commandments,” “El Cid,” “55 Days at Peking,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Earthquake.”

He liked to the cite the number of historical figures he had portrayed:

Andrew Jackson (“The President’s Lady,” “The Buccaneer”), Moses (“The Ten Commandments”), title role of “El Cid,” John the Baptist (“The Greatest Story Ever Told”), Michelangelo (“The Agony and the Ecstasy”), General Gordon (“Khartoum”), Marc Antony (“Julius Caesar,” “Antony and Cleopatra”), Cardinal Richelieu (“The Three Musketeers”), Henry VIII (“The Prince and the Pauper”).

And here’s something you don’t often read in an actor’s obit (emphasis mine):

Calling himself Charlton Heston from his mother’s maiden name and his stepfather’s last name, he won an acting scholarship to Northwestern University in 1941. He excelled in campus plays and appeared on Chicago radio. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Force and served as a radio-gunner in the Aleutians.

In 1944 he married another Northwestern drama student, Lydia Clarke, and after his army discharge in 1947, they moved to New York to seek acting jobs.
(snip)
Besides Fraser, who directed his father in an adventure film, “Mother Lode,” the Hestons had a daughter, Holly Ann, born Aug. 2, 1961. The couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1994 at a party with Hollywood and political friends. They had been married 64 years when he died.

Godspeed, Chuck. Thank you for your service to your country during the War, and for your faithfulness to your wife and family, as well as for your contributions to theater, film, and television.

Sardoodledom is, apparently, another word for melodrama. Watch the spelling bee contestant try to spell it.

h/t Joanne Jacobs

When I was a young child, sometime back in the dawn of time (oh, sorry – the late 60s), one of my favorite songs was by a group named Think. The song was called “Once You Understand.” It was basically a constant refrain providing the background sound for snippets of conversations between parents & teens. In keeping with the times, every parental interchange was angry/uncaring/non-supportive of their child’s latest dream or activity. The refrain got louder as the song progressed.

“Ma, I’ll be home at 11…”
“You’d better be home at 10, or don’t bother to come home at all.”

“Hey, Dad! Did you see my new guitar? I joined a group!”
“Son, there’s a little bit more to life than joining a group, or playing a guitar.”
“Yeah, Dad? What is there to life?”

When I was 10-12, this song was the epitome of everything that was wrong with parents. I had one of the those old K-Tel vinyl compilations that included this song on it. Over the years, the record got lost, and I have periodically scoured the internet hoping to find it. Alas, all searches were in vain.

Today, wandering through my blogroll, I checked out LaShawn Barber’s Corner. LaShawn has recently changed the primary focus of her blogs from politics to music – digital music in particular. She wrote about a new search engine called SeeqPod – kind of a “google” for music. So I jumped over to SeeqPod, and typed in “Once You Understand,” hit search, and crossed my fingers.

Eureka!

I still can’t find it to buy, but at least I can listen to it, and remember singing along at a slumber party 35 years ago. That’s better than nothing.

Thanks, SeeqPod!

h/t LaShawn Barber

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It’s expected that his brother Raul will be the new president.

HAVANA – An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

The end of Castro’s rule — the longest in the world for a head of government — frees his 76-year-old brother Raul to implement reforms he has hinted at since taking over as acting president when Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006. President Bush said he hopes the resignation signals the beginning of a democratic transition.

Here’s hoping that their next 50 years are better than the last.

UPDATE: Val Prieto (and friends) do their usual good job of providing background and commentary on all things Cuban over at Babalublog. Val’s blog is where I first started reading more about Cuba, a few years ago. It’s always the first place I head when I see something about Cuba in the news.

No, it’s not a long-hidden horror flick. It’s the next volley in the fight to support freedom of speech/freedom of the press. It seems that the Danish government recently arrested some Muslim conspirators who were planning to kill Kurt Westergaard, the man who drew what was deemed to be the most offensive of the cartoons two years ago.

That would be this one:

You may recall that our own Sgt Mom wrote about this very topic the first time around, castigating the mainstream press for kowtowing to the Islamofacists. I’m certain that she’ll be weighing in on this revival, as well. I’m heartened by the fact that the Danish papers have responded to this recent arrest by re-publishing the cartoons. As Captain Ed says, they are “on the front lines for free speech.”

According to the article, Spanish, Swedish, and Dutch newspapers also republished the cartoons. Anyone want to take any bets as to when we’ll see them in the NY Times?

…is that it beats the alternative. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. And for once, I’m not talking about myself, although I don’t seem to be getting any younger, these days. I’m talking about my dad..

He turned 77 on his birthday last November. He spent his birthday weekend in the hospital, dealing with a heart attack. He had gone to the ER in his small town to get checked out for a suspected urinary tract infection (his regular doc had retired, and he didn’t have a new one yet), and they realized he was in the midst of a heart attack. They kept him over the weekend, and released him early the next week.

