A Series of Revolting Developments

My father has this saying that he uses mostly to comment on perceived inconveniences. For example. If your dog looks up from his kibble with disgust as if to say: "Give me a break. You're over there eating filet mignon, and I get cereal? Again?" Or if you sit down to watch your favorite t.v. program only to find it's been pre-empted by the World Series. And you hate baseball. In that kind of situation, my father might say, "What a revolting development!" I'm not sure where this idiom of his came from, probably some old Bob Hope movie. But it's been running through my mind a lot lately, and with a more sinister timbre than my dad ever intended. In fact, it seems we're hip deep in revolting developments these days. It's hard even to decide where to start the list. Oh, wait, I know. How about Iraq? Let's call it Revolting Development No. 1.

The situation "on the ground in Iraq," as White House press secretaries and intrepid reporters love to say, continues to devolve from bad to worse to worst. As the weeks, months and years creep by, things rachet down a few more notches and go right on devolving, descending beyond the boundaries of human imagination into a whole new nightmarish paradigm. A few major U.S. media outlets have finally taken the in-itself-newsworthy step of using heretofore verboten terminology to describe the hell Iraqi citizens and deployed U.S. troops must live--or die--with every day, every hour, every minute. So it's OK now, well, almost OK, to call this Dantean scenario "a civil war."

A few pundits have noted it has already taken us longer to impose our will on the formerly sovereign state of Iraq than to complete the European half of World War II. But still there's no end in sight. Warring insurgent groups are competing to see who can create more havoc and instability. And the fledgling puppet government we've installed, purple thumbs notwithstanding, seems impotent to control the violence. So the bombs just keep exploding, and the body parts just keep flying. At this point, anywhere from 30,000 to 650,000 Iraqi citizens have died in the violence. The first figure even George W. Bush accepts; the second is the conservative midpoint of a recent and respected study. Respected, that is, by everyone except George W. Bush, who immediately dismissed it as "just not credible." Adding to these horrific losses, a goodly proportion of the Iraqi intelligentsia, those most able to lead and sustain a nation, have fled the country rather than join the casualty statistics. Yet in the midst of all this mayhem, we in the U.S. must debate the PC-ness of whispering, much less printing the words "civil war." Revolting Development No. 2.

Of course I'm oversimplifying for effect. The media's real problem with officially declaring Iraq a civil war zone is that the White House refuses to use the term. And the reason for that is the rules of war say third parties should not intervene in family squabbles. So if Iraq really did deteriorate into civil war, which--despite what NBC, the New York Times and the L.A. Times may think--the White House insists it has not, how could we possibly continue our current involvement there without seeming to take sides one way or the other? We couldn't. We'd have to get out instead. Omigod! Revolting Development No. 3? Only to the presidential cowboy and his posse.

More rational minds have long been arguing it's time for us to get out anyway. And of course while the debate rages, we continue to lose American lives. Which, if you believe the president, are much more valuable than Iraqi lives. That's what I conclude anyway from his continual warnings that if we don't fight the terrorists over there, we will end up fighting them over here. Much better then by his calculus for Iraqi children rather than American children to be blown into bits by random explosions in the streets. At least until American kids are old enough to join the military, and then it's OK for us to send them "over there" where they can be blown up, too.

In addition to all the Iraqi lives lost, nearly 3,000 American sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, grandsons and granddaughters, nieces and nephews, cousins, friends, coworkers and comrades in arms, have died in the violence. Which, just for emphasis, is about the same number the terrorists killed on 9/11. (Revolting Development No. 3.) Add to that 20,000 wounded. Twenty thousand, the population of my hometown, all with some sort of injury, some temporary, some permanent. Lost arms, legs, eyes, mobility, brain function. That kind of thing. No. 4.

Then there are those who return home physically intact, but with shattered psyches. Many Iraq War veterans have now served two or more combat tours. Can you imagine being 18 or 21, even 38 or 51 for that matter, and living in constant, unrelenting mortal danger? There is no front in this war; thus, no behind the lines security, not ever a moment when it's safe to let down your guard. Car bombs, improvised explosive devices and outwardly benign suicide bombers may be lurking in every shadow, around every corner, behind every smile, 24-7, eight days a week. In short, any moment in Iraq could be your last. What kind of toll must that take on the mind, now and for the rest of these young lives? What kind of reverberations must that have in the lives of their friends and families? The damage is simply incalculable. Are we only up to No. 5?

I am not merely humming kum bah yah here. I was a once a Marine wife. So I know a little bit about the way military people think. I know that nearly every one of today's military personnel volunteered for duty. I know most are competent, well-trained and highly principled. Most believe in the mission, believe they are making a difference. And despite the lack of press about the noncombat side of our effort in Iraq, there's no denying the good work American military people have done in terms of "nation-building," trying to put things back together again and helping the Iraqi people regain their footing. The problem is not with the military. The problem is with the White House. Those who volunteer to protect our nation with their very lives should never have been asked to go to Iraq in the first place. Not by a paranoid cadre of power-hungry egomaniacal civilians. Not on the basis of lies. Not without sufficient resources to succeed. Not without a plan beyond an initial triumphant, statue-toppling march into Baghdad. And certainly not over and over and over again. Which brings us to Revolting Development No. 6.

