Moulting Season?

At 2:10 today, I sent an e-mail to Dr. José Aybar, Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs for the City Colleges of Chicago, accepting the Project Align Coordinator position which he offered me this past Monday. I report for work at 9 a.m. on Monday.

I don't think I've ever felt more wary about accepting a job, and not just because this is coat-and-tie work which will require me to buy new dress shoes, new dress shirts, and more coats and ties this weekend (I have one suit right now and it only sorta fits me). As Thoreau warned in Walden,

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old,
until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives.

Auld Lang Syne

On Thursday the 20th (Emilio’s 36th Thursday in this world), I sent a text message to Peter saying that we would be late to our scheduled noon rendezvous and as soon as I pressed the send button, I got a text message from Peter saying that they were going to be late. Turns out we were almost perfectly synchronized and so we met at the Grand stop on the Red Line minutes after exchanging text messages and took the free trolley together to our original destination spot: Navy Pier, the most visited tourist spot in Chicago (according to one guide I read). The focus of our visit was the Chicago Children’s Museum, which is more of an “Exploratorium” than a museum, as all of the exhibits are, essentially, playgrounds. The highlight for me was the water works station where we used clear plastic Tinker-Toy-like tubes to construct odd fountains, but I also enjoyed constructing flying machines, and playing statue to video butterflies (see the photo of Mari above on the left). After leaving the museum, Iona and Aedan took a thrilling ride on the Wave Swinger and then Iona joined Peter and Mhairi on the Ferris Wheel while Maria and Emilio and I enjoyed watching Aedan make his way through the SkyTrail ropes course. Once everybody’s feet were back on solid pier, we plotted the fastest route to the Chicago Theatre, where the Scots among us had first-row balcony seats for a performance of the Gipsy Kings. We ended up sending the Gibsons on ahead of us, but the bus we took to the El dropped us off near the Chicago Theater so we met up again by coincidence.

On Friday, the G’s checked out of the Days and lugged their gear up to Andersonville, where Peter helped me install our window air-conditioning unit (and just in time as temperatures soared on Saturday) while Mhairi and Mari hit the shops.

We later dined on corn dogs and “Chicago-style” Polish hot dogs (firsts for our Hebridean friends) with Jack and Julie and Nathaniel at Huey’s, where Maria gave us a class in the gestures to use if you want to imitate Mhairi when she describes something as “huge.” After lunch, took a short walking tour of the ‘hood, bought cool stuff at Kopi Café and Presence, sampled dozens of beers at Charlie's (one of us did, anyway) and then headed back to Chez Foster.

The plan was for the Gibsons to take an 8 p.m. taxi to the Holiday Inn Express at O’Hare in anticipation of their early morning flight to Orlando the next day, but the plan didn’t account for Karaoke (we're in the throes of Copacabana in the photo at right), the laughing fit that a dancing Mhairi induced from Emilio, or a rousing rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic,“I Will Surive,” performed in the style of Grrrrrroundskeeperrrrr Willie (of The Simpsons), if Grrrrrroundskeeperrrrr Willie werrrrrrrre rrrrrreally angrrrry. My favorite lyric: "I'm not that tenderrrr little perrrrson still in love with you. " There were calls for an encore performance of this one, folks--and an encore was delivered. And so, we did not bid our last farewell until 1:30 a.m., and even then, our time together seemed too, too shorrrrrrt.

Windy City Interactivity

On Tuesday the 11th, the Gibsons headed out hoping to visit the Shedd Aquarium and to go on a tour run by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, but faced with intermittent rain and long lines at the Shedd, they called an audible and ended up spending the entire day at the Adler Planetarium. I hadn’t included the Planetarium on my list of “29 Fun Things for the Gibsons to Do in Chicago” (I’ve never been there myself), but when we met up at the Days Inn that night for a dinner of take-out from Eatzi’s, they lobbied hard for its inclusion. After dinner, Peter accompanied me to Linens and Things where I bought a $29 microwave (our hand-me-down quit working over the weekend) and he marveled at the Palm Peeler and the Dryer Balls.

On Wednesday, we hooked up downtown after they’d seen Wicked at the Oriental Theatre (Peter liked it enough to buy the soundtrack) and we all walked over to my favorite Chicago destination: Millennium Park.

