Rumsfeld the warmonger and grandfather (at least in my dreams)

Posted on November 22, 2011 by sheilawill

Unlike Robert McNamara, who finally admitted that he was the architect of the Vietnam war, and that he made mistakes, Donald Rumsfeld’s new book does nothing of the sort. He made no mistakes, the deceptive bastard (more on that in a bit).

My son, Ethan, now 30, was a baby in my dream last night. He was all peaceful wrapped in a blanket, and we were out for a walk. Rumsfeld must have been summering in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island, where Ethan grew up.

The former defense secretary stepped onto his porch to pick up the newspaper. When he saw how sweet my little guy looked, he smiled, turned into a paragon of warmth and wanted to hold Ethan. I let him. (It was a dream, folks).

Fast forward 27 years or so. Intrepid Ethan was based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as a stringer for the New York Times. (Please search Ethan wilensky-Lanford on nytimes.com. I’m on a plane flying to Newark for Thanksgiving with Brook and Gianmarco and the connection is mucho slow).

Rumsfeld was in Bishkek to look in on the U.S. military base post violence in nearby Uzbekistan. He held a news conference and Ethan was there. Rumsfeld deflected answers to Ethan’s first two questions, passing the buck and saying he “didn’t know anything about that,” then telling Ethan he’d have to ask so-and-so. When Ethan hit Rumsfeld with yet a third quote, the ruthless defense secretary stared him down and asked, “Am I missing something in translation?”

“No, Mr. Secretary,” Ethan responded. “I’m speaking English.”

(Eth — I’m sorry if I haven’t gotten this exactly right, but it’s the punchline that matters, and that’s correct.)

At some point in his life Rumsfeld has held a baby, smiled warmly, cared about someone, but not so much when he sent other people’s sons and daughters to wage war with inadequate body or tank armor.

When Ethan was a baby in real life his dad and I heard Dr. Helen Caldicott speak at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. Ethan was peaceful in his baby car seat, taking it all in, I imagine. Caldicott, an early and passionate anti-nuclear advocate, asked if she could hold our “beautiful baby,” telling the audience that he was the reason she was so adamantly opposed to nuclear weapons.

She’s still at it — and so is Rumsfeld. I’m grateful for so much in my life — for Ethan, Brook and Gianmarco, Dan, the rest of my family, all my dear friends, and Helen Caldicott.

A Happy and Peaceful Thanksgiving to all.

 

 

Posted in Family Matters, politics, The Rest of the World | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Hooray for food trucks!

Posted on November 15, 2011 by sheilawill

They’re in all the hip places, and after tonight’s first-ever food truck jamboree Tucson has definitely jumped on the bandwagon. Kudos to Julie Ray for encouraging culinary hipness!

I arrived at the Dinnerware Artspace parking lot — suitably decked out for the festive occasion with sparkly lights — around 6 p.m. Long lines of folks were waiting for Cuban pulled pork or jerk chicken at Jamie’s Bitchin’ Kitchen or taking in the aroma of Korean B-B-Q tacos at the MaFooCo truck. I had already sampled a pineapple-jalapeno thing- on-a-stick on Saturday from the Cyclopsicle. Gus Coliadis, the popsicle maker and owner of the orange bicycle with the cooler on back was there tonight, too.

Julie told me she was on channel 13 this afternoon so maybe that’s what brought out so many people, but I don’t think so. Soulful sax sounds along with flute and xylophone wafted from the building, where tables and chairs were set up.

Outside, I saw a few people I knew. Julie introduced me to a young woman in the Bitchin’ Kitchen line, and we sat together inside. She was from Washington, D.C., has been teaching special education in Tucson for seven years. Munching on our spiced-just-right jerk chicken, chatting and listening to the music, was one of those community happenings that made me feel I belonged.

It seemed like Tucson’s dining room, open to everyone.  I don’t know why, but it made me feel like a kid again.

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It’s been a good Sunday, rain and all

Posted on November 13, 2011 by sheilawill

Back east, I’d say what a dreary day. But here in Tucson the rainy grayness is so unusual, especially on a Sunday. It felt delicious heading to the living room couch with a cozy blanket and the New York Times.

