Tragic

Left to Right:  Mark Renninger, Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens, Greg Richards

Renninger, 39, with 13 years of law-enforcement experience, is survived by his wife and three children.
Griswold, 40, a 14-year veteran officer, is survived by her husband and two children.
Owens, 37, who spent 12 years in law enforcement, is survived by a former wife and a daughter.
Richards, 42, who had eight years of law-enforcement experience, is survived by his wife and three children.

Details

*****
I'm so sorry for the families of these four officers, and the law enforcement community at large.  I'm filled with respect and gratitude for the bravery police officers show on a daily basis on behalf of strangers; on behalf of me.  Who would I be without the feeling of safety I enjoy because police officers are on duty?

Police officers have special obligations and a heightened level of responsibility is required.  They, more than most of us, have to live to a higher standard of professionalism and ethics because of the power their badge represents.  As a society we ask much of them.
I suspect the large majority live up to our high expectations. 

As a country, I wish we offerred better support to our police men and women.  We could support them with consistent and well written laws, a court system that follows sentencing requirements or is 'judicial' in passing out meaningful sentences, and a penal system that helps offenders see a different path for their life. 

Yay - I finished!

I completed NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) last night!  Final word count 50,587!

Here is what I learned:
1.  I can finish something.
2.  I don't want to write a novel.  Not now.  Maybe someday.  Not now.
3.  Keep my fingers flying - over the keyboard.  If a sentence doesn't sound right, type it over and over making small word adjustments here and there until the truth of what I'm trying to say is reflected in the sentence.
4.  I use pronouns way too much.  'It's' is my favorite word.  Blech.  Substitute for the more descriptive detail, or change the sentence structure entirely.  This tip works well in conjunction with #3.
5.  I may continue writing a stream of consciousness journal because it helps me find the core of truth related to whatever wacky idea is rumbling around in my head at the moment.  However, writing 50000 words in one month leads to a lot of repetition and emptiness.  I'll consider 30000 words a month, with an option to change it whenever and however I want.

I'm glad I started NaNoWriMo, I'm glad I finished NaNoWriMo.

Attack of the Virus!

This link is to a story on NPR (with video) that features animation of a virus attacking our bodies.  Cool.

1968

Me and my sister

Hello Saturday Morning

When I was quite young, my mother had three prints of Degas ballerina paintings on a rectangle 'canvas' with light blue fabric over it hanging on the wall in my bedroom.  This was one of the prints.  It was the theme of my bedroom.  I took ballet class one year when I was about 6 or so.  Frankly, I was too lazy - even at that tender age - and too skittish about being in public to pursue it beyond that.  In fact, when it came time for our recital, I got upset and chickened out and all I did, in my pretty yellow tutu, was walk the flowers out to the dance teacher at the end.  Or, maybe I did one dance as well.  I remember looking up at tall people trying to make me feel better and suggesting I carry the flowers out at the end.  But, there are two pictures of me in the ballet recital - one during a dance, and one bringing out the flowers.  I don't remember that whole story.  Maybe I'll ask my Mom when I next talk to her.

More Kate and Cary in "Holiday"

I decided to watch another Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant movie this morning.  I don't know how I missed "Holiday" all these years.  Its another 1938 movie made after "Bringing Up Baby".  Its a charming movie that will never go out of style because the topic is forever timely.  The themes or topics are:  money, is that all there is?  What's life for?  Freedom vs Conformity, Obligation vs Individual Desire.  What do you give up for love?  Big ideas.

I loved Cary Grant's character, Johnnie Case - He's a nonconformist who's wants to be happy more than he wants to fit in.  And, he enjoys life.
Katherine Hepburn's character, Linda Seton,  has always been stuck in a conformist cage yearning to be free.
Excellent work by both actors.
The movie maintained a nice balance between instrospection and entertainment.
I enjoyed it; its more my style than "Bringing up Baby" (though as I suspected, I'm liking it more in retrospect...there WERE a lot of funny lines in that movie).


 

Bringing Up Baby - Classic Screwball Comedy

I just finished watching "Bringing Up Baby" starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, directed by Howard Hawks.

I expected to enjoy this screwball comedy from 1938 because I've enjoyed them before (It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, His Girl Friday, My Favorite Wife, and The Philadelphia Story).

