From NPR:
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay are protected by the Constitution and can appeal their detention in U.S. civilian courts. The 5-4 decision overturns a law that denied habeas corpus rights to terrorism suspects.
A step in the right direction–a return to the rule of law.
One of the individuals bandied about to be McCain’s Veep is Bobby Jindal. He is governor, not-white and young; allegedlly, he just the right foil for Obama. He is also a conservative Catholic–another group that the GOP is reaching out to this cycle. All in all, someone I should know a little bit about.
So I followed this link from Boing Boing. Here is what caught my eye from TPM:
Jindal’s affection for battling demons never surfaced during Jindal’s failed run for governor in 2003 or his successful one in 2007. The state Dems did make an issue in 2007 out of Jindal’s extreme Catholicism and his view of Protestant tenets as heretical, but the effort provoked a backlash among voters who thought the assault was religious bigotry. So Dems didn’t make an issue out of Jindal’s experiment.
I read the full article on TPM, but I didn’t pay to read all of Jindal’s essay. I’m not that interested in that. Also, I’m not interested in mocking someone’s faith–remember, I’m trying to be more understanding here–especially when I know about the belief’s of certain members of my family.
What I am interested in is this, from TPM (the bolded part is from his essay):
In the essay (purchase required), Jindal describes an emotional friendship with a classmate, “Susan,” recently diagnosed with skin cancer and reeling after the suicide of a close friend. Susan’s behavior becomes stranger, and she is surrounded by “sulfuric” smells. Finally, one night at a prayer meeting, she collapses in a seizure — and the exorcism begins:
The students, led by Susan’s sister and Louise, a member of a charismatic church, engaged in loud and desperate prayers while holding Susan with one hand. Kneeling on the ground, my friends were chanting, “Satan, I command you to leave this woman.” Others exhorted all “demons to leave in the name of Christ.” It is no exaggeration to note the tears and sweat among those assembled. Susan lashed out at the assembled students with verbal assaults.
Jindal then describes how the whole situation made him physically uncomfortable, and he wondered if the same demon afflicting Susan was responsible for his state of nervousness…
The “ritual” get worse. According to Jindal, it lasted for “hours.” They physically restrained Susan and forced her to read from the bible–wherein she began to stutter and curse at them.
Personally, I know that if I was held down and forced to read from anything, I’d invent a few choice phrases, but I digress.
My point is this: Jindal, as a Catholic, is not supposed to conduct exorcisms or be a part of protestant rituals. While there are some rites of exorcism that can be performed by the laity, a real Catholic exorcism has to follow certain procedures, including:
•Conducting the exorcism in a sacred place
•Spiritual preparation (such as fasting and reading the bible)
•Specific language to conduct the ritual.
The most important, however, is that the subject HAS to be screened by my medical and mental health professionals. While the Church isn’t always on the forefront of mental illness, it has come to understand and respect the profession.
The exorcism is the rite of last resort. You don’t do it because your friend looks or acts different after the suicide of a mutual friend and a diagnosis of skin cancer. At best, this “exorcism” shows poor judgement.
I want to know what happened to “Susan.”
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83 As a 1930s husband, I am |
If I was a housewife I would be:
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50 As a 1930s wife, I am |
Shannon got a 47. I’m a better 30′s style housewife. Go figure.
btw: I tag–
And
Post your results people!
There is a rumor floating around the office right now about hiring, firing and promotions. I am not on the firing list-I’m number 10 on the list for promotions.
Rumor has it, by october, I will be promoted by october.
I hate rumors. I would rather know all the deets.
Technorati Tags: rumor
photo by: Carlo Ferraro/EPA
‘Unicorn’ found in Tuscany wildlife park | World news | guardian.co.uk:
A roe deer with only one horn growing from the middle of its forehead roams a park in Tuscany. Photograph: Carlo Ferraro/EPA
An animal expert in Italy is claiming to have found proof of the existence of unicorns after he stumbled upon a young roe deer with a single horn growing from the centre of its forehead.
