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Guiding: Your Money For Your Christ

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Revenge of the Money Changers

Mt. Vernon

Rain, rain, go away!  So much for fine June days here in the nation’s capital.  We had a couple of storms this week that were absolute snorkers.  Doesn’t the god of weather know this is DC?  We don’t  actually do disasters, we fund them.

But the week ended on a euphoric note with a spectacular Friday: blue sky with scudding white clouds, a brisk wind and the birds a warbling.

I was touring with a group of pleasant and smart eighth-graders on a day that started at Washington’s Mount Vernon and ended at the Washington Cathedral.  The Mansion House was at its best framed by the sky above and the bowling green below.  You can understand why His Excellency always pined for home.

We left Mt. Vernon en route to our cathedral experience aptly enough on a motor coach where the word “angel” figured prominently in the title of the company.  This apparent coincidence became prescient as our bus driver texted away on a smartphone coming northbound on the George Washington Parkway in the left lane of a four lane highway with no middle barrier.  I’d like to see angels one day but Friday did seem a bit soon to me.

Washington National Cathedral

 

 

God was on our side, though, as we arrived safely at DC’s church-of-note and debarked for our tour after parking in a half-empty bus garage.  On the plaza level we were met by a sneaker-wearing sort of walmart/cathedral greeter who implored us to spit out our gum one moment while informing us he was a “foremost authority” on the cathedral in the next one.  I heard nothing from him that proved his assertion though perhaps I am just jealous as I am an authority of the hindmost sort.

 

 

 

The Rose Window

 

 

Groups like mine, arriving by bus, make a $175 “donation” to see the cathedral and you MUST have a reservation.  I wonder if you can get a reservation if you don’t make the “donation”?  (One can park and worship for a mere $50.)  The 300-foot tall tower exterior is festooned in dark scaffolding and the interior is draped with dark netting perhaps to remind us (again) that the cathedral was damaged by the 2011 earthquake.  (And money is required to fix it.)  This reminds me of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode where Larry David’s mother passes away and he suddenly realizes it is a great excuse for all sorts of things.  I believe the cynical expression is “working it.”

 

 

The docent-led tour progressed through the stunning main level of the church.  This time of year the docents do the nave level and hand the group back to guides who are expected to take them on a tour of the crypt level.  The crypt is found by descending a set of worn steps which pass by a statue of a pious and kneeling Abe Lincoln and which ends at the ubiquitous (and cavernous) gift shop.  (One can now skip the steps as a gift shop has been installed on the nave level thus allowing the hard core shopper to slip away from the communion rail for a wee peek at this week’s specials.)

St. Joseph’s Chapel

 

The crypt level of the cathedral has several beautiful chapels (Bethlehem and St. Joseph’s).  On arrival there I was met by a docent.  I explained that I had a group and would be showing them these two areas.   She quickly informed me I would be doing no such thing.  This time of year, she announced, “It’s one or the other.”  The irony was priceless, (perhaps the only thing so at the Cathedral).  As Bethlehem chapel depicts the birth of Christ and St. Joseph’s his death, I was being forced to choose between the two, a sort of Judas with a guide badge.

 

I chose death.  Let’s be honest, that’s where the drama is and besides, the art is better in that chapel and as if that alone were not enough, it is where the great Helen Keller is interred.  It wasn’t even a close call.

Still, for $175 you would think the kids could view both the birth and death of Christ but I suppose Jesus Christ really is a superstar and can demand top pay.

We skipped the gift shop on the way out.

 

 

Posted by on June 16, 2013 • Filed under: (Almost) Hidden DC, Art, Different, History, Sculpture, Statuary, Outdoor Art, Values and Ethics, Words

The Apparition

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Of Stones and People

Arlington

Here we are, on the cusp of Memorial Day, when we honor and remember those who died serving our country.

And, it’s a busy time for guiding here as schools across the country wind up the year with a DC trip.  Most include a foray to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.