I recently met a young woman, the mother of three small children, whose Marine husband is currently serving his fourth tour in Iraq. His fourth tour. How many times can you roll the dice? No wonder even un-retired generals are starting to say, enough, the U.S. military is simply maxed out. And yet, in his radio address today, President George W. Bush, the same George W. Bush who four weeks ago admitted to a "thumpin" rebuke at the hands of midterm voters and sacrificed his beloved secretary of defense in penance, this same George W. Bush had the gall today to reprise his ragged mantra. The U.S. is committed to staying in Iraq until the job is done, he said, that is, until we've achieved victory. Sure the going is tough, he said, but never doubt that we are leading the Iraqis into a new era of democracy. Yada. Yada. Yada. Let freedom ring.

And there you have No. 7, a particularly revolting development. With all due and genuine respect for the office of the president, please, Mr. Bush, just stop talking. We don't believe you anymore. You've told so many lies I doubt if even Barney or Mrs. Beasley believes you anymore. All that talk about victory and freedom. Staying the course. Beating back the evil empire. All those religious words you throw around to appease big blocks of voters. It all just sounds ridiculous now. Because we're not doing the right thing in Iraq, and the world knows it. We're not accomplishing anything. We're not finishing anything. We're not winning anything. And we're certainly not leading the Iraqis to democracy. If anything, we've led them to slaughter.

Of course, Saddam Hussein was a psychotic despot. Of course, life in the old Iraq was difficult and repressed. Political dissidents were tortured and killed. It was a bad scene. I get it. But have we really improved the situation "over there"? Or have we only made it worse, dramatically worse? Have we really made the American people one bit safer? Or have we betrayed the sacrifices made by past generations to protect our liberties, so many of which we've now traded, in a moment of national vulnerability, for your empty promises of national security? Have we really staunched terrorism at its source? Or have we only confirmed the extremists' accusations of American arrogance, depravity and imperialism? Have we really defanged the evil empire? Or have we at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Haditha, and in countless congressionally approved offshore torture chambers, actually become the evil we once so loudly decried? Which of course would qualify as a truly revolting development.

Today's Headlines

Dems Win Big
Bush loses majority in Iraq-influenced election
Democrats Take the House
Nancy Pelosi First Woman Speaker of House
Democrat Wins Montana Seat, Ties Senate

Democrats See Surge in Power at State Level

Schwarzenegger victory is Republicans biggest success

Many see Democratic victories as rejection of Bush, start of foreign policy change
Rumsfeld Resigns as Defense Secretary After Big Election Gains for Democrats

I would add one more: America Wakes Up, Finally

Election Time

The New York Times is mad as hell and with the mid-term election coming up next Tuesday, just not gonna take it anymore. Here's today's editorial, which nicely makes the point. It's so important that I'm going to reprint it in full and beg the Times' copyright indulgence.

Editorial
The Great Divider
Published: November 2, 2006

As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he’s settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior. Since he can’t defend the real world created by his policies and his decisions, Mr. Bush is inventing a fantasy world in which to campaign on phony issues against fake enemies.

In Mr. Bush’s world, America is making real progress in Iraq. In the real world, as Michael Gordon reported in yesterday’s Times, the index that generals use to track developments shows an inexorable slide toward chaos. In Mr. Bush’s world, his administration is marching arm in arm with Iraqi officials committed to democracy and to staving off civil war. In the real world, the prime minister of Iraq orders the removal of American checkpoints in Baghdad and abets the sectarian militias that are slicing and dicing their country.

In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.

Mr. Bush has been pushing these divisive themes all over the nation, offering up the ludicrous notion the other day that if Democrats manage to control even one house of Congress, America will lose and the terrorists will win. But he hit a particularly creepy low when he decided to distort a lame joke lamely delivered by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry warned college students that the punishment for not learning your lessons was to “get stuck in Iraq.” In context, it was obviously an attempt to disparage Mr. Bush’s intelligence. That’s impolitic and impolite, but it’s not as bad as Mr. Bush’s response. Knowing full well what Mr. Kerry meant, the president and his team cried out that the senator was disparaging the troops. It was a depressing replay of the way the Bush campaign Swift-boated Americans in 2004 into believing that Mr. Kerry, who went to war, was a coward and Mr. Bush, who stayed home, was a hero.

It’s not the least bit surprising or objectionable that Mr. Bush would hit the trail hard at this point, trying to salvage his party’s control of Congress and, by extension, his last two years in office. And we’re not naïve enough to believe that either party has been running a positive campaign that focuses on the issues.

But when candidates for lower office make their opponents out to be friends of Osama bin Laden, or try to turn a minor gaffe into a near felony, that’s just depressing. When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don’t, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.

This is hardly the first time that Mr. Bush has played the politics of fear, anger and division; if he’s ever missed a chance to wave the bloody flag of 9/11, we can’t think of when. But Mr. Bush’s latest outbursts go way beyond that. They leave us wondering whether this president will ever be willing or able to make room for bipartisanship, compromise and statesmanship in the two years he has left in office.

Another October 26th

This year it was going to be a good one. The third anniversary of the Cedar Fire's epic romp through San Diego County. Three years since the deaths of 16 San Diegans, the destruction of more than 2,220 homes, and the beginning of a new chapter in my life. It was also the first birthday of my friend Colleen's son, Zach, who had nicely timed his arrival to lend a new, happier distinction to an otherwise infamous date.