There are four things to love about Millennium Park: two of them are interactive sculptures: Cloud Gate by India’s Anish Kapoor (a.k.a. “The Bean”; see photo above on the left with Iona, Peter and their respective reflections) and the Crown Fountain by Catalunya’s Jaume Plensa(that's the south wall of the north fountain, squirting, on the right and the north wall of the South fountain, under Scottish surveillance at left) .

A third is Canadian Frank Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion, where the Grant Park Orchestra was offering a free performance of Chabrier’s Danse slave, Saint-Saens’s Piano Concerto No. 4 (featuring Marc-Andre Hamelin), and Franck’s Symphony in D Minor.

And the fourth is the Park Grill hamburgers with Horkheimer cheddar cheese. Under foggy skies on Wednesday night, we indulged in all four—except Peter, who avoided the Horkheimer. And some enjoyed ice cream, too.

Och aye the noo!

Since this past Thursday, the Chicago branch of the Benton and Ruiz clans has been sucked into a Scottish vortex following the arrival at O'Hare airport of our good friends Peter, Mhairi, Iona (age 8) and Aedan (age 6) Gibson. This is the first time we have seen each other since the summer of 2000, when Aedan (born on November 18, 1999) was about as old as Emilio is now. Those of you who have enjoyed reunions with old friends after a long separation know how deeply affirming it is to find that some affections never die. It has been that kind of a week for us.

For readers of this blog who don't know, we met Mhairi and Peter in Xiamen in the Spring of 1997, and met Iona there when she was a little over two weeks old (Mhairi went back to Scotland to give birth to her). Two years after we moved to Chicago, we traveled to Mhairi's native island of Lewis--one of the Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland--where the Gibsons had relocated after leaving Xiamen; Mhairi and Peter later spent a vacation week with us in Tossa de Mar in Spain, where Mari's parents have a summer home. And since then, the rare e-mail and the rarer phone-call has kept us in touch (in the interval the Gibsons moved to Saudi Arabia and they will be relocating to Qatar later this summer).

Though the Gibsons have only been here a little more than 4 days, the stories and the laughter we have enjoyed have been bountiful. And so has the activity. Thursday night, we established Camp Gibson at the Days Inn on the corner of Clark and Diversey ($180 plus dollars a night for an executive King, for any of you who are interested) after I had met the clan at O'Hare (our taxi driver had once lived in Scotland and was delighted to share with us the names of every village his memory could cough up; they all seemed to feature a rolling "r"). Friday, we all took the El to the Field Museum of Natural History (the photo above at right was taken on the front steps), a.k.a. "The Dinosaur Museum" (as the two fierce creatures in the foreground of the photo at left referred to it), where we spent many leisurely hours exploring just a couple of the corners of the museum's extensive collection. Until you visit the Field, I don't think you will can have much of an idea of the tremendous and outlandish variety of animal species that exist or have existed on this planet (including, for example, wild pigs whose teeth grow through their own skulls and then curve around on top of their snouts).

On Saturday, the G's followed an itinerary I proposed that led them around the Loop on the Brown Line and then on foot across the Chicago River and up Michigan Avenue--the Magnificent Mile--past the Tribune Tower and the Magnificent Mile Art Festival (which just happened to be this wekeend), with stops on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building and a gumbo lunch at Heaven on Seven, where Iona and Aedan were, apparently, charmed by the many hot tabasco sauce labels including, memorably, one called "Space Ass." Some time after 3, the Gibson four made it to the Briar Street Theatre in time to see the Blue Man Group matinee performance of "Tubes" and we met them outside after they had been thoroughly "wiped." Over a pasta dinner at Bucca di Beppo, Mari and Emilio and I got a debriefing on the day and a Blue Man review (Mhairi especially appreciated the group's "wicked" sense of humor, and just about every sketch seemed to move Peter to laughter and appreciation). The debriefing continued at the Days, and some time after the kids had gone to sleep, Peter had to take a time-out because a laughing fit had brought on an asthma attack.