There were humorous moments throughout and the chemistry between Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant is fun. I think I'll enjoy the movie more in retrospect because this screwball comedy went just a bit over the top for me.

Unfortunately, I found myself irritated by the excessive screwball antics in this movie. Everything that happened could have been easily solved if people had any consideration for other people, or communicated clearly, or not been so concerned with appearances and being overly polite. Its hard to tell whether the screenwriter's drove the plot based on those attitudes of the day and the characters they've created, or if, subversively, the plot is driven by the idea that women manipulate men (Susan Vance trying to get David Huxley to marry her). Either way, I'm a bit offended by it. (And I'm not even going to think too much about the animals. Did they have animal welfare back then?)

After the movie I listened to a few minutes of Peter Bogdanovich's commentary on the movie. In the commentary, Bogdanovich references an interview he did with Howard Hawks at least partly about this movie (he also mimics Howard Hawks voice).
I learned an important thing in that commentary - Howard Hawks said there was one fault of the screenplay and its that there were no 'normal' characters. Every single person was a little wacky because they ALL jumped to conclusions and wouldn't listen to anybody and kept things secret. He felt that if he'd had at least one character who was normal - even if it was a secondary character such as the Constable or the Gardener - it wouldn't have been as over the top.
The movie didn't do all that well at the box office in its time, and that might explain it.
It does for me. Now I feel I can appreciate the movie more because I understand the problem. Phew. I love Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn and I'd hate to not like this movie.

Here are some excerpts from Eric Barker's review on Shotgun Reviews:

"...Working closely with Hawks and the story’s original writer, Hagar Wilde, Nichols turned Bringing Up Baby into the silliest of odysseys, a topsy-turvy fantasy of modern courtship and sex where everything is also something else: a dinosaur skeleton (read: extinct ideals) represents a man’s life’s work, it’s only missing the final “bone” that would complete the assembly, a bone he cherishes but which keeps getting lost; an uninhibited heiress, who should embody the financial stability and material resources the man desperately needs for his work, becomes chaos made flesh, the utter destruction of identity in the whirlwind of attraction; and a wandering leopard named Baby is the prickly and troublesome equivalent of a newborn, the inevitable, disruptive offspring of the couple’s forbidden desires."

"In particular, the film’s madcap heiress Susan is an unqualified terror — one unforgettable sight gag makes plain that she’s more dangerous than any wild leopard. She is wantonly destructive in her pursuit of the mild mannered David, while her ditziness, which might be charming on an actress less talented and eccentric than Katharine Hepburn, begins to assume a very calculating, garish fit. In fact, Nichols tailored the role specifically for Hepburn, inspired by watching her ill-fated romance with John Ford a couple of years before on the set of Mary of Scotland. Hepburn was fully aware of this and she hides nothing in her characterization, including Susan’s pathological neediness and the very real aggression behind everything she says and does. It’s an incredible star performance, patently uninterested in appearing chic or lovable, every moment placed in service of telling a most ridiculous story."

"Cary Grant had only just become a top box-office attraction, in Leo McCarey’s comedy of post-nuptial errors The Awful Truth (1937), and he was clearly ready to cut loose after years of toil in films that made little use of his talent. With Baby he proved himself a sublime comedian, equally adept at both slapstick and rapid-fire one-liners, an indefatigable master of timing and inflection. Just as unconcerned as Hepburn with courting audience sympathy, he cajoles and seduces instead, the most dashing of nerds in a pair of Harold Lloyd glasses (see Notes), falling on both his face and ass with equal aplomb, turning exasperation and even anger into a special, manic grace."

"Hawks directed one-and-all with the decree to make it fast no matter what was happening, infusing every scene with his own brand of overlapping dialogue, an almost musical style in which everyone seems to be talking at once, even though the important lines still get heard. It feels theatrical at first, and it is, but it is also refreshing and exhilarating, Hawks drawing attention to the way people actually communicate in the real world, which is too often not at all. Mistake piles upon mistake, calamity upon calamity, and all could be averted if only the characters would just stop and listen to each other for a second. But no one ever listens to anyone else in this film, which makes it more realistic than most dramas if you ask me, certainly more so than the average contemporary romantic comedy, a cacophonous, rolling wreckage of a movie bounding happily toward its final, astounding, knee-slapping crash."