The Cemetery is my favorite place to visit.  If that sounds odd, it’s really not.  It can be an exquisite and serene oasis in the city.  When quiet there is the rustle of wind in trees and the chorus of birds punctuated, as always, by the clatter of hooves on asphalt and gunfire in the distance as a final honor is bestowed.  Few words are needed to tell the story of this place.

The Cemetery is immense, some 630 acres, with tens of thousands of headstones, many of the uniform type, but thousands of others of all sizes and shapes.  For me, the stones have blended with the natural setting in a way to become almost one and the same.  They are as periods at the end of sentences we will never read.

A Spectral Sentry

 

Two days ago I was with a group of fifth graders for two days when on the evening of the first day one of them asserted that they had seen a “ghost” at Arlington earlier.  ”Right”, I answered back, to then be told there was a photo of the encounter which I obviously requested to see.

 

Out came the smartphone, and there, sure enough, in the center, was what looked to be a faint image of a long-ago soldier quietly attending–present and accounted for on the field of honor.

Alas, this is no ghost story as I doubt both the possibility and the provenance.  But it need not be about either if it reminds us instead of lives both lived and given in service.

Still, in this age of  ubiquitous “reality” please tell no one that I now wander the fields of Arlington fully enlivened by a fifth grader’s chance gift which now makes it a place of stones and people.

Posted by on May 24, 2013 • Filed under: (Almost) Hidden DC, A Life, Different, History, Religion and Spirituality, Sculpture, Statuary, Outdoor Art, Values and Ethics, War and Peace, Words

The Red Line of Right

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Walking Obama Back

Yesterday’s New York Times had one of those “Washington Insider” stories wherein presidential advisers express dismay of pants-peeing proportion that the guy in charge actually said what he felt about a morally troubling issue.  Time to get him back in the box.

Here’s the President’s quote  from an earlier NYT article:

Syria and Chemical Weapons

“We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in response to questions at an impromptu news conference at the White House. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.”

Our foreign policy uber wonks would have Obama apparently follow  Bill Clinton’s example (and crushingly poor judgement) in refusing to acknowledge that what was happening in Rawanda was genocide.  Clinton administration officials  declined to even use the word “genocide” as they might have to actually do something if they did.

Obama said what he thought and felt but here is how a “senior official” spins it now, “Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the “nuance got completely dropped.”

Now we get it.  The occasional use of nerve gas where a dozen or so are killed and injured:  not a big deal.  By that calculus the Boston bombing was not even front page news. But, of course, we apply a different formula for non-US terror casualties.

It must be admitted that this is all muddled by the memory of George W. Bush engaging in a ground war in Iraq over specious claims of weapons of mass destruction.

But if American strategic interests demand our constant involvement in the Middle East to protect our 51st state (Israel) and our dependence on oil, the President should at least feel free to be morally indignant about the actual use of a chemical weapon without his staff swooning in confusion and fear.

After all, a president being honest is a nice thing–every once in a while.

 

 

Posted by on May 6, 2013 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, History, War and Peace, Words

Tsarnaev and McVeigh: The Price We Pay?

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Doctrine, Disaffection and Violence

The news is full of stories of the FBI and others “scrambling” for clues to understand the motivation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the chief Boston Bomber.  So far we know that he was unsuccessful as a boxer, married, a father, unemployed and a follower of “radical Islam.”

Timothy McVeigh

Patriot Gone Awry

Tsarnaev’s trajectory has been charted before in the form of Timothy McVeigh.  Some details are different but the essentials remain the same.  McVeigh, too, ultimately failed in his goals as a soldier, becoming both unemployed and a wanderer.  He also embraced an ultra radical doctrine of gun rights and the “Patriot Movement” that included a strong anti-federal government component.  McVeigh quit the NRA because it was not sufficiently radical.  He was very intelligent, with an IQ well above average.