On Sunday morning, I went to U. S. Cellular Field and after an hour or so of vulturing, I was able to get my talons on five face-value tickets to a sold-out White Sox (2005 champs)-Red Sox (2004 champs) battle featuring Jose Contreras and Curt Schilling on the mound. I called the G's, who immediately got on the El and we were in our left-field seats by the second pitch. On the way to the ninth inning, cotton candy ("magic floss," actually), Lemon Chill, left-over Bucca pizza, a Polish, and various beverages were consumed; the rules of the game were explained; 50 spf creams were applied; skins were burned anyway (my nose mostly); Red Sox All-Star leftfielder Manny Ramirez was vigorously criticized by one of our neighbors; fully clothed Scottish children immersed themselves in open showers, walked under mist bars, and hurled baseballs past a speed gun; Japanese second baseman Tadahito Iguchi hit a home run; high fives were given; and with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth, the White Sox were down by one. Then All-Star Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye hit a homer into the bullpen in front of us and extras innings were served. During one of those extras, we moved into a shaded area behind third base. During another, the Pale Hose scored 2 runs to equal the 2 the Red Sox scored in their half of the inning. With the score still tied at the end of the 13th inning, we reluctantly left our seats and raced back to the Red Line El that would take Peter and Mhairi to an Andersonville rendezvous (see photo below) with Mari a Jose and a 7 p.m. performance of "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" at the Neo-Futurarium. While they were out, Iona and Aedan and Emilio and I dined (mac and cheese for some; pear-apple-peach puree for others) and looked at old photos of little babies we all know and love. When the Neo-Futurists returned (fully satisifed by the 29 plays they'd seen in 60 minutes), Peter, Emilio and I held down the fort while the hunters went in search of ice cream and lightning bugs (they were successful on both accounts). Meanwhile, back at the Cell, the White Sox eventually beat the Bostonians 6-5 in 19 (!) innings.

On Monday, the G's hit the Art Institute in the morning, enjoyed overhearing Chicago accents in the Ladies' bathroom (I'd given them a primer the night before on the correct Chicago pronunciation of words like "sausage," "Bears," and "beers"), bought tickets to Wicked and The Gipsy Kings, and then met up with us to take a train to the Dixie Kitchen in Evanston (The G's dig Cajun cuisine and Southern cooking).

After dinner we all "enjoyed" the Harry Potter jelly beans that Mari provided for our delight (debate raged about whether "rotten egg" or "booger" was worse), and took the double-decker Metra train to Ravinia where we set up our picnic blankets and lawn chairs for an open-air evening of glow-sticks, dancing, bubble-blowing, people-watching, picture-taking, strawberry-munching, caramel popcorn-devouring, brother- and sister-calling, Sweet Honey and the Rock and Ladysmith Black Mambazo-listening, and some snoozing before we took a southbound Metra to the city and a full night's sleep (some of our younger members got to the sleep part sooner than the rest of us did).

Begin Countdown to 40

The 39th birthday festivities started off with Monday's arrival of a package from Mom and Dad that included a new video game--NFL Head Coach--just like the one my younger brudder got a week ago on his day of days; a grand book of Shel Silverstein drawings (the American Quino, for this blog's Latino readers); and a gray Horned Frog tee. La abuela Ines was the first to call with good wishes from Buenos Aires, but I missed talking to her because I was still abed. Jaime and Maria Rosa were next to weigh in with good wishes from Madrid, but I missed them because I was a-showering. Post-shower and pre-Wiggle Worms, Mari and Emilio pinned me down with chocolate cake and fire and then hit me with a funny card and Nike no-show socks and cotton Rugby shorts (my uniform these days). While they were out wiggling, I shaved my head and when they got back they brought a birthday card from Grandmom that included a check which we promptly deposited and subsequently spent on more no-show socks from New Balance, cargo shorts and a tee from The Gap. Before we left for Evanston, though, Jaime and Maria Rosa called back, to let me know that they were sending me a birthday gift with Gerardo and Gimena (who are coming in August), and I talked to them as long as I could before Emilio started winning the eat-the-phone-cord battle. After taking the train to Evanston, Mari insisted that we check out a baby clothes store (Lollie), and while we were buying Emilio shorts that don't leave elastic marks on his belly (we ended up making our selections from the 18-24 mos. rack; the owner of the store said Emilio is a big 8-month-old), Emilio and I skimmed through a book called "Little Bee" that has a hole in each page that a finger puppet bee can poke his head through. Each time it did, Emilio got the giggles, so we decided to buy it. Dinner was Dixie Kitchen fried green tomatoes, sweet tea, and a pulled pork sandwich for me, Catfish Bienville for Mari, and a bottle of formula and Morning O's for Emilio. It was Emilio's first time to sit in the high chair in a restaurant and he handled it with much aplomb, participating in the conversation as best he could, and separting the good Morning O's from the bad (the bad went to the floor; I picked them all up before we left). Before we ordered, the ghost of Marilyn Monroe called my cell and sang me the Happy Birthday Song. (Thanks for setting this up, Jack.) After dinner, I read to Emilio from the bee book and he tried to eat the little buzzing fellow (see photo at right). Two more tees were bought at Urban Outfitters, including one with the Hammer & Sickle design I've been looking for. And dessert was the chocolate molten cake at Chili's. Once we got home, I took birthday calls from Brian and Lisa and this morning Ruth and Gene both called.

