The World in Black & White: 10.2.2009

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"Happy Birthday Bapu"
Raleigh, NC - August 2008 (Click to embiggen)
To see more from the WBW Community of Bloggers, visit The World in Black & White

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Remembering 30 January

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"If I am to die by the bullet of a mad man, I must do so smiling. There must be no anger within me. God must be in my heart and on my lips."
Mohandas K. Gandhi - 28 January 1948

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30 January 1948. 5:17 p.m.. Birla House, Delhi.
A wire thin, white clad figure makes his way across the temple's garden surrounded by his followers, and his enemies.

A trio of shots echoes against the stones, and the man who was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi crumples to the ground mortally wounded.

A stricken nation listens in silent shock or wailing anguish as the static ridden, tearful voice of Jawarhalal Nehru solemnly announces,

"Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that. Nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years. We will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not for me only, but for millions and millions in this country."

As I pondered what to write on this anniversary date, I wondered what I might add to the story. What can I say that hasn't already been said? What homage can I pay to a man on whom so many honors have already been bestowed?

Then I recalled a scene in the movie Maine Gandhi ko Nahin Mara (I Did Not Kill Gandhi) in which Anupam Kher details his "conversations" with Bapu. His monologue, while fictional, struck a chord with me the first time I heard it, and still does.

"But every day he would say, 'Uttam, my son, I live no longer in the minds of people. Everywhere else, I am. In political offices, governments, courts. This country has even stamped me into currency bills and coins. I am everywhere except in the minds of men."

And at that moment it occurred to me that there is, in fact, one honor I can pay to Gandhiji. One that would matter more to him, I suspect, than all the flowery prose I can offer here.

I can remember.

Rest well Bapu.

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For more, I recommend:
http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/international_politics/clips/15779/
http://ca.encarta.msn.com/media_461550590_761557562_-1_1/nehru_announces_gandhi%E2%80%99s_death.html

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Sepia Scenes #9: My Hero

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"Gandhi in the Hood"
Raleigh, NC - August 2008 (Click to embiggen)

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If you've hung around my blog for very long you've seen this statue before, but it's never a bad time to have Bapu come for a visit. He looks good in sepia, don't you think?

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Dona Nobis Pacem

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On the wall by the fireplace my mother has a collage of eight photographs. Peering out from the eight openings in the mat are eight uniformed faces from four generations of her immediate family. Four wear the uniform of the US Army, two the US Navy, and two the US Marine Corps. Collectively they represent over 100 years of service and seven combat tours that I have verified. (The actual number is probably eight or nine, but some of the history is a little fuzzy for her.) They also represent all the other members of the family who served, but whose military photos have been lost over the years.

Seven of the eight are no longer with us.

I am the eighth. That's me in the top right hand corner of the frame. And perhaps I am still here so that I can write these words in the hope that they may somehow, someday obviate the need for future photographs like these. Maybe my purpose for still being here is to tell the story of the man in the top center photo.

Of the eight, my maternal grandfather had easily the most distinguished military career. Raised in coal country in the mountains of Pennsylvania, he enlisted during World War II and served in Europe. Later he served in Korea, and still later in Vietnam. In between those last two combat tours, he became the first NCO in history to serve as Provost Sergeant of both the post and the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, KS. During the Vietnam War, he served as Division Sergeant Major for the 25th Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning). When he retired in 1974, he was next in line for Command Sergeant Major of the Army -- the Army's highest ranked NCO posting.

And the war stories from him I heard as a child and a young man?

Zero.

Not one.

I'm sure he had stories to tell. But he chose not to tell them. He never said why and I never asked. It was simply not discussed. But when he left the army, this man who grew up hunting and fishing in the mountains broke down and packed away all of his personal firearms. From that day until the day he died in 2002 he never picked up another gun.

He got it. He understood. All of his experiences taught him the concept that became the theme for my Peace Globe.

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

There's nothing about war that's "glorious". Not even for the so-called "winners". It's ugly, and it's brutal and it's about as far from glorious as you can get. It reeks of death and sorrow. It's covered in mud and grime and blood and shit. And nobody knows that better than those who have seen it.

So for the other seven faces in my mother's frame, and for those in every other mother's heart, I offer up this plea.

Dona Nobis Pacem. Grant us peace.Stumble This!

(Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday #25 - Special Thursday Edition: Gandhi in the Hood Redux

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"Happy Birthday Bapu"
Raleigh, NC - August 2008 (Click to embiggen)

"Happy Birthday Bapu"
Raleigh, NC - August 2008 (Click to embiggen)

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I won't apologize for not being wordless today. Some things are more important.

