Happy New Year 2008
Well Happy New Year. We're back to the "old grind" and I now have time to post here. Several things happened worth comments, let's see if I can remember them all (I doubt it).
#1 - Fred Thompson only wants to be POTUS to serve his country. Seems to me that is exactly the kind of person we want. I don't want somebody who's life dream is to be POTUS. That eliminates all those other guys (and gal). They all have either been working towards this for years or suddenly found themselves in position where others thought they could use them in office. No thanks. I'm even more firmly for Fred.
#2 - Was watching a show called "Fearless Planet" and was struck by an inconsistency of logic one used to see only with religious fanatics. You see, after hours of reviewing the planet's history of heating and cooling independent of the existence of humans, the show suddenly veered into blaming the end of the last ice age on humans and Alaska's retreating glaciers on humans as if we could reverse things. This at the same time as showing snow on the side of an active volcano and a woman skiing down said mountain in the middle of the Bering Sea.
Now, there's even doubt that there is in fact a global temp rise but these folks think we can change it. We weren't even here the last time it got hotter (or colder)...
#3 - The writer's strike is working against them. My family is watching less and less TV. We should be completely weaned from it, even nightly news, by the end of January.
#4 - I no longer care about New Year's Day except as a notation of the passage of time. I doubt that I will ever stay up to midnight again (unless I'm on duty or staying up with a sick relative).
#5 - My mother has Alzheimer's. It is a terrible disease that takes one's life away before taking one's physical ability to enjoy life. Already (and we're probably 2-3 years into the onset of this disease based on hindsight's view of the clues), my mother doesn't know her own daughter, deceased son, late husband, parents, grandparents, and sometimes doesn't recognize the outside of her own home. She can't recall the past with any degree of certainty. Not moments ago, not years ago, not at all. Former conventions of life are beyond her understanding but she is still instinctively respectful towards people. Some days she isn't sure who I am and I see her EVERY day and for several hours. I am reminded of the poem, "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A. E. Housman
THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers 5
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
Mom did a lot of things and did them well. She was a good and loyal friend and still is despite not really recognizing friends when she sees them. Her friends are many and they are still in contact after 56 years. She believed in hard work and doing to the best of your ability everything you tried. She still does, but now she's not so sure why. She has been a good and faithful daughter, mother, wife, student, teacher, researcher, cave guide, shop owner, cancer patient, archaeologist, and care giver. Her life has made this world a better place for many. She has run a good race, has devoted fans and deserves better. We've a ways to go, I'm hoping that I'm good enough that I'll remember all this and not the difficulties and frustrations of working with her as she is now.
And so the new year comes and nothing seems quite as important as family. I have only one resolution, to do the best I can.
Labels: Family, GlobalClimateChange, Politics
