Posted on October 8, 2023
We Have No Songs for Great Halls and Evil Times
The past few weeks have been heartbreaking. Russia continues its unjust invasion of Ukraine, purposefully targeting civilians in an effort to break the Ukrainian’s spirit. Azerbaijan launched another attack against Armenia. And just last night, Hamas crossed from Gaza into Israeli territory en masse to murder and abduct civilians.
These are only the events that made significant news—we cannot and should not forget about the tragedies occurring in Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Haiti, Somalia, Mexico, Ethiopia, and everywhere else the scourges of conflict and oppression leads to human suffering. The world appears to be on fire, and that doesn’t even include the literal fires and storms brought on by climate change.
In the midst of this, one of the two political parties of the United States has decided to self-immolate. Regardless of your thoughts on what the U.S. provides for the world, it is inarguable that decisions made by the U.S. have significant ramifications on the global stage. To have one portion of its government crippled at this time could not have happened at a worse time had our adversaries planned it.
There is a line from the Lord of the Rings that comes to mind. Pippin, speaking with the Steward of Gondor, says, “We have no songs fit for great halls and evil times.” Our great hall of the House of Representatives sits empty and paralyzed. Evil men and women make decisions born out of their pride that inflict untold suffering on millions of their brothers and sisters. It is hard to find the words to think about these times, let alone sing for them.
In the Lord of the Rings movie, the quote I mention ends with the Steward making the comment “And why should your songs be unfit for my halls?” In the book, however, he continues:
“We who have lived long under the Shadow may surely listen to echoes from a land untroubled by it? Then we may feel that our vigil was not fruitless, though it may have been thankless.”
Though our land is not untouched by troubles, they are entirely self-inflicted. The cost of that is weighed in our own peace, stability, and yes, lives, but it is also born by those abroad that might have been saved had the power hungry and tyrannical not felt so emboldened.
There are those that think America should cease its vigil. More often than not, those thoughts are fueled by populist rage rather than logic, a shortsighted prioritization designed around campaign fundraising instead of actual statesmanship and strategy. But America—with all its faults and blemishes—has the potential to do so much for so many across the world.
I believe that Americans in their hearts wish for their neighbors to be well. I believe that given the chance and freed from the steady drip feed of hatred and division so carefully delivered by algorithms and manipulators, service to others would become the norm instead of the exception. Perhaps I am naïve. But that is the world I wish to live in, so it is the one I will set as my standard.
I’ll finish with another Lord of the Rings quote, this time from the movie. After a significant setback, Frodo asks his companion Sam what they are holding onto to keep going forward. Sam replies, “That there’s some good in this world, Mr Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”
Fight for that good today. Fight for it tomorrow, and the day after, and every day you can until you have no days left. But most importantly, recognize that we only make progress in that fight through serving others. Rage, spite, and pride give us Hamas and Putin. There is no victory down that path, only pain. Fight with service, humility, and charity. It’s when we reach out to others that we become strong, and the world needs that strength now.
Posted on September 24, 2023
Pun Times
There are times when you have nothing to add to an already perfect moment. When you get to sit back and appreciate the spectacle before you, a simple audience member enjoying a work of art. Today, I had that moment. Today, I watched my wife embrace her inner corn and unleash a pun for the ages.
I enjoy making my wife roll her eyes with corny humor. It is the way of things—I have a son to raise, after all. Generally, the puns in our house travel in a strictly one-way direction. But earlier this week, my wife took me be surprise when she unveiled a pun of her own making that rivals anything I have ever come up with.
Being the kind soul she is, she provided a big selection of s’more themed items for her coworkers. But her presenting the idea to me is where I saw her true greatness. Brace yourself: she called it the s’mores-gasbord.
I know, right? It’s a close call on if I was prouder of her in that moment or our son when he took his first steps.
That, however, was not the moment of perfection. No, that came later. My wife and her mother videochat on a weekly basis because they have a wonderful relationship and we live in an era where technology is basically wizardry. I mention this because it allowed us to witness her mother’s reaction when my wife revealed her true punistry.