To my many, many gift-givers and well-wishers, Thanks!

The Dishes We Wash

Not too long ago, I was washing Emilio’s formula bottles and realized that I had unconsciously formed a little Bottlehenge in the sink, with all the bottles placed in a circle around the drain with their bent necks turned inward. The sight gave me occasion to reflect on my systematic dish-washing habits (I actually count the number of times I flush the scrubber up and down inside each soap-and-water-filled bottle) and I thought it might be interesting to hear about the dish-washing habits of those who read this blog.

Yes, I really did.

And so, by way of eliciting reflections from some of you on this fascinating subject (little everyday habits say a lot about a person, don’t they?), here are my dishwashing secrets:

I don’t know anybody who enjoys washing dishes—and Mari and I often leave dishes stacked up in the sink too long—but Mari and I have found that we don’t love washing dishes for different reasons. Mari doesn’t like washing the nipples of the bottles or washing silverware, for example, and she hates putting away dry dishes. I suspect she finds washing a bunch of little things (or putting them away) to be tedious. I, on the other, dislike tedium a lot less than I dislike greasiness, so I would much rather wash a bunch of small items than wash anything that might leave some kind of residue on my hands. Consequently, I have not adopted my mother’s practice of filling up one side of the sink with water and letting the dishes soak there, because I don’t want to put my hands into greasy/soapy dish water. Unfortunately, I waste a lot of water when I wash dishes. This is not something I’m proud of, but it is an indulgence I allow myself as a reward for doing dishes in the first place. I avoid using dishes at all, if I can help it, in order to avoid washing dishes. One of the reasons, I don’t cook more often is because I don’t like to wash dishes. Mari and I used to argue a lot about whose turn it was to wash dishes, but then we came up with (OK, I came up with) a marble-counting system in which each of us dropped a marble in a designated coffee mug for every five minutes they spent washing dishes. Since Emilio was born, we have abandoned this practice; I don’t know why. Mari washes more dishes than I do in a five-minute span, but I am much more systematic about stacking items on our dish-drying rack and can generally fit more dishes there than Mari can. When I wash Emilio’s bottle paraphernalia, I tend to line up all the liners and nipples, and tops and bottoms in neat little rows. One of my pet peeves is wet glasses that have been placed open-end down to dry. In my experience, this traps the moisture inside the glass and it smells bad later.

The Laughing Lewises

Blogger has been acting up lately, which has been a real bummer, but though the World Wide Web has not been receiving updates on sfb life in more than a week now, sfb life has, fortunately, continued its forward march. The highlight of the last week was last Wednesday's trip to the home of the happy Lewis clan. Though the youngest Lewis slept throughout our visit, he seemed to be sleeping happily. And though the canine Lewises spent our visit barking greetings (I think they were greetings) from the bathroom, the barks seemed happy, too. Jack told me to call him when we got to the corner near his house so that he could escort the Beagle Lewises to their bathroom corral. Later Mari asked me if he was doing that for Emilio's benefit or for mine. I told her I wasn't sure. It was, in either case, appreciated.

As an added bonus, before we left we got to see the Rangers come back from a 2-0 deficit against the Royals in the top of the 9th inning--thanks to some clutch hitting by my favorite Ranger: Gary Matthews, Jr.--courtesy of the J's MLB subscription plan.

Better Than on Monday

When Mari got home from school on Monday, she and Emilio and I headed downtown again to the corncob hospital (aka Prentice Women's Hospital--see photo at right) to get another chance to see young Mr. Lewis. Before going, we had been apprised of the good news that N.W.'s blood sugar levels had stabilized and when we arrived he had been called up from the 3rd floor special care nursery to the 15th floor "less special" care nursery--a move which I likened to moving from AA to AAA ball. Julie was able to take Mari and I into the nursery at different times and we both got a chance to hold 'Than and see him wink and blink at us.