I was thinking about little Zach the birthday boy on Thursday morning. It was a warm, sunny, blue-sky day. I thought about how far Bob and I had come in three years, how whole and healthy we finally felt. In a way, it seemed we had been born only two years before Zach, considering how close we'd come to joining the casualty list. And then I heard the news. A new Southern California fire, begun by an arsonist sometime after midnight in high winds and dry brush. Already, overnight, it had burned 24,000 acres, and destroyed 10 homes. Worst of all, a five-man engine crew had been overrun by a wall of flames. Three fire fighters were dead, four by the end of the day, and it doesn't look at all good for the fifth man. I've felt sick ever since. October 26th. What a day.

Photo: In this NASA image, waves of gray-brown smoke wash over the mountains southeast of Los Angeles and out over the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006. West of Palm Springs, California, the Esperanza Fire has ballooned under the influence of Santa Ana winds to more than 40,000 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Fire officials are reporting the cause of the blaze as arson.

Five Years Ago Today...

Bob and Terra and I were headed home from the annual Northern California Newfoundland water test, enjoying a leisurely drive south via the scenic route: Highway 1. It's a classic road trip, one of the world's most spectacular drives. A twisting, turning ribbon of asphalt, poured into the contours of clifftops along the extreme western edge of a continent. If you're headed south, it's better to be driving. On the passenger side, there's nothing between you and the sea otters below but hundreds of feet of air and salt spray. Still, it was easy to relax that day and count our blessings. Life is good, I said to Bob, and he agreed. Winding along through Big Sur under a perfect blue sky, glittering ocean on our right, tumbling green hills on our left, sweet Terra napping in the back seat, all seemed right with the world. Relatively speaking, it was. Five years ago today. September 10, 2001.

Crikey!

What a sad day. "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin has been killed in a freak accident with a stingray while filming another of his daring wildlife features in Australia. He was only 44. Stabbed in the heart by the sharp, serrated and toxic tail of a normally docile animal. How ironic and untimely an ending for a man the whole world has known for his enthusiastic encounters with all sorts of deadly, aggressive creatures, from spiders to snakes to Komodo dragons to, of course, crocodiles. When I first heard the news on the radio this morning, I thought it had to be a mistake. Surely Steve Irwin was immortal; if not, he would've been killed long ago. But no, it was all too real. I think of Terri, his wife, co-star and co-conservationist, and their two young children, now deprived of his enormous and passionate presence in their lives. It's just so sad. Not a bit sadder, of course, than the loss of four more U.S. soldiers in Iraq yesterday. We just don't know them. Or even feel like we do.

Summer Recap

This week marks summer's last gasp and the first anniversary of the Katrina catastrophe. At Terra Nova, it's another scorching day. Five frogs have taken refuge behind the porch fountain, an encouraging upsurge in population following a recent visit from a handsome, doe-eyed garter snake with a species-wide reputation for eating small reptiles and amphibians. The dogs are napping away the day as usual, while I continue to chip away at my writing.

It seems this summer went more quickly than usual, punctuated as it was by travel, the latest junket to North Carolina to visit my dad and attend my 35-year high school reunion. Good grief. It was a trippy experience, like falling into an alternate universe peopled with characters who all vaguely remind you of someone you've known in an alternate life. Lauren met me in N.C. and escorted me to the event where she turned quite a few hoary heads and prompted numerous comments about our resemblance to one another. One woman even mistook her for me. Had I thought of this in advance, I would've just sent her in my place and let everyone believe I still look 27 and fabulous.

EK spent a month in Australia, interning with a vet there and then traveling up and down the eastern coast of the continent. She arrived home laden with gifts, memories and photographs of kangaroos, koalas, wombats and the Sydney Opera House. Fortunately, her little Cavalier spaniel had survived his month with us at Terra Nova, despite ongoing efforts to off himself. (Hello, Mr. Rattlesnake. Wanna play?)

In world news, the globe is still warming; Iraq is still in chaos; Iran is still rattling nuclear sabres; and Israel is awash in bad press following a 3-week war with Hezbollah, which resulted mainly in revealing the faction's real strength, and re-reducing Lebanon to ashes and rubble. Fortunately, according to the White House, none of this is anything to worry about, just the birth pangs of a new Middle East. Thank goodness. Oh, and you can't take your bottled water along or wear a gel-filled bra when you fly anymore because of a foiled Al Queda plot to blow up a few more airplanes with liquid explosives. The Brits figured this one out; it seems their intelligence agencies are still functional. On to autumn!

Fill 'er up ... but where?

No matter how stringently we conserve, even if we trade in a Suburban for a Prius, most Americans still have to buy gasoline. Conceding this point, the folks at Co-op America--a not-for-profit group out to harness the economic power of consumers, businesses and others to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society--has done a little research on which companies are doing the best job of honoring environmental and social responsibilities. Here's their conclusion:

"There is no such thing as a "good" gas company. However, some gas and oil companies have taken important first steps toward reforming their business practices. Consumers can use their purchases to applaud these first steps and push for changes in what is still a fairly problematic industry. And consumers can join with investors in calling on companies to disclose fully their environmental and social impacts."

Best options: BP, Sunoco, Citgo
Better option: Shell
Worst options: Chevron, Exxon

For more info, click here.

Haiku for Terra

Dark, shining beauty,
Your soul is older than mine.
You live just to love.

Ups and Downs

It's been a wild month so far, full of highs and lows, ups and downs. I spent the first weekend of July on Cape Cod, attending the annual Wampanoag tribal pow wow, meeting new friends and doing research for a project I'm working on. It was my first trip to "the Cape," a beautiful green place, crowded with summer visitors but still mostly free of crass commercialism. (Which is not to say I couldn't find a Starbucks.)