Of course, the normal recourse to a professional setback or personal failure is to try again or select another path.  Tsarnaev and McVeigh instead opted for rigid apocalyptic doctrines that oddly channeled failures as mundane as  perceived sexual or relationship inadequacy or employment problems into scenarios involving the federal government.

McVeigh was in Waco during the seige, traveling there to express his outrage and support.  He also went to Area 51 in New Mexico and to Gulfport, Mississippi, to investigate “government conspiracies.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Grounded in Grozny?

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s earlier path is  both obscured and partially explained by his Chechen origins and his exposure to a terrorist culture grounded there in their “no holds barred” fight with the Russians in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic.  Chechens were heavily involved in the 2004 Beslan, North Ossetia, hostage taking at a school where 380 people, many of them young children, were killed.

Tsarnaev went to Chechnya and Dagestan last year and it was there that his full embrace of Anti-US and radical Islamic doctrine apparently began.

In the case of both McVeigh and Tsarnaev, personal failures resulted in terminal disaffection and the subsequent decision to cast their fate with violent radicals.  It must have been seductive and empowering to once again have both purpose and a clear path.  In fact, committing to a moral ideology, with or without a religious component, is in part how most people chart their lives.  But, in their case, the operative component was violence.

Personal failure and disaffection are part of the human condition.  And, being a radical is neither negative nor criminal.  It is the descent into violence and terror that sets them apart.

The Role of Foriegn Policy and War

McVeigh and Tsarnaev both refer to wars as at least partial explanations for their violence.  McVeigh to the First Gulf War where he served and Tsarnaev to Iraq and Afghanistan.  Some writers have suggested that Tsarnaev’s war reference is really hatred at the Russians for their Chechen adventures so that anti-Russian sentiment morphs into anti-American sentiment, surely an irony of some proportion.

McVeigh taunted the US in his writings suggesting that they had done much more than he:  ”Remember Dresden? How about Hanoi? Tripoli? Baghdad? What about the big ones — Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”  His characterization of US military actions as essentially state-sponsored terrorism against civilians speaks for itself.

Is American foreign policy and the  wars which result at least the partial pretense for terrorism here?  The answer would seem to be a resounding yes, at least according to the perpetrators  of Oklahoma City, 9/11 and Boston.

Westboro Baptist

Democracy and Terror

What sets McVeigh and Tsarnaev apart from Bin Laden is their grounding in American culture and democratic institutions, as fallible as they can be.  And, youthful disaffection which descends into terror is deeply disconcerting.

Doctrines of violence and hate  (KKK, Westboro, skinheads, etc.) will be with us always but when they serve as a beacon calling the young and disaffected, perhaps it is time to pause and ponder.

 

 

Posted by on April 30, 2013 • Filed under: History, Religion and Spirituality, Values and Ethics, War and Peace, Words

A Vietnam Rememberance

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Hue City, 3 Purple Hearts and a Full Metal Jacket

Springtime

The last several days were certain evidence of a vibrant Spring here in the Nation’s Capital: crystal clear and cool, the trees in bloom, the birds singing and nesting, life all around.  I spent them with a group of Vietnam Veterans and those that love them, touring the city.  Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force, we saw the sights, including the World War II Memorial and the Korean War Memorial.

I got to know them, if just a bit, and was honored to be tagging along.  They are a class act.  Mostly in their sixties and seventies they are living full lives.  Some of them were teenagers or just barely in their twenties when off to war they went.

The Battle of Hue 

The “highlight” or culmination of the trip would be visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the laying of a wreath of flowers there.

We walked up to the Lincoln Memorial first and then it was time.  They gathered before the Wall as other visitors respectfully looked on.

Afterwards, they brought their flowers up to the sculpture, The Soldiers, by Frederick Hart.

I re-joined them at that point as it seemed appropriate.  To be honest, I was a bit nervous, awed even, at the prospect of talking about the Memorial to such a group.  Of course, I needn’t have been.   I decided to tell them what I tell youngsters when I bring them there and then I asked what they thought I should be saying.  I was glad I asked.