But my aunt called me last week. She’s the one who takes care of my dad’s finances, and has full power of attorney to handle whatever needs handled, since my mom passed away. Dad’s doctor says he needs to move out of his split-level house, before the stairs kill him. He doesn’t do stairs well – they trip him up. He had a stroke in 1976, and his right leg has never worked particularly well since then. His answer to the stairs in the house was to go out the back door, take two steps down from the back deck, and walk down the sloping hill to his truck. Until he fell one day, and couldn’t get up. Thankfully, two neighbors saw him and came over to help him to his feet.

He is a stubbornly indpendent man, my father. So we are NOT moving him to assisted living. We are helping him get his house ready to sell, and we’ll help him buy a small single-story in his small town. I’ve rearranged my vacation time to go north and help out. Other than that, I try not to think about it.

My daddy… I have always endowed him with some mythical heroic power, and while he may not have hung the moon, I was always convinced that he could have, if he’d wanted to. In one swift move, he could grab me up and hoist me to his shoulders, assuring I got the best view of the Santa Claus parade as it wound through our neighborhood. We found a domestic rabbit shivering in our garage one winter day, and next day, he built a wood and wire rabbit hutch for it, out of scraps he had, and with no plans to work from. When we built our “dream” house in 1975, he and Mom did the roofing, the siding, the flooring… before his stroke he was all-powerful, and full of genius, if short of patience.

After his 1976 stroke, I closed my eyes to his limitations and encouraged him in his successes. It was easy to do then – I was a teenager, still in high school. Now I’m an adult, and high school is 30 years behind me, this May. Dad is 77, and not as healthy as he used to be. His heart is enlarged, his liver is fatty, and his bad leg drags enough to scare you if you watch him walk, because it looks like he won’t make it across the room if he’s barefoot.

But he’s still around for me to love, and that beats the alternative. Still, I find my eyes tearing up at odd times, and I’m dreading this northern trip on Feb 26, helping him get ready to sell the house my mother died in. I find myself wondering if I’ve really told him enough about how much he means to me. I try to reassure myself that actions speak louder than words, even for someone as vocal as I am, and that driving across the Appalachians in the tag-end of winter declares that I care. But I think I’ll work on sending cards more often, to let him know I’m thinking of him, and that I love him.

And I marvel at how the fact that my dad is growing older can make me feel so much like a very young child.

… is that sometimes one goes after a “them” that’s really an “us,” or is neither an “us” nor a “them.”

Baldilocks points us to one tragic example, in Kenya.

Lucas Sang was a Kalenjin farmer. He was also an Olympian, racing for Kenya in the 1988 Seoul Olympics as part of their 4×400 metre relay team.

Don’t know if you’ve been following the mess in Kenya, but there’s a huge “us v. them” struggle going on right now, over their most recent elections. Lucas Sang is one of the victims of that struggle – he was stoned to death on New Year’s Day, by a mob expressing their displeasure with the recent election, who thought he was a Kikuyu.

Us v. them. It’s so easy to let emotions run ahead of rational thought, and the outcome is rarely pleasant.

Sgt Hook is blogging again (hooray!), and in keeping with the season, has posted not just a new “Christmas Presence” story, but he has also re-posted those of previous years.

Go enjoy them, but take tissues. That man surely has a way with words.

I woke up at 330 this morning, and when I couldn’t get back to sleep, my first thought was “I knew that long mid-day nap was a bad idea.”

But as I lay there in bed, trying to fall asleep again, thoughts started flittering through my mind, some of them worth sharing. And I found myself writing a post in my mind, with no way to get it from my mind to paper/PC, unless I got up.

Why hasn’t someone invented a “mind-writing machine?” One that you can turn on and off at will, that could record the thoughts you particularly want to keep for later playback, without one’s having to get out of bed, turn on lights, and find writing paraphernalia?

More importantly, Was I LYING in bed, or LAYING in bed? : I’m 46 years old, with 2 degrees and 1/3 of another, and have no idea which is the correct word. I’m tired of not knowing that (I researched it when I got up – it seems that “lay” in the 2nd paragraph is correct, because it’s the past tense of lie. But when I’m IN bed, I’m LYING in bed. Hopefully, I’ll remember this tidbit of English grammar for more than the next 5 minutes).

So now I know – I lay in bed, thinking, and letting my mind ramble where it would. And y’all are wondering why the heck I thought my thoughts were worth sharing. That’s coming up next. More »

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The head of the Khmer Rouge’s largest and most notorious torture center appeared in court Tuesday in the first public session of the long-delayed U.N.-backed tribunal probing the regime’s reign of terror in the 1970s.