Technorati Tags: Unicorn
A buddy of mine is moving from Out East to Chicago. He’s younger than me, but entering a similar field to mine, so I have decided to take him under my wing. I have all the faith in the world that he could cope with both, but why try and tackle that completely alone?
As I’m coming up with a list of things that he should bring (and leave behind) I keep thinking about my move to Beloit and my move to Chicago. I had a blast–and learned a lot–and i keep thinking that the one person that kept me afloat during the rough patches was my brother. Tony was my first and best roommate, but even before that, he would occasionally visit me at Beloit (or pick me up when I needed to go home). My list for this guy will not include Tony, but, a brother like mine would sure as hell make his trip easier.
I’m still thinking–what are the things that you (dear reader) needed to bring with you when you made your big, life changing moves?
From–The Raw Story | Kucinich presents Bush impeachment articles:
Kucinich, a 2004 and 2008 Democratic candidate for the White House, abandoned a prior attempt to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush in January of this year.
In April of 2007, Kucinich presented impeachment articles against Vice President Dick Cheney, but the effort went nowhere. Kucinich exclaimed that “impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.
In order to heal the divisions of the country, the people who have lied, cheated and divided this country need to be held accountable for their actions. Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow job. A blow job.
Domestic Wiretapping, Gearing for another War, withdrawal from the UN instead of demanding for change, Distancing ourself from europe while cozying up to dictatorships (Which is, again, against the Bush Doctrine), disastrous and inane energy policies, incompetence, this administration has got it all. They need to be held accountable for it.
I was too young to remember Nixon, but I have an uncle who told me that Ford’s pardon of Nixon healed the country. The US needed that to move on.
Bullshit.
All of Nixon’s rhetoric and divisiveness continued after he walked away from the White House. The whole, “you are either with us or against us” and the, “if you’re against the war, you are against the troops” can be traced to Nixon. To get away from that mindset, we should have had the impeachment–it would have brought those thoughts out into open, so they could be addressed–and then moved as a country.
Now, thirty-four years later, this rhetoric and methodology is ingrained in the country’s political life. We need something more letting this administration fade away to heal.
Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment will fail. The establishment will not let it go forward, and this is a shame. I’ve signed petitions and I will be calling my Congress-folk. As a liberal, I’m used to the pointless struggle–but if I don’t make the effort, I am helping sustain an administration that has set our country back sixty years.
In order to go forward in this country, the black stain that is the Bush Presidency needs to be held accountable. If there is another way other than impeachment, I’d love to hear about it.
Technorati Tags: Political Rant, politics
They were no ordinary tamales, these corn-husked things sold by a street vendor on Chicago’s South Side. Not to me. To him, I think, they were just little details in a multi-faceted life of good work, good folk, and good food.
I’m not even sure what to call him anymore. He was always Mr. Gleason. It’s only since he died that I’ve ever called him Pat. Mr. Gleason, now, means his sons—Marty and Tony.
Pat Gleason did actual work with actual people. He was a public defender in the big city. The word defender was right in his job title. He wasn’t like other kids’ dads.
That’s not true, though. Not really. He was a coach and a funny guy, a barbecuing joker and heavy drinker, like mortal dads. But it was all tinged with this strange sense that he had just come from something loud and important in a high-ceilinged courtroom filled with serious people. I imagined him coming home, pouring himself a scotch, and climbing out of his shoulder holster. Of course he didn’t carry a gun, he was a lawyer, but he had the aura of a man who was armed, whose work came with something serious that had to be fastened on to do the job and, more to the point, taken off to reenter civilian life.
By day, he was talking with murderers and lawgivers. By night, he talked with his sons’ friends, joked and danced with his wife, and cooked tamales for guests at his dinner table. Illogically, he let do-nothing layabouts like teenaged me sit at that table. It didn’t make sense at the time, why a real person (and an adult, to boot) would share his tamales with just some schmuck his sons were hanging out with.