To say her mother’s reaction was exquisite does not do it justice. Not since Caeser uttered the words, “Et tu, Brute?” has there been such a palpable sense of betrayal. This poor woman has raised four sons and is no stranger to the pun. Her daughter had been an oasis of standards in a storm of corn, but the power of the pun cannot be denied.
She came. She saw. She conquered.
I Love her so much.
Updated on September 11, 2023
On the Ingratitude of Birds
As has been remarked upon by literally every parent, having a child changes things. In this case, it resulted in a child’s obsession, a wall of chickens, and my growing resentment towards ungrateful birds.
My son loves birds. I nurtured this feeling as I once shared his fondness. Growing up, I had a cockatiel named Bird that screeched sweet songs to the entire family at all hours of the day. As a young boy, this was a wonderful situation that brought me great amusement. So of course, I wanted to shepherd my son’s journey down a similar path.
Birds, though, have the gift of flight. Toddlers, thankfully, do not. This made it difficult for him to observe his avian friends, as his excited shrieking and flailing sprints towards them has a 100% success rate at scaring them away. What he needed was a way to observe them from inside the house. A station of sorts for the birds to alight upon, where he could behold their majesty without instilling panic in their little hearts.
He needed a bird feeder.
Into the car we went, off to the local Petco whose website assured me had multiple bird feeders in stock. Even better, this Petco also has cats from the local adoption agency (cats being my son’s favorite creature, because I’m raising him right). We would find much joy and merriment there, I figured, then return home to settle in for an afternoon of bird watching.
Alas, it was not to be. The cat area sat as empty as my hopes soon came to be, and the promised bird feeders failed to materialize. We wandered the aisles in a forlorn stupor, shocked that a corporate behemoth would have the audacity to lie to its customers. I did, anyways—my son burbled with excitement every time he saw a package of cat food with a feline pictured on it.
Many would shrug their shoulders at this point and head home, but not I. I am a good father, and like all good fathers, the appropriate course of action was to take my 15-month son to the back corner of a sketchy looking strip mall to what Google maps assured me was a vendor of fine bird feeders.
We couldn’t see what awaited us at the facility as it sat behind a decrepit stairwell and the chain link fence that kept the monster contained in The Sandlot. But what we couldn’t see, we could certainly hear—a cacophony of bird sounds. It was as though a Taiwanese parliamentary brawl had erupted just around the corner, but with words replaced by bird noises. And legislators with birds. Really, it was nothing like that, but I was excited to see it nonetheless.
Yet when we rounded the corner, what we saw instead was an entire wall of chickens. Dozens of them, stacked up in neat little rows, staring right back at us. If you’ve never felt the gaze of a hundred chickens, I assure you that it is an experience worth noting. It carries a palpable weight, as if to say, “Had this meeting occurred 80 million years ago, the roles of diner and dinner would be forcibly reversed.”
Once past the poultry descendants of mightier beings, we entered the store itself. A quick glance revealed feed options for a variety of farm animals, a triplet of workers confused to see a toddler in their place of business, and a lack of bird feeders.
One of the workers asked what they could help me with in the tones of someone trying to calm a spooked animal, which I appreciated. I asked if they carried bird feeders, to which they asked if I meant for chickens (of which they had a startingly wide variety). Once we clarified I meant wild birds, one of the workers perked up.
“Yeah!” he said, my new hero striding forward to save the day. “I think we’ve had these hanging here for three years now.”
Undeterred by the underwhelming sales pitch, my son and I waited for our hero to retrieve the Grail of our quest. He then proceeded to knock the bird feeder off a ceiling hook with a stick. “Ten bucks,” the modern Sir Lancelot said, handing over the cheap plastic.
Bird feeder and five pounds of bird seed in hand, we returned home in triumph. My son did his happy toddler dance as we hung it up right outside his favorite window. The stage was set for hours of happy birdwatching, now all we had to do was wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Three days have passed, and not a single winged creature has taken us up on this generous offer of free food. I’d think we had entered a birdpocolypse if not for the hundreds of other birds I’ve seen flying around our house. They appear content with being everywhere except for where the birdfeeder sits, to include slamming headfirst into the very window the birdfeeder sits in front of.