Among this group were several women, seemingly unattached.  I stood there with them on that pristine afternoon and heard a reason why. Her husband was 19 and he  enlisted, as she said, “to save the world.”  During his time “in country” he received three Purple Hearts and fought in the grueling, bitter, house-by-house fight for Hue City in 1968.  His platoon would be in the “bush” for up to three weeks straight, sharing a single toothbrush among 30 men.

The Purple Heart

He came home from Vietnam, but not really.  The next forty years were filled with severe depression and crushing pain that neither therapy nor medications could touch.  He constantly searched the “perimeter” of his house.  He refused to eat, his weight falling to 115 pounds.  He would cut himself and then sew the wound up.

Last year, days after his 40th wedding anniversary and at age 60, he shot himself in the head.

They took the body away but she and the kids were left to clean up the aftermath and thus the horror of Hue and young men at war came home again.

She wanted me to say to those seeing the Wall how terrible it was, and is, for men and women to come home from war and to be scorned for their service, heroism and bravery. And, she asked that I talk about the lasting and unseen wounds of war.

Her husband’s name belongs on that wall as surely as any other.

 

Posted by on April 23, 2013 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, In the Line of Duty, Safety and Health, Values and Ethics, War and Peace, Words

Baghdad in Boston

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For a Moment the World is Smaller

Baghdad Bombing

Yesterday in Iraq there were explosions in Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit, Samarra, and Hilla.  The BBC reports that 20 car and roadside bombs were employed.  Thirty-one people were killed and over 200 injured.  Such bombings are commonplace in Iraq and elsewhere.

A bit of Baghdad came to Boston yesterday.

It was Patriot’s Day when the famous opening skirmishes at Lexington and Concord signaled the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

Lexington and Concord

The British were preempting the colonists, out to relieve them of their powder and cannon.  The initial fighting may have been “accidental” and the rest of it was confused but at least it was out in the open.

The timing and place of yesterday’s horror is deeply suspect and freighted with suggestions of liberty and revolution.  If so, it is a bestial attempt to appropriate symbols of the birth of America.

Boston

Our pluralistic and democratic society is remarkably free from the concussions of violent anarchy.  Still, we are prey to those who wish to de-stabilize society, be they from within or without.

Our diversity as a country is the best protection against those that would seek to destroy it.  Allowing people the space to have and express a wide a variety of views and opinions is the bedrock of American Democracy.

If America is a bit like Baghdad this morning, we can for a moment understand their struggle but we can also commit ourselves to unifying around the primary principle that makes us a free and diverse land: mutual respect for others.

Posted by on April 16, 2013 • Filed under: History, Religion and Spirituality, Values and Ethics, War and Peace

Queer as an NBA Point Guard

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 A Man in Uniform?

Chris Culliver
Player

Former NBA coach Phil Jackson made news of a sort this week when he asserted that he had “never run into” a gay professional basketball player.

And, according to Huff Post, San Francisco 49ers player Chris Culliver told Artie Lange that he would not welcome gay players in the NFL or on his team. “I don’t do the gay guys, man,” Culliver is quoted as saying in a pre-Super Bowl interview. “I don’t do that. No, we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.”

Finally, the week ended with ESPN leaking tapes of Rutger’s basketball coach Mike Rice physically abusing players while calling them faggots and worse.

Sports in America may be the last bastion of the homophobe, a place where it is till OK, cool even, to deny that gays and lesbians are part of the game–indeed, that they even exist.

Randy Phillips
Soldier

A Real Man in Uniform

Steven Randy Phillips is, serendipitously, from Eclectic, Alabama.

He is an Airman in the United States Air Force and has served his country in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.

Phillips is gay and used social media to proclaim his sexuality in 2011.

It is beyond ironic, even bizarre, that gay and lesbian men and women risk their lives to protect our country, police our cities, fight our fires and rescue us generally yet we condone and even idolize athletes and coaches who blatantly discriminate based on human sexuality.

