Kindness Ripples

When you perform a random act of kindness, it can begin to ripple.

Someone bought a gift card at the book store today and said I should give it to the first child who came in the store this afternoon.  It took a long time, but eventually a woman came in with her two children, a girl who might have been 12-14 and her younger brother.  The kids went right for the children's room while the mother browsed.  Eventually the girl was all alone in one of the stacks and I went to her and gave her the card.  I told her that someone who wanted to honor the children who were killed in Connecticut wanted me to give the card to a child who came in the store.  Her eyes got wide and she looked thoughtful and just said "Wow."

Later, when the mother was getting ready to round up her kids and leave, I mentioned the gift card to her and it brought her to tears.  She had not heard of the 26 Acts of Kindness project.  

Before they left the store, the boy asked if I had any books on cars. I directed him to the very small section we had on cars and he chose two coffee-table type books with beautiful photos of cars.  The bill for the two books was $19.41 and his sister asked if she could buy his books with her gift card.

So one gift of kindness resulted in another gift of kindness in a matter of minutes.  It's enough to make your heart grow three sizes in one day.

Later I watched Rock Center with Brian Williams, who had Ann Curry on to report on the amazing response her suggestion has generated, now from all over the world.  She was amazed to hear that she had even received a communique from Afghanistan.

I think everyone is so happy to feel they are doing something positive in response to the murder of those children that the thing has snowballed into a real avalanche.

This is a pretty dumb picture.  It's our car sitting in our driveway.  It was going to be a series of photos of all the pretty lights on all the houses in Davis, following the map in the newspaper to direct us to how to find them.

Walt picked me up after work and we came home to watch Jeopardy and then got ready to take the light tour after the show was over, and then come home for dinner.

I got my camera ready and we got in the car and it wouldn't start.   There was nothing.  The lights work.  The air conditioner works (not that we need it, since it was in the mid 40s at the time), the radio works, but the motor won't turn over.  We had just DRIVEN it home from downtown.  Walt tried and tried and we finally had to admit there was nothing he could do.

It was too late to call AAA...and we were home, after all, so we will have to do that in the morning.

He had already arranged to rent a car for us to drive to my mother's for an early Christmas and to Santa Barbara for the real Christmas and he tried to change the pick-up date for earlier so we will have a car for the next couple of days, but found out they have no cars available to rent tomorrow.

Maybe we'll be lucky and it will be something simple enough that AAA can fix it while it's in the carport.  Otherwise we'll have to be towed somewhere and maybe it will be simple enough then that it can be fixed while Walt waits.

If not, I don't know what we're going to do.

If there is a light at the end of the tunnel it's that I finished everything I needed to do before Christmas this morning, so just sitting here and playing with the iPad won't be such a bad deal.

But it means that the crab eggs Benedict that had my name on it for brunch tomorrow won't get eaten by me.  Sigh.  I hope crab season lasts until after Christmas!

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Oh...in case the world ends tomorrow and I don't get to update this journal, it's been a fun 12 years.  Thanks for being such faithful readers!

The Cruel Brain

I don't remember how old my mother's mother was when she died.  Younger than my mother is now.  I also don't remember what year she died, but it must have been sometime between 1960 and 1962, because I remember the last time I saw her, my mother told her I was going to college.  I was going to be the first person in the family to attend college and though she could not talk by that time, she indicated that she was proud of me.

When I last saw her she was in a convalescent hospital, but she later had to be moved from there when she became aggressive.  This mild-mannered grandmother who even my mother didn't remember ever raising her voice or saying a bad word, began cursing other residents and being combative with everyone.

What happens to the brain when it snaps? What thoughts go through the brain when it doesn't work the way it has all of your life?

She was moved from the convalescent hospital to a mental hospital, which is where she died.  My mother often talks, with frustration even today, of going to visit her and being completely unable to understand what she was saying.  When my mother would arrive at the hospital, Grandma would be very excited to see her and begin chattering away trying to tell her lots of things.  My mother would sit there and say "Yes, Mom, I understand..." but my grandmother would realize that my mother did not, in fact, understand, and her excitement would beging to die, she would get depressed and indicate that she wanted to be taken back her room.