Shrubs and grasses grow almost to the ocean, stopping only at a wavy line of dunes near the water's edge. The surf was warm and the sand coarse and clean, strewn with bits of seaweed and driftwood, little shells and polished rocks, along with a couple of dead jellyfish and a used hypodermic needle. O brave new world, that hath such garbage in it.

Back home again, Bob and I had a great time entertaining family visitors for the Fourth. Terra Nova bustled with people and dogs. By Saturday evening everyone had left except our little Cavalier spaniel "granddog"; we'd seen his mom off to Australia for a month that afternoon.

I won't go into the week's disappointments, except to say sometimes your goals look farther away than ever. But I had a bit of insight into that last week when we took all the dogs to the beach. Neither of my Newfoundland water dogs retrieved the boat cushion we tossed for them, so I had to swim out and get it myself. Between a stiff breeze and a steady current, it would've been smarter to just let the thing go, but by then I was committed to the task.

From my perspective in the water, the farther I swam, the farther away the cushion looked. In the meantime, I could feel the current working against me, which made my progress seem even more illusory. The only way I could tell I was making any headway at all was that the beach kept shrinking away behind me. Finally, I got too tired to keep going, so I flipped over on my back to rest and just kept moving my arms, the old elementary backstroke from childhood swim lessons. And then, miracle of miracles, when I resumed my watery march toward the cushion, I was almost on top of it.

There must be a sermon in here somewhere. You try and try and try, even to the point of exhaustion, and all that time it seems you're not making any progress whatsoever. Then you rest for a little while and, voila, your goal is suddenly within reach. I don't understand this phenomenon, don't know that it's a general rule, but still I find it encouraging. So you lose a little momentum from time to time. Things don't always turn out the way you'd hoped. You have a bad day. Maybe the answer isn't always trying harder. Maybe sometimes it's better just to stop and breathe for a while instead.

Signs of the Times

Headlines offered without comment:

From the Capitol Hill News, June 28, 2006

GOP bill targets NY Times
House Republican leaders are expected to introduce a resolution today condemning The New York Times for publishing a story last week that exposed government monitoring of banking records.

From the Washington Post, June 29, 2006

News Alert 10:17 a.m. ET Thursday, June 29, 2006 Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo Tribunals Justices rule that President Bush overstepped his authority by creating military war crimes trials for detainees as part of U.S. anti-terror policies.

Get a Life

Most people who come to Starbucks know exactly what they want. Usually it's fairly straightforward. Caramel frapaccino. Sugar-free vanilla nonfat latte. Quad-shot espresso. But sometimes it's complicated. Ridiculously complicated. The most ridiculous so far? Tall, decaf, nonfat, peppermint mocha, four pumps peppermint, two pumps mocha, foam, no whip, 165 degrees and stirred well. Really. The woman who ordered it was a serious soul who intoned each direction with a grim face and an air of weariness. When I'd finally scribbled it all on her tiny tall cup, she shot me a warning glance and sighed. "No one ever gets it right," she said, obviously not expecting any better performance from me and my colleagues. Gee, I thought, wonder why?

Words to Live By

Goals: Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. Henry Ford

Focus: If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

Attitude: Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens. A positive attitude is a catalyst . . . a spark that creates extraordinary results.

Success: My first big league game was a huge mental breakthrough for me because, like most of these guys, I thought the big leagues were gonna be 10 times as hard as the minor leagues, as college and high school. When I got there, I realized I could hit a major league fastball, and I could hit a major league curveball. I realized that it wasn't as tough as I thought it was. I could relax and do what I'd always done. . . To me, the sooner you can understand that you belong, that you can have the success you're looking for by doing what you've always done, the rest of it is gonna come. You don't have to try to go out there and get it. Those 200-hit seasons will come, those 100 runs, scores, hits, gold gloves, all of it. All that stuff is a by-product of working hard and believing that you can do what you've always done. Tony Gwynn

And the Winner Is ...

Taylor Hicks, the prematurely gray self-proclaimed soul man from Birmingham, is the newest American Idol. Thank goodness. With hot rocker Chris Daughtry out of the running much too early in the game, Taylor was our only real choice. Yes, Elliott is a nice guy with a nice voice and he loves his proud mama. Yes, Katherine is both beautiful and talented. Plus she shares her mother's inclination to show off her cleavage, a sure attraction for male viewers, at least in Katherine's case. (Mama McPhee, PLEASE, put on a sweater or something.)

But you gotta love Taylor for his unflinching uniqueness and his obvious love of music. This is a guy who's not afraid to be himself, who didn't listen to the critics who said he was too old at 29 and too gray at any age to be a star. This is a guy who just flat out loves to perform. It's hard not to catch his enthusiasm. And that's why people love him. Chris will also have a brilliant career; he's just too good not to be scooped up by some bigtime band or label. So all in all, I'm happy with the results. But what will I do until January 2007 when Idol returns for another season? Tuesday and Wednesday nights just will not be the same.

Another Anniversary

It's been a year already since the big Memorial Day 2005 party celebrating the Younger trifecta: Bob's and my 30th anniversary, EK's 25th birthday and the (near)completion of the new Terra Nova. Yesterday marked 31 years for Bob and me, and tomorrow morning we'll pick up EK at the airport for a weekend celebration of her 26th birthday. Lest we forget, Charter, our goofy Newf, also will be in on the festivities. He was born on our anniversary four years ago.