The 4-year regime of the Khmer Rouge resulted in 1.7million deaths. Pol Pot, the dictator responsible for it, died in 1998 without ever being brought to trial.

I have no idea what delayed the trials for 30 years, but I’m glad to see that they’re finally going forward.

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That depends on your interests, of course. But these are some I visit almost daily.

Kim Du Toit: You’ll never wonder where you stand with him. From what I’ve seen, he’s not the least bit shy about sharing his opinions/thoughts, and won’t apologize if they differ from yours. Talks about guns, music, guns, culture, guns, and assorted other topics. I’ve learned a lot from him, on a number of topics. And if you want to talk guns — any kind of guns, or ammo, or whatever, he’s your man.

Ed Morrisey at The Captain’s Quarters: Politics, culture, and my daily fix of Chris Muir’s comic strip Day by Day.

Blonde Sagacity: Ala is a Philadelphian with attitude (or is that being redundant?).

Tim at Random Observations: Exercises in critical thinking, usually with a Christian flavor.

Joanne Jacobs blogs about education and education-related topics.

The American Dream is alive and well. That would be the dream that I learned about in school, growing up in the 1960s. The dream that said even a boy born in a log cabin could grow up to be president. The dream that said your success in life is only limited by your willingness to work for it.

In Louisiana, they just had a gubernatorial election. Kathleen Blanco, of Hurricane Katrina fame, wasn’t running for re-election, so it was a wide open field, and the winner is an Oxford-educated son of Indian immigrants. The first non-white governor since Reconstruction, and a conservative, Bobby Jindal handily defeated his competitors. This was his second time running for governor, having lost to Blanco four years ago.

“My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream. And guess what happened. They found the American dream to be alive and well right here in Louisiana,” [Jindal] said to cheers and applause at his victory party.

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…that I hate, loathe & despise packing? LOL

Moving Day is Nov 1, and I’m probably about half-packed, although my back thinks I’m all done (silly back – what does it know?). The last couple weekends have been spent purging and packing and cleaning, and it’s finally beginning to look like I’m making at least a small dent in it all. Of course, this week I’ll be commuting 30miles each way to a client site, and next week I’m out of state on a business trip. So I have 2 more weekends before Moving Day. And somewhere in there I need to find time to paint one of the rooms in the new house (schoolbus yellow is not a peaceful color, for me). Which means making time to figure out what color I want that room to be. Maybe I’ll wait and have my artist friend create a mural on the walls in there.

Next weekend I’m moving my storage shelves into the new garage, and my container garden to the new yard. It will give me a nice break from packing. I’m hiring a moving company for the actual move, but trying to do all the packing myelf.

A word to the wise…if you ever think about becoming a book collector, try to talk yourself out of it (it’s too late for Julia, I know). My thousand-volume library has taken forever to pack up, and bears most of the blame for my aching back.

So I’m driving home, looking for something to listen to on the radio, and I flip over to WJZZ, the “smooth jazz” station. And they’re playing HALL AND OATES?!?!?!?!

When did they move into the “jazz” category of music? I just don’t see it. Is this another sign that I’ve become an old fogey, out of touch with the times, or is WJZZ out to lunch?

all photos taken 9/18/2002

Angie came into my life when I went to Dee’s house to adopt a black retired broodmama. As Dee was introducing me to the other dogs, she said “This one’s Angela.” Angie got off her dog-bed and walked over to me. I knelt down, and she looked deep into my eyes. Then she licked my chin, and went back to her dog-bed where she stayed the rest of the time I was there.

I met the dog that I had gone to adopt, and she was wonderful, but she wasn’t the one for me. I had already been chosen. Angie chose me when she licked my chin.

Because she chose me,
I have experienced the adaptability of an “old” dog as she learned new tricks.

Because she chose me,
I have learned how much love I can feel for another being.

Because she chose me,
I have experienced the joy of her behavior changing over the years
from aloof to affectionate.

Because she loved me,
she adapted to unstructured routines and routine absences.

Because she loved me,
she accepted the other dogs I brought into our home,
and let them share the space in my heart.

Because I loved her,
there were new beds at Christmas, and no walks longer than her aging legs could handle.

Because I loved her,
there were nights spent on the couch with interruptions every few hours.

Because I loved her,
there were home-cooked meals and special treats, and fewer nights away from home.

Because she loved me,
she stood up for me, balancing on tired legs to show me she was ok
and I could leave on my business trip with a clear conscience.

Because I loved her, I let her go.
My heart is breaking because I couldn’t be there at the end,
but it was time to let go, and I had promised her I would,
because I loved her.

And because I loved her and she loved me,
she will run forever in my heart,
Because she chose me.

-mvy 9/1/07-

p.s. Timmer – My next greyhound will be here by Christmas. He’s still racing in Jacksonville, but seems to be racing towards a couch more than towards the winner’s circle.