Whenever she tells that story, I wonder what exactly was going on inside Grandma's head.  Was she aware that she was not forming words?  Did she, in fact, have the words but be unable mechanically to form her mouth to speak them?  Might there have been another way of communicating with her, working to help her find a way to express herself?  

I don't remember how "with it" she was otherwise, so I still do wonder that, but I had a taste of my mother's frustration and helplessness today.

I drove over to see Bob this afternoon.  It's a nice drive, of just about an hour, which gives me an hour to listen to my audio book.  Peach had said she might be late getting there because she was waiting for a package she had to sign for.

Bob had been admitted back to the hospital earlier this week with what ultimately turned out to be a urinary tract infection.  Once they had his fever back down where it should be and his vitals stabilized, they returned him to the convalescent hospital.

When I arrived at his room, I was surprised to see that his bed had been lowered down as far as it would go, like a trundle bed.  He was also sleeping, and Peach was not there.

I had printed some photos yesterday and put them on a poster, thinking it might be a good thing to hang on his wall, so he could see familiar family faces when he looks at the wall.

Fortunately, I always have my Kindle with me, so I sat and read my book for about 30-40 minutes while Bob slept.  He might have slept the whole time, but someone came in to take his blood pressure and that woke him up.  He seemed disoriented for awhile but finally his eyes did seem to focus on me.  I said hello and told him who I was.   I don't know if he recognized me or not, but he eventually started talking, sometimes rather insistently, definitely making his point about...something, but unlike the last time we were there, when we could at least make out a word or two ("beer," for instance), I couldn't understand anything he said.

When it looked like he was focusing on my face, I tried showing him the photos, but he wasn't interested in looking at them, so I didn't push it, but left them there for Peach to do whatever she wants with them.  I tried to understand what he was saying, but he eventually, like my grandmother, stopped trying to talk.  Instead he rolled over on his side and tried to grab at the wall to pull himself up.  Peach says this is why his bed is on the floor, to prevent him from being successful in getting out of bed and breaking something.  The bed is right next to the wall on the side he was trying to get out, so he couldn't have anyway.

I tried moving pillows to make him more comfortable, but that didn't seem to be what he wanted either.  For one thing, it was clear at at this stage of his condition, there is not enough comprehension to even try to find another way to communicate with him, and I understood what my mother has been saying all these years.

About an hour after I got there, Peach still hadn't arrived, and Bob's brother and sister-in-law showed up to visit, so I told them I would let them have the visistor chairs and I would leave.  I got in the car and drove the hour back home again, thinking I hadn't really accomplished anything, and wasn't even able to be a support for Peach.   But I hope he knows that somebody (whether me or someone else) was there with him. 

Making the World a Little Better

When Ann Curry was replaced on The Today Show by Savannah Guthrie, I had mixed feelings.  Curry seems to be one of the nicest people in broadcasting, which was her downfall.  She had such incredible empathy for the troubled people she would interview, that she put her heart and soul into feeling their pain and comforting them.  And that was the problem.  She seemed to approach every interview with the same intensity that eventually got to be a bit too much.

In her time on The Today Show she did amazing things, traveled all over the world, even to the South Pole, where no reporter had ever been before.  She visited war zones and did much good reporting, and good work there.   She wore her heart on her sleeve and it showed.

I know that it was not a happy parting and I'm sure she was very bitter about being let go as co-anchor of The Today Show, but she soldiered on and is now doing special reports.

The Newtown tragedy was ready-made for Curry's skills.  I don't recall seeing any of her reports, but her time there has started a movement that is spreading world-wide.  She explains how it all happened.

I remembered a moment on the edge of Darfur, when I came upon a woman who was elderly and in the hospital, recovering from burns after an attack by Janjaweed militias. She was surrounded in the hospital, by younger women carrying babies, and I asked her to tell the story of how she had suffered these terrible burns all over her body. I learned that she had tried to rescue her invalid husband when her village was attacked and her house was set on fire. She tried to carry her husband out of her house and stayed so long that the thatched roof of her house came down, the hot embers giving her 3rd degree burns.  But she was unable to save her husband. Her husband died.

