The Miracle

One week ago today, my life changed for good with the birth of my daugher, Jordan. I will probably spend the rest of my life figuring out exaactly what the implications of this event are, but she is healthy and I am blessed.

Still, this hasn't been the easiest week. It seems like one of nature's little tricks is to force you to get to know your child right away. She is completely dependent on you for everything, yet besides inartculate screams, she really can't tell you what she needs. A lot of it is guesswork. And as every parent before me can readily attest to, newborns have no sense of time, day or night or any of that. I can honestly say I have slept less in the last week, than I ever have. Maybe feeling that bit of pain is another lesson. It reminds you a little how painful it must be to be a newborn.

Anyway, these experiences have given me new appreciation for three heroes in my life. First of all, my mom. Yes, she raised me and that is reason enough for her to win a Congressional Medal, but she has also dedicated her entire career to working as a delivery room nurse. I always knew this, but for some reason, I always thought of this as an easy job and rewarding in some sense, because of the miracle they participate in every day. Now, I have experienced first hand what delivery room nurses go through day in and day out and I am amazed at their professionalism and their fortitude. It is not an easy job and the people who do it deserve our appreciation.

Second is my partner for life, Wifey. There are a million things in life, you will never understand until you try it for yourself, and this probably tops the list. Still, Wifey proved throughout that she was up to the challenge. Childbirth is a wonderful thing, but it comes through the blood, sweat and tears of women. I guess, the simplist thing to say is, I am happy I was born a guy, that I will never have to go through pregnancy or the hours of labor. It's just not something I think I could endure.

The third hero is little Jodi herself. Pushed out of her comfy little house into the bright, cold world where monsters abound. There are many amazing things to experience in life, and I'll do what I can to get her through them, to teach her to make decisions so she can always know what to do and what not to do. And each time she does the right thing, I'll smile to myself at her courage, her intelligence and how she has made the gift of life her own. She will amaze us all.

Anthrax Story

That title should mean someone at the FBI will read this. Maybe that means they'll try and answer some of these questions one day.

This month marks the 5th Anniversary of the Anthrax Scare. Anybody remember this? Several people received suspicious white powder which turned out to be military grade anthrax spores through the mail. People died and governmental and private offices across the country were closed as potentially deadly locals.

After five years of investigation, the FBI has no explanations and have not found the responisble party. Yet, the whole story quickly disappeared. There are a few people out there who are still viewed as "people of interests", not suspects who seem to be destined to have earned a lifetime of FBI surveillance, but really they've got nothing and the media basically, gave the FBI and Homeland Security a pass on this.

What did we ever find out? Not much. It wasn't a terrorist plot. The anthrax spores were traced back to U.S. military bases. The current theory was it was a dissatisfied American scientist who wanted to demonstrate America's inability to handle the release of this bio-weapon. They just can't find the guy.

I don't know if I'm a rotten conspiracy theorists for posing this thought, but I'm just trying to connect the dots. Politically, this outbreak was advantageous to Junior's regime in Washington? That couldn't be why we never caught anyone, could it? There almost has to be a cover up. With so few potential sources for the anthrax, they should know who did it. They just don't want to say.

It just seems strange that this unsolved mystery still gets so much less attention than that JonBenet thing. I'm wondering if we'll ever get the truth on this one.

Next Daily Scandal

Add another one to the list of Republican scandals. Tan Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant running for Congress in Orange County sent or had sent on his behalf 14000 letters to Hispanic voters telling them they would be arrested if they voted. Disgusting. It really isn't a matter of isolated cases anymore. It's endemic in our culture somehow.

Scandalous

Here are my thoughts on the whole Foley thing in a nutshell and way too late to make a difference to anyone. This is not a gay issue. He's gay. So what? That's not the issue, and the republiskunks are really not getting the issue if they continue to portray it that way. That's the thing with their whole "Family Values" sales pitch. It's nice code language. It means pro-choice, anti-affirmative action and other such moral sounding stuff. Though I do have to hand it to them. It sounds nice. It implies if you don't support their positions, you don't understand family and you have NO values.

