And we're living in a new country.
Yes, we did.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Today is the day
I admit it: I'm a political junkie. Days like today are like the Super Bowl, World Series and NBA final combined. I've been a political junkie all my life. One of my heroes is a politician, I was even partly named after a statesman.
Growing up, election day was always an important day. Elections take place on Sundays in Germany and it felt like a really nice ritual to accompany my parents in our best clothes to the voting booth. Around 5pm we gathered around the TV with a cup of coffee and cake, waiting for the polls to close and the first results to come in at 6pm. (It helps to live in a country without time zones.) Being a Social Democrat, there were bad days and there were really good days. But election days and the fallout always gave me this feeling of the natural changes in life: There are good days. And there are bad days. Days when you're on the victorious side, days when you're on the losing side.
This is the first election since 1990 (the first election after the Reunification) where I feel very enthusiastic and excited about going to the polls. And I feel this excitement everywhere I go: in the coffee shop this morning, in the faces of people standing in line. There's a deep-rooted sense that America has lost its ways and we can take this country back today and start on a new course. With a new crew. A new captain. And a public that stands behind this exciting endeavor.
Yes, I'm a US citizen now. We don't vote on Sundays, we vote on a Tuesday. But it's still this amazing feeling that we, the people have it in our hands to change. To improve. To be better. It's going to be a good day.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Happy Halloween
Firefighters save lives and hearts. This little firefighter kept us safe from ghosts and monsters.
Friday, October 31, 2008
We're almost there
Elections are about ideas and connections: Connecting ideas with people. Connecting ideas with people's problems. Even staunch Republicans must admit that Obama did a much better job understanding the current psyche of Americans and connecting them with his ideas. I wish him well for his presidency (Yeah, I know this is written 4 days before the results will be published but I don't have any doubts about the outcome. None.) and I hope he continues to show sober and informed judgement when dealing with issues and doesn't succumb to ideology.
While Obama will have his hands full, I hope the Republicans will take a long break and reflect upon their current situation and where they're trying to take the party, and, ultimately, the country. Republicans used to stand for defending and maximizing freedom.
Just like the word liberal shouldn't have any negative connotations (to liberate), the word conservative shouldn't be a negative word (to conserve). Conservatism has mutated into an ugly display of slogans, petty social causes and being against something, instead of being for something. (That's why the Kerry campaign ultimately failed: He stood for nothing, except not being Bush.) I hope the Republicans re-discover their Goldwater roots and, once again, stand very soon for minimal government, fiscal responsibility and personal freedom. Add to that list conserving our planet.
The country needs the real Republicans back.
Monday, October 27, 2008
GM/Chrysler Merger
So, here we are: the Big 3 turned into the Detroit 3 last year and it's very likely that within the next few days we have to get used to the Detroit 2. But, should be there a Detroit 2 or just Ford?
It's almost impossible for me to understand the attraction for GM to merge with Chrysler: Both have a comparable product line, too many truck factories, Chrysler's 3,500 strong dealer network and Chrysler doesn't have any exciting product launches in the pipeline. The proposed merger is just a scheme by GM to survive the foreseeable future because Chrysler has $11 billion in cash, while GM has around $20 billion and burning monthly through $1 billion. The deal would allow GM to stick around longer and hope for a changing environment, another 'Too big to fail bailout' and more leverage when dealing with the administration.
While the banking system is at the heart of our capitalistic world, car makers are not. Yes, they provide millions of jobs but the world as we know it won't end if GM fails. Ultimately, it might be best if GM would just file for bankruptcy and start over again as a much smaller and more focused company. A merger will prolong the pain. I wish the administration would send out DNR orders to GM to let them know that they are on their own. Either continue your shell game with a merger or start radical cuts immediately. To build a sustainable business for decades to come. But, I guess, I'm just dreaming.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Law sometimes leaves little room for compassion
Jimmy Wheeler, 84, is out on bail. The charge? Attempting to kill his wife.
I stopped by his daughter's house in Carpinteria and he greeted me at the front door, ready to talk about what he intended as an act of mercy.
Wheeler shook my hand and led me to the dining room table. A pleasant smile was fixed on his tanned, lined face, but he was dabbing at his eyes.
And then he lost it on the first question.
I asked how he met his wife, Betty, whom he calls Beckie. He sobbed, his chest heaved and then he began his story. They were students at UCLA, he said, his memories still fresh. He never saw her on campus, though. The first time he laid eyes on her was at the beach in Santa Monica.
She was with friends, but they were invisible to Jimmy.