 

More Peace

All that you think say and do

Shapes the world with your truth

 

Peace

Its an interesting dichotomy, isn't it, that we live in a world in which we can experience two things simultaneously...we can know how beautiful and miraculous life is and we can know there are people who believe life is so disposable they use threats of loss of life as a weapon.  (I'm struck, in particular by the hope and love in the Symphony of Science posting, and the despair and wanton disregard for life that we're dealing with daily in our war against terrorism and violence in the More on Afghanistan post)

“When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

More on Afghanistan

A U.S. flag flies half-mast, in honor of the 13 dead and 30 wounded in the shooting rampage at Fort Hood Army post in central Texas, at an outpost for soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division in the Pech Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar province Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

On November 5, 2009 NPR's "All Things Considered" aired 11 segments about our war in Afghanistan.

As a commenter mentioned in a letter to the show (listen to it here, 8th segment from the top), tactics based on peace and Gandhi are not even considered as an option in the debate about what's next for us in Afghanistan. Even on a show of reasonable people like "All Things Considered".
I feel sad and discouraged about that.

Symphony of Science

Each of us share a life that is awe-inspiring and fantastical.
Our experience of life is more profound than our words can express. 
You know this because in every day and night you live it.
Live this moment and feel this moment.
You know.

More at Symphony of Science

 

The Big Bang Theory

Last night I finished rewatching season 1 and season 2 of Big Bang Theory as my end of the day DVD's. Good show. I developed an even greater appreciation for Jim Parsons as Sheldon. The only two characters who have mannerisms that bother me are Leonard and Penny. I like them, and I like the actors who play them...its only the mannerisms that sometimes make me cringe or I get a little tired of.
Before watching this recent repeat of the episodes on DVD, I would sometimes become irritated by Sheldon's bizarre nature, but for some reason - watching it this time, it all felt good and I liked it.
Honestly, the whole show is great - the writing and acting in particular.
Good job all involved!
What will my next end of the day DVD be?  I don't know yet.

No more troops in Afghanistan

Dear President Obama,

I do not believe we should send more troops into Afghanistan. Please do not decide to do so.

I think we can come up with some better strategies that do NOT involve the military.

The military solution should NOT be the first solution.

Let's take a step back and think about what military campaigns have gotten us over the last 50 years. Not much.

War is hell and I don't want to live in a country that thinks its okay to live in hell.

Thank you

*****

I should have also mentioned that this whole election fiasco is not a good sign.  Abdullah Abdullah dropped out of the runoff election because Karzai wouldn't accept changes to the voting process that could help eliminate fraud.
Something's fishy there, and whatever it is - it ain't good.
 

Reality Bites

U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division go on an early morning patrol in the Pech Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar province Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

A U.S. Army vehicle fires on Taliban positions on a mountain side, outside a base held by the Army's 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division in the Pech River Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar province, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

I screwed up and lost the caption for this image, and I can't find the image anymore...though I remember its a picture of Afghan Army troops taken October 27, 2009 by David Guttenfelder of the Associated Press.  

CEREMONIAL FIRST - U.S. troops, civilian agencies, Afghan officials and locals attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the first high school for females in the Shajoy region in Zabul province, Afghanistan, Oct. 22, 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Angelita Lawrence

As of Saturday, at least 4,354 members of the US Military have died since the start of the Iraq war and at least 831 have died as a result of the Afghan war and related operations, according to the Associated Press.


More information from Defenselink (the Department of Defense website):

In Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), 31,545 military personnel and Department of Defense civilians have been wounded.  Of those, 17,671 were returned to duty within 72 hours.

In Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan), 4,399 military personnel and Department of Defense civilians have been wounded, Of those, 1,799 were returned to duty within 72 hours.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Begins!

I wanted to be cool about starting NaNoWriMo so I don't feel overwhelmed by the task ahead and give up before I start; no plans for a midnight start, sleep regular, wake regular, write without pressure.

Then, my upstairs neighbor loudly dropped things on the floor (that's what it sounded like) that woke me from my sleep.  And I forgot to set my clocks back last night, so its still only 4am.

And I'm awake.

Still awake.

Awake.

I might as well start.

 

TaDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-I've started!