I started this blog on May 25, 2005 as an anniversary gift to Bob. Though my entries have been sporadic and my readers few, it's still satisfying to look back on this record of the past year, even as I'm learning the importance both personally and professionally of living in the present moment. The magazine editor in me also sees this occasion as reason enough for a redesign. Hope you enjoy the new format of Younger Yarns.

Top Ten Ways to Know You're in North Carolina

10. The trees are so green and most of the birds are either Wolfpack red or Carolina blue.

9. More squirrels than people.

8. Meat with every meal and jello salad on the side.

7. You want your tea unsweetened? What are you, some kind of heathen?

6. It's not hard to spot women who still tease their hair.

5. People talk funny.

4. Your husband calls and doesn't recognize your voice. Says YOU'RE talking funny.

3. Entire population is still mourning native son Chris Daughtry's ouster from American Idol.

2. Giant portrait murals at the Charlotte airport feature local racecar drivers.

And the number one way you know you're in North Carolina:

The marquee in front of the First Assembly of God announces "NASCAR Sunday"

Idol Update

I am so not over it yet. At least I have a lot of company.

Shock and Awe (Outi, don't read this!)

Another Idol elimination night and boy, were we all surprised. I won't say who actually got the boot, because my friend Outi in Finland is also an Idol fan, and the show runs a week later there, so I would spoil her fun. But let me just say I am totally depressed. Losing Ace was bad, but tonight was shock and awe, baby. Shock and awe.

Post-Flu Euphoria

Ah yes. The sun is shining through a misty spring morning here at Terra Nova. The birds are singing; the puppies, sleeping. And I finally seem to be coming out of an 8-day flu-related funk. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say, I've been fairly sick and pitiful. Today, aside from the usual lingering cough, fatigue and slight fuzziness in the head, I am feeling close to human again. It reminds me of that scene in Shogun when Anjin-san was committing seppuku for some noble reason I can't remember, and at the last instant, as he was already thrusting the knife toward his body, the local daimyo, which is to say the region's military ruler, grabbed his wrist and stopped the blade, and Anjin-san, rushing back from the certainty of death to the raw sweetness of life, sat silent for a moment so that all you could hear was rain falling outside, and then he said, very softly, "The rain is fine, isn't it?"

It is good to feel alive again. What's more, even the morning's New York Times seemed full of good news. First, San Diego's own Fat Man Walking completed his waist-shrinking, soul-searching cross-country hike yesterday by walking right into Manhattan. Along the way he's dropped a hundred pounds and found his bliss, plus a book deal and folk celebrity status. You know, more power to him. He took on a crazy goal and he actually did the thing. That's just inspiring.

Second piece of good news for the day, W's poll numbers have reached record lows, and third, the population of Russia is dropping by 700,000 per year. To some, I realize, especially certain individuals in Washington and Moscow, these latter two headlines would read as bad news. But I see them as hopeful signs that one) the American public is at last regaining its sanity and two) it's actually possible to reduce the planet's burgeoning population without war, pestilence or famine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, obviously a vodka-glass-half-empty kind of guy, has expressed his alarm about the spectre of economic and military contraction. In fact, he's turned into a procreation cheerleader, talking up the wonders of love, marriage and family, and even offering cash bonuses for each baby produced.

But from the global perspective, more is not always merrier. Sometimes seating fewer guests at the table means everybody gets to eat. As it is, we lose 30,000 kids a day to starvation and malnutrition. Yes, 30,000. So that's why I say, it's a good-news day all-around. Also time for a little more cough syrup.

Charter in Mustard

Photo by R. E. Younger, Terra Nova Photography

Dear Anonymous

The thing about posting a blog is you never know if anyone's going to read it or not. Which is nice in a way, because when you write something decent you can feel glad it's out there for the world to see, and when you post something you worry is a bit too revealing or schmaltzy or cynical, you can convince yourself no one's likely to read it anyway.

But then you start to get feedback, comments left in response to your posts, and you realize people really are reading this thing. Cool! Except it seems there's an underworld of characters out there who spend a lot of time surfing around looking for statements of opinion that differ from their own, and then they pounce like an alley cat and eviscerate the poor blogger with a nasty comment or two, usually demonstrating in the process that they've missed the whole point.

That in itself, while not very nice, I can live with. Hey, it's still a free country after all. I can say what I want, and so can you. The problem is these hit and run commentators never leave their names. Or else they leave a stupid made-up name like Piso Mojado. So you wonder. Who really wrote this? Was it anyone I know? Someone who just doesn't want me to know they really have such opposite opinions? Maybe it was someone being paid by the radical right to ferret out dissenters and ambush them right there on their own blog pages? Or was it some angry survivalist holed up somewhere in the middle of the South Dakota prairie, surfing the Web for random blog comments while taking breaks from writing his or her grand manifesto? In the end of course it doesn't really matter who they were, because you already know everything you need to know about them, which is, they're gutless.

So far, these anonymous posters have seemed to pop up most often in response to comments I've made about the Bush Administration. They seem to think I'm a bad American for criticizing the president. They've even accused me of hating my country. This strikes me as bizarre. I don't hate my country. I love my country. What I hate is what George Bush and his posse have done to it--including fostering this crazy idea that conscientious dissent is unpatriotic. On the contrary, this nation was founded on the concept that citizens should be free to think and express their own thoughts, even if they run counter to government policies. Being a "good" American does not mean you must support the government no matter what. That's not democracy; that's totalitarianism. Being a "good" American, I believe, can sometimes compel a citizen to stand up against the government, because the government can be wrong, can lose sight of the goal, can even diminish the liberties America stands for. When that happens, and I believe we are seeing it happen right now, "good" Americans have a patriotic duty to stand up and say so.

