Category Archives: What’s a man?

Happy Father’s Day 2010

Americana, Psychological Musings, What's a man?

 

Daddy-1-0029

Last Thursday, I went to see my daddy’s grave. He died 42  years ago and I have only been to his grave a
couple of times – if that is the right word for a filedrawer in a marble wall – but I was in the neighborhood taking pictures for Michele, had some time, and Father’s Day was coming up.

He is at the Gardens of Eternity, a Jewish cemetery, in the necropolis of Colma. The first time I went to see him, I couldn’t find him. When I got to where I thought he was and looked up at all the 2’ by 2’ niche covers with
people’s names on them, I saw my grandparent’s niches, I saw my aunt Minette’s niche; but  not my daddy’s.  I
must have walked around the area 3 or 4 times, looking at every name on every
niche.

I finally found him around the corner from the family. At the time, I wrote, There, around the corner from the rest of the family, was
Daddy. Alone, in this small little
space. It was so sad. Just standing there, looking at my daddy’s
little niche with

Alfred Joseph

1906-1968

Stern

It felt like he was not there; that he was very,
very, gone. I touched his neatly bifurcated name with my
fingers and I felt so alone.  The letters
were cold and unequivocal. 

Last Thursday, I had the same feeling. I was more prepared for it, but I still had the same feelings of loss. I never
really knew my father. I wish I had. He was what we used to call a proud man meaning he was not a person who talked about his inner life. So his fears, hopes, disappointments, and dreams were all unknown to me – and, I think, everybody else. 

Now, I am more than eight years older than my daddy was when he died.

Slavery and Confederate History Month

Americana, Current Affairs, Photography, War, What's a man?

To me, from now, from here, slavery seems so improbable. Not informal, chance slavery like bringing home a captured souvenir from winning a war; but institutionalized slavery. It requires a belief that the slaves aren't really as human as the owners – how does someone do that to a person they are living with every day (and, more than sometimes, having sex with), it requires complex laws to define who are the slaves and who are the owners, it requires an huge infrastructure to  keep the slaves from escaping, it must, I think, require a preoccupation that permeates every part of society. 

That is why the whole concept of slavery in the south is abhorrent but not really real. And that is why a post, entitled Honoring CHM: One Drop, on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog, is so horrific. With little commentary, it shows a picture of eight people and reprints a letter asking for money to educate them. They are  emancipated slaves.- eight individual, traumatized, human beings.

8slaves

The letter describes each one of the people with passages like this

Wilson Chinn is about 60 years old, he was "raised" by Isaac
Howard of Woodford County, Kentucky. When 21 years old he was taken
down the river and sold to Volsey B. Marmillion, a sugar planter about
45 miles above New Orleans. This man was accustomed to brand his
negroes, and Wilson has on his forehead the letters "V. B. M." Of the
210 slaves on this plantation 105 left at one time and came into the
Union camp. Thirty of them had been branded like cattle with a hot iron,
four of them on the forehead, and the others on the breast or arm. 

I really recommend that you follow the link back to the original post. It is hard to read – at least it was for me – but it makes real what we often think of as abstract. Check it out.

Obama 24/7

Americana, Obama, Politics, What's a man?

I want to start with a quote from last weekend by Michael Scherer of Time's Swampland 

About
20 hours ago, I was in Bagram Air Base, watching White House advance people
change the television station in a troop mess hall, so that NCAA basketball
would show in the background as President Obama shook hands, not motorcross,
which had been playing.

and then go on to the fact that Obama held a second – now annual – Whitehouse Seder last week. From the article in the NY Times, it seems like it was non-political act. Just a personal gesture that has become a tradition.

28seder_span-articleLarge

and finish with a reference to a story of one letter in an article in the Washington Post on the ten letters -that have been culled from hundreds – that Obama gets every day. The letter is tragic, touching, inspiring, you know – all that stuff.

If you haven't already, read these two articles. They are pretty short.

I am fascinated by Obama's attention to detail, the cautious consideration given to doing a good job, to doing things right – not just as president, but as a man, as a father, as a mensch. In Obama, it seems to be coming from the inside rather than from the outside to look good.

Who we are vs. who we want to be dept.

Books, Web/Tech, Weblogs, What's a man?


I have never played a MMO – Massively multiplayer online – game or, even, seen one played. All I know about them is from reading Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. As I understand it, the players can pretty much make their avatars anybody or thing. What they come up with is pretty interesting.

From a book by Robbie Cooper via a blog called The Swedish Bed here are some real people and their avatars.

Robbiecooperavatars1
 
Robbiecooperavatars3

Robbiecooperavatars7

Bob White, RIP: probably the greatest pilot you have never heard of*

Americana, Current Affairs, What's a man?

* with the same caveat that I had for Lynn Hill

Bob White, or – if you like – Robert Michael White, died last Wednesday, March 17 2010. He died peaceably, presumably in his bed, at the age of 85.

Given Bob White's life, that was a pretty unlikely event. When he was twenty, he was flying P51 Mustangs in combat over Germany. He was still only twenty when, after 52 missions, he was shot down and taken prisoner. Then he flew in combat over Korea. Then he became a test pilot, eventually flying the X-15.

X-15 Flying
While flying the X-15, on November 9, 1961, White flew at 4093 mph. That is over 68 miles a minute. That is six times the speed of sound. At one point, the shock waves and vibration did this to his canopy.

X15 Canopy

And White still landed the plane safely and lived to die, peacefully, at 85. I hope we are all so lucky.