On day one, I thought perhaps our birds needed time to adjust. There are plenty of neighborhood cats, after all—can I blame them for wanting to scope out the situation to make sure it isn’t a trap?
On day two, I thought perhaps our birds are just stupid. Their cranial capacity would struggle to contain a moderately sized peanut, after all—can I blame them for their inability to process higher order thoughts like my generosity?
Sitting here on day three, staring out the window near my desk at the still-unused bird feeder, I now have a different theory.
These birds are spiteful. They see my offer, this olive branch of kindness in exchange for nothing more than their presence at the feeder to fill a young life with joy, and they scoff. They laugh at my naiveite, scorning both my food and offer of shelter with their beaks in the air. I knew the animal world was cruel, but this…this is too much.
I am a creature of the internet, so I have turned to Google for advice on how to proceed. The first result? “Be patient.”
Birds, man.
Posted on August 27, 2023
Someday
Tom Cruise is apparently this week’s muse. My initial idea for today’s Wandering was to review the latest Mission Impossible movie. When I talked through it with my wife, though, the conversation strayed into territory covered by a separate Cruise movie—Knight and Day. In it, Cruise’s character makes the following comment: “Someday. That’s a dangerous word. It’s really just a code for ‘never’.” Someday has been on my mind a lot, lately.
There’s nothing particularly deep about either that quote or the movie it comes from. You’d be tempted to write it off as another teen exploring the depths of their shallow angst. But I think we’re too quick to dismiss simple concepts as somehow beneath us. It’s as if we’re so desperate to appear wise and mature that we automatically scoff at the simple clichés of youth. Yet we forget that some of the most impressive figures in history have praised the value of simplicity. Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Bruce Lee—all people who led lives steeped in excellence with a fixation on simplicity. Sometimes, what we need most is a simple truth.
Someday hovers in the no-man’s land between a wish and a goal. We use it when we let ourselves taste the anticipation of an accomplishment, but refuse to put in the effort required to earn it. Someday I’ll travel to that exotic locale. Someday I’ll get that promotion. Someday I’ll write that book.
But not today. Never today, because today has challenges and obstacles too numerous to count. Today we are burdened with the reality of need instead of the hope of want. When faced with today, we take whatever comfort we can in the ethereal nature of someday.
I see this in myself. There’s a calligraphy pen set next to my computer that remains virtually untouched, an editing checklist for my novel stalled at the halfway point, and a host of other concepts and desires waiting for their someday. As long as they have that wisp of an anchor to cling to, I can pretend that they are a part of me. My identity claims them as future accomplishments, regardless of how much time goes into achieving them. After all, someday I will.
Let us all strive to be a bit more like Tom Cruise this week. Trade in your hundreds of translucent somedays for the heft and realism of one solid today. Who knows—maybe someday it’ll pay off.
Posted on August 13, 2023
Handicaps and Flaws
Generally speaking, interesting characters have to overcome obstacles. That’s why Superman bores me. It’s hard for the most powerful being around to face challenges that don’t immediately turn absurd. Something writers think about when developing those characters is whether an internal obstacle is a flaw or a handicap. Don’t confuse the two—a flaw can stem from a handicap, but a handicap itself is never a flaw. Let me explain.
Handicaps are limitations that a character has no choice in, but likely has to work around in pursuit of their goals. Examples include paralysis, mental illnesses, loss of limbs, etc. Flaws, however, are personal defects fully within the character’s ability to change. Examples here are rudeness, ignorance, pridefulness, etc. So when I say a flaw can stem from a handicap, think of Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump. After losing his legs, the good Lieutenant became bitter and unpleasant. The flaw was not that he lost his legs, it was his new outlook based on that event. We like him as a character because with Gump’s help, he overcame that flaw and got a new lease on life shrimping with his friend.