It’s been an artsy weekend, even if I picked the wrong day and/or time yesterday to head to the “Tucson Shot Rock” photo exhibit on Congress Street or the holiday artisans’ market at the Tucson Museum of Art (oops, next week). I visited a few of the Open Studio weekend artists’ work places, including the studio of Keith Marroquin, whose website bio I liked a lot — spare and powerful, a good prerequisite for a creative person.

Last night I went back downtown to catch the rock photo exhibit by Tucson photographers. Immediately lured to the Woodstock corner, where Jim Morrison appeared in his infamous black leather pants in one almost life-size photo, and Jimi Hendrix in another. Hendrix, eyes closed clutching his guitar, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, appeared to be in some drug-induced stupor. Hendrix attacking the “Star Spangled Banner” is forever seared into my head.

Those Woodstock days popped up today, as I wondered what our newly elected mayor, Jonathan Rothschild, will accomplish in his first 180 days (I’ll interview him in late March). It was heartening to read that he listens to Jimi Hendrix on his car radio.

Is this what we baby boomers do, access old memories as we need them? What do we need them for?

Back to today, I circle plays we may want to see in NYC over Thanksgiving, jot down intriguing new exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art. I don’t want to miss anything.

Better make some popcorn. A perfect rainy day. What does yours look like?

 

 

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‘Gypsying Around’ for 100 years

Posted on November 12, 2011 by sheilawill

Brownie Ebner, my new friend and role model, turned 100 yesterday. Can you imagine living from Nov. 11, 1911 until Nov. 11, 2011? “I didn’t think I was going to make it the last few days,” she said at her senior living center party yesterday. Then she smiled, and asked me if her hair looked okay.

A woman in a sequined cocktail dress was crooning old tunes to around 40 assembled senior residents, most with walkers or in wheel chairs. Not at Brownie’s table: her three friends were probably all 20 years younger than her. When the singer used her microphone to send birthday wishes her way, Brownie told us that she had forgotten her hearing aid, and quipped, “Is she saying nice things about me?”

Brownie’s quick wit and “gypsying around” her whole life may have contributed to her longevity, along with her love of all games. “Maybe being active has something to do with living so long,” she says. Brownie has also had to adjust to whatever life throws at her. She attended 16 different schools in New York City because she and her mother moved around so much.

Brownie was born in Providence, R.I.,  and lived in Montreal, New York and Boston before settling in Tucson with her husband and son in 1949. We “gypsyed around” here too,  she says, having lived at 26 different addresses in Tucson.

“I have a lot of time to think about things now,” says Brownie, reminding me of a question I  had asked earlier about the changes she’s seen:

“I’m not astounded about anything because the changes have been so gradual. But it’s too bad children are so involved in staring at screens, [and they’re] not outdoors tossing a ball, or playing hopscotch. They’re too isolated. They don’t have the emotions we had. They’re disaffected and get callous at an early age.”

When Brownie’s daughter asked me to spin a family story about her mother’s upcoming milestone — interviewing Brownie and writing a creative piece about her life, which is part of my writing biz — I’ll admit that I wondered how coherent Brownie would be. But she has a better memory than I do. And she’s smart, articulate, and engaged with the world.

Two years ago, Brownie checked out the senior living center and noticed pool tables in a room near the main lobby. “Can people from the outside come in?”  she asked. Brownie had been part of a poker group “on the outside” for years. Yes, her poker group could play there. She moved in.

I’ve never imagined living till 100. But looking at Brownie’s smiling face, clearly enjoying all of her 11/11/11 hoopla, I thought to myself: Hmm…If I had all my marbles like Brownie, it would be okay.

 

 

Posted in Bopping Around Tucson, For Love of History | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Election night was just right

Posted on November 10, 2011 by sheilawill

Most Americans are sensible, decent folks, that’s what I think. So here’s my prediction: with all the yelling and nastiness, do-nothing obstructionist Republicans in Congress, and overreach of social conservatives trying to snatch people’s rights, President Obama will win re-eclection in 2012.

Maybe he’ll dive into his legacy, stand his ground for what he knows is right. Inequality doesn’t work; it brings everyone down.

