Losing a lifelong friend is very sad, but not all that shocking anymore

Life can be very strange.

Three weeks ago, I learned that one of my oldest and closest friends had an aneurysm in his brain rupture. I looked it up and saw that if he made it to the hospital, there was a pretty good chance of a full recovery or at least a partial one.

For the next two weeks I eagerly awaited the daily reports. At first they were hopeful, but after a while the doctors were disappointed that he wasn't showing more signs of recovery. They went back in for a second surgery and found there was more wrong than they had previously thought.

At that point, it was fairly obvious that he wasn't going to recover.

Tom Kensler, 1951-2016

Eight days ago, on July 22, 2016, my friend Tom Kensler died.

What's strange about that? I have three close friends that I have remained in contact with on a regular basis. I have others who have come in and out of my life for many years, but I'm not as familiar with the details of their lives.

But of my three close friends, one recently underwent surgery for throat cancer and the other has had so many medical problems he could star in training films for doctors.

The third was in pretty good health.

The third was Tom.

I don't think I'm insulting my friends when I say Tom was the best person of the four of us. So of course he was the one who died first.

A short take on what people want when they support Donald Trump

So you like Donald Trump.

What does that say about you? Is there any one thing in particular that can be predicted about you based on your support?

Yes, but we'll get to that in a minute. First I'd like you to answer four questions posed by pollster Matthew MacWilliams in Politico that will tell us an awful lot.

The questions are about child rearing.

1. Is it more important for your child to be respectful or independent?

2. Is it better for your child to be obedient or self-reliant?

3. Do you want your child to be well-behaved or considerate?

4. How about well-mannered or curious?

Even the Nice places in the world getting caught up in Muslim madness

A little more than seven years ago, my wife and I went to Europe.

It was far from our first trip and it wasn't our last. We spent most of the first week in London for a scientific conference and then flew to the Cote d'Azur for three or four days. Our son Virgile was 24 that summer and was competing in his first Ironman Triathlon -- in a city called Nice.

If I remember correctly, an Ironman starts with a 2.2 mile swim in open water, transitions to a 115-mile bicycle ride and then finishes with a 26.2 mile run. Think of how difficult that would be, and then think of running into the water with several thousand other starters at the same time.

Imagine running into the Mediterranean at 6 a.m. Then once you're in the water it's nearly impossible to move your arms or legs without hitting another person.

But he did it, and moved on to the next two stages, each of them including a thoroughfare known as the Boulevard des Anglais.

Yeah, that Boulevard des Anglais.

Virgile in Nice, 2009

When I learned of the terrorist attack July 14th in Nice, it made me very sad to think that it had happened in a place that had yielded some wonderful memories for my family. It wasn't the first place I had been where terrorists later attacked. I had lunch in Windows on the World on the 107th floor of WTC 1 in 1979, and I have been in the London Underground numerous times.

Foreign interventions hardly about promoting freedom and democracy

"I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag."

Who on Earth would say something like that?

I'm sure at first glance, it looks like something George McGovern ... or Cindy Sheehan ... or some filthy hippie might have said.

Actually, the man who said it was one of the greatest military men America ever produced, one of only a handful to win the Medal of Honor twice and the kind of general Dugout Doug MacArthur only dreamed of being.

Smedley Butler served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1898 to 1931, and if you look at that quote again, he pretty well nailed what we're doing in Afghanistan and Iraq these days.

In the eight years we have spent in those two countries, American businesses have made tens of billions of dollars in profits "supplying the army with the tools of the trade," as Country Joe McDonald put it.

Maybe I'm naive when it comes to big money, but shouldn't there be a point at which Blackwater or Halliburton or the other suppliers say "OK, we've made enough money in Iraq?"

We're certainly not there for altruistic reasons. The chances of turning Iraq into say, New Jersey, are pretty much slim and none. If we leave and let the Iraqis decide their own destiny, they'll say "Islamic republic" faster than you can say "Joyce Kilmer Rest Area on the Jersey Turnpike."

Afghanistan is even worse. We've kicked the crap out of the Taliban and chased almost all the Al Qaedas into Pakistan, so what the heck are we still doing there?

Afghanistan is even less a candidate for New Jerseyhood than Iraq. Probably the best we can hope for there is to turn it into South Central Los Angeles.

But there's money to be made, and a good chunk of that money winds up in campaign funds for both Republicans and Democrats.

I felt kind of sick when President Obama justified his "surge" in Afghanistan as he picked up his Nobel Peace Prize by saying sometimes you have to stand up against evil.

Who exactly is "evil" in this scenario? Who is the modern Adolf Hitler?

Osama bin Laden gave two reasons for 911, and only one of them might be considered evil. He said America should stop its support of Israel (OK, evil) and should withdraw its troops from the holy land of Saudi Arabia.