I remember walking out of that hospital, and the producer saw the look on my face. He said, “Are you okay?” And I said, “No.” And without even thinking, I remember going to our team van and pulling out a Polaroid camera I had brought on that trip. And then I went to all of these women with their children who were in the  courtyard of the hospital, knowing that they had never owned a photograph – ever – of their child. I went around from woman to woman, and I took pictures of them, I took pictures of them with their child, or just of their child alone – without even thinking, just snapping pictures. The first time I did it, I remember giving a photograph to a woman, and she looked at this black square with this quizzed look on her face, and I said, “Just wait one minute! Just wait one minute,” holding up one finger. And then I watched her face melt as she watched her child’s face slowly appear on that Polaroid.

It made me feel better. So I went from mother to mother to mother until I ran out of film.

Remembering how it made her feel to take the pain she was experiencing and doing something good for someone else, and knowing how the whole country was going through a grief period, though far-removed from the site of the massacre.  She thought what if everyone in pain could pledge to do an act of kindness for someone in honor of each child who was killed.  Twenty acts of kindness, which eventually expanded to include the adults killed, including the shooter's mother.  Twenty-seven acts of kindness to offset the twenty-seven acts of unspeakable horror.

She went to Twitter and made the proposal.  The thing has exploded, not only in this country, but around the world as well.  Today I installed Twitter on my iPad and happened to catch wind of the project.  Twitter is filled with stories of people who are enthusiastic about ging out of their way to help other people in the name of the children and adults who were slaughtered in Connecticut.

Curry encouraged people to post what they have been doing, as an inspiration to others.  And what a range of tweets were posted.

• put money in an expired parking meter for a car with handicapped plates & a veteran's hat in it
• A friend found a $10 gift card in the shelf at the grocery store with a note that said if was a random act of kindness.
• The Harvey Belvin Legacy of NJ will provide cupcakes for 3 kindergarten classes of Central NJ.
• Filled in for a mom who couldn't take time off at a Kindergarten Christmas party.
• Sent Christmas cards to thank the 1st responders in CT.
• Oldest son bought kid w/no $ lunch & middle son made point to talk to troubled classmate yesterday.
• A SF Bay Area resident said she paid $3,600 to send 32 children to school in Kenya.
• An anonymous donor paid the lay-away bill for 43 customers at WalMart
• bought new clothes, paid for eye exam and new contact lenses and paid storage fees for a man who lost everything.
• making Christmas cookies and homemade cards and hand delivering them to our neighbors...
• Sent an email with an attached Holiday card to all of my children's teachers telling them how much our family appreciates all the hard work they do.
• Just paid the school fees for 26 children with AIDS in Mombasa, Kenya
• Just gave $40 to a homeless guy who was standing barefoot on a corner. His shock and gratitude were humbling
• Visited my old school and told my teachers how grateful I was to them.
• I saw a pharmacist paying $100 out of his own pocket for medicine for a little girl whose father didn't have enough money.
• I donated trees through the National Arbor Day Foundation in memory of the children.
• we adopted 2 families for Christmas, 11 people in total.
• Diapers & more delivered to our women's shelter, $26 to food bank, $26 to Boys Club for Christmas gifts.
• Bought stuffed animals from Amazon--put in gift bags--sent to St. Jude's Children's Hospital
• left dinner for two at Applebee's for town police officer on his car
• picked up a friend's baby today to let her get some sleep after a rough night
• been helping my neighbor with his computer
• Paid for the car behind me in line at DD this a.m. Just a little something act in memory of the Sandy Hook victims.

The list goes on and on and on.  From big things like making certain children get schooling in a foreign country to little things like helping a neighbor with his computer.  Parents are using it as a teaching moment for their children.  Many are posting their acts of kindness on Twitter.  I only assume more are not posting on Twitter, but just doing things anonymously, and quietly.

I have made the pledge and have started my 26 acts.  I challenge people reading this entry to think about doing the same.  Especially at this time of year doing good things for others is a wonderful thing, doing good things for others to honor the little children who lost their lives at Sandy Hook gives it that "little extra something."

Go and do something nice for somebody.  I guarantee it will make you feel much better.

The Night I Murdered Beethoven

Kymm Zuckert, a long-time journalist/blogger (longer than myself, I believe) recently wrote an entry in which, in part, she talked about singing in a chorus and being unprepared for part of what they were singing.