This subject hit closer to home for me this weekend as I considered my own minor handicap. I have relatively significant motion sickness, ranging from unpleasant to debilitating depending on the activity. This handicap has dogged me my entire life. My dad likes to tell stories about how as a child, I’d consistently vomit multiple times whenever we took extended car trips to visit family. That’s the reason I’m the primary driver in my family—my wife knows I’m still liable to get sick if I’m in the passenger seat.
It goes far beyond carsickness, of course. My motion sickness is responsible for me having to abandon my first career choice in the military as a pilot (they tend to frown on projectile vomiting at the controls). It’s also the reason I haven’t pursued a slew of activities that I love to do. That list contains the following: skydiving, jet skiing, paragliding, SCUBA, surfing, roller coasters, and literally anything involving a boat. As of this week, I can now add kiteboarding and virtual reality to that list.
It’s a hard thing to desperately want to do something while knowing your body will make you miserable if you try it. Yes, I recognize that my handicap isn’t nearly as traumatic or restricting as many others. But it is an impairment that restricts me from a host of different actions that I would otherwise do, so it has an impact on my life and those around me.
And please, no helpful suggestions of “just take Dramamine!” Believe me, I’ve tried. When you’re curled up on the floor of your hotel room on your birthday praying for the room to stop spinning hours after your latest failed boat excursion while using prescription-strength anti-nausea patches, you lose a little bit of faith in medicine’s ability to assist.
Handicaps are what they are, and usually there’s no way to fix them. Flaws, though, that we can work on. This is where my thoughts went this week as I scratched another two activities off my list of potential hobbies. Every time something like this happens, I tend to sink into a funk. Wallowing in self-pity over my inner ear issues accomplishes nothing, but I still give it a try just in case. Thus, my flaw comes to the surface.
Does the situation suck? Undoubtably. Does that mean I have to act like it does? Absolutely not. There’s a difference between acknowledging the reality of a situation and allowing it to gain control over your attitude. The former is required to regain forward momentum and plan effectively. The latter bogs you down in a morass that will restrict your every thought and movement until it becomes as crippling as the handicap itself. One enlightens and emboldens, the other restricts and consumes.
I’m done letting it consume me.
Posted on July 30, 2023
Spirit and Letter: Israel in Crisis
“Israel in Crisis” has led many headlines over the years. Rarely, though, has it been so self-inflicted. I spent a considerable amount of time in Israel across a dozen-plus trips over four years. My Israeli counterparts and I worked hand-in-hand that entire time to help prevent indiscriminate violence, work I am still proud of today. The news from Israel over the past week has been heartbreaking to me on a personal level. Because a few men have chosen to pursue power by favoring the letter of the law over the spirit of the law, one of the few functioning democracies in the region is on the verge of collapse.
For those unaware, the crisis boils down to this: the Israeli Knesset (their parliament) just passed a law saying they can ignore Israel’s supreme court. While technically there is no law saying they can’t do this, the spirit of the law clearly says otherwise. Functionally, there is now no check on the ruling coalition’s power. They could, for example, pass a law with a simple majority saying all elections are indefinitely postponed. Assuming the ruling coalition maintained that position, the only way to overturn it would be through protest or violence. Given that the last six months of protests didn’t stop Prime Minister Netanyahu from taking this step, prospects for that first path appear dark.
The opposition has already challenged the new law, and there is zero chance the supreme court will not take up the case. I would say the odds are high that they find the new law unreasonable and strike it down. Netanyahu has refused to say whether he would accept such a ruling. Thus, a crisis ensues: who is correct? Depending on where certain elements of society fall—the police, the security services, the military, etc.—one side or the other will prevail. And unfortunately, the party that better commands the state’s monopoly on force tends to triumph in situations like this.
The situation is far more complex than a few paragraphs can relay, and the situation will likely shift prior to the supreme court’s decision and Netanyahu’s reaction. While it may seem like a problem for “over there” instead of at home, any action that tilts the global attitude towards authoritarianism is one that should concern anyone who values their freedom. Time will tell if this is the final crisis of Israel as we know it.
