Eclectic Views

    
I was a senior in high school on that day.   Like Cynthia I
was in the gym locker room when the announcment was made that
JFK had been shot.   Boys tend to be afraid of displaying emotion
at that age, so most guys just got quiet and sorta sucked it up
a bit.   A few idiots (all of whom came from conservative families)
whooped and hollered before shutting up.

The next period was physics, but no teaching was done that day.
We just sat around and talked quietly until the announcement came
over the PA that he was dead.   The rest of the period passed 
almost entirely in silence.   To this day I cannot remember if we
were sent home early or not.   I've always felt like the rest of
the school day never happened, but it was already 4th period out
of a six-period day and I doubt they could get school busses
organized quickly enough to make an early dismissal worthwhile.

I did happen to be watching TV when Jack Ruby shot Oswald.
  

    
I was in first grade. I will have a vivid memory of the Vice Principal
running in, in her spike heels, in hysterics to give us the news. She
collapsed in a heap out in the hallway. Miss Graham, with the flaming red
hair.

We were sent home early.

I also happened to be watching TV, with my maternal grandmother, when Ruby
shot Oswald.
  

    
Did anybody else notice how yesterday's anniversary of Pearl Harbor passed
with very little mention?

Although I was too young to recall the actual events of December 7, 1941,
I do recall a fair amount of talk in subsequent years about "Remember
Pearl Harbor".  Is that now fading?

If so, is it because most of us (including me) are too young to remember,
or is it that we're now on friendly terms with our former enemies, or is
it no longer considered worth noting, or are there other reasons?
  

    
Hmm.  A political will to shift the sentiment to "Remember 9/11" ?
  

    
I was doing volunteer work in a skilled nursing facility yesterday and one
of the male residents told me he was in the service during WWII. I asked him
if he knew what day it was. He nodded, "Pearl Harbor Day."

I shook his hand and thanked him for having served. He was startled, then
really pleased to have been thanked.
  

    
It got some quality attention on Malcolm in the Middle on Sunday.
  

    
i'm sorry i only ran across <455> now, <cdb>.  It caused an
interesting reflection of an experience my wife and I had in China in
2000.  After about a week and a half, we were dining one night with a
couple only a little older.  It turned out they were of an obviously
liberal persuasion, (not always true on guided tour type trips, believe
me).  so the talk turned quickly to the difficulties for the nation
that came to a head in the 60's.  When I spoke of my experience of
resisting the draft and marching in every major Bay area march in those
days, etc etc, this couple all of a sudden thanked me!  They spoke
about how concerned they had been that their two boys would get sucked
into this amoral awful quagmire, and appreciated so much the young
people who put their lives out on the street to oppose it.  I was
speechless for a moment.  I have long harbored thoughts of how those
who opposed the war in VietNam in those days were unappreciated silent
victims of the war fever.  Yes, the vets were wrongly treated like shit
when they came home.   Yes, we eventually had our national turnaround.
 But what about all those whose educations were interrupted and
twisted by their response to this total disaster (irony abounds....),
who went to Canada, who endured the humiliation by their families and
co=workers and friends...?  These.... WE.... were totally loyal and
praiseworthy veterans also.  
 
and in that one simple conversation, this couple acknowledged that
debt and laid it to rest.
  

    
Nice post.
  

    
Very, and thanks.
  

    
"We didn't see God when we expected him, so we have no choice but to do
 what he was supposed to do: we will protect the weak, we will love, we
 will comfort. From now on, the responsibility is all ours."

  - Auschwitz survivor, 1946; quoted in today's paper
  

    
wow.
  

    

 "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail."

 - Steve Lovelady, former editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the WSJ,
now managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review's Web site; referring
to reports that bloggers' postings forced the resignation of CNN executive
Eason Jordan.
  

    
Happy birthday, Uma.
  

    
Today is my birthday.
If it is your birthday too, yeah, we should call the remaining
Beatles.
  

    
Phil! Happy birthday!
  

    
Excellent.
  

    
HBD, <pbs>.
  

    
"The great thing about the Web is that people can say almost anything they
please. But it will only mature as a medium if people see that as less of a
license than a burden."

 - David Carr, writing in the NY Times about blogs riffing on a rape case
  

    
  The Shortest Day
     by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
  

    
How nice. Thanks.
  

    
I believe a reading of "The Shortest Day" is part of each Christmas Revels
production in Oakland, Cambridge, and everywhere else along with the Sussex
Mummers' Carol ("God bless the master of this house") and the Abbots Bromley
Horn Dance since, well, I first read about them in the Whole Earth Catalog.
  

    
Thank you, Ron.
  

    
"One of the big stories today is that people are so happy with $2 gas;
 there is nothing better than a relative price decrease."

  - Richard Curtin, director at U. of Michigan consumer survey center
  

    
How true, ronks.  I don't know anyone who isn't pleased as punch with
a price reduction.  It's a universal fact.
  

    <scribbled by hildegard>