I was very angry, though, when I got to a section of music that I had never rehearsed. See above in that not all of us had been singing this music for years, and how this could never have been rehearsed, I don't know. I suppose that the people who were at the concert the day before got to learn it then, but why had it never showed up at a regular rehearsal? I only missed a couple of Thursdays since August, those couldn't be the only times they were glanced at. I just don't think it was fair that us newer members were hung out to dry like that. I don't ever want to be caught sight-singing at a concert again.

It brought back memories of the night I almost murdered Beethoven.

In the years when I was working with The Lamplighters Music Theater in San Francisco, my best friend, Gilbert Russak, was the musical director.  Though he had studied music all of his life, he had never conducted an orchestra until he took over conducting the new Lamplighters orchestra.   At one point in the last couple of years of his life he was also the assistant conductor for the San Francisco children's chorus or orchestra or something like that.   And he liked conducting, but he had this dream to conduct something other than Gilbert & Sullivan and the light operetta fare that the Lamplighters performed.   He wanted to conduct the Beethoven symphonies.

The Lamplighters has a loyal orchestra, many of whom have been with the company for decades and are professional musicians.  But the thing about being a musician is that you only get to play the music that your orchestra decides to play.   It's all well and good to love Mahler, for example, but unless somebody hires you to play in an orchestra that is doing one of the Mahler symphonies, you don't get the chance to play that music.

So Gilbert and the orchestra decided they were going to do the Beethoven symphonies, just for fun.  

The company then performed at the wonderful Presentation theatre an ~400 seat theatre in a Catholic girls high school (which my sister had attended).   Though it was a high school theatre, it was one of the best theatres in the city, for its size.  It was beautiful and had great accoustics and the Lamplighters pretty much had the run of the place when school was not in session, so they could pop in on a Sunday and play a Beethoven symphony to a more or less empty house just for the fun of it.

The "concerts" were great.  A handful of us knew about them and could come and listen, but they didn't publicize what they were doing because then they'd have to pay the orchestra a salary, and this was just a for fun thing.

I even was able to request a symphony.  Beethoven's 8th has always been my favorite, ever since I took a class on the 9 symphonies and listened to Maestro Josef Krips, the then-conductor of the San Francisco symphony, give a lecture on that symphony and how it was "Beethoven's joke," playing sections of it and pointing out in what a light-hearted mood Beethoven had been when he wrote it and the little funny things he included in it.  I never hear that symphony without thinking of Maestro Krips and when I asked Gilbert if the orchestra could pay that symphony at their next concert, they did.  It's one thing to call a radio DJ and ask him to play a tune for you, but to be able to request a symphony was really special.

The last symphony they did for fun was the magnificent 9th symphony.   This one took a bit more preparation, and they invited lots of company members, professional singers most of them, to come and sing along with the 4th movement, the well-known Ode to Joy.  

There were others in the house, not professional singers, but people who had come for the fun of hearing the orchestra play this magnificent work.  As they got to the 4th movement, Gilbert invited anybody who wanted to sing to come up on stage and join them.

Now, I'm not a singer.  I had sung choruses in public all my life, singing with various church choirs.  I had even sung in a choir or two that did some pretty complicated stuff and I was once even a quasi-soloist.  They couldn't find an alto, but my voice wasn't strong enough to d the solo by myself, so the conductor chose two of us.  We were the "Benedictus girls" and got to sing that part of the Mass as a solo duet (the Benedictus is the shortest part of the Mass, so he figured we couldn't screw it up too badly). So I decided to join the Ode to Joy group.   How bad could it be?  I knew I couldn't really keep up, but I would have someone who knew what she was doing at my elbow, and I'm generally good at following. I knew the tune and it would be fun.

Now, the first problem was that I had never seen the sheet music to this work before and should have realized how complicated it was.  Duhhh!

Second, I do not sight read.  I can pick out a tune on the piano from a piece of music, but to sit down and play something with lots of chords, I'm totally lost.  

Third, I am an alto, so though I know the tune to Ode to Joy, I had never sung or heard the alto part and would have to be reading it off of the music that was being held by the person standing to my left (since of course I didn't own my own copy of the music).

I already knew I was in over my head the minute the music came out and I looked at it, but I was too embarrassed to slink down off the stage and back to my seat.