They should issue a warning when you adopt a dog that says “Warning, this pup will worm it’s way into your heart, stand by you no matter what, require nothing, take nothing, and finally have to leave you way before you’re ready, no matter how old they are.”

My heart is breaking. We had 4 1/2 wonderful years together, but it wasn’t enough. Then again, 40 years wouldn’t be enough. She’s running free with the angels now – no limp, no pain, just peace and love. She’ll run forever in my heart.

My house-hunting continues apace, and I actually have 3 possibilities that I’ll be looking at more closely when my realtor gets back from her vacation. Two are very good possibilities, one just hit the market this weekend and I’ve not even seen it. I’ll be driving by its neighborhood today sometime, to decide if I want her to get us inside it when she gets back. I’m not in a major hurry – still a couple months left on my current lease. I firmly believe that if a house sells before I offer on it, it wasn’t supposed to be my house.

Here is my next set of questions.

One house has polybutylene pipes throughout. Is this good or bad? (I prefer copper). We’re in the Atlanta area, so not much concern about freezing pipes in the winter.

One house has a heat/cool system original to the home (27 years old). Is it acceptable to reduce my offer by the estimated 6K it will take to replace those (estimate based on what it cost to replace the one in San Antonio)?

One house has the washer/dryer in the hall bathroom. I’ve never encountered that before. It seems odd to me, but not a deal-breaker. Has anyone ever experienced that before? In that house, the water heater is in a room off the garage that is plenty large enough for a laundry room, and has a pipe that could be hooked into. Would it be feasible to move the washer/dryer to that room? If yes, how would I re-purpose the extra space in the hall bath?

One disclosure lists “some delaminating of siding on middle section of home.” What does that mean? The siding is pulling away from soemthing, or the veneer is pulling away from the siding? Is this something that should worry me? What causes delaminating?

I’ll likely be making an offer on one of these homes, the week after next (subject to inspections, etc)

Whoops – knew there was another question. One house has a room in the back corner of the garage that could easily be turned into a mudroom if we add an outside door to it. How much hassle is it to add an exterior door after the fact?

Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember the fundamental premise of American law – that we are innocent until proven guilty. Oh, I remember it well enough when it’s someone I like being accused of something, but if it’s someone I don’t like, then as soon as I hear of an indictment, I want to jump on the bandwagon, yelling “Crucify him/her!”

Sometimes the crime is so disgusting that even if I have no opinion of the person involved, I start dreaming up punishment before the trial has even begun.

The newest example of that, for me, is Michael Vick. Apparently, he plays for the Atlanta Falcons (I don’t follow sports, so he means nothing to me), and has a large home in Virginia. Earlier this year, a relative of his was arrested for holding dog-fights on the VA property. Vick swore up and down he was not involved, that his relative lived on the property, not him, etc.

Well, last night on the news, one of the big stories was that Michael Vick has been indicted for dog-fighting. The indictment is more detailed than that – conspiracy, illegal gambling, taking fighting dogs across state lines, etc.

On the news, they showed the dog pens with the pit-bull-looking dogs, and they talked about the methods used when the dogs who weren’t good enough to fight were put down.

Let’s just say they were NOT humanely euthanised.

I had to change the channel – what I heard described in the news story was every bit as offensive to me as the reports of Saddam Hussein’s human shredders. I’m certain you can find the details online if you want.

I was SO angry last night – all I wanted to do was treat Vick the same way those dogs were treated.

But you know what? Technically, he’s innocent, no matter what I might think, no matter how disgusted I am by what has happened, until there is a trial and he’s convicted (if he is), he’s innocent.

But to watch the news story last night, he might as well have already been convicted. Why is that?

Sgt Mom already posted the Unanimous Declaration, but I think this is another that bears reading at every opportunity.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

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In a comment to another post, contributor Radar writes:

Real Wife and I married on 13 June 1992, and it’s been a great fifteen years. Sadly, we learned Friday, based on a biopsy done on our anniversary, that she has breast cancer. We go to the doctor tomorrow morning to learn the details and what lies ahead. Hold Patsy tight, I know that I will be holding Real Wife like the most valuable jewel I ever found.

Radar

I didn’t want his words to be lost in comments.

Radar, you’re embarking on one of the scariest journeys an individual can ever take. Let it change you both. Let it make you more aware of the deep, abiding love you share. Let it make you more aware of the beauty not just in each day, but in each hour, each minute, each breath you take.

Listen to those who’ve gone before, and learn from them. Listen to those who’ve never been there, and accept their love, concern, and well-wishes.

Your family has my prayers, my good thoughts, my well-wishes, and my promise of help if there’s anything I can do when I live so far from you.

As crazy as it sounds, I’ll be praying laughter for y’all, as well as health and peace.

Gentle hugs to you,
Mary