Saddam Hussein was a pretty bad guy, but he might not have even made the top 10 of evil foreign leaders. There were -- and still are -- plenty of really bad guys running countries in Africa and Asia who never get more from us than tough words.

But Saddam had the misfortune of being out one day shooting at some food when up through the ground came a bubblin' crude.

Oil, that is.

Black gold.

Texas tea.

The next thing you know, ol' Saddam was swinging from the end of a rope and Dick Cheney was bathing every night in 10w40.

Don't kid yourself. America might once have been an altruistic nation -- the Marshall Plan, Point Four, etc. -- but these days we have a new national motto.

"It's all about the Benjamins."

Smedley nailed it.

A story of a man who really was too good for this world

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
-- JOHN 15:13, King James Version

What's the greatest possible form of heroism?

Risking one's life to save others would be pretty high on the list. Many of us would risk our lives to save our own children or other family members, some would add close friends to that list.

It's pretty noble.

But risking is one thing, sacrificing another thing entirely. Jumping into raging waters to save a drowning child is heroic, more so if you can't swim very well. More so if you don't know the child.

What if you can't swim at all, though? What if you jump into the water to save someone knowing you'll probably never make it out?

A true hero

Najih Shakir Al-Baldawi didn't go anywhere near water last Thursday night, but he saved numerous lives while sacrificing his own at the Sayyid Mohammed shrine in the Iraqi town of Balad. A suicide bomber with Daesh was trying to get inside the shrine so he could set off his bombs. Shakir apparently saw him, ran over and grabbed him, hugging him tightly against his own body and absorbing much of the impact when the bombs went off.

Two people died -- the bomber and Shakir.

Many others lived.

A fellow Muslim posted on Twitter that "an honourable man from Balad, Najih Shakir, holds the suicide bomber & attains martyrdom, preventing many more deaths."

It's wonderful to see the word "martyrdom" used properly, instead of describing a criminal who kills other people in the name of a demented God. We've had the same problem here with so-called Christians saying God told them to kill doctors who performed abortions.

I don't think Dennis Miller is particularly funny anymore, but I remember that back in the day, he said anyone hearing God telling them to kill someone is getting a garbled message.

The thing I like about this is that if you figure not all Muslims are terrorists, and that plenty of people are good and want to raise their children to be both happy and good, Shakir is a terrific role model. Not just because he made a sacrifice and saved people, but because he also stood up to the misguided zealots who have turned the world into a charnel house in the name of their conception of God.

We need a lot fewer jihadists and a lot more Najih Shakirs.

After the top 100 songs, here come the bottom 12 (plus one good one)

"We had joy, we had fun. we had seasons in the sun ..."

-- LEGENDARILY BAD SONG

Some months back, a friend of mine asked me to compile a list of what I thought were the best songs ever. I put a great deal of time into it and picked a top 100. It was tougher than I thought, mostly because there are so many good songs.

Well, there are plenty of horrible songs too.

It's not worth a top 100, but it could be worth a bottom 12. And of course, it's highly subjective. Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets" was a million seller, but in 1968, radio station WUVA in Charlottesville called it the worst song ever. I'm going to leave that one out, but there's another song from around that same period I can't ignore.

Sometimes the losers are remakes. The song quoted at the beginning was one of the worst of the late 60s without question, but it was a reworking of a lovely song by Jacques Brel called "Le Moribund."

Then there are songs like "Havin' My Baby," by Paul Anka, which became a weapon in the abortion debate in the mid 70s.

The real enemies of our society aren't just foreign invaders

"You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence.

"You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!"
-- JESSE VENTURA

*** 

In many areas, there is at least room for debate on whether a proposed action will have a positive or a negative effect on the way we live. I certainly wish we had had more foresight in the years directly after World War II, when unprecedented prosperity resulted in some unfortunate decisions.

Family farms

Up to the period between World Wars I and II, a majority of Americans lived in small towns and rural areas. When soldiers, sailors and marines were discharged at the end of WWII, 55 percent of those from farms said all they wanted to do when they went home was to live the same lifestyle they did before the war.

But with the postwar demand for consumer goods -- automobiles, refrigerators, televisions and the like -- and the fact that mechanical advances had made farming much less labor intensive, many would-be rural residents found themselves in cities.

Life's great truths do not always have to sound profound

Six years ago, on a site that no longer exists (All Voices), I wrote about people's opinions about what really matters in the world.

I came across it today, and with some minor additions and corrections, here it is from June 2, 2010.

***

I was going to wait longer to write this article, in hopes of getting still more comments. But I had the most amazing experience today, one that changed my life completely, and I figured I ought to write about it.

I'm going to bury the lead, though. I'm going to start with the basic truths of life other people have given me and then tell you about my own.