Redneck Medicine

They say ninety percent of being a doctor's learning the vocabulary...I'm partway there!

Pokemon Amnesia

Seventy years ago, the United States fought the Empire of Japan for the control of the Pacific Hemisphere. We won.

That reminder, that "we won" isn't entirely facetious, because while the US has made the Second World War part of its cultural history, the Japanese have made a concerted - and relatively successful - effort to eradicate it from the national memory.

Part of the reason is rooted in the work Douglas MacArthur did in setting up an Occupation Government that would later transfer back to independence. MacArthur did not want militarism to come rising out of its unquiet grave. Putting it there the first time was costly to the US, and to the Japanese (who endured two atomic bombs before giving up).

Another part is cultural, and not completely accessible to the Western mind. Japan in the early 20th century took most of its cultural cues from Bushido, which roughly translates as "the way of the warrior". Bushido is, or was, a large part of the Japanese soul, but it changed with the times almost as a living thing, The version which led Japan to a war they could never win was popularized in the 20s and 30s, and has some significant differences from the version first codified under the title Hagakure in the late 18th century.

One very important distinction is that the savagery toward the enemy, and toward civilians in the crossfire was utterly banned by traditional Bushido. Another distinction is the Death Culture that was used to develop and deploy the kamikaze. While the individual Japanese soldier was supposed to be ever-ready to die, he was not supposed to simply kill himself, or attach into the teeth of a the American military simply to meet a good end on the field.

I think it's this that has caused a deep feeling of shame and revulsion among the Japanese who survived the War - as it should have. The result is that the memories have gone into a sturdy - and seldom-opened - box. Their presence in the front room of the Japanese soul has been taken by the vapidity of Pokemon and Hello Kitty.

It's understandable, and it's tragic. The shame is being buried, but so are the memories of strength and fortitude that should help any country when the chips are down. The kamikazes - "tokko boys" - were neither press-ganged nor brainwashed. The really believed that a victorious United States would ravage their home and families, and these young men meant to keep that from happening. The only weapon left, they were told (and it was true) was to embrace the fatal choice, and in their deaths make the price for invading the home islands so great that the enemy would just strike their tents and go home.

(What wasn't true was the supposition that Americans were barbarians. When our troops got to Japan, they were more interested in teaching kids how to play baseball than they were in looting and pillaging. Americans would have made lousy Vikings or Visigoths.)

It was a strategy which might have worked, too, but for the fertile mind of one Albert Einstein.

Can you imagine making this choice? It's part of our culture, too - the Alamo comes pretty close without the suicidal aspect, and the phrase "save the last bullet for yourself" covers that nicely. But we managed to avoid the perversion of the ideal. Japan, sadly, did not.

And so, Japan beats it swords into plowshares, and the War, likes its fast-dwindling number of surviving veterans, dwindles away to myth and legend.

And to Pokemon.

Keeping the "We" in Wedding - Pt. 2

While the specific intention of Date Night is a big factor in keeping romance in a marriage, there are other things we can do to help keep the atmosphere conducive to maintaining that warm emotional bond - with the spice of heart-fluttering excitement.