"She was cute, she was smart, she was happy," he said. "And she had a nice shape."
Wheeler drove a Model A station wagon painted UCLA blue and gold, and Beckie agreed to ride back to campus with this lanky young poli-sci major. He looked a little like Jimmy Stewart, with piercing blue eyes.
They were married two years later, at the height of World War II. Soon he was off to fly bombing missions over Europe. After the war, he finished school at Oregon State and got a graduate degree from Stanford. Jimmy then found work as a petroleum engineer, and he and Beckie raised a son and daughter in Carpinteria.
This is a love story, of course. The attempted murder notwithstanding.
It's a story many of us find familiar in one way or another, particularly we boomers with ailing parents. I couldn't stop thinking about -- and talking about -- my own parents as Mr. Wheeler and I chatted.
A hundred times in the last year, my siblings and I have wondered whether we're intruding too much, or not enough, into our parents' lives. Is it time to insist on home care? Should we insist it's time to surrender driver's licenses?
We're much better at the questions than the answers.
Wheeler and his wife have been married 64 years, and they've enjoyed what he called "a wonderful life." But Beckie, 85, has Alzheimer's.
Jimmy Wheeler took good care of his wife, stealing all that he could from what was left of normal. They kept traveling, one of their great joys, until her illness made that impossible. Until quite recently, he and Beckie could be seen walking down the street to the beach, holding hands like young lovers.
But Beckie was fading into solitude, the world around her a growing mystery, and then finally Jimmy was a stranger to her.
"She wakes up in the morning and doesn't know who the guy in bed with her is," Wheeler told me with wet eyes, capturing perfectly the horror of watching a loved one disappear into a fog.
In a way it's crueler than death itself, because there's no moving on for the survivor. There is only this ghost, a constant reflection of love and loss.
"Are you OK?" Jimmy's son-in-law, Stan Scrivner, asked him one morning when he came to the door in obvious distress.
"No," Wheeler said. "Beckie's gone."
Scrivner asked what he meant.
"She's gone," Wheeler repeated. "She doesn't recognize me anymore."
Wheeler couldn't bear to see her like that, and eventually he came up with a plan.
"She said she wanted to be with Jesus," he said. "I just wanted to be with her."
Although he has pleaded not guilty, the basic details of what happened next aren't in dispute.
One night earlier this month, he turned on the gas burners in the house, according to authorities.
"It was Romeo and Juliet," Scrivner said.
Except that it didn't work.
Plan B, authorities said, was to run a hose through a window and into the house from the exhaust pipe on Wheeler's '99 Olds.
Wheeler wrote a suicide note and included instructions for cremation of the bodies. He left a check to cover the cost. He advised loved ones on how to handle his estate, says his attorney Steve Balash, cautioning them to be careful about probate lawyers who charge too much.
The exhaust might have done the trick, but a neighbor saw what was up and called police. Jimmy Wheeler ended up behind bars, charged with attempted murder and elder abuse. He slept on a mattress on the floor of the overcrowded Santa Barbara County Jail.
A county prosecutor called Wheeler a threat to himself, his wife and the neighborhood. Superior Court Judge George Eskin listened to that argument but at a recent bail hearing he said the case called for "compassion and understanding."
"I am aware of the tragedy of Alzheimer's," Eskin told me by phone. He noted that unlike other countries and the state of Oregon, California has not embraced legalized options -- including assisted suicide -- for people nearing the end.
Eskin allowed Wheeler's release on $100,000 bail pending a preliminary hearing Oct. 8, and ordered him to be supervised and undergo grief counseling.
"He's not going to do her in," Eskin reasoned, so the judge's emphasis was on making sure Wheeler gets help to see if "he can find the strength to go on."
Even if California had passed a death with dignity bill (the bill has failed three times, with strong opposition from doctors and organized religion), the Wheeler scenario wouldn't have come into play. The proposed bill, patterned after the one in Oregon, would have required a terminally ill patient to be of sound mind and to self-administer the lethal drug. Alzheimer's is not considered a terminal illness, and Beckie was in no shape to make the decision to end her life.
"Somehow they have to figure out how to create a new area of law that's about compassion and mercy," said Jeff Wheeler, Jimmy and Beckie's son.
With good reason, he finds it incomprehensible that his father is being treated like a common criminal, prosecuted the same way as, say, a spurned boyfriend who gets a revolver and goes gunning for his girlfriend's new love interest.
After three swings and misses, Assembly members Lloyd Levine and Patty Berg have given up on a death with dignity bill in California. But they now have one before the governor that would require doctors to give terminally ill patients information on all their options, including hospice care and sedation.