Yesterday, across the country, voters refused to bow to bizarro Republican legislation and the anti-women — not pro-life — referendum in Mississippi. Even if a woman’s life was at stake, no abortion. Period. Personhood at conception? Show me a fertilized egg that goes to school, plays a musical instrument or does Zumba, and maybe then I’ll go along with such nonsense. My friend Mimi the fertilized egg…

Voted down 58 to 42 percent.

Leading Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney told former Arkansas governor Mike Hucklebee in an interview that he would “absolutely” vote for the Mississippi personhood referendum.  Let’s see how Romney flip-flops out of this one.

In Ohio, the electorate rescinded anti-collective bargaining legislation for public workers by a 61 to 39 percent vote. Maine returned to allowing voter registration on Election day. And here in Arizona, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce went down to defeat in a recall vote.

Pearce was the architect of the unconstitutional AZ SB1070, directing police to stop “suspicious-looking” (read: brown) people to check ID for U.S. citizenship. On tonight’s MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show, our Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva said, “Without Russell Pearce I don’t know what [Gov.] Jan Brewer will do. She won’t have anyone to take directions from.”

In Tucson, we have a new Democratic mayor, Jonathan Rothschild, a real nice progressive guy, a poet and an attorney. He wants to improve education in the city, go more green, encourage clean businesses to locate here, and help uplift the place his family has called home for three generations. We’ll see what he can do in his first 100 days. I’ll interview him and get back to you.

It’s good to hear some good news in politics. Don’t let the mean-spirited screamers fool you.

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Rock ‘n Roll is here to stay

Posted on November 7, 2011 by sheilawill

I never saw “The Last Waltz” before today. Dan and many other folks say it’s the best rockumentary ever made. It was 1976 when Martin Scorsese interviewed and directed The Band’s last concert in San Francisco, with such rock/blues icons as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison joining them.

My surprise was I had no idea The Band was so fantastic. Guess I was pregnant with Brook when the movie first came out, and all I knew was that Dylan had played with the group. Lead singer Robbie Robertson was astounding, trading off with Clapton on electric guitar riffs. But it was drummer Levon Helm’s Memphis blues sound that I grooved to.

Here’s the rub: I counted only a dozen people in Tucson’s Fox theater for the 2 p.m. show. What a shame. When I checked on Fox website the other day 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. were listed for movie times. I called to check and was told the movie was at 2 p.m. This has happened before at the Fox, which is way too bad.

Before the movie, I walked over to the Tucson Museum of Art for the first free Sunday of the month viewing of “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955 to the Present,” curated by the Brooklyn Museum. The place was packed. Yay for Tucson culture! I peeked at the entire exhibit, enough to know that I want to go back, take a closer look at a video of swivel-hips Elvis, Keith Richards and his wife, Patti Hansen, smiling at their new baby girl.

Quickly making my way back to the Fox, anticipating another big crowd, I crossed Congress Street to see the Occupy Tucson encampment on the corner. About 100 people are there, behind signs like “I will believe a corporation is a person when Georgia [Texas?] executes one.” I’ve decided to switch my bank account from the  corporate Wells Fargo to a local credit union.

Taking my place among the handful of moviegoers, watching “The Last Waltz,” it hit me — it’s fine to be getting older. I’m enjoying myself more than ever. I had a rockin’ good day!

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Role model #1: Ashley Bryan

Posted on November 5, 2011 by sheilawill

Renowned children’s author/artist Ashley Bryan is 88. He’s also my neighbor, well sort of, it’s a half-hour boat ride from the town dock behind my house in Southwest Harbor to his home on Little Cranberry Island. We’ve been friends for more than 25 years, and he’s always at the top of my list of people to visit when I’m in Maine every July.

Today Ashley and I had a wonderful visit by phone. “I’ve got lifelines, not deadlines, for upcoming books,” he told me. “I didn’t get to paint in the garden till late August this summer.”

“That’s just wrong,” I said. Ashley’s made the best use of Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug slogan, “Just say no.”  That’s what the sign says taped to the dial-up phone near his studio, so he won’t spontaneously agree to go to the ends of the earth to tell stories, entertain kids, recite poetry and read from his award-winning books.

The creator of more than 34 children’s books, dozens of puppets made from found beach items, hundreds of gorgeous paintings, and thousands of toasted cheese sandwiches, a few years ago after much prodding from his editor and friends, Ashley finally wrote his picture book autobiography, “Ashley Bryan: Words to my Life’s Song.”