1. Respect for your spouse's contribution to your shared life - This means being thankful - in words - for what he or she does. Doesn't matter if it's their 'expected' division of labor. The point is that your spouse has chosen to be with you, and chosen a life that includes making dinner, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry, taking out the trash...there is a lot that is being done for you, and it's only right to say 'thanks'. Every time.
2. Respect for your spouse as a person - Do you ever say something critical to your wife or husband that you wouldn't say to your boss, or to a friend, under similar circumstances? if you said yes, then you're taking advantage of the 'special' relationship. Your spouse has a vested interest in the relationship, and you can be less considerate - and oft-times, more cruel - than you  would be to someone who can simply walk away (or, in the case of a boss, suggest that you walk away).
3. Reliability - Do what you say you're going to do, without excuses. If you promised to clean the gutters but your favorite team's made the playoffs - too bad. You made a promise, and while you can be released from that promise, you can't either ignore it, nor ask for release, nor do the work in an attitude of resentment. The team you support really doesn't care whether you watch them or not. But your spouse cares, very much, about being with a person who will do what he says he'll do.
4. Present a united front - In public, your obligation is to support your spouse - no matter what. You don't laugh at jokes at his expense (unless he makes the joke), and you certainly never make a joke at his expense. Your spouse deserves to know that "you've got his back".
5. Be thoughtful - Guys, open doors for your wives. Car doors, church doors, you name it - you open it. If it's cold, your coat is suddenly hers, and you do not complain. Ladies, don't greet your husband on Saturday morning with a list of things you want done by three in the afternoon. 
6. Be giving - Everyone loves gifts that say "I'm thinking of you". Men like flowers, even if they have no idea what they are. Just make sure that the gift is for your spouse's pleasure - not yours. Giving your wife a copy of the action-adventure DVD you want to see will get you a strained "thanks", and the knowing that you did what you wanted, while trying to look good.
7.  Be unexpectant - What you do, do for love, and for the look in your spouse's eyes that says, I feel safe, I feel loved, I feel wanted". Guys, the minute you connect any of these with the expectation of sex, either in the immediate or the no-too-distant future  (and that is what most men do), you've destroyed a part of the bond you're trying to nurture. Sure, you may get what you want - after all, you paid for it. How does that sound?

The environment of love and care that is within your power to keep in vibrant life is worth more than any job, more than any accomplishment. It's what makes the good times better, and makes the bad times bearable.

What does the picture have to do with the subject? The puppies look like their practicing skydiving positions together - and isn't marriage a bit like jumping out of an airplane, in the faith that you'll have a soft landing?

What does your spouse do, in the course of normal life, that makes your marriage more romantic?

Keep The "We" in Wedding - Pt. 1

To begin - "romance" is a seven-letter word, and it does not begin with "s" nor does it end with "x".

Romance, in a marriage, is what reminds us of what we dreamed for the relationship. It's said that "men give love to get sex, and women give sex to get love".

Hogwash. Both men and women are affected deeply by the romantic underpinnings of a developing relationship. Men get weak-kneed at a whiff of their beloved's perfume, and it's not because the blood starts flowing somewhere else. They're taken by the romantic, by the emotional connection that promises to fulfill a need to deep for any psychologist to unearth.

The trouble is that after a few weeks of a shared bathroom and shared checkbook and "I didn't know she snored", romance begins to fade. It's not a question of "the hunt successfully completed" and the focus turning elsewhere - men want to be in love with their wives, but they begin to forget how to Keep the We. Men will start reverting to their 'single' way of thinking, and start looking for ways to spend time with their friends, watch sports, or spend Saturday loafing.

It's not entirely their fault (mostly, not entirely). Women will often move from a focus on the relationship to a focus on nest-building. A hug or cuddle will be interrupted by a request to have a look at color swatches, and weekends get programmed with what will soon be referred to as honey-do lists.

It doesn't have to be this way. A few simple things, if practiced, will help to keep the flower healthy and watered, and won't let it become a pressed rose, drying in grandfather's Bible. One of these is Date Night; here are some suggestions...