The truth is that Phil Jackson, Chris Culver, and Mike Rice aren’t fit to shine Randy Phillips’s boots or for that matter, the boots of any of the thousands of other gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors, police officers, paramedics or firefighters who keep America safe.

Posted by on April 7, 2013 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Sex, Values and Ethics, War and Peace

One Ringy Dingy

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When Going Back to Bed seems like a Good Idea

I am at that point in life where consolidation seems like a good idea: finances, possessions, you name it.

It was for that reason that I decided to make Verizon my single stop for home phone, internet and cell service.

Months ago I made the arrangements and even ordered a new cell phone from Verizon.  Like many “good” ideas I never got around to actually porting the number over from Virgin Mobile, until yesterday.

And yesterday was to be ambitious:  port the phone, have my taxes done and renew the registration on my vehicle on the last day possible.

So much for that plan.

Having ported the number over the night before, I expected to awake to my new Verizon service.  Not only did the old phone not work, the new one advised me that my service had been disconnected for non-payment.

I was able to call Verizon customer service to explain that I showed a $114 payment on March 15 but they could not hear me on the new phone.  That advised me to fax in proof of payment and promptly hung up.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a fax machine.  I located the proof online and went to print it, only to find that my virtually new Canon printer wouldn’t even turn on.

Coincidentally, renewing my vehicle registration online requires a printer for the temporary permit so that idea was also dead in the water.

So, it was off to the tax man, fairly brimming with confidence that last year’s changes, including the payment of estimated taxes would make this an easy task with perhaps, a rebate to recalibrate my day.

I shuffled out of the tax office at noon, $3600 poorer and I hadn’t even bought my lunch.

At least I wasn’t bothered by any phone calls.

My afternoon recovery plan included a Best Buy expedition for a new printer to jump start the other tasks.

$140 later I was home with a new printer.  Having disconnected the “old” one, I decided that nothing would be lost by trying the old “give it a good whack” technique before recycling it.  I dropped it about a foot onto a concrete floor, plugged it in and it now works fine.

Now I have two printers and a broken phone.

Maybe I’ll try that with the phone.

Tomorrow.

 

Posted by on April 4, 2013 • Filed under: A Life, Different

History and Race: March 18, 1942

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The War Relocation Act

Seventy-one years ago today Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order requiring 120,000 mostly Japanese-Americans to report for forced relocation.

In the wake of the December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, politicians, leaders and many others concluded that all Americans exhibiting the features of Japanese ancestry were potential spies, soldiers or saboteurs.

Relocation Centers

Round-Up

While Asians and Asian-Americans were no doubt used to a degree of  racism, this detention based solely on physical characteristics was unprecedented.

The mass round-up devastated families and communities as businesses were sold and careers ended.

There were ten re-location centers, mostly in the west.  They were chosen partly because of their remote location and ironically were mostly on Native America Lands.  Native Americans, of course, were similarly “relocated” though more forcibly and permanently.

Arriving at a Center

A Bleak Life

Life at a center was minimalist, spare and institutional.  Living arrangements were barracks style, meals were taken in a common mess hall and space was strictly limited.  At the Topaz Center each person was allocated about 114 square feet.

Some internees were able to obtain jobs, mostly in agriculture.  Others concentrated on education, hobbies and “Americanization.”

 

“Gaman” Art

Gaman

Gaman is “a Japanese word that means to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience.”  Internees confined in a harsh environment bereft of personal possessions and objects turned to making art out of available materials such as wood, beads, and other found materials.  This art is now known as Gaman art and is amazing for its ingenuity and beauty.

Freedom and Memory

Memorial

As the war drew to a close, July 1945 spelled the end of all of the camps but one.  Internees were expected to move on with their lives though irreparable damage had been done in the cause of a false sense of security based on racial profiling and animus.

In 1992 Congress passed legislation to allow for the construction in Washington, DC, of  the “Memorial to Japanese-American Patriotism in World War II.”