Jack told me on Monday morning that though he had assumed that Nathaniel would come to be called "Nate," his mother had wondered if they had ever thought of taking a note from Christopher "Topher" Grace's family and considered calling him "Than." The more Jack thought about it, the more he has grown to like the idea and when I asked Julie on Monday night, she said she liked the idea, too. So, until further notice, "Than" it is on this blogsite.

The good news for Tuesday is that Julie and Than were given medical clearance to come home (the Big Leagues) together and as of 7 p.m. or so this evening, Jack had successfully escorted his nearest and dearest to the House on Devon and the happy threesome and the happy Beaglesome (Molly and Katie) were all getting along swimmingly.

A New Lewis

When I called Jack around 8 p.m. on Saturday night, Julie was having regular contractions, spaced about 15 minutes apart. At 1:45 a.m., Jack called back to say that they had checked into Northwestern-Prentice Hospital after taking a taxi downtown (apart from some pot holes along the way, the ride was smooth) and that Julie was getting an epidural. At about 7:45 a.m., Jack let us know that the doctor had sent him out to get breakfast so that he would be ready to coach Julie through the final push. And at 12:15 p.m. he called to say that a healthy, Nathaniel Weldon Lewis had been born, weighing 8 lbs., 8 oz., measuring 20.5 inches long, at 11:41 a.m.--almost the exact time that Emilio had been born 29 weeks and 3 days earlier. We were, of course, overjoyed and started to get ready to make a visit.

When Mari and Emilio and I got to the hospital at around 2:30 p.m., Julie and Jack were moving into a different room and Nathaniel had been transferred to the special care nursery, where nurses were attending to his low blood sugar (Emilio had the same problem--which is apparently common among big babies). After greeting Julie, we took Jack to lunch and then took turns scrubbing up so that we could get in to see the little fella. When I was in, the attending nurse was giving Nathaniel a bath, and when Mari went down, Jack got a chance to hold him. Although I am sure that Jack and Julie wished they could have had Nathaniel closer to them throughout the day, I suspect that they are confident that he is in safe hands and that every measure is being taken to ensure that their newest family member is as healthy as can be. I also think that knowing that Emilio dealt successfully with a similar blood sugar issue gives them some relief from worry. And this morning we got the news that his blood sugar levels have indeed increased.

We are thrilled that we got a chance to see the whole Lewis family on the big day; Jack and Julie both seem to be doing well and Julie expects to come home from the hospital on Tuesday. Please leave any notes of congratulations for the happy trio at the blogsite for the newest Lewis which Jack set up this morning!

Vive La France!

Thanks to Ruth for the French flag pin which DHL delivered here yesterday and which will now ride with me around Chicago and beyond. As some of the readers of this blog know, I have been looking for some kind of French pin or patch to put on one of my backbacks since 2003 when the French people and their government loudly condemned U.S. plans to invade Iraq. The more the French were vilified here--remember the "Freedom Fries" movement?--the more I wanted to broadcast my own "Vive La France!" message. It was surprisingly difficult to find such a pin or patch, and I eventually gave up, but I mentioned the project to Ruth last summer and through the magic of E-Bay, almost a year later . . . Voíla! The sting may have worn off a little bit since the French have been proven so right on the Iraq question, but I will still wear it with gloating pride.

Anniversary Waltz

Mari and I enjoying our twelfth wedding anniversary this past Saturday, but as has often been the case, we didn't know we were enjoying it because we completely forgot it was our anniversary. Emilio didn't bother to remind us either. We only realized we had forgotten it when Jack congratulated us the day after (he knew because we game him and Julie a calendar in which I had written it and other important Benton-Ruiz family dates).

Anyway, we spent our anniversary night taking a long walk around the neighborhood, an activity which we repeated yesterday and intend to repeat again tonight. It was, in retrospect, a fine way to celebrate.

To Sir, With Love

Got an e-mail this Thursday forwarded to me by Lisa, (who had received it from Mom, who sent it to one of my defunt e-mail addresses, who had received it from someone at Dad's work), requesting a list of some of Dad's favorite books, movies, music, songs, hobbies, etc., that could be put to indeterminate use at an honorary function to be held the next day in belated recognition of Dad's selection as the 2005 Mansfield Timberview High School Teacher of the Year. With nothing to go on but that, Lisa and I and later Brian collectively produced a roast-appropriate mini-chronology of the "highlights" of our father's life.