These tamales? They were the real thing. They were fat corn caterpillars huddled in green papery husks, the size of a baton. The cornmeal sheath was soft but solid, holding together like an idea. The meat inside was a rich carnitas, confident in its shape but politely yielding. Where mundane tamales would go to mush under the fork, these transformed into perfect medallions of golden masa and spicy pork. I imagine Pat buying them from some street-cart shaman, some mestizo medicine man with a secret recipe, who rolled them up like scrolls and winked at the spirits nodding along over his shoulder.
Pat said they were from a great street vendor on the South Side. I pictured them meeting like a detective and his wise contact. This was Pat’s beat—interesting people with astonishing foods.
I don’t remember who was sitting next to me. I don’t remember what we talked about. I remember the tamales.
Why had Pat shared with me his magic tamales? Who the hell was I to deserve to be let in on this mystic secret from the big city? Why had I been chosen?
To this day, I meditate on it. Sometimes I think I was merely witness to wisdom, glimpsing Pat’s recipe for ordinary happiness—eating good food and being a mensch. Sometimes, when I need to, I think that Pat saw something in me, with his defender’s insight, that I can’t see in myself—something that said, “Give the kid a tamale.” Something that said I was worthy to sit at his real-person table and eat his insider’s food. I was an initiate into the mystery of the secret tamale.
I keep an eye out for rare tamales now. I chase that dinner like it was a ghost. I look out for secret oracular eateries where I might find food good enough to summon up the spirit of Pat Gleason, where we might drink to his wisdom and his mystery. Where we can find something so good that we can bring it back to him and say, “Pat, you’ve got to try this.” Sometimes we find those places. But never have I had such good tamales.
Given the responses from my family (and secret editing committee) I felt that Will’s post needed his own picture. Will will one day write Pat’s biography.
Technorati Tags: cooking, Grief, Mourning, Pat Gleason Rules, Photo
I don’t know how old Tony is in this picture. I”d guess about seven. Now, twenty three years later, Tony and I both make faces like this for the Camera. This picture shows where we get the inspiration for these faces.
Today is my dad’s five year anniversary. Typically, I post my memories about my dad. Today, I’m posting other people’s stories and memories of Patrick M. Gleason. This post will be edited frequently throughout the day.
First–my aunt Toni. She’s an IO psychologist in dire need of a website.
oh, so many stories. so we shall start from the beginning. For some odd reason, I thought I wanted to be a prison psychologist — yes, for years I knew psychology was for me, but working in a prison? When I was in later high school I had these visions of helping people who had taken a wrong turn in life. Your dad didn’t try to dissuade me. He merely offered me the opportunity to get a close up and personal look at prison life. Needless to say, one walk through the Cook County prison system sobered those dreams into another application of psychology…but that is the subject of the next story.
Seth, who occasionally blogs and is an old friend of mine, writes:
Let’s start out by saying the most important thing there is to know about Patrick Gleason: he understood. That sounds simple, but it isn’t, and it requires some explanation. He was a hugely intelligent man, and very intimidating in his own way. There are countless individuals in the world who are smart and capable, and by those virtues are frightening to encounter, because the rest of us are implicitly aware of their capacity to judge our worth accurately.
Many do not do so kindly. Many are willing to observe our flaws and dismiss us without ever comprehending what those flaws truly meant, or where they came from.
In Pat’s world, these people were sometimes known as prosecutors.
For Patrick Gleason, an understanding of those flaws explain the reason that he could be a Public Defender. Clearly, he believed that the accused deserved a defense. The root of this went far deeper, though, and perhaps was less frequently revealed. Pat understood people. He understood their triumphs and errors. He understood their innate nobilities and flaws. Pat really, just simply…He got people. He understood.
In writing, that sounds so simple, and so inadequate, but it is entirely rare and even heroic when you knew the guy. He was capable of judging everyone in a legal and ethical sense. He could and did pass judgment on any boneheaded act you can imagine. In the process, though, he was never dismissive. Harsh, maybe. Truthful and demanding, always. But he understood that the way we act was not due to villainy, but instead because we were flawed humans, and as such belonged in the ranks of sinners who deserve forgiveness. He and I had very, very few conversations about religion in general, and his Catholicism in particular. From those three or four conversations I do recall, though, it is clear that he expected humans to fail as ethical actors from time to time, and that the expected response from us as actors within society was to move to prevent such actions through social intervention, and to forgive those who transgress. (This is important: not excuse, but forgive. He knew the two to be distinct.)