And then came the coup de grace.  Gilbert looked at all of us assembled there and said "do you want to sing this in English or in German."   With one voice they all said "German."  Gleep.  I barely knew it in English and though I could speak French and had sung in Latin, German was a language I did not know.

So there I am with this marvelous orchestra and this glorious chorus and I'm trying to sight read the alto line of a piece of music that I'd never seen before but everyone else knew practically by heart, and at the same time trying to figure out the German words everyone was singing.  And I'm standing next to Jean Ziaja, one of the leading contraltos of the Lamplighters.

I did the only thing I could possibly do.  I opened my mouth and made singing-looking movements, and didn't sing a note. 

I have to admit that standing in the middle of this wonderful chorus and a professional orchestra for the performance of this magnificent work was, in itself, a thrilling experience, but I was glad that at the end of the movement, Jean had the good grace not to mention my "performance" at all. 

The Seven Deadly Sins

Now that I'm getting a handle on "gluttony" (again), I engaged in another of the 7 deadly sins today:  sloth.  But when you pair the 7 deadly sins with the 7 virtues that the Catholic church teaches, what is paired with sloth is "diligence" and I suppose I engaged in that too. Maybe more diligence than sloth, actually.

Today I bonded with my new iPad.  I am learning how to tame it.   By the middle of the afternoon, when the battery was at about 50% (how nice it supposedly has a 10 hour battery life), I had done the following:

• installed many apps...and played several new games
• set up Facebook
• figured out how to create albums in "Photos"
• retrieved a photo from my computer and managed to get it ointo the iPad to use for wallpaper
• edited (cropped) a great photo of Lizzie that I took with the iPad camera
• watched a 1 hour TV show from Lifetime
• figured out bookmarks in the Safari browser
• downloaded the iPad manual from iBooks and flipped thru most of it
• learned about file folders and bookmarks on the home screen (a great find!)
• found a way to get my DCN mail on the iPod (gmail was easy, DCN is a bit more tricky)
• set up a notebook page to record all my passwords, so I can remember them without having to come into the office and check the desktop
• installed the Kindle app so that I can have the same books on my actual Kindle and on the iPad, so I can read at night in the car, and downloaded the book I am currently reading on the Kindle.
• I'm trying to get a handle on Flipbook (which my sister-in-law Olivia swears by), and seem to be doing it
• set up "Pocket" to save web pages to read off line (haven't quite mastered that yet)
• accessed my Pinterest account
• set up my browser to auto-fill in email and passwords, so I don't have to keep typing them over and over and over again.

I felt like God did on the 7th day -- I was ready to rest!

About the time the 49er game was about to start, I was ready to call a halt and plugged the iPad in to recharge while I got out my poor neglected Kindle to read during commercials.

Not a bad day for a new computer-ish thing.  The nice thing about the iPad is that it's not a computer, so I don't have to worry about doing the thing I hate most about a new computer--configuring all the software I use on the old computer.  I can't write a blog entry on the iPad (not the way I write them), I can't use Word Perfect.  

I told Walt that we were very smart not to get a 3G enabled iPad.   It is so easy to get caught up in what I am doing that if I were not on a wifi connection, I could rack up hundreds of dollars in charges without even blinking.

We watched the 49er game, after which Walt got a text from Tom saying he was exhausted.  Not surprising.  That second half was a nail biter from start to finish!

Then I watched the 2 hour finale of Survivor, one of my guilty pleasures.   Each year about the third week into it, I ask myself why I'm watching this stupid show, but by the end, I'm all eager to find out who gets the $1 million.  I usually have a favorite, but this year, I was happy with the 3 finalists and would have been happy whoever won.  The two who did not win seemed to be genuinely gracious about the winner and no hard feelings all around.

Then I watched the finale of Homeland, one of the best shows on TV.   You could tell from the peace and calm and quiet of the first half that the second half was going to have some sort of event that would blow you away, to end the first season.

And boy did it ever.  Don't know how long we have to wait before we see where things go from here, but it will be interesting.

I still have to get through the 2 hour Royal Pains wedding, but as it is already pushing 1 a.m., that may have to wait for tomorrow.