The completed memorial now stands at Louisiana Ave and D St., Northwest.  It recognizes both the hardship of the internees as well as the profound courage and patriotism of the Japanese-Americans who served in the armed forces.  The accomplishments of the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team are legendary.  Twenty-one members were awarded the Congressional medal of Honor for their heroism and bravery.

Not bad for a bunch of “traitors.”

 

Sources: SI.edu, Wiki

Posted by on March 18, 2013 • Filed under: (Almost) Hidden DC, Administration & Leadership, Art, Command & Leadership, Different, History, Sculpture, Statuary, Outdoor Art, Values and Ethics, War and Peace, What We Call "Race", Words

EMS Delivery and Leadership: Officer Down!

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On Waiting 

The DC press was all over a recent incident where a Metropolitan police motor officer was struck and injured by an auto while stopped in far southeast DC, close to the border with Prince George’s (PG) County, Maryland.  No DC ambulances were available and the officer was eventually transported by a PG unit after one was requested.

You would think that no one ever had to wait for an EMS transport unit before.

While this appears to be about “wait times” it is also about how DC works with neighboring jurisdictions.  For example, PG, Montgomery, Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria, etc. have essentially integrated their dispatching protocols at the 911 level so that the closest unit is often dispatched based on their availability.  It matters not where they are from.

 Automatic Aid

The fact that a PG ambulance treated and transported the officer should not be an issue, the wait should be.  DC Fire and EMS (DCFEMS) or DCFD, whatever you want to call it, should be working to integrate as fully as possible with the other Washington area Council of Government fire departments.  (The fact that they are not is amusing, in at least one aspect, since so many DC firefighters volunteer in PG and neighboring Montgomery County, Maryland.  They integrated in their own special way.)

The “wait time” issue is thorny, complex and longstanding.  This is just one example.  DCFEMS Chief Ellerbe seems to want to run the department as if it were a business:  staff to meet the demand.  If you ran a clothing store and 90% of the customers came in from 5PM to 9PM, you wouldn’t have 90% of your employees working in the morning.  They would show up at 5PM.  This is hardly rocket science but it is a big change for the department.  And, there will be times when an ambulance is not readily available, that’s why we have fire companies with EMS (including Advanced Life Support) capability.  That’s also why automatic mutual aid is essential.

 Leadership

And another major issue is leadership:  Ellerbe as fire chief and IAFF local 36, the union that represents the members.  Has Ellerbe really tried to get labor buy-in for this and other changes?  Is labor basically “thumbing their nose” at any healthy and effective change?  (It’s easy for labor to be mired in the status quo as leaders are likely to be tenured and not especially fond of rocking the boat.)

Who can argue against a rational model that deploys the resources in such a way that they are likely to be available when most needed? If Ellerbe’s ideas fall within the parameters of a professionally acceptable approach to deployment of fire and EMS resources, the council (and the Mayor) should give them a chance to work.

Agendas

At the end of the day, the Department (and the union) is made up of a variety of folks with their competing agendas.  It would be nice if it were a sure thing that Local 36 was interested in the welfare of the citizens but I am not sure that is the case.  As an example, this past New Year’s Eve, 100 folks called in sick resulting in 12 ambulances being placed out-of-service.  According to a local media outlet, “one man died from cardiac arrest while waiting for an ambulance on New Year’s Eve.”  Some ascribe this to firefighters being pissed off about not receiving holiday pay on Christmas Eve.

Finally, regarding  unfilled paramedic positions, it is a widespread problem across the US.  Paramedics do a large majority of the work and are often treated like third-class citizens by firefighter co-workers.  No wonder people won’t take the jobs or become burned out.  Returning to the business aspect for a moment, would Microsoft treat their most productive employees the same way?  (We know the answer to that question.)

 

Posted by on March 16, 2013 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, EMS Dispatch, EMS Topics, Funding & Staffing, Safety and Health, Vehicle Operation & Ambulances