I have since learned, second-hand, that the presenters only used a couple of the notables from our chronology, and I thought this might be an appropriate venue for a display of the entire list in all its "This Is Your Life" glory. Sir got a tribute song with love from Lulu; Mr. Holland got a symphony concert performed by current and former students; Keating got a roomful of boys standing on chairs; and Dad, for all that you do, this compact, 81% accurate "Life" in 14 essential points is for you.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Dad grew up watching Howdy Doody! and it has been suggested that this played a huge role in making him the man he is today.

The highlight of his youth was meeting Jim Nabors at the swimming pool of an aunt's apartment complex in Dallas.

At R. L. Pascal High School, he dreamed of either becoming the fourth member of Peter, Paul & Mary or of replacing one of the other three.

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His favorite head topper during his freshman year at Baylor was a beanie.

Later in college, when he suffered head trauma as a result of a life-threatening car wreck, he was temporarily unable to speak. The first words he produced upon recovery were uttered after he had been served a bowl of vanilla ice cream. They were: "I prefer chocolate."

The highlight of his early professional career was working in the same office as Dallas Cowboy punter Duane Carrell.

After his return to graduate school in the late '70s, he began collecting hobo circus clown trinkets. This has become a lifelong hobby.

His Arkansas period is most remembered for an evening of 'possum and politics he shared with US Senator Dale Bumpers.


The most recent highlight in his life was standing in line behind Emmitt Smith at a steakhouse in Wichita Falls, Texas.

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*

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His favorite movie is Animal House, which may have inspired his return to academia.


His favorite book is The Magic Journey, which all of his children have secretly read and enjoyed and discussed at length (but just for kicks we tell him we haven't).

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He enjoys Flaming Hot Cheetos dipped in mashed potatoes. (Cheetos, incidentally, were introduced to the world the same year Dad was.)

At any given moment, a tune originally released in 1962 with the refrain "Alice is fond of Algernon" may be playing inside his head.

And he hates-hates-to be called "Greenhorn."

(Out of respect for Dad's imagined wishes, we decided not to include any mention whatsoever of Ann Margaret.)

The Many Me's

First of all, thanks to everyone who posted a comment in response to my Why I Started Blogging posting. I've added some notes on that commentary page, if you're interested.

As some of you may know, I have a shelf-full of journals at my house (here they are posing on my desk in the photo at left). Looking back years later at the things I wrote in those journals at various periods in my life, I sometimes find myself wishing I had spent less time exploring my nebulous, mystical/emotional boundaries and more time recording more of the prosaica of daily life—the names of people, places, etc. I was reminded of this recently when I read a comment Lisa left elsewhere in this blog space that she likes the voice she uses to speak to the world better than the voice she uses for “private consumption.” In a similar vein, I think that the newsy letters and postcards I sent home when I was living in Europe and China are more immediately interesting today than the journals I wrote for my own private consumption when I was living there. At the same time, however, I think of my many voices—the journaller, the correspondent, the list-maker, the speaker, the writer, the voice that is for private consumption, and the many different ones I use for communicating with the world and the many different audiences within it—as equally legitimate parts of me, none less authentic or vital than the other. I value each for its uniqueness and wouldn’t want to say I like one more than the other. I don’t think my journal writing is more truthful than my blogwork, nor do I think my spoken voice is more real than my written voice. I realize, however, that my diverse blogaudience may have differing levels of interest in the various voices that speak here (political, cinemacritical, parental, sportsfanatical, etc.), and in recognition of this, I’ve created different blog spaces for each of those audiences. Because this esseffbee blogspace was the first to appear, however, it has, for some readers, become a kind of hallway to my other blog spaces (even though each has a separate “door” to the outside world). At one point, I tried to re-engineer that relationship by keeping this room still—leaving up the March Madness posting for more than a month—thinking that eventually those who were coming through esseffbee to get to The Emilio Report, say, might just start going straight to The Emilio Report. I don’t think that ever happened. And I’ve finally come to peace with the fact that, as a result, some of the folks who come here looking for my parental voice are going to come across some of my other voices. I guess the lesson is: the more you put yourself out there, the harder it becomes to keep tight control of your many voices. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Aught Six: Act One

This past Wednesday, I turned in final grades for my students this semester, so I feel that summer has begun (even though we've seen some accursed forty-degree temperatures since then). On the occasion of the changing of the season, I thought I might offer a look back at the first trimester of 2006. Every week I receive a free e-mail from Harper’s magazine reviewing the important news events of the week. I save some of the most interesting bits from these e-mails into a single file and at the end of the year, I whittle that file down to a single list of the top news events of the year to put in my annual time capsule. I have grouped the news events by theme here.