So I'm not sure if today was a day of diligence or a day of sloth...or maybe a healthy combination of the two. which is probably the best way of looking at it.

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The bad news is that Bob may be taken back to the hospital tomorrow.  He has developed a fever, which I hope is something minor and is not going to be a set-back for him.

Mittens

In one of the funniest movies ever made, W.C. Fields' short, The Fatal Glass of Beer, he is sitting in a cabin in Alaska, the snow swirling around the house, and blowing inside the house ('tain't a fit night out for man nor beast).   He's sitting there with the local constable, who asks him to play something on his dulcimer.  

Fields, asks, "You won't consider me rude if I play with my mittens on, will you?"

I don't think anybody would consider me rude if I typed with my mittens on, because first of all, I can't type with mittens on, and second, even if I did, you wouldn't see it.  But lord do I long for mittens today.  We keep our house on the cool side in winter and warm side in summer, but even with the air conditioning or heater going to make the rest of the house comfortable, this office does not benefit from most of the temperature control.

Not only does the air vent seem ineffectual for blowing in either warm or cool air, in the winter especially, there is a dog door which opens about 4 feet from my desk.  It has a cover, of course, but it is not air tight and ... it's bloody cold in here.

To write this entry, I am taking breaks every few paragraphs and going out to the kitchen to stick my hands in the open oven, which is set at a low temperature, to warm the fingers up so I can come back in here and type a bit more.

I've tried putting heaters in here, but there are too many horror stories of heaters causing house fires and this office is just cluttered enough and I am just careless enough that I fear I am ripe for that happening.  But also, the ones I've tried heat up just fine, but within a short period of time it's blazing hot in here, so I'm constantly turning them off and on.  So I just deal with the cold however I have to.

(Why am I suddenly thinking of poor Bob Cratchit huddled over his tiny candle, trying to warm his hands while Scrooge sits in his office hoarding the supply of coal?)

With the arrival of winter and the cold weather, the time was right for Walt to present me with my Christmas present!!!  Some time ago, I added an iPod to my Amazon wish list, never thinking in a million years that he would get one for me, but by golly he started to think about it.  Add to that a little "encouragement" by Char, who has been telling me I need one for the past year, ever since our Rhine trip, and he asked if I was busy today and if not, would I like to go buy an iPad.

First, he had errands to run, and I had a nap to take, and we had our Christmas oranges to put away...

(A small portion of our $40 box of oranges that we get each year)

By the time we finally left, it was nearly dark and raining, but we went anyway.  Instead of going all the way to Sacramento, in the rain, on the second to last Saturday before Christmas to shop at the Apple store, we stopped at the local Target, where they had one iPad 2 (the model I'd decided I wanted) in stock.   

I now have an iPad!!!!!

The evening has been spent trying to get it set up, a both exciting and frustrating task.  I'm trying to get all the programs and games I use most on the thing but first of all, you have to enter an ID for every. single. app. that you download and mine is basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us ...which does not roll trippingly off the fingers, especially after you've done it a dozen times.  Secondly, everybody wants long passwords for security now.  I have about 3 that I use for most places, each between 15-20 characters long.  Sometimes I use caps and sometimes I use punctuation and 99% of the time I can't remember which I've used.   Fortunately years ago, before I started losing my mind, I had the smarts to create a file on which most of my passwords are stored, all coded so I can tell what they are, but the criminals who are going to break into my house and steal my Flickr password will never be able to decipher from "MT99" what the 15 word password is, or what "the usual" means.

So I've been running in here to the office to check passwords and for the sites where I never wrote down the password, setting up new ones.  End result (so far) is that I have most of the programs I want set up and all of the passwords are now recorded on my backup file and I'm in good shape to go to sleep, once I thaw my fingers once again and finish this  entry.

I even downloaded a Kindle app for the iPad because you can read on the iPad at night, but can't on the Kindle, so I can read in the car going and coming from wherever we are driving, since I can have the same book on both machines.

I finished almost everything I needed to do to allow me to work on the iPad instead of the desktop unless I need to use the printer or design a journal page, which means my hands can stay WARM thru the winter!

For now I am using the box the iPad came in as a protective cover because Char has bought me a wonderful cover/keyboard (the final straw in convincing Walt to actually buy this...she told him he had to because she'd already purchased the keyboard for me!).  She is a pearl beyond price.

