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Thank you all, and a happy New Year.
Know, all who see these lines,
That this man, by his appetite for honor,
By his steadfastness,
By his love for his country,
By his courage,
Was one of the miracles of the God.
– Guy Gavriel Kay
“The Green Field of France”, by Eric Bogle
Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile ‘neath the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that faithful heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enshrined then, forever, behind a glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
The sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in stand mute in the sand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
And I can’t help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did they really believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying, was all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
While wondering if this isn’t the best coaching job that Corky Palmer and his staff have done at Southern Miss this baseball season? They never lost a team that struggled at times to find its stride for the first two-thirds of the season, but has played its best baseball here at the end …
—
Could USM actually host an NCAA regional at a baseball stadium that is in mid-renovation? Or more pointedly, would the NCAA put a regional at a baseball stadium in mid-renovation?
First, USM would have to earn the right to host, and that would mean climbing high enough in the eyes of the NCAA’s selection committee to merit consideration. Said selection commitee uses various criteria to filter prospective hosts, including facility availability and size, financial bids and potential ticket sales/attendance, national polls, schedule and record.
But talk to those in the know, and the heaviest weight in the decision-making process appears to be given to the Ratings Percentage Index, a numerical formula that measures a team’s success (its won-loss record), its stregth of schedule and its opponents’ success/strength of schedule. Teams are ranked accordingly.
Like basketball, automatic entry into a baseball regional is reserved for conference champions, but to receive consideration for an at-large berth, most coaches say your team had better be among the top 40 teams in the RPI.
To receive consideration as a host of one of the 16 NCAA regionals, a team needs to be among the RPI’s top 16 _ or at least in that neighborhood.
Heading into the C-USA Tournament, USM is ranked 20th, according to projections on boyd’sworld.com, a site that has devised a way to accurately mimic the actual RPI. Shoud USM win this week’s double-elimination tournament, the Golden Eagles could rise into the teens, RPI-wise, or might even get close enough if they were to come out of their side of the bracket unbeaten and reach Sunday’s championship game.
The bigger question is USM’s Taylor Park, which is in the midst of revamp that is adding skyboxes and a new press box. USM hosted games there all season, attarcting large crowds for Ole Miss, Rice, Tulane and others, with the operation running relatively glitch-free.
But how much tougher does the construction make the logistics of hosting, especially crowd flow and safety issues? Everything went well during the season, but we just can’t imagine that such factors will be be brushed aside easily by the folks trying to decide where to locate one of the 16.
So, could USM rise high enough to be considered as a host? Possibly, yes.
But will this be the year Hattiesburg sees an NCAA regional for the second time in five seasons? Probably not, but we’re guessing that the Golden Eagles will play host again sooner than later.
—
Shut Up and Sing is a surprisingly funny and at times acidic record of the Dixie Chicks’ debacle, following lead singer Natalie Maines’ comments on the eve of the Iraq War that the folksy-country band was ashamed that it shared a home state with President George W. Bush.
I went in a bit skeptical. Having followed the story in the news as it broke, I wondered if there’d be enough content for a feature-length movie. Yes and no. The film drags at times and is a little confusing as it jumps from past to present, trying to make connections with their latest’s release The Long Way Home with events that happened in 2003. But, the humor and force of the individual Dixie Chicks’ personality hold the film together and make it quite entertaining if not as informative as other documentaries I’ve seen.
The documentary tries a little to hard at drama where there isn’t any (tension in the band over Natalie’s comments and lead role in writing songs) and skims over real-life drama with too much brevity (the death threat Maines received for a Dallas concert and the top-down censorship by some radio conglomerates). And while the movie gives some face time to her country radio station critics, it generally portrays them as rabid crazy people. It’d like to say it’s an unfair portrayal, but I think it’s probably pretty accurate on the whole (I loved the comment that free speech is OK, so long as it’s not done on foreign soil or in public. Wow. The founding fathers would be proud).