Posted on July 17, 2023
Hawaiian Studs
Hawaii is many things. Island paradise, tourist destination, and one of the most welcoming cultures around? Without a doubt. One thing it is not, however, is a mecca for standardized construction practices.
My son—bless his heart—hasn’t met a staircase he doesn’t immediately want to fling himself off of at top speed. You’d think given he just learned to walk two months ago, that speed would be limited. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong. He’s a sprinting prodigy, especially when you look away for half a heartbeat. Enter the baby gate. With plastic and nylon, I will constrain his kamikaze runs to flat terrain. But given his proclivity toward mixing mass and inertia, a pressure gate ain’t gonna cut it. We went all in for the kind you screw into the wall, several inches of hard steel to hold the line against the rampaging toddler.
The thing about screws, though, is they need to screw into something. Not a problem, I thought. I’ve got a wooden post on one side, and the corner of a wall on the other. Surely, that corner has a stud to drill into. Surely, the builders of this 1989 home didn’t create an open cavity out of drywall paneling with no support. Surely, such madness only exists for those who have spiders in their heads.
Alas, seven drilled holes later and nothing but a dusting of drywall dandruff to show for my efforts. My head spiders are twitching.
I was so flummoxed by the situation, I called my dad—a man with significantly more experience being useful than I do. He looked at it through the video, asked a few questions, then concluded that the original builders must have been insane. While that made me feel better, it didn’t do anything to resolve the Evel Knievel toddler situation. So now I have to add a Home Depot trip this week to go grab a stud finder since my wife is out of town (heyo!).
I can’t blame the construction workers, though. With how many termites this island has, any construction out of wood is living on borrowed time anyways.
Posted on July 2, 2023
Big Trouble in Little Moscow: Wagner, Prigozhin, and Putin
In one of the more mindboggling turns of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I get to write the following sentence: a former caterer-turned-mercenary-warlord led an armed insurrection against the Russian government. His Wagner forces got within a few hundred kilometers of Moscow—with no indication that anything could stop them—before abruptly deciding he was done and accepting exile in Belarus. This was, as they say, big news.
Countless pundits and internet warriors have examined those wild hours ad nauseum to see what they might mean, and the general consensus is that it’s a bad look for Putin, but it’s too early to tell what will come of it. I agree with that sentiment, but I’m more interested in the deal that resulted in Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, calling it quits. Theoretically, Belarus’s dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko, brokered the deal, but he’s Putin’s purse pooch, so let’s not give him too much credit. This was a deal between Putin and Prigozhin, and I would give a not-insubstantial amount of money to have a recording of that conversation. And fluency in Russian.
Prigozhin’s goal was to win his feud with Russian military leadership, primarily the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. Both men were part of Putin’s inner circle, but Prigozhin overestimated Putin’s commitment to him and Wagner as Putin chose to back Shoigu instead. Once that happened, Prigozhin had to find an out— preferably one that doesn’t involve him committing suicide by being thrown out of a window.
Obviously, part of that deal was driven by Prigozhin realizing he was in over his head. Sure, given the lack of any real defenses between where his forces were and Moscow, there was a solid chance he could take the Kremlin (assuming the Russian Air Force didn’t carpet bomb them). But what then? The odds of the oligarchs, Russian military, and Russian security services pledging loyalty to Prigozhin was nil, and he had to have recognized that. His goal from the deal is easy—survival. His card to play? 2,500 armed veteran mercenaries a few hours from the Kremlin.
Putin shared the same goal out of this deal. When you’re at the top of a vicious pile of knife-wielding autocrats, the goal of every day is survival. What changed here was Prigozhin bringing the contest out of the shadows into the open. That’s bad juju for any leader whose entire power base relies on fear. Putin, then, had three options. He could throw in with Prigozhin, crush the mercenary without mercy, or find a middle ground. The first option was out because it would make Putin look weaker than the insurrection already had. The second was out because he didn’t have the forces to do so in a timely manner, and he’s already losing credibility with the oligarchs, the military, and average Russians over the boondoggle of his Ukraine invasion.