1. Recognize that keeping romance alive takes work - It didn't take work during courtship - it was "the work". But now romantic time has to compete with domestic life, and unless it's given priority, it's guaranteed to lose. Why? Because the person who wants to spend 'couple time' when there are tasks to be accomplished will be seen as less effective, and 'dreamy'. It's pride at work.
2. Make dates - set aside time at home for a movie, or time for a night out. Make that time special - if you're at home and want to wear PJ's while watching, fine, but shower, put on cologne or perfume, and use your nice PJ's. If you're going out - even to McDonald's - dress up.
3. Celebrate the dates - make some sort of permanent record of your date nights - a note to one another, or a picture, or a pair of saved movie tickets, in your scrapbook.
4. Keep the memories - speaking of scrapbooks, keep one that's devoted to your relationship - not the kids, not the family, not the dogs, but just the two of you.
5. Guys, watch your hands - when you're cuddling on the sofa watching, well, whatever, guys, keep your hands where they could be if your pastor would walk in and join you. It's important for women to be wanted sexually, yes - but it's much more important to be respected. Pawing isn't respect - it's taking advantage of a situation - taking advantage of the fact that your wife probably won't say anything because she doesn't want to spoil to mood.
6.  Give the date closure - just because you live together and are going to sleep in the same bed doesn't mean that the date doesn't deserve a proper ending. A nice hug and kiss, a few words to say, "that was fun, I enjoyed your company" is appropriate.

Your marriage is the most important relationship you'll have, and almost every religion sees it as a sacrament for God's love for us. Doesn't it make sense to do the maintenance, so the dream that we shared during those first hesitant steps together can become real?

What do you do in your marriage, to keep romance flourishing?

Friends

How many friends do you have?

Not Facebook Friends...it's not that they aren't real friends, in the potential or the actual, but I'm talking about the kind of person you can call on the phone at 3 am, and you'll never have to think about apologizing.  (And spouses don't count, for this one.)

About the kind of friend whose car breaks down on a Saturday morning, and you throw them your keys and change your weekend plans without hesitation or resentment.

And when the chips are down, the kind of friend for whom, if they got in trouble in a distant country, you'd follow the advice of the old Warren Zevon song, and bring "lawyers, guns, and money" to get them home.

I have a few...one hand would suffice to count them. Let me introduce two - a former student who won my heart by playing computer games in class, while I was trying to teach the design of reinforced concrete buildings; and a fellow writer who, if I gave up to my illness, gave in, and died, would follow me to Hell and kill me again. So there.

And, interestingly (for me, anyway), I met all of these people as an adult. It's said by some that the real friends you carry through your life you make in childhood, but it hasn't worked out that way for me.

And there are people who are moving toward that place in my heart. None moving away, for which I thank God.

I was going to write this post as a list of things to do to make a friend, but I realized that it would be a pretty short list. For the record, here it is:

1. Keep an open heart

That's it. If you keep your heart open and alive to the possibility of someone coming and knocking on your heart's door, you'll have covered almost the full distance needed to make the kind of friend that you need - that we all need.

That we all need. The follow-on is that the friends you make help everyone. Compare our society to chain mail...old-fashioned armor made up of zillions of little interlocking rings. An individual ring hooks onto a few immediately around it, but those links are absolutely necessary for the integrity of the whole. One link all by itself is as useless as nail polish for a sheep, but that link, connected by others, is absolutely necessary.

Maybe that's what Christ was trying to say, when he said that "wherever two or more are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them".

He's saying that everybody needs a friend.

How many good friends can you count? How did you meet them?

And just for the record, did you know you can get a chain-mail bikini top? 

Remember Us

As I write this, it's November 11, 2012 - Remembrance Day in Canada, Veteran's Day in the US, Armistice Day is many other countries. It's the anniversary of the cessation of hostilities that ended World War One, at 11 am on November 11, 1918. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

World War One was supposed to be the War To End All Wars - the introduction of the machine gun, the airplane, the submarine, and the use of poison gas on the battlefield was supposed to make the prospect of war so ghastly that the sword would be forever sheathed. It didn't happen.

All war is waste - and no glory. But World War One did hit some high points in the wastage of human potential...on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Allies lost over 20,000 men. In a single day.

Many of these were lost in their assault across "No Man's Land", the area between the Allied and German trench systems. The Allied troops left their trenches in an act called going "over the top", and walked - they were expressly told not to run - across the 400-800 yards of No Man's Land, flayed by German machine guns and artillery all the way.