The documentary misses some key opportunities to delve into some of the driving Internet forces behind neoconservative causes, i.e. freerepublic.com, the same people who fanned the flames, right or wrong, around Cindy Sheehan. They’ve even created their own verb, “Freep,” which means to cram blogs and newspaper Internet sites with massive group-think e-mails and posts or to blow seemingly insignificant things into massive atmospheric, politically-driven crises that do nothing but distract from the real issues facing this country.
But the film’s strength is in its character portrait of Maines, who emerges as a lovable, spunky and confident woman. Most of the movie she seems to have a backbone of steel, a rapier-sharp wit and a puckish sense of humor. She almost seems more suited to punk music than country.
The documentary does pull punches, such as quickly washing over the dud of a tour the Chicks put on. I wish the filmmakers had explored more fully the transformation if the Dixie Chicks’ target audience, from blue-state country to bluegrass-loving blue-staters to people who just plain like their music and don’t care about the rest.
If nothing else, the movie is a masteful piece of public relations. Throughout the movie, tracks from the ladies’ new album are played extensively, giving lovers of left-leaning documentaries a taste of a band they may have cheered for but perhaps never really cared for.
And it certainly works. Just a few hours after watching the movie, I download the album off iTunes and blasted it.
Smart country music. What a concept.
– David Henson
“A long time ago the people I loved went away. I promised myself I would protect myself and never need anyone again…”
This is what Rob Lowe says to Elizabeth Shue in this movie I just finished watching. It was free on “On Demand.”
I remember thinking that I wasn’t going to take that phrase as a sign. I wasn’t going to let it get to me. I have been very mad at signs lately. I usually believe in them and follow them and feel as if they’ve never steered me wrong until recently. Lately, I don’t think they’ve been right at all because all the signs I have followed have led me directly to a broken heart.
Yesterday I told my temproomie that I wanted to go for a run. Today he came home early and we went to find a place to run along the Potomac. We didn’t end up where I’d wanted. We got off of the George Washington Parkway too soon and were near the airport. I was a bit disgruntled but didn’t want to get back on the road. I complained a bit when we started walking. “This is not the place I wanted to go… I want to be in nature, not looking at smokestacks and an airport.. I want trees and green and I want to get away..” It’s been a rough few days.. weeks and months in my personal life.. and I want to just run away from my thoughts and my feelings. I know I can’t really do that.. but being in nature helps me center.
My roomie said we could leave, but I said no. So he told me not to complain anymore.
I said, “No, maybe we were meant to go this way.”
“Not everything happens for a reason. Mistakes aren’t predestined and you can fix them,” he chided.
I thought to myself, “Maybe he’s right.” That’s why I did what I did. “Can I fix my mistakes? Maybe that’s why things never work. That’s what I’m trying to do now.”
By then we’d gone a ways.. and the voice in my head said I was being too emotional and making something out of nothing. So I just let it go.
We walked a little, ran a little and walked some more. My roomie is really great with birds and trees and nature. He pointed out Cormorants and told me that they are like ducks but not.. that they dive and are really agile in water. Then I looked up and saw this bird, gliding.. and I said, “What’s that? A bald eagle?”
He looked up and then said, “As a matter of fact, it is.” I didn’t believe him.
“How sure are you? 100%?”
“Positive. That’s a Bald Eagle.”
Then he told me about how they used to catch them so that they could put tracking devices on them and monitor them. He had no doubts.
A tear came to my eye.. and I just stood there. How incredibly amazing to see that bird, flying, gliding, and so graceful, powerful. It was a moment I will never forget. An American Bald Eagle, flying above Washington DC.
We walked a little further and ended up finding Theodore Roosevelt’s memorial. It’s on an island. We walked over the bridge and were in awe of the memorial. It is beautiful and on all my trips and tours in the DC area, I’d never even heard of it. Teddy was an incredible man.. and we decided we’d go back when the water was filled in around the memorial and we would have cameras to take pictures of the slabs of marble with the quotes carved in them. (Another great man referencing the fact that we must adjust and change with our times, like the Jefferson memorial.. which on a side note, I believe is a warning to our times that strict interpretation of the Constitution is silly… as Jefferson tells us, would we expect a young man to wear the same coat he wore as a child? Of course not.. and so we must grow as well.. and change.)