Scene 1: Africa
1. In January, it was reported that each month in Congo (home of Dallas Maverick third-string center Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, and erstwhile revolutionary laboratory for Che Guevara) thirty-eight thousand people were dying, mostly from treatable diseases. In April, we learned that 35 percent of Botswanans in the 15 to 49 age group are infected with HIV and that three quarters of Africa's farmland lacked the basic nutrients needed to grow crops.
2. Click here to learn more about how can help provide insecticide-treated bed nets to African families for protection against Malaria (as described in "Nothing but Nets," Rick Reilly's May 1st column in Sports Illustrated.)
3. In February, Uganda held its first multiparty elections in 25 years. Yoweri Museveni, who has been president since 1986, was re-elected. Riots followed.
4. Also in February, the number of people who have been forced to flee their homes due to violence in South Darfur reached 70,000. In April, five Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives (including Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas) were arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington for protesting the genocide in Darfur. Between October 2003 and January 2006, 180,000 people had been killed in Darfur. Check out the educational video game at www.DarfurIsDying.Com (thanks for the link, Lisa).

Scene 2: The Americas
1. In January, socialist and former political prisoner Michelle Bachelet became the first female president of Chile.
2. In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (on right in photo below) to Adolf Hitler because both Chavez and Hitler were elected legally and then "consolidated power." He also pointed out that Chavez has "a lot of oil money." (In August 2005, Donald Rumsfeld compared supporters of the anti-war movement in the U.S. to the supporters of Joseph Stalin. In December, state-controlled Venezuelan oil company Citgo announced that it would provide over 11 million gallons of oil to poor people in Boston and New York.)
3. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to refuse Puerto Ricans the right to vote in U.S. Presidential elections.
4. In March, between 300,000 and 500,000 people marched in Chicago to protest a House bill that would make illegal immigration a felony. An even larger crowd turned out on May first.
5. In April, the Mexican senate passed a bill legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana, opium, cocaine, and heroin; President Vicente Fox (on left in photo at left) was expected to approve the bill. (He later changed his mind after U.S. government officials expressed disapproval.)

Scene 3: Europe
1. In February, riots erupted over newspaper cartoons, printed first in Denmark and subsequently throughout Europe, that caricatured the prophet Muhammad. In Syria, demonstrators attacked the Danish and Norwegian embassies, and in Lebanon they set the Danish embassy on fire. Later riots broke out in India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Palestine, Thailand, the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, and Afghanistan--where 11 demonstrators were killed, at least 4 of them by NATO troops.
2. In March, between 260,000 and 500,000 French students demonstrated and vandalized buildings and cars to protest a new employment law that makes it easier for young workers to be fired. In April, 2.6 million French folks (including one Gerardo Ruiz) went on strike to the same law.
3. In March, the Basque separatist group ETA declared a permanent ceasefire. Formed in the 1960s, ETA’s deadliest years came between 1978 and 1980, when they were responsible for 245 deaths. About a month before I moved to Madrid in August 1987, an ETA bomb killed 21 people in a Barcelona supermarket. In 1997, ETA kidnapped and later murdered a member of the right-wing Partido Popular, Miguel Ángel Blanco. Blanco was born in 1968, making him one year younger than the author of this blog.

Scene 4: Israel and Palestine
In January, the Islamic group Hamas won 76 of 132 parliamentary seats in Palestine's parliamentary elections, unseating the Fatah party (new Prime Minister, Ismail Haniya, is in the photo below). Bush, who had supported open democratic elections in Palestine, said that the United States would not negotiate with Hamas until the organization renounced its chartered goal of destroying Israel. By February, the United States and Israel were working together to destabilize the Hamas-led government. In April, Canada cut off all relations with Palestine (In January, the Conservative Party won a plurality of seats in Canada's federal election, making Stephen Harper Canada's next prime minister). Hamas let it be known that it would recognize Israel's right to exist if the Jewish state were to withdraw from the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. On April 17th, Hamas said a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv, which killed nine, was justified.