“Wait till you hear this amazing story,” Ashley said today. After presenting at a recent conference in Boston, two women came up to him whom he hadn’t seen in 70 years. Drafted into the military at 19 from Cooper Union School of Art, Ashley was sent to work in the Boston shipyards as a stevedore in 1943. Ashley drew everything around him, including two 12-year-old girls who years later turned into 82-year-old women and wanted to see him.

Ashley got through World War II “with his drawing pad and his gas mask.” That’s how he survived Normandy. That’s how he kept his sanity, he says.

“You know veterans don’t like to speak about their experiences,” he reminded me today. “They’re all bottled up.” Ashley first talked publicly about being an artist/soldier at a Children’s Literature New England conference on war and peace. (That must have been before his sign because he wasn’t able to say no).

In the late ’90s I took my U.S. history class to Little Cranberry Island when we were studying WWII. It was a magnificent island blue Maine day in early June. Tears rolled down all of our faces by the time Ashley finished his true story. I could see that it had taken its emotional toll on him, yet he became the pied piper as we followed him down the road to catch the ferry. Ashley played his recorder. We all sang “He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands.”

“The world is falling apart,” Ashley said today. Yet I felt great after I got off the phone with him. Nothing stops him: “I’m going to Kenya in January!” He’s the epitome of someone who sees life’s tough realities and the beauty that’s still there. Yeah, pass that lifeline, Ashley, you’re the most remarkable human being I know.

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Not that every business can be Starbucks…

Posted on November 1, 2011 by sheilawill

What, you mean the guys making a fortune adding a little syrup, a dash of whipped cream to good ole’ coffee and selling it for four bucks?

We’re willing to pay for it, so good for them. I can’t blame Starbucks for their ingenuity: those adorable mini-vanilla bean scones or chocolate sprinkled donuts; tiny bags of healthy snacks — dried blueberries or cranberries — to embellish kids’ or grown-ups’  otherwise boring lunches. Starbucks sells just a few choice CDs, so you know they’re really cool. They  encourage bonding with their attractive buying cards, offering free drinks and a gold card (you’re special!) after 30 hits.

Now Starbucks is touting the Create Jobs for USA Fund, “a shared initiative among Starbucks, the Opportunity Finance Network, and You” (Me? More bonding.) By contributing $5 online you get a free (!) wristband. Best of all, this new initiative will provide financing to community businesses that need help. I can’t argue with that. I’m in.

A few days ago I heard an NPR story about Dow Chemical Company. It’s all well and good that they’re pitching in by helping their employees exercise, giving classes in nutritional counseling, generally teaching folks about our disastrous obesity and its consequences. But wait a darn minute.

Dow Chemical may be providing their employees with good stuff these days. Once upon a time they provided the U.S. military with Agent Orange and napalm to annihilate those bad, bad Vietcong, also killing, maiming and sickening many innocent Vietnamese and American soldiers. Dow Chemical still maintains that Agent Orange wasn’t harmful and takes the position that the company was an agent of the U.S. government. OK. At least tell the truth about what that crap did to people.

I’m reminded of Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who finally, when he turned 80, wrote “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.” What took him so long to lament the mistakes of the Vietnam War? If you can bare it, watch the superb “The fog of War,” one of the best documentaries ever. Maybe the best.

I’ve already seen the film. I lived through Vietnam War horror, hearing of high school classmates dying or the agony of friends trying to gain conscientious objector status or instead, how they fled to Canada. It’s hard to forget.

I’m all for enjoying those yummy coffee drinks at Starbucks. I’m just trying to shed a little light on history.

 

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Coffeeeeed up and/or how my brain works

Posted on October 27, 2011 by sheilawill

“I’m going to Occupy Wall Street in New York,” I blurted as the cheerful guy at the coffee drive-thru handed me my glass of iced buzz. But it’s not just coffee that gets me going.

“Are you leaving now?” he asked. “Nope, when I go see my kids at Thanksgiving.”

“Well, good for you,” he replied.