After we walked around the memorial we decided to take the trails and explore the island. We walked a few hundred feet and turned a corner. I heard rustling in the brush and stopped to look. No more than 15 feet away from us, there were 3 deer. A doe and her two yearlings. It was incredible. They are so beautiful and so amazing. I was speechless again. We just stood there.. staring at them and they cautiously went on eating. I didn’t want to leave that spot.
I saw a variety of ducks and birds, all of which my roomie identified.. there was even a Downy Woodpecker. They are so little and so cute. We also saw Grackles, Robins, Doves, Cardinals, and a bunch others. There was a Mallard mom and dad protecting their nest.. standing guard and not about to move or be disturbed by us. How utterly natural it is for living things to pair up and bare offspring.
There was grass everywhere, tiny leaves coming forth, buds of flowers opening up, and the bugs weren’t out in full force yet. You could smell the different trees.. some, more potent than others. You could smell the water and the marshy areas. You could hear the birds over the traffic and for a few moments today.. I could forget about everything but the world coming alive around me.
Life goes on, whether we want it to or not, doesn’t it?
I am not going to sit here and wallow and ignore it. I don’t want to wake up and realize that all this time passed without me being aware of and a part of it all. Broken heart or not.. it’s time to get over it.
Anyway.. we ran back and hit up Baskin Robbins on the way home. Tonight we’d planned to go out but I made dinner and had a glass of wine. I also have an incredible headache which I’m sure is a direct result of me being dehydrated and going out for so long. It was too beautiful a day to pass up though and I feel like spring is going to be too short this year.
After dinner I decided to watch that movie. It started out horribly. I think it was filmed in the 80’s. The opening scene has a man begging the love of his life to come with him, to marry him. He finally got a loan to buy some property and he wanted her to finally come to live with him. She wasn’t ready. She wanted to do her thing a little longer. They were standing outside of this place called the “The Purple Onion” and the movie is set in San Francisco.
The movie is about a group of four people who die together and are then guardian angels for this little baby that is born in the crash. They don’t realize after 20+ years that they are supposed to resolve their issues… something in life they didn’t finish. Each person does so, till the end where the last woman goes to find her lost love to tell him that she’d really loved him. She finds out just before her time’s up that he passed on 7 years prior. There’s a moment where she thinks that she’ll never get to resolve her life’s mistake until she realizes that what she was meant to do was stop the little boy (who’s now a man) from making the same mistake she did.
It’s a part that pulls on your heart strings.. and a part that hit home for me. I fought it though. I didn’t want to think about how it could relate to my life. It’s just a random movie I picked out. Nothing to do with anything.
Yes, it’s true, that I did have someone leave when I was younger. Yes, it’s true that I do keep people at arm’s length. Yes, it’s true that I will push someone away far before they have the chance to leave me. Over and over again, I have done this. Countless times. And then I make it so that they can’t come back. No matter what. That way, I won’t know if they tried and it didn’t work. I won’t know if they didn’t try to come back for me. They can’t. I won’t be waiting because I know that I’ve made it so impossible for anyone to come after me so they won’t. It’s so much easier to get over this type of broken heart than it is the kind where someone leaves you without any reason or explanation. Trust me on this one.
And screw signs anyway. Every time I turned around there were signs leading me to him. The songs on the radio, the dj’s name, the random songs played by an Irish guy at an Irish Pub my friends and I went to… the timing of things, how things would happen and fall into place in the nick of time to keep me hanging on, the way that everything worked to put us together. How could it all have been so wrong? But it was. It is… and it’s completely over. He can’t come back and it’s not right anyway. We are not right. It would never have worked and I was an idiot for thinking it would. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, by that definition, I am completely insane.