For those who didn't know it, 2 October is the birthday of one of the most influential figures of modern times, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. I've posted about this statue at the Marbles museum in Raleigh before, but on this occasion it seems fitting to revisit my old friend Bapu and wish him well. Gandhi puts the lie to the notion that "nice guys finish last". There are very few people in the world who don't have at least a passing familiarity with the man and his work. But how many can name his assassin?¹ In the end the man who fired the bullets won the battle, but the war was won by the one who took them in the chest.

The irony never escapes me that the man who probably embodies the classically defined Christian ideal better than any of the modern age was in fact... a Hindu.

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Thematic Photographic 4: "Wood" v.1.0

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"Down the Rabbit Hole"
Somewhere on the North Carolina-Virginia border, February 2001 (Click to embiggen)

 Hosted by Written Inc.

This week's Thematic Photographic subject is "Wood", which is a longtime favorite of mine (minds out of the gutters people). Like last week's theme (glass) this is one that can take an almost infinite number of forms. During a quick perusal of the archives, this shot caught my eye probably because it's unusual (in my experience at least) to see such symmetry in a rotting stump. As far as I know, though, nothing more than the forces of nature produced my subject.

"Hollow Body Electric"
The Coffee Mill, Clayton, NC, July 2004 (Click to embiggen)

 Hosted by Written Inc.

This piece of wood, however, was very definitely shaped by man-made forces. If memory serves, this is a Gibson ES350 masterfully wielded by a local jazz artist whose proper name escapes me at the moment. I do remember the shot was taken at a small independent coffeehouse on the 4th of July 2004.

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Yesterday's post on the NRCAT anti-torture campaign elicited an interesting comment or two. Interesting enough that at least one of them bears some further discussion. My friend DB noted that if we put banners up protesting everything that was wrong in the world, we'd run out of space long before we ran out of problems to protest. And he's right. he's also right in pointing out that the banners themselves would start a whole new set of arguments over the banners themselves ... size, colors, placement, designs. And then there's the matter of deciding which causes or problems are banner-worthy. Which pretty well brings us right back to the beginning of why we needed the banners in the first place. Then we'd have the meta-banners -- the banners protesting the proliferation of banners. The possibilities are truly frightening.

But my purpose in bringing the subject up was less about the banners -- or even the wrongness of torture -- than it was about the disconnection of "religious" and "right". The two have been equated so much in the last several years -- by people on both sides of the aisle -- that it's almost become a truism that in order to be "religious" you must be "conservative" and support of the president and all he stands for.

The objective truth though, is probably quite different.

Studies published in the CIA World Factbook and the American Religious Identification Survey indicate that between 76.5% and 78.5% of Americans identify themselves¹ as "Christian" of one denomination or another. Another 12% identify themselves as "unaffiliated", and only 4% identify themselves as having "no religion at all". So if we have such an overwhelming majority of America calling itself Christian, then the only way to explain the disparity between those 76% who call themselves Christian and the President's steadily declining approval rating (currently between 23 and 29 percent depending on who you ask,sup>2) is that it is possible to be religious -- even Christian -- and still not support the current administration. Ironically, this 76% majority is often used by the Religious Right to bolster the argument that "America is a Christian nation, and as such should be guided by Christian principles". More ironically, I can agree with them on that point in theory. But I find myself still more in agreement with Gandhi when he said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

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¹ The only statistics available on religious affiliations are from representative surveys. Unlike other countries, the United States does not include questions about religion in its census data and hasn't for over 50 years.

² The Polling Report.com is a good starting point for finding results. They track most of the major polls on a weekly basis and provide a snapshot of results from many sources.

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Latest Smoking Cessation News
Today is my first day on the Stage 2 patch, which cuts my "nicodone" dosage roughly in half. I was a little concerned that there'd be a repeat of the early withdrawal symptoms from when I first quit as a stepped down. I thought surely I'd at least feel stronger urges once the replacement dosage dropped. But happily, after about 18 of the first 24 hours of this stage I'm not noticing any significant difference. (For any of you lurking out there and contemplating this method of quitting, that's an important -- and very encouraging -- piece of news.)

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People You Wish You Knew

I'm always amazed at the way the definition of "meeting someone" has changed in the last 10 or 12 years. I'm more amazed at how much easier it is to meet people now than it used to be. Before about 1996 or 97 "meeting someone new" -- for whatever purpose -- meant actually encountering said person in the three-dimensional world. Some of those were random chance, some were facilitated by friends or family, some came by way of classified ads looking for one thing or another, but they all involved two or more meatware packages interfacing in the meat-o-sphere. Fast forward to 2008 and it is now possible -- even likely -- that at least one person you call a friend is someone who has never breathed from the same 100 cubic meters of air you have.

My first experience of this kind came in 1997 or 98 when I chanced upon a woman named "Cat" in an AOL chat room. She lived in Las Vegas, I lived in Raleigh and the closest we ever came to meeting in the "conventional" sense was a few late-night telephone calls. We corresponded, we chatted, we sent each other virtual birthday greetings. We exchanged photos, ideas, stories. When one of us hurt, the other was there to lean on. When something good happened we shared the excitement. We were, in any way that mattered, friends. Even though as far as I know, we were never less than 2000 miles apart on the ground.