I had no idea why I said what I did. I hadn’t even had coffee yet. Sometimes I look at a sentence differently than other people. Proofreading at work yesterday for the latest issue of the newspaper, a headline jumped out at me: “Is your parents’ driving driving you nuts?” Whaaaa, why does it say “driving driving?” It didn’t look right, and I said so to Phyllis. She looked at me like I was nuts. Yup, we’re all different in our own ways, and I’m gratified that we changed the headline.

Neuroscience, the brain, mental health  have always fascinated me. We’ve learned so much more since I read R.D. Laing as a graduate student. If I could remember anything now, I’d steep myself in the land of endorphins, serotonin, and neurons. Instead, I read books.

If I had known that Mark Vonnegut’s — yes, son of the famous one — “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir” was such a gem I would have gone to his talk at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe a few weeks ago. I would have stayed overnight for the breakfast talk with Vonnegut and a local shrink. I would have enjoyed having a conversation, maybe even an interview, cause that’s what I do. I would have driven through the night to get there.

“Part of what happens when one goes crazy is that there’s a grammatical shift,” writes Vonnegut. “Thoughts come into the mind as firmly established truth. There is no simile or metaphor. There’s no tense but the present. The fantastic presents itself as fact.”

Vonnegut is a Harvard Medical School-trained pediatrician but the profession that “saved his life” didn’t come easy. He has bipolar disorder. Vonnegut has been hospitalized four times, the last time 14 years ago at the hospital where he practices medicine.

Now 60, the good doctor also wrote an earlier memoir, “The Eden Express,” depicting his earlier “crazy” times, which took the form of psychotic breaks.

In his latest book, somehow he’s managed to tell about his life in such a down-to-earth, lighthearted but profound way, with insight into his own twists and turns, what it takes for him to be a doctor, husband, father and friend. I devoured “Just Like Someone…” in two evenings. I found his raw honesty inspiring, as was his way with words, his wit. I entered Vonnegut’s world and came away with hope and practical wisdom:

“It’s possible within any given moment of any given day to choose between self and sickness. Rarely are there big heroic choices that will settle all matters once and for all. The smallest possible step is probably the right one. Try not to argue. If you’re right, you don’t need to argue. If you’re wrong, it won’t help. If you’re okay, things will be okay. If you’re not okay, nothing else matters.”

I’ll read “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So” again, probably more than once. It’s that damn good.

Posted in Mental illness/civil rights, Neuroscience needs me | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

“Dopey Ideas”

Posted on October 23, 2011 by sheilawill

Apparently Steve Jobs had some “dopey ideas,” says Walter Isaacson, his only sanctioned biographer. But Jobs had mostly good ones. He said that the way states certify textbook adoption is “corrupt.” He was right about that. Jobs also didn’t want to be cut open, and refused potentially lifesaving cancer surgery for nine months, to the dismay of friends and family. Maybe that was a dopey decision, which he supposedly lamented a few weeks prior to his death earlier this month.

Who among us hasn’t had a dumb idea? And who’s to say what’s dopey?

I like to quote statistics sometimes. I even remember some. When I taught economic geography at Mount Desert Island High School in the ’90s, I read in a geography annual that the majority of the U.S. population would be Hispanic by 2017. My students thought that was dopey: “No way,” they all insisted. “That can’t happen.”

“Why not?” I asked. And here we are on the way to it happening.

I’m interviewing a 100-year-old woman to write a history for her family. I asked her last week what had surprised her most during her life. “I was never astounded,” she told me, noting that change happens gradually so it’s not so surprising when new ideas became commonplace.

We were just bopping along in this country; most middle-class folks figured their kids would go to college, they would always have jobs and homes. Who ever thought there would be such a disparity in the growth of American incomes? One percent of the population having more wealth than the remaining 99 percent of us didn’t happen overnight: Deregulation of business regulations, corporate greed, corrupt politicians, you name it.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that 50 percent of U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 last year. “According to the Social Security Administration, there were fewer jobs, and overall pay was trending down — except for the wealthiest Americans. The number of people making $1 million or more soared by more than 18 percent from 2009.”

Is it any wonder that Occupy Wall Street protests are growing? According to a recent Time magazine poll, 57 percent of those polled approve of OWS, while 27 percent approve of the Tea Party.

In Arizona, the minimum wage will soon be raised to $7.65, which gives a low-income working person an annual income of $14,500 to live on. Now there’s a dopey idea.

 

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