Then the thoughts.. what if I die tomorrow? Have I been completely honest? Nope. I always tell the ones I love that I really care for them.. and that’s it. If I die without telling them the truth, will I regret it? And what’s the meaning of all of this anyway? I’ve lived an entire year beyond what I could/should have and what have I to show for it? What have I done in this past year that made it worth it all? Why am I here? Did I deserve to live? I don’t feel as if I’ve earned the right to be here. I feel this enormous pressure to do something to earn this time. My friend told me I’m too hard on myself. Great. If that’s the answer to my problems, then how do you stop doing that?
Anyway.. after the movie, I came to my computer and checked my email.
There’s an advertisement on the page.
It’s for a comedy club.
It’s called “The Purple Onion.”
It’s in San Francisco.
The show is on 4/20.
That’s tonight.
How absolutely insane is that? Some random movie I order on Comcast on Demand happens to have that club in the background? Then I turn off the movie and sit down at my computer and a random advertisement has the club?
I really don’t want to believe in signs.. because I’m mad at where I am right now.. and where they’ve led me… but how much more obvious can it be?
Today was a really interesting day.
I’m going to see if I can drag my roomie out to the country bar up the street.
I think my headache’s gone and besides.. what better to do than have a couple of beers and listen to sad country songs?!
Signs shmines. I feel like I’m losing my faith again.
Promises to keep…
Promises to keep my blog updated have been unsuccessful in the past, but I am hitting it with a new found enthusiasm and desire to keep updated with my latest work. There’s so much exciting news that has been happening in my work, both with wedding as well as editorial, that I just want to blurt it all out here. I will contain myself though and focus on the purpose of this posting.
I just finished editing photos from a portrait session I shot with Dianne and Ray at Loch Raven Resevior in Baltimore County. They are a great couple, and really relaxed when we started shooting. The light was incredible, and I think you can tell we all had a great time with the shoot. Thanks for making my job so easy guys, I can’t wait to shoot your wedding in October!
Click on the image below to see a sample album I prepared from the portrait session.
Hope to keep this updated more frequently!
Evan
Kindred was chosen by the Whiteford book group for their November 2006 discussion. It was published over 25 years ago and it has become a sort of modern classic. It has been published by Beacon Press in their Black Women Writers series, is recommended on reading lists, and is still very much in demand.
Don’t let Kindred’s classic status put you off - it’s a fast read! Kindred is a book that I would recommend for all sorts of reasons. When I read it several years ago I found I could not put it down because I was so absorbed in the story and by the characters. Dana, a young black woman of the late twentieth century finds herself repeatedly transported through time and space to an antebellum Southern plantation. There she must make sure that Rufus, the plantation owner’s son, survives to father Dana’s ancestor. I would be interested to hear what other readers make of the plot, and of the premise of time travel.
The whole book is multi-layered. Complex and difficult issues are explored, such as the effect of slavery on individuals. I felt that these issues were handled very sensitively.
The book has proved to have appeal to a wide audience, black and white, adults and older teens. Not only is it a “good” book - it’s a pleasure to read!
Monday, 02 April 2007
By Spc. Stephen P. Kretsinger Sr.
Combined Press Information Center
BAGHDAD — A U.S. congressional delegation visited Baghdad Sunday. The Delegation, led by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, consisted of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, making his sixth trip to Iraq, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and Rep. Rick Enzi, also from Arizona.
The delegation landed at Baghdad International Airport and traveled to various locations in Baghdad by military convoy.
The congress members visited the Shorga marketplace and interacted with local merchants while walking the streets with Gen. David H. Petraeus, commanding general, Multi-National Force–Iraq.
“It’s a resilient people here in Iraq,
Four mesmerizing and indulgent days in a gorgeous summer home overlooking the placid shimmering Chesapeake.
1984, Italian Job, Chicken Run, Friends, Seinfeld.
During the height of the days, a student and her little dog too, working on their comps.
DirecTV has music stations. Adult Alternative for breakfast, Classical for work. Was it light classical or classical light? Chamber music. Solos. Piano. Cello.