I don’t want to bring this up, but I should, because it is one of the more indelible moments from my own life, and it exemplifies how understanding and kind Pat could be. (I promise you, anyone who has met Pat Gleason has an encounter to relate. They are all exhilarating, terrifying, and enlightening about the man. They also sound great, and tend to get better in the telling after three beers. Note: one scotch equals three beers.) To preface, as a teenager who first really knew Mr. Gleason (as he was called then) I was completely batshit insane. The conditions that explain the genesis of this story are thereby explained by this revelation. Please don’t bring it up again. I’m much more sane these days.
It was a random afternoon, and I had nothing to do. I decided to go over to Marty and Tony’s to hang out, but when I arrived, no one was there. As an irrational being, I decided to go around to the back of the house, jimmy open the garage window, and enter the house through the garage door. You know. To wait for them to get home. Because that makes sense, when you’re nuts. I settled into the comfy easy chair (Pat’s,) turned on the TV, and helped myself to a soda while waiting for Tony or Marty to come home. They’d be thrilled to see me! (Again: nuts)
As I sat there, Mr Patrick Gleason arrived home. Unbeknownst to me, a neighbor has witnessed my illicit entry, and has phoned Pat about a possible burglar. It says something substantial about Pat that on this news, he did not barge into his home, bat or gun at the ready to dispatch the intruder. He instead strolled in, dropped his copy of the Sun-Times onto the table, and asked how I was.
“Fine, thanks, Mr. Gleason. How are you?”
“Good. Good. Listen, how’d you get in?”
“Oh. Uh. The back door was open?”
“Sure. Well, pal, a neighbor saw you in the back, and was worried you were up to no good. Next time, just hold off till someone’s home, okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Wanna another drink? Put on ESPN, and get out of my chair.”
Do you see? For all the paraphrasing, and muddled memories of years past, my most potent memory of Mr. Gleason was that of him finding me in his house after I broke in, and immediately forgiving me. He knew I was no villain, just a crazy idiot, desperate to be somewhere.
I want to call that compassion, but for Pat, I think it was something more automatic and smarter than such an emotionally charged word. He just was better at understanding people in a fundamental way, and I think, for him, that this made it difficult to judge others. So yeah, Pat Gleason: Understanding.
Another thing to know about him is how strong he was in his personal sense of himself as himself. This can be translated for some people as either pride or shamelessness. For Pat, these were the opposite side of a single coin: a sense of certainty about who he was. It think he was proud of who he was as a person, but that he was confident enough about who he was that he could comfortably ignore what you might think of him. Pride and shamelessness. The shamelessness is probably best explained as a product of his understanding that your opinion could not make him less worthwhile, and that he therefore did not need to cater to your opinion. This sometimes led to such odd situations as seeing the top public defender in the county arguing about what Voltaire really meant…while in his underwear, slippers and bathrobe, reclined in his easy chair with the day’s football reports in the background. The upshot of this was that the man was impossible to dispossess. He was always at home. He was always comfortable with himself. He was always there, and he knew it. Hell, we all did.
I suppose the last thing I want to say about Pat is a direct offshoot of his strength of character, and that is in regards to his ability to welcome people. He was never threatened or inconvenienced in my recollection by the presence of someone or anyone. He had no doubts or worries about his home. If you were there, you were welcome, and if he wasn’t in a mood to talk, well that was fine.
How peculiar this is deserves clarification. We have all had the experience of being the intruder, someone present but unwelcome in some capacity.