Scene 5: Asia
1. In February, in the Philippines, President Gloria Arroyo declared emergency rule after an attempted coup by several politicians, military officers, and a former nun.
2. In April 17th edition of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh claimed that strategic planners inside the Bush administration are considering using tactical nuclear weapons—specifically, bunker busters—to destroy underground Iranian nuclear sites and that covert U.S. military teams are already in Iran. Later in the month, Iran announced that it had successfully produced low-grade enriched uranium.

Scene Six: The History Stacks
1. In February, the human population reaches 6.5 billion.
2. In March, an Italian commission found that the Soviet Union organized the shooting of Pope John Paul II in 1981.
3. In April, a translation of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas was released. In the text, originally written in Greek and translated into Coptic around 300 A.D., Jesus Christ asks his favorite disciple Judas Iscariot to turn him over to the Romans for sacrifice.

Scene Seven: The Cemetery
1. Don Knotts died in February. (From the Knotts trivia file: he served in the Army during World War II; his father was a schizophrenic; he appeared regularly on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow between 1953 and 1955 and became a regular on the Steve Allen show in 1956.)
2. Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), which attacked industrial societies for pressuring women into accepting stifling roles as full-time homemakers, died in February.
3. Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) died in April.

Scene Eight: Iraq
1. In January, U.S. auditors found that of $120 million in Iraqi oil revenue allocated to fund reconstruction $97 million had gone missing. One month later, the Bush Administration submitted a $2.77 trillion budget to Congress calling for a 7 percent increase in Pentagon spending and a $36 billion cut to the growth of Medicare spending. An additional $120 billion was expected to be requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. In February, it was reported that at least 7,600 U.S. soldiers had been severely wounded serving in Iraq. (2406 American soldiers have died since the war began in March, 2003; 224 during the first four months of 2006).
3. In March, Iyad Allawi, the former interim prime minister of Iraq, said "We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." Donald Rumsfeld denied that Iraq was in a civil war. The U.S. military later announced that 1,313 Iraqi civilians had been killed in sectarian violence in March alone.
4. Six former U.S. generals called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign.

Scene Nine: Al Qaeda Situation Room
1. In January, the United States bombed Pakistan. The missiles were intended to kill Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was expected at a dinner; instead, 18 people were killed, including women and children, and al-Zawahiri remains alive.
2. In February, the United Nations issued a report calling on the United States to either try the 490 inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison for their crimes or release them.
3. In February, in Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda attempted to bomb the Abqaiq oil facility (not far from the home of our good friends, the Gibsons) but the attack was thwarted. Two guards were killed, though.
4. In March, the U.S. State Department issued a report criticizing the human rights records of Jordan and Egypt, two countries where the United States has sent detainees to be interrogated.
5. In April, the United States announced that it would free 141 of the 490 "enemy combatants" at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba because they do not threaten U.S. security after all.

Scene 10: The Courts
1. In February, staunch conservative Samuel Alito was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.
2. Also in February, the South Dakota Senate passed a bill that outlaws nearly all abortions; victims of incest or rape are not exempt from the proposed ban. In March, Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, vowed to use tribal land to provide abortions to South Dakotans, despite the state's near-total ban on the procedure. Said Fire Thunder: "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land.”
3. In April, the Louisiana state senate approved a bill that bans abortion except when the procedure can save a woman's life; an amendment to allow exceptions in the cases of women who have been raped or are victims of incest was defeated.

Scene Eleven: The Executive Office
1. In April, former Illinois Governor George Ryan, a Republican, was convicted of racketeering.
2. Also in April, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (in photo at left with the President and Vice President of the NRA) shot and severely injured a fellow hunter, Texas attorney Harry Whittington, while hunting quail at a friend's 50,000-acre Texas ranch. Whittington later apologized for the trouble he caused Cheney.
3. In March, a videotape emerged showing President Bush being warned that Hurricane Katrina could flood New Orleans.
4. In the wake of a series of deadly mine disasters, it was revealed that the Bush Administration had lowered the fines for mine safety violations and failed to collect nearly one half of the fines levied.

Scene Twelve: Looking Up
1. In April, The Massachusetts legislature voted to make health insurance mandatory for all state residents by July 2007.