Warmed by a fire controlled by remote.
Breakfasts of bacon, eggs, omelettes, crepes.
Never enough milk. Never enough eggs.
(Is there ever enough milk or eggs?)
Coffee mellowed with ice cream.
Today, a breakfast of toasted slices of Hawaiian sweet bread sprinkled with shredded cheese, freshly ground pepper, salt, then placed under the broiler until melted. Onto each a slice of bacon.
Like anchovy, bacon is such a strong taste that “a little goes a long way.”
Now, working on a report, working on comps, the weather is becoming more mild.
Yesterday morning, the loons played along the dappled water. Last night, the loons filled in the evening with their haunting calls. Today, the sky is bright and mild so as to sit outside with a coat and a blanket.
This morning, the waterfowl continue to head south. There are buds blooming. The grass sprouts.
This morning as we three sat on heavy deck chairs in this spare house, two F-14 Tomcats jet fighters crossed in tandem, their growl trailing them like paparazzi. Sound is such a slow ass.
No Internet access here except for the WiFi that we are poaching from the house across the way. In the wilderness — off season even — we have not just WiFi, but 802.11g to boot. And most of the time I didn’t even turn on InkPad.
And now, five hours until the carriage turns back into a pumpkin and we must pack up the Rover and return to Chapel Hill where I will catch some sleep before driving back to Washington to be at my awesome job by oh-nine-hundred sharp on Wednesday.
To be honest, it really doesn’t get much better than this.
Here’s an awful story from New York.
After his unit was extended in Iraq, U.S. Army CPL Juan Alcantara was denied permission to travel home to New York City for the birth of his child. CPL Alcantara was killed in action weeks later without ever seeing his daughter Jaylani (above, right).
Money quote from CPL Alcantara’s mother:
Alcantara’s mother, Maria Alcantara, and [his fiancee, Sayonara] Lopez both scolded President Bush and the Army for refusing to allow the young soldier to return home for the birth of his child.
“I hate Bush and I hate this war because if it wasn’t for him [the extension] he’d be here with me,” Lopez said. “People are losing families for no reason.”
Maria Alcantara shared Lopez’s disgust.
“The war is never going to end and it can’t be won,” the mom said in Spanish. “They should enlist Bush’s family.”
CPL Alcantara and his family immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic.
Here’s more from The Indypendent:
[ . . . ] Nothing would end this war, and the funerals that accompany it, faster than a special draft for all the children and grandchildren of the political leaders who started the war and keep it going. And once in the military, they should be assigned to a special unit that carries out only the hardest and most dangerous assignments — call it the “Baghdad Brigade”.
Start with the hard-partying Bush twins Barbara and Jenna — who can ship off with her new fiancé Henry Hager, the son of a prominent Virginia Republican — and make sure Chelsea Clinton is at their side, along with Alexandra Pelosi. And don’t forget Mitt Romney’s five able-bodied sons or Rudy Giuliani’s two college-age children and all the other adult-age spawn of presidential contenders who offer one reason or another why the war must go on. (With the U.S. Army having upped the enlistment age to a seasoned 42 [OYE Comment: 41-or-under] to stem declining recruitment rates, we can also draft some of the politicians themselves.) Since we are told this is going to be a “long war,” don’t forget to scoop up the children of the Congress members who authorized the invasion of Iraq at the height of the 2002 election season and who continue to fund the war at the rate of more than $100 billion per year.
And if still more boots are needed on the ground, this special draft could be extended to the children of Republican Party political operatives, corporate war profiteers and the armchair generals in such right-wing think tanks as the American Enterprise Institute who continue to clamor for the war.
Let all these children of privilege fight the “terrorists” in places like Sadr City, Ramadi, Baquba, Tel Afar and Salman Pak while their relatives hang on to the words of every email or phone call knowing they might be the last. And when this special Baghdad Brigade is on the verge of leaving Iraq (as Juan Alcántara was), let their tour of duty be extended another three months.
Of course, the war would probably be over by then.