One of the killed was William Hodgson, who two days before his death penned this heartbreaking poem, a farewell to the life he was soon to lose:

Before Action

by Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson, MC, 29^th June, 1916

.

By all the glories of the day
And the cool evening's benison
By that last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done,
By beauty lavishly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived
Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of all man's hopes and fears
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his,
By all his mad catastrophes
Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; -
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

If William Hodgson was not to truly die in vain, then his last words to us have not only to carry down through the years...they have to inspire us to act, in some way, to alter the flow of time. This sweet lament is both a valedictory of his heart, and a challenge, because to a greater or lesser degree we pass unheedingly through large tracts of our lives.

How does this poem affect you? Is there anything in your life, or thought, that you'd feel inspired to change?

Tulip Time

Once upon a time there was a very hard-headed Pit Bull named Tulip...

Tulip arrived in 1998, which makes him probably 15. Pretty ancient for a dog, but not terribly unusual for a Pit. He was unexpected - oh, yes, sorry. Tulip is a boy. No, he doesn't have any gender-identity problems. He's a dog.

He's been picked up by the campus police at the college in California, where I worked as a lab technician. Seeing him confined in an enclosure which housed the PD's emergency generator, I asked about him, and was told that county Animal Control would be coming to pick hip up. At the time, the county was killing every Pit that came into their custody, as policy, and I mentioned this to the cop. He shrugged, and said it was too bad.

Too bad indeed. Somehow, Tulip vanished from the enclosure, and spent the rest of the workday in a box that was strapped to a hand-truck, being trundled from my office to the lab and back again. The box had openings for hand-holds, and I was watched by one calm yellow eye.

When he got to the vet, Tulip elicited some sympathy. He was thin, filthy, and his collar had been stapled to his neck.

He healed, and grew, but childhood had left scars. He didn't play well with others, and picked several fights with a big coonhound named Atascaedro. Tasky was imposing of size but meek of character, and would inevitably faint when confronted. The other dogs supported Tasky, until a white Shepherd named Hallie stepped in to make peace with the newcomer.

Hallie was small for a shepherd, but extremely strong-willed. She had a habit of stealing cups of coffee I made for myself, even drinking them when they were too hot for me. She tamed Mr. Tulip by the simple expedient of grasping him by the scruff of the neck and slamming him against the nearest wall. Cooperation came quickly, and they stayed together for nine years, until Hallie's death.

At that point, Mr. Tulip became very depressed. We tried pairing him with Sylvia, the Pit whose picture graces this blog's homepage, but Sylvia wasn't quiet as understanding as Hallie had been. Mr. Tulip picked a fight with her, and lost, badly.

So Tulip was alone. The run on one side was occupied by Rufus, a jack Russell, and on the other side he had Labby, a black lab, so he wasn't too lonely. But I think he missed having someone to bump shoulders with.

A few weeks ago, Tulip developed an inner-ear problem common to older dogs - it was like he was stuck on a spinning turntable, and he could not walk a straight line. There's no cure, but Dramamine (meclizine) is a fairly effective pallative. It takes awhile to become effective, though, and while Tulip enjoyed the personal attention he got from me and from Barbara, I had the feeling that something was missing.

One day I noticed that Rufus was following us along the fence, and I helped Tulip keep a straight line. Rufus is a tough little fellow, with the build and resilience of a rugger ball, and I thought, why not?

So in he went. he ran up to Tulip, sniffed at him. Tulip lurched to his feet, and his first steps started what looked like an uncontrollable right turn. I went to catch him, but wasn't needed.

Rufus was there. He was at Tulip's side, paws on the big guy's shoulders, steadying him. He followed Tulip around, and every misstep, Rufus was there.

And he still is. Tulip's balance is almost completely restored, but Rufus always walks by his side. They are fed separately, but Tulip always leaves a little bit in his bowl for his buddy. They curl up together in the sun when it's nice, and together in Tulip's rather large doghouse, when Tulip's tired.

And there are some who say dogs have no souls.