Hair Study

So, I was at my niece Miranda’s graduation and her last name is rather late in the alphabet.  Given 300 or so graduates, it was quite a wait.  Not to be bored, however, I found something interesting to do.  And who says barbers and stylists are the only people who find hair a bit interesting!

Preludes

To a Manhattan spring:

And a lifelong love of chocolate!

Happy first birthday, Alice!

Music to Start Your Day

Heart warming story and a wonderful voice of Ani Choying Drolma ; a Nepali/Tibetan “Sound of Music” story.  Click here to see the NPR story and listen to a sound track.

Super Video of Space Shuttle Launches

For those who are fans of our space program, and of the 30 years of the Shuttle’s trips into orbit, these videos are outstanding and well worth the 60 minutes it takes to view them.  So, click here, set the video to full screen mode and kick back to watch.

Time to Ban "Utilize" From the English Language

For years I've been seething about the incredibly common use of the awkward, flow-breaking, three-syllable word "utilize".  It pops up everywhere in conversation and on the written page.  I came across this linguistic black head five times in the New York Times Op-Ed section this morning and that prompts this post.

Why the hell is "u-til-ize" spoken and written so often when a simple, one-syllable, three letter word works so much better?  Is it bureaucratic or academic pretentiousness at fault?  A disdain for the simple?  I don't know, but I do know that substituting "use" in its place drops any hint of pretentiousness or complexity.

There is, properly, a use for "utilize".  That is when the speaker or writer intends to modify the word "use" with "profitably", or "constructively"; e.g., "I brought the wrong tools so I couldn't utilize my time."  But "utilize" is used wrongly so frequently that the proper distinction between the two words is now lost.  As a result I think it would be better to go with "I brought the wrong tools so I couldn't use my time effectively".

Come on folks, it's time to stop utilizing "utilize" when a simple "use" will do just fine.

Hummingbirds II

About a week ago "my" first flock of Canadian geese came honking over the house and splashed into my creek for an overnight stay on their way south -- a harbinger of the fall season.  The next morning I noticed that two or three of my hummingbirds had also disappeared -- presumably on their way south.  I've still got two hummingbirds hanging around, but the rambunctious, playful behavior that has characterized the birds for most of the summer is gone as well.  Perhaps the hummingbirds still here are the older, more staid birds, that came up from the south this spring and parented the several that hatched in the early summer, while the younger birds -- anxious for their first trip beyond Hollywood -- left a little early.  Or maybe the older birds are the ones that took off knowing the strenuous nature of their flight to Central or South America and the younger birds, motivated by instinct, have gotten serious about fattening up for the day their genes instruct them to get moving south and found that their playful "dog fights" and strafing displays consume too many calories.  I wish I had the knowledge and eye-sight to recognize individual hummingbirds, but I know that few people do.

Soft Landing

In any case, the two birds that are still using my feeders will be taking off any day now.  I wish my birds well as they begin their long flight.  I understand that their route south gets them to the Gulf Coast where they follow the coast line down through Texas and into Mexico.  Over the years they've learned that this is hurricane season and a straight flight over the Gulf is too dangerous to attempt.  In the spring, however, many do make non-stop flights over the Gulf coming north, instinctively, genetically knowing that the risk in the spring is considerably less.

I'll keep my hummingbird feeders up for another month or so in case birds starting their migration from more northern summer homes need them for some quick calories along their route south.  And I look forward to the day in the spring when my same birds return to pester and remind me to put the feeders back up.

Fly safe!

RIP, Dan Terry (Woodstock Class of 1965)

Dan Terry was a schoolmate of mine at Woodstock, a classmate of my sister Jessie (class of '65).  He and 9 other members of his group were lined up and executed 2 days ago by the Taliban while on a medical mission to a remote area of Afghanistan.  Dan devoted his professional life to the poor in Afghanistan and was one of their best friends.  He lived there with his family through the Russian occupation, civil war, the Taliban era of rule, and now the American led war against the Taliban.  The killing of Dan & his colleagues was senseless and stupid, and I hope that we, including the Taliban and those fighting them, will learn from their deaths.

I remember Dan from my Woodstock years, but I didn't know him well.  These quotes and links will describe him and his work much better than I could do:

First, today's Huffington Post story from AP:  click here and read down through the middle of the article where Dan is discussed.

Second, here's a quote from one of Dan's emails to the chair of this year's organizing committee for Woodstock's annual reunion.  We were hoping Dan could participate somehow in the reunion as a workshop leader discussing global citizenship and how Woodstock prepared him for the work he has been doing in Afghanistan.  His response tells us a lot about his remarkable qualities as a human being, the strategy that guided his work, and his love for the people he served:

"Eager to participate in any such related discussion.  I'm far from 'keynote' material but would readily participate in panel presentation and open floor discussion.  My schedule is uncertain but would likely necessarily override any commitment I could make.  So I could only be a raincheckee on this.  A Woodstock venue would be far easier for me than Wash DC.

It's urgent to appreciate and put to immediate use experience and insight found within and with context of the greater Woodstock community...in promoting 'doing as we talking'.  In Afghanistan I feel less intimidated, dispossessed,  the less I intimidate or hold in contempt.  More enfranchised the more I enfranchise.   Opposite numbers or catagorical enemies have rescued me and more than my marbles again and again.  There is new testimony to share to provide new context when so much of the time we disastrously just are not getting it out there!  Actually invest in the 'bad guys' and they tend to disappear (as such).  Allow us to re-invent ourselves.  Allow us to change the color and wrap of our lungi turbans...just let us get close!  In our heart of hearts its actually much more fun to just hang out with you than kosher your throat.  So count me in in theory and principle at least!   --Dan Terry"

Third, here's a quote from an email sent to friends of Dan's by a Woodstock alumnus on whom Dan had a great impact.  Gil Halsted, who authored this email, currently works for NPR in Wisconsin.

Dear Friends of Dan Terry,

I am still in shock, though truth be told since the war began almost nine years ago  now I expected this. Dan is the reason I came to Woodstock to spend my senior year of high school there. It was through his eyes and the eyes of Ruth and their parents that my view of the world changed radically in the summer of 1970 when I drove overland from Europe to India and back in a VW bus. With us on the trip over were Dan, George Taylor,  my father, and a classmate of Dan's from Baker  College whose name I've forgotten. I remember that drive across Afghanistan both ways as if it was yesterday. Pulling into Herat and seeing a parade of dusty and bedraggled hippies shuffling along through the bazaar, and mischievous young Afghan boys winking at  me as they offered to sell me hashish. On the way back with Dan's entire family, a Peace Corps volunteer and one of Ruth's classmates whose names I have forgotten, we went through Bamiyan getting there via roads some of which were half washed out or partially blocked by landslides. I climbed to the top of the huge, now non existent, Buddhas. Dan and that trip to India and back rocked my world. I have never been the same. I mourn with all of you for the loss of this shy, kind, adventurous and  gentle spirit. I searched the web yesterday to try to find out if Dan was among those killed and felt relieved when I couldn't find his name associated with any of the reports. It was a terrible blow to receive this note confirming his death.

Gil