By the way, if my anonymous detractors think I'M being harsh on the president, they should read Bob Herbert's column in today's New York Times. Now there is a courageous, concerned American. I salute him for stating our current national dilemma so honestly and so well. Maybe I should send him an anonymous compliment.

Update, May 2, 2006: Turns out the L.A. Times agrees with me about anonymous posters, as one of their Pulitzer-winning reporters has discovered the hard way.

The Truth About Freelancing

People tend to glamorize the concept of freelance writing as a career. It's an understandable fallacy, stemming from the word itself. The concept of freedom in your work is so appealing when you're committed to the nine to five routine. There are advantages both ways of course. The salaried employee may enjoy less personal freedom, but paychecks arrive on a regular basis, along with paid vacations and sick time, 401Ks and health insurance. Or to put it in the words of the late John Keats, a wildly successful freelancer during the 1950s and 60s and one of my favorite writing teachers, the trade-off for the nine-to-five lifestyle is "all the benefits that slaves enjoy." Keats was a marvel of self-discipline and productivity, who churned out a series of fantastic nonfiction books in addition to all his magazine articles and made enough money to raise a family of four children and even buy an island in the St. Lawrence River between New York and Canada. His philosophy of quitting his job to begin his work has always inspired my inner freelancer, and I've been haunted by his onetime admonition to me: "You should never hold an office job." What he meant by that was he felt I should write. Sometimes, I can believe those long-ago words and take courage in the power of possibilities. But in reality, the writing life is not always so idyllic. Yesterday I came across this piece by the very talented Sarah Hepola that sums it up so well I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

April Is the Greenest Month

Photo by R.E. Younger, Terra Nova Photography

When in April the sweet showers fall and pierce the drought of March to the root, and all the veins are bathed in liquor of such power as brings about the engendering of the flower, when also Zephyrus with his sweet breath exhales an air in every grove and health upon the tender shoots, and the young sun his half-course in the sign of the ram has run, and the small fowl are making melody that sleep away the night with open eye (So nature pricks them and their heart engages), then people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers long to seek the stranger strands of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands.
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

It's my favorite time of year in San Diego. Fresh in the wake of winter rains, the land transforms from dead brown to lush green. The birds are so happy they can't contain themselves. Terra Nova is bathed in song from dawn to dusk. And the crows and raptors are flying with baggage in tow, no doubt taking meals home to their families rather than eating everything themselves in the field. Saturday morning I saw a kite hunting, a magnificent, nearly all white bird that can hover in midair and then drop out of the sky like a stone when it sights its prey.

Between the garage and the road and back, the rabbits cross our paths by two and threes. They've been busy; already I've seen a little one. And amid the jumble of trailers, chicken coops and corrals below us in the canyon to the east, I've been watching a foal trying out its spindly new legs.

All too soon the green will fade, and the world will turn brown again, the lush grasses will become fuel for the coming fire season. But for now the canyon is glorious and verdant and all of us who live here, from the field mice to the redtail hawks to the Newfs and their humans, are reveling in its riotous celebration of spring.

A Good Day

Let's accentuate the positive, shall we? It was a good day. Perfect spring weather, great progress on "the book," good news on two other projects under way, quality time with the Newfs, phone chats with both daughters and Bob, who's coming home tomorrow from a week-long business trip. All in all, it helped take the sting out of losing Ace on American Idol last night. If you haven't been watching, you can't understand, but the Ace Face will be missed. Oh, and he's a pretty fair singer, too.

Comic Relief Is on the Way

I know what you're thinking. It's not fun reading Younger Yarns anymore. Sandra has turned into a shrew. It's not that politics is all I think about these days. It's just that Bush and crew make me so mad I have to write about them or explode. Meanwhile, other things in my life--lovely, warm and fuzzy things--go unreported. So I promise to mix it up a little from now on. Stay tuned ...

Mushroom-Clouded Minds

I really can't believe I'm writing this, but it seems the top leadership of the United States of America have actually been busy drafting plans to "pre-emptively" attack yet another sovereign nation, this time with nuclear weapons. NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!!

The problem: Iran is working toward nuclear capability, a sobering development by anyone's estimation and something the administration believes only big, benevolent, responsible superpowers like us can have. So it only makes sense to stop them by nuking their R&D facilities, which by the way include university laboratories--a strategy inspired, no doubt, by parents who beat their children for hitting each other. Please, someone wake me up and tell me I'm just caught in a sci-fi nightmare.

They've denied it of course. "Wild speculation," the president says. "Fantasyland," Rumsfeld echoes. Oh yeah, like I really believe them. Pinnochio couldn't keep up with this pack of liars. The latest evidence: we've learned the president himself authorized the long-celebrated media leak that led to Valerie Plame Wilson's exposure as a CIA agent. Yes, the same president who told us how much he hated leakers, promised us he would fire this one when he/she turned up, and then ordered a big, fat investigation into the situation. Your tax dollars at work.

If only the news about Iran war plans had come from some third-rate, conspiracy-theorist blogger, but alas, the reporter was none other than the venerable Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, the same writer who first acquainted us with the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. This guy has some sources.