Foley likes underage boys and he enjoys sending them dirty emails. That's where we cross the line. Yes. He should resign for that.

Should Hastert resign? If he or anyone else helped cover for Foley, they should be canned. It becomes too obvious that "family values" is really just politico talk and votes matter more than principles. He says he didn't know. Doubtful, but time will tell.

How many Republican scandals is that in the last few years? Cunningham, Ney, Delay, Foley. They should lose the next election and when they do they have only themselves and Junior to blame.

Superfriends

My college buddy is having his first novel published. It just sold, so it won't be in print for some time yet. It's supposed to be about 5 guys who get drunk and wake up with super powers. They have problems dealing with their super powers because there are no super villians around to get their tails kicked. I am very happy for him. He's never really held a real job down as he worked on his writing for the last 15 or so years. It's good to see all that work finally pay off in something. And I'm waiting in suspense to see which of his characters are based off of me.

War & Peace

In the world of Battlestar Galactica, the human species is down to about 2,000 members as they have for the most part lost the battle to the divinity seeking robots they created, the Cylons. The latest series have the human living as an occupied and oppressed society. The humans (called "insurgents") attempt terrorists acts like suicide bombings in order to disrupt the machinations of their robot oppressors. It's fascinating. The show brings you inside the mindset up what it might be like living in Baghdad or Palistine these days. The robots are even creating a human police force to better police the people themselves, similar to the Iraqi forces that are supposed to stand up sometime. There is a wide spectrum of human reactions from those aiding the Cylons to the insurgents, to those in families just trying to survive.

Latest thought on the show is that it demonstrates that even with a small population and with an outside enemy, humans still aren't able to get along. There is always going to be ugly politics. It might have to get down the point where there are one or two people before there's really peace. Even three seems like an unstable number.

But in our attempt to recognize contributions towards peace, let me congratulate, Muhamed Yunus and the Grameen bank he founded. The whole ideal of microcredit and fighting poverty on the frontlines is a brilliant concept, that has helped lots and lots of people around the world. It's also interesting that poverty is being recognized as a force that is disruptive to peace, as much so as guns or weapons.

Let peace reign.

October Baseball

Naturally at this time of year, my thoughts focus in on baseball a little. The Yankees fell to a clutch hitting team that doesn't get enough respect. I guess the default New Yorker in me still says, oh well, there are still the Mets. Personally, I think Jose Reyes maybe the most exciting guy in baseball.

Wifey has been pulling for the A's and my cat is obviously rooting for her fellow felines. So in a sense, unless the Red Birds wins, somebody is going to end up happy.

My condolances to Cory Lidle's family. He's younger than I am and accidents like this should not happen. It does harken back to former Yankee captain Thurmon Munson, and a crash nearly 20 years ago. Not that Cory was going to be a hall of famer- but you're left wondering, what if? in regards to his baseball career and his life. I only hope that is allowed a respectful rememberence. The stories of that little girl from Colorado have gone on longer than her brief life at this point.

Blurring stories.

News should be based on facts. Facts should have sharp definition. It should be real easy to tell what is fact and what isn't. I think the 24 hour news monster has changed that. A fact comes out, and sometimes it doesn't really matter what the fact is, because by the time it's out in the public it's been spun this way and that way. It's become a fog with no definition and no substance. Something that just blows this way and that.

This Foley thing. He doesn't look like he quite did anything illegal, just dirty and morally reprehensible. But is that the story? The right has launched stories about how the 16 year old "beasts" lured our Congressman into tempation. There's a wimpy cover up story. It's all politics and nothing about protecting kids from this sort of thing.

I'd sort of like to go to the days when the story was actually the story.

Baby Showered

I am amazed at the generosity of the people in my life. When it comes to baby showers, it's amazing that people have been so giving. It's overwhelming too. Will I really need all this stuff? All this clothes?

There's a little bit of a learning curve coming too. There are a dozen baby things that I have that I don't know how to use. I'm going to have to spend some serious time just playing with the baby stuff.

Tonight will be Infant CPR. More classes.