Compromise remained the only viable option. Prigozhin agreed to not play his trump card of sacking the Kremlin, and Putin agreed to not kill Prigozhin. Granted, we’ll see how long that promise holds—Putin’s enemies tend to have prematurely shortened lifespans.
The interesting part of this deal is that it seems Prigozhin gets to keep his card. Belarus has announced that they’ll be playing host to Wagner going forward, and the mercenary outfit has not ceased its recruitment efforts across Russia. So unless Prigozhin mysteriously disappears or shoots himself in the back several times, he has the potential to flip the table again on Putin. I don’t know who in the writing room is putting together these outlandish storylines, but we’re only halfway through season 2023 of Humanity and it’s already gone off the rails. I don’t know if I’m dreading or excited for the season finale.
Posted on June 18, 2023
Father’s Day Round Two
Today is my second Father’s Day as an actual father. This one sinks in deeper than the first given that during the first, my son was basically a semi-sentient potato capable only of pooping and crying. Now, however, he has grown and entered toddlerhood, and wow is there a difference.
For one, he communicates now. He’s got a few words, even if they don’t sound quite like what they eventually will (he leaves the L’s off of ball, which is adorable). He also know how to indicate when he wants certain things, which is a huge improvement off the old method of everyone crying as his mother and I pushed various items into his hands until we guessed the right one.
He’s also started developing his own tastes and preferences. When we first started feeding him solid foods, he inhaled everything like the vacuum cleaner he has recently become obsessed with. Now he’s getting a touch more picky, with some items (fruits, cheesy eggs) reaching a level of transendence and others (veggies) being used primarily as ammunition for throwing practice.
But what I enjoy the most are the moments where he expresses his love for his mother and I. The burrowing of his face into my shoulder as I pick him up when he wakes from a nap. The grin that somehow appears wider than his giant head he gives when he looks up from his toys and sees me. How he cuddles into me after he hands me the book he wants me to read two pages from before scurrying off to grab another. Each one just a fleeting moment, but each one precious beyond time’s ability to measure.
There is an entire world of wonder and joy I want to show my son, and these first steps I’ve taken with him are already more amazing than I could have dreamed of. It will be an adventure of a lifetime to see where else those steps will take us.
And lest I forget, a humble thank you to my father for giving me the example of what a dad should be. You set the standard, and it’s one I strive to reach every day.
Posted on June 4, 2023
So It Begins
One of the worst parts about military service is that you can be seperated from your family for mission requirements. In this case, my lovely wife has to endure nine long, grueling, humid weeks in Alabama. This is not ideal, as one might imagine. On top of how I miss the love of my life for her joy, her kindness, and her beauty, I have come to depend quite a bit on her for ensuring I don’t backslide into the morass of bachelor aesthetics and grooming. Truly, these are dark days.
Most pressing, however, is the care of our son. If you are not a parent, I can assure you that an 11 month old child is not exactly “free range” capable. In the past week alone, he has decided a new favorite activity is to attempt to run off the stairs at full speed, trusting he will be caught. He also has decided he must eat literally everything–his cravings know no mortal bounds.
I write this not to complain, but to explain how this next part came to be. You see, my wife and I share responsibilities in our home, but there are some that lean in one direction or the other. I do the dishes and mow the lawns, she tolerates my puns and keeps the house in order. One clear area of dilineation: dressing our son. I have the fashion sense of a naked mole rat, and no one appreciates my vision for how to make colors clash just right. My wife, horrified at the first attempts of me dressing our child, firmly took that role away so he would not be traumatized. I trust you begin to see the issue now with her absence.
Luckily, I have found the perfect solution to this conundrum. Just days after she left, a casual conversation gave me an epiphany that hit with the force of thunder thunder lightning, very very frightening. Clothes are awful in general, but there is one type that transcends all others. One that is easy to use, great to see, and all around amazing.
Kilts.
Now my son is rocking his very own kilt, just like his dad before him. And due to my wife being roughly 4,367 miles away at present, there’s nothing she can do to stop this bold step into the future of toddler fashion. Let the good times roll!