Surely, I first thought, Bush can't really attack Iran without congressional approval, and Congress won't fall for his scare tactics again. But it turns out he can. We could wake up tomorrow morning, and it could already have happened.

Words fail in describing the lunacy, the immorality, the hyper-hypocrisy of all this. Suffice it to say, we have met the axis of evil, and they is us. The good news is the president's approval ratings have dropped a few more points, indicating more Americans are figuring out he's not the compassionate conservative they thought he was.

Update, May 31, 2006: Some commenters suggested I was seriously over-reacting here. But apparently I wasn't alone. Dozens of prominent physicists have written to President Bush calling U.S. contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran "gravely irresponsible" and warning of "disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world." You can see a petition signed by nearly 2,000 physicists, including several Nobel laureates, at http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/

Puppies in the Sun

Enough serious stuff. It's a gorgeous sunny day, endless blue overhead, and inside, puppies are busy with their morning naps, each in the usual places. Terra, the princess, is curled up on our bed, a black, furry island in a billowing sea of white pillows and comforters. Charter is stretched out full-length on the floor beside me, framed in sunny squares slanting in from the windows. He is dreaming, feet twitching, eyelids and lips quivering, pink tongue barely peeking out of his mouth. Every now and then one or the other rouses for a moment and looks up at me, hoping I'm ready to go downstairs. As soon as I move, both dogs will jump up to join me, anticipating breakfast or a walk, the mere promise of any sort of adventure. But for now they are content to sleep here with me while I work. My peaceful companions. How I love them.

Thanks, But No Thanks

Well, now it's Australia digging out from a monster storm. The AP reports this morning that Cyclone Larry was the most powerful cyclone to hit northeastern Australia in decades. Larry destroyed thousands of homes and flattened hundreds of square miles of sugar cane and banana crops. As one resident put it, "The whole bloody place is blown apart."

The Aussies, of course, are rising to the challenge with characteristic elan. The town of Innisfail cleared a spot among the ruins and enjoyed a huge "barbie," with local butchers and restaurateurs donating their inventory rather than let it rot in their freezers until power lines are repaired.

And there was this nicety mentioned in the AP report. "President Bush called Australian Prime Minister John Howard early Tuesday to offer American help if needed." Hmmm. The same President Bush whose appointees failed so utterly when our own Gulf Coast was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina just seven months ago? The same President Bush who's already put that epic tragedy and its still-suffering survivors behind him in his psychotic zeal to end terrorist plots, real or imagined? I'm thinking I could live a long time without that kind of help.

To his everlasting credit, PM Howard responded with admirable courtesy and restraint. "Of course we are able ourselves to look after this," Howard told the AP. "But it was a very generous, thoughtful gesture on his part, and I thank him for it."

Competence and class, too. How refreshing. How about next time a natural disaster strikes the U.S., we corral Bush and his fellow cowboys for the duration and ask Australia to come help us with the clean-up?

Adult Supervision Required

National Journal reporter Shane Harris provides further proof of the complete and utter leadership vacuum in Washington in an article introducing Douglas L. Hoelscher, the new executive director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Advisory Committees.

Hoelscher will serve in a key policy-making position as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff's "primary representative" to more than 20 advisory boards populated by corporate, government and academic heavyweights; he will also provide "strategic counsel" to Chertoff on such vital issues as terrorist threats to infrastructure and potential attacks employing weapons of mass destruction.

It's quite a career coup for a 28-year-old former Bush campaigner with no management experience whose first government job just 5 years ago was a $30,000 low-level White House staff assignment arranging presidential travel. So maybe it was Hoelscher's personal strengths that catapulted him to power. In his Friendster.com profile, he disclosed: "I'm usually fairly quiet in a group setting. I am not a talker but a pretty good listener."

Whatever. DHS certainly seems confident in its newest top executive. "The administration has named a qualified and talented professional to cultivate these partnerships," commented Stewart A. Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the department.

Then again, that's probably what he said about past DHS appointees, including former FEMA director Michael "You're Doing a Heckuva Job Brownie" Brown, a longtime friend of Bush's 2000 campaign director, Joe Allbaugh; Julie Myers, wife of Chertoff's chief of staff, who without benefit of law enforcement experience heads the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau; and Eduardo Aguirre Jr., a Texas banker with Bush family ties who served as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

O.K. so not such a great track record. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Hoelscher's youth and inexperience aren't necessarily liabilities. Harris reports one DHS staffer assured him: "There's plenty of adult supervision" at the department.

Like a Thunderbolt

I'm pretty sure I saw a golden eagle soaring above the canyon today. A huge bird, too big for a hawk, but brown, not black like the crows and buzzards. I watched it until it disappeared into the chapparal more than a mile away. Thinking back on the sight of those strong wings sailing and rising effortlessly in the thermals reminds me of Tennyson's wonderful poem, "The Eagle."

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred Tennyson 1851

Power Lunch

My friend Claire never went to college, had a big career, made a fortune or got famous. But what she did do—raise a family of four children within a lasting marriage and spread the joy of Newfoundland dogs, along with a keen insight into the human heart—has made all the difference in countless lives, mine included. I had a rare chance to visit with her yesterday, and as always, it was a treat. She's in her seventies now, but her embrace was as strong as ever, her personality as vibrant, her intuition as rare. We enjoyed a lunch she had made herself at home in Tennessee and overnight shipped in frozen containers to share with her daughter JoAnn and friends here in San Diego. Lentil soup. Beef and barley. Homemade sandwich spreads and two kinds of cake. It was a small group. Claire and JoAnn, two other Newfoundland lovers and me.