But one thing that the information age hasn't changed is the continental drift that takes place between friends. While it's easier to make contact in the cybersphere, it's also easier to lose that contact. After probably four years, Cat changed ISP's and email addresses. Maybe I didn't get the memo, maybe it got caught by my spam filter, or maybe she'd reached one of those points where it was necessary to simply cut loose all the things that "had been". Maybe she went into Witness Protection, who knows? I just know I miss my friend, and I wish I'd been able to meet her in the real world.

These days there's my friend JC. We really have no excuse, because according to my calculations, there are fewer than 25 miles between us. But the one time we actually set up a real-world F2F, a friend's kid had to go for an emergency appendectomy only a couple of hours before the appointed time. The friend was understandably a basket case and needed a steadying hand. So JC made the only choice she could -- the basket case friend was way higher on the priority list than the random internet guy. She was exactly where she should have been. But I wonder sometimes if the cataclysmic way that meeting was derailed has made us gun shy about trying again. Who knows what might result? We could spark a plague of locusts, or frogs, or creepy clowns. It's a heady responsibility having the fate of the world (or at least southwestern Wake County) in your hands. But please... if something biblical happens around here, don't immediately assume it's us.

And there's an outgrowth from these points of virtual intersection. One degree of separation from JC is her oldest brother whom I was never fortunate enough to meet even in the virtual world before his passing. On those occasions when she talks about him, the love and admiration in her virtual voice is almost palpable. I think -- no, I know-- I would have liked him. Because JC is one of the best people I know, and I'm pretty sure he had a lot to do with that. Anybody that could inspire that much goodness in someone else is someone I feel poorer for not having known.

Somebody somewhere came up with the idea of listing the five people you'd invite for dinner when you get to heaven. The idea of choosing your Celestial Fave-5 is flawed to begin with, since the limitations that apply in this life presumably aren't part of your contract with Afterlife Wireless. And it would be easy to fire off five famous people and be done with it. But I've met famous people -- some of them legendary in their fields. Famous people have books -- or at the very least news articles -- written about them. I can find out all about them before I die. So if a six-top is all Chez Universe has available when I make my reservation, I want to sit down with those people I wish I'd met.

I'm sure Gandhi will be doing a "thing" somewhere later, I'll check him out then.

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Stranger Than Fiction
Search engines are strange creatures. I can look at my Sitemeter reports and tell who the "regulars" are (though I'm still getting used to having "regulars" -- thanks guys!). But one of my favorite reports is the "By Location" view. Mainly my viewers are based in the US, leading me to wonder if I know anyone in Seattle or Miami or San Diego. And my participation in the recent Thematic Photographic presentation has netted be some visitors from Canada. The "who" of these isn't always obvious, but the "how" usually is. But every now and then a different flag pops up. Turkey, The UK, even one from Sri Lanka(!), and most recently Belgium. Some of them arrive from Cool Blogs By Other People. But a few get here via search engines, and some of the search terms make you wonder.

One wayfaring stranger landed here while searching for a guy named Chuck Poe. Was he looking for the Chuck Poe I mentioned in my "terrorist scare" post? Or was this some other Chuck Poe who's actually the alter ego of some superhero Marvel comics hasn't discovered yet? My last photo post included shots from Rochester, NY and made a brief mention of the Eastman Kodak building (which wasn't even in any of the photos I used). That was apparently enough to bring somebody here from the NASDAQ listing for Kodak. Someone searching for author Fareed Zakaria stopped by because I mentioned that I was reading his book.

Those don't puzzle me. I can draw a logical line from A to B to C and get from there to here. But then there are these examples:
My Turkish guest was searching for "wordporn" (something I picked up from Tiff. Thanks babe!). Which had me wondering if that means the same thing in Turkey that it does in the US or if they know something we don't know. Most recently, my guest from Antwerp found me by Googling the words "dresscode blow" (I swear!). Once again I'm left to wonder, "Did he/she have the same thing in mind that I did when I wrote it?" Or does that mean something else entirely in French or Flemish (not sure what they speak in that part of Belgium)?

I see these searches and try to get a picture in my mind of the people at the other end. Are they as confused by the language barrier as I am? Do they wind up here scratching their heads and thinking "Quoi de fuq??" And how do you say "WTF" in Sinhala or Tamil anyway? Do they get my jokes? Or are covert operatives for Homeland Security keeping a watch on me and using some unsuspecting ISP in South Asia as a decoy? These are the musings that a fevered, precaffeinated, idle brain can come up with on a Saturday morning.

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Last thing: Can you say ten days? Can I get a amen?Stumble This!