And...hey...guess what... I have an iPad!!!

Carnage, Chaos, Catastrophe

I will always remember the day of the Columbine shooting.  It was April 20, 1999.  We were all in shock watching the now familiar pictures of children running in fear from their school, the two shooters, the parents in anguish.

I remember it because at 11:30 that night we received word that our son Paul was dead.  The initial report was that he had taken his own life and, searching for reasons to understand the un-understandable, the only precipitating incident that I could find was the Columbine shooting.  He had been severely emotionally affected by violence like that in the past (the particular violent incident I don't remember) and, as unlikely as it was, the shooting was the only thing I could come up with which might have explained what made him so depressed that he would take his own life.

Later, as we began to look at all the evidence, we came to the conclusion that this was just a stupid accident, and nothing he planned (though nothing we could say would convince the coroner of that, and his death is still officially listed as a suicide).  Nobody who knew him, or who had interacted with him in the days surrounding his death could believe that he would have killed himself at that time.

But whatever was in his mind, the last moments of his life, Paul's death and Columbine are forever linked in my mind, so much so that to this day, I can't watch any Columbine retrospectives and when we were in Denver with a group going to see a production of The Last Session in 2000 and most of the group went on a bus tour of the Denver area, which would include a stop at Columbine high school, I chose instead to stay behind and see an extra production of the musical (which turned out to be the very best decision I made).

I didn't know anybody at Columbine, I didn't know any of the children, I have had no interaction with any of the parents or the children at Columbine, but 13 years later, just the name "Columbine" sends a shiver down my spine.

And here we are with a new tragedy to cope with today.  There are homes in Connecticut where Christmas trees are decorated and gifts wrapped with care hiding surprises underneath.  There are stockings waiting to be hung for Santa.   Excited children went off to school this morning and parents waved goodbye as they went to work and nobody had any idea that they would never see each other again, that the stockings would go un-hung and the gifts unwrapped.

The 24/7 news reporters and talking heads are spouting all the same stuff again.  So sad, such a tragedy...broadcasting rumors as fact, bringing in pseudopsychiatrists to analyze the motives of a killer whose name they didn't even know yet.

It has become entirely too familiar.  I don't want tragedy...the death of innocent children and adults...to become ho-hum.  Reality TV that is all too real.  

I heard more than one commentator (and at least one psychiatrist) saying that some of these killers do this kind of thing for the fame, the notoriety, so that their names will join those of all those other famous killers.

THEN WHY CONTINUE TO BROADCAST THE NAME?????

Could we possibly discourage another would-be killer if everybody in the news media said "we've decided not to release the name of any mass murderers."   Sure we could give all the details of the killer's life and the things that may have made up the person that he was and contributed to his decision to slaughter, but keep his bloody name secret.

Everybody knows the names of Dylan Kelbold and Eric Harris...but can anybody name one child killed at Columbine? Or anywhere else where mass killings have occurred?

But we're too thirsty for every ounce of emotion we can wring from a tragedy.  Interview traumatized children about the things they've seen and heard. Now that's a swell thing to do.  

The very worst interview question I heard was a reporter who asked one of the police officers something along the line of "You were in the staging area where the parents were told of the death of their children.  Can you tell us how they're doing?  Can you describe what the scene was like?"

Good God, woman?  What a question.  She didn't get her answer, but she got her money shot, as the officer burst into tears and stammered something about "heartbreaking..." while the camera rolled in for a close-up.   Is nothing sacred?

Of course, I know what Ned is thinking as he reads this -- if people like me didn't watch this stuff, they would have no excuse to keep the cameras rolling. It's like a train wreck.  I couldn't turn the TV off.

In the midst of all the tragedy coming out of Connecticut, report of another tragedy never got any coverage that I found.  Twenty children and one adult were injured in a knife attack outside a primary school in central China.  A woman I pointed this out to was indignant that I would even mention it because those children weren't killed, but merely injured.  And they were in China, where gun laws are more strict, so attacks are done with less lethal weapons.

I want to be optimistic about this world, but I am rapidly losing all hope.

In the meantime, I feel the pain of every single one of those families for the loss of their beautiful children.