At the Gleason’s, you were never unwelcome. It was possible to be present and not an object of attention from Pat, but it was impossible to be present and unwanted. Pat was certainly possible of indifference on a casual basis, but to be unwanted, you would have had to piss him off. To be honest, that seemed hard to do, unless you were family. (I’m aware that Tony and Marty both pissed him off occasionally. In my opinion, this was just because he wanted them to exceed his own achievements. This was, and is, a tough order to fill.)
How welcoming he was is comprehensible, if you were aware of his personal strength in terms of his identity, and his ability to understand other people.
I feel saddened, that all I can give you to explain this guy is words, because they are completely inadequate. Pat was so far beyond that, so much more than can be described. For him, it all has to be implied, and I can only hope you understand what the following means, and just how sad I am that I won’t see him anytime soon. Pat Gleason defended the weak and defenseless. He loved his wife and children absolutely. He was a hero. He is missed to a degree that would shock and embarrass him. He is an inspiration. He lives on in Tony and Marty. In my life, he will never be forgotten.
So the next time you have a glass to raise in toast, do so: to Pat Gleason. He was better than you. Don’t forget it.
Please add your own stories in the comments.
Technorati Tags: Grief, Memories, Mourning, Pat Gleason Rules, Photo
Howdy Readers. I’ve got two questions I can find–I am kinda phoning this in today, because I have something really cool planned for later–and these are difficult to answer. However, given that these are two of my favorite regulars, I will endeavor to answer these questions with drama and flair.
Her Royal Highness, Falconesse, asks:
1) I see you’ve linked the Amazon.com profiles to the books you’re recommending. How about a suggestion that, rather than buying the books over the intarwebz, interested parties should mosey on down to their local independent bookstores and buy them from there? A handy link for finding indies near you in 3…2…1… linky!
This is great suggestion. I also recommend that people go to the indie bookstore by there residence. Personally, I recommend Amazon out of laziness.
Most of my blog entries are done through ecto. It auto links book images and text from Amazon. I click a button and it fires up the Amazon search feature. I do this out of sheer laziness.
However, the next version of ecto should have more plug-ins. I’ll see if i can either make the Indie book plugin or download it
2) Why do my customers only call with major crises on days that I’m not at work? (And, to follow that up, am I a bad person for being slightly relieved I got to escape the verbal abuse this time around, even while I feel guilty that it got passed on to my awesome coworker and my boss?)
Murphy’s Law says that the most annoying people call when it is most inopportune. This is the Universe’s way of keeping us humble and/or keeping us on our toes. Here’s what happens. You go on vacation. The universe then tells crazy client, “This would be the perfect time to freak out.” Being the universe, Crazy responds.
Crazy responds Epically.
As to the second point, you are not a bad person and you should not feel guilty about your coworkers having to tank crazy while you are gone. It is the universe’s fault crazy goes crazy when you are away. The universe is without guilt, therefore, you should take a page from the universe.
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The always wonderful AG asks
and
Next week’s question: How does one make friends in the suburbs, where she knows nobody and everyone is either 10 years younger and says things like How R U over e-mail, or have been married since they were 21 and have three kids? Essentially, how do I make some friends in this tragedy of an area I call home?
Making friends is always hard, regardless of location. People who have an easy time making friends typically surround themselves with acquaintances, not friends. Developing friendship is not easy–and it shouldn’t be. It should be a worthwhile endeavor.
To start the process, you have to put yourself out there. Find a place you’re comfy–a Dive bar, a indie coffee house, a hookah bar–and settle into a routine. Look on their bulletin boards for “community nights:” locally sponsored events like book clubs, game nights, speed knitting contests those actives that the AG might like. Those are the activities you end up doing. That’s how you’ll start making friends.
I, personally, made the decision not to make friends with people in my neighborhood. I spent more time in other parts of my city (or in other cities in particular) so I view my place as a nerd refuge. I am comfortable with my choice (and looking forward to selling this place–so if the AG knows anyone in chicago looking for a 1 bedroom condo near a Temple and a vie of the lake, she should send them this way).
Also, try looking into your Temple or Synagogue. There has to be some social support for the AG there.
Any other advice for AG?
Technorati Tags: Advice, Advice Column
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