Afterwards, I fired up my laptop and ran through a sampling of photos of the new house, the family, the Newfs. As always, Claire took it all in eagerly, punctuating the show with bits of sage commentary and encouragement. You are an inspiration, I told her as I packed up to leave. I don’t know why, she said, laughing and looking away. But you are, I said. You’re my Yoda. She cupped her hands on either side of her head. Big ears and all? she asked. I nodded. Wise are ye, I said. She looked away again. We hugged good bye, and she waved as I turned to back out of the driveway, feeling, as always when I’ve talked with Claire, that I'm okay, that life is still long and full of meaning, and that anything is possible, especially when you believe in dogs.

Story Time

Today, well yesterday now since it's 2:20 in the morning, my fire story became part of NPR's current Story Corps project. It just flowed out of me and listening to it myself on the way home via CD gave me goose bumps and made my eyes sting. It is an amazing story, a miracle story. I'm grateful to my friends Lena and Coleen who set up the interview and encouraged me to do it. I'm happy that a story from the Cedar Fire will be documented for posterity in the Library of Congress along with thousands of other stories from American life. And I'm more eager than ever to finish my book.

Update March 2, 2006: KPBS, our local NPR station, aired an excerpt this morning. You can listen to it here.(MP3 4:13min.)

Pot Shots

Obviously, I've been on a blogging hiatus, despite deep thoughts I wanted to share about marching to the Capitol in Washington on Martin Luther King Day and then Coretta Scott King's triumphant homegoing. My friend Peggy's Newfoundland, Baby, Charter's sister and Lilo's aunt, won big yesterday at Westminster. And, oh yes, remind me to tell you about senior diet cokes.

But this I can't let pass. The vice president of the United States of America, while out enjoying the rich man's sport of quail hunting on vast private ranches, shot a fellow hunter. Fortunately, the guy is okay. Cheney, on the other hand, has made himself fodder for delighted stand-up comedians everywhere. Here's a nice sampling put together by our friends at the AP: TV Joke Writers Take Shots at Cheney.

Major excitement!

Time spent in the car today with large salivating beast traveling to and from Palm Springs Kennel Club dog show: almost 7 hours
Total distance covered: 325 miles
Value of resulting 3-point major: priceless

Devil Winds

It's Jan. 6, the Christmas tree's still up, and it's hot. I don't mean unseasonably warm. I mean 92. I mean we had to turn on the air conditioner today. It's dry, too. My skin is stinging, and no amount of lotion seems to help for long. In Southern California, there's only one explanation for these meterological and dermatological phenomena. The Santa Anas are blowing.

Last night they were shrieking; the house was shivering and everything not nailed down outside was banging around. Our kitchen weather center at times registered 40 mph, and a few particularly fierce gusts no doubt kicked it even higher. It was way too noisy and way too reminiscent of Oct. 26, the night of the fire, for either of us to sleep. I knew it wasn't rational, but I'll admit it, I was flat out scared. Bob kept reassuring me; he also kept stepping outside to sniff for smoke.

I used to love the Santa Anas. They cleared the air and brought a few days of warm weather in the middle of a rainy winter. But now I understand why generations of Southern Californians have called them devil winds. For sure, they play a big role in the story of "the wildest fire." Here's an excerpt about the Santa Anas from my manuscript. (And you thought I wasn't working on the book, didn't you?)

"It was still warm when we left the restaurant around 10 that night. All week it had been into the 90s inland, an unusual occurrence in late October—except during Santa Ana weather. Santa Ana winds are a fabled Southern California phenomenon, sweeping in several times each winter through the mountains that separate Los Angeles and San Diego from the vast deserts to the east. And when they come, they do not come gently.

Santa Anas blow hot, dry and strong, sometimes for days, raising temperatures and tempers in their wake. By definition, they’re at least 25 knots (nearly 30 mph) in velocity and often gust to 50, 60 or more, especially at night or early in the morning when onshore ocean breezes subside.

Because they carry so much heat, most people think Santa Anas originate in the deserts, but they actually begin much farther away, as a high pressure system over the Great Basin, that vast plateau sandwiched between the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. Whenever a low pressure system off the Southern California coast coincides with a prevailing northeast wind, a huge atmospheric pinwheel starts to spin and tumble toward sea level. Picking up speed and heat as it descends and compresses, then drying as it warms, this enormous mass of air eventually collides with the corrugated topography of coastal Southern California, where it surges through narrow passes and canyons and out to sea.

Just such an episode inspired these memorable lines by mystery writer Raymond Chandler in “Red Wind:” "It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."

Aside from triggering bar fights and domestic violence, Santa Anas can also damage structures and endanger travelers caught in high surf or wind shear conditions, not to mention gusts stiff enough to tip over RVs and tractor trailers. But Santa Anas are most notorious for feeding wildfires—lowering humidity, drying plants to tinder and literally fanning the flames. Especially in October, the last month of Southern California’s long, rainless summer season, when vegetation is already brittle dry, a Santa Ana can whip a random spark into a major conflagration. It's no coincidence that nearly every catastrophic wildfire documented here occurred during Santa Ana conditions."

Note to Self

At Starbucks, kid's hot chocolate and quad-shot espressos both come in the same tiny short cup. So next time, double check before handing them out at the drive through.