Let's hope Gov. Schwarzenegger signs it. But still, it would be a far cry from what they've got in Oregon, and Californians might go on using bridges, guns, toxic cocktails and underground suicide options. Or they might make botched and bungled attempts like Jimmy Wheeler's.
Kathryn Tucker, a lawyer with Compassion & Choices, says that patients in Oregon can sign an "advance directive" stipulating that in cases of progressive dementia, they would want no steps taken to keep them alive.
Here in California, we've got the prospect of an 84-year-old grandfather going to jail if a jury finds that he tried to lie down beside his wife and die with her. Sure, you could argue he had no right to decide for his wife whether she should go on living. But prosecuting him aggressively and sending him to prison would be a miscarriage of justice and a waste of tax dollars.
"I'm trying not to think about that possibility," Wheeler told me.
I asked if he had considered taking his wife to a nursing home -- she's in one now -- instead of trying to die at her side.
"My sister is in one of those convalescent homes," Wheeler said. "Those people are just passing the time of day, not knowing what's going on. That's no kind of life."
And what would he want to happen to him, I wondered, if he were as sick as his wife?
"I'd want to be gone," Jimmy Wheeler said.
I understand completely.
If I ever get to where I don't recognize the people I care about, I wouldn't want to hang around. And I'd be grateful to any friend or family member who helps me move on.
I'd consider it an act of love.
...
From today's LA Times
I stopped by his daughter's house in Carpinteria and he greeted me at the front door, ready to talk about what he intended as an act of mercy.
Wheeler shook my hand and led me to the dining room table. A pleasant smile was fixed on his tanned, lined face, but he was dabbing at his eyes.
And then he lost it on the first question.
I asked how he met his wife, Betty, whom he calls Beckie. He sobbed, his chest heaved and then he began his story. They were students at UCLA, he said, his memories still fresh. He never saw her on campus, though. The first time he laid eyes on her was at the beach in Santa Monica.
She was with friends, but they were invisible to Jimmy.
"She was cute, she was smart, she was happy," he said. "And she had a nice shape."
Wheeler drove a Model A station wagon painted UCLA blue and gold, and Beckie agreed to ride back to campus with this lanky young poli-sci major. He looked a little like Jimmy Stewart, with piercing blue eyes.
They were married two years later, at the height of World War II. Soon he was off to fly bombing missions over Europe. After the war, he finished school at Oregon State and got a graduate degree from Stanford. Jimmy then found work as a petroleum engineer, and he and Beckie raised a son and daughter in Carpinteria.
This is a love story, of course. The attempted murder notwithstanding.
It's a story many of us find familiar in one way or another, particularly we boomers with ailing parents. I couldn't stop thinking about -- and talking about -- my own parents as Mr. Wheeler and I chatted.
A hundred times in the last year, my siblings and I have wondered whether we're intruding too much, or not enough, into our parents' lives. Is it time to insist on home care? Should we insist it's time to surrender driver's licenses?
We're much better at the questions than the answers.
Wheeler and his wife have been married 64 years, and they've enjoyed what he called "a wonderful life." But Beckie, 85, has Alzheimer's.
Jimmy Wheeler took good care of his wife, stealing all that he could from what was left of normal. They kept traveling, one of their great joys, until her illness made that impossible. Until quite recently, he and Beckie could be seen walking down the street to the beach, holding hands like young lovers.
But Beckie was fading into solitude, the world around her a growing mystery, and then finally Jimmy was a stranger to her.
"She wakes up in the morning and doesn't know who the guy in bed with her is," Wheeler told me with wet eyes, capturing perfectly the horror of watching a loved one disappear into a fog.
In a way it's crueler than death itself, because there's no moving on for the survivor. There is only this ghost, a constant reflection of love and loss.
"Are you OK?" Jimmy's son-in-law, Stan Scrivner, asked him one morning when he came to the door in obvious distress.
"No," Wheeler said. "Beckie's gone."
Scrivner asked what he meant.
"She's gone," Wheeler repeated. "She doesn't recognize me anymore."
Wheeler couldn't bear to see her like that, and eventually he came up with a plan.
"She said she wanted to be with Jesus," he said. "I just wanted to be with her."
Although he has pleaded not guilty, the basic details of what happened next aren't in dispute.
One night earlier this month, he turned on the gas burners in the house, according to authorities.
"It was Romeo and Juliet," Scrivner said.
Except that it didn't work.
Plan B, authorities said, was to run a hose through a window and into the house from the exhaust pipe on Wheeler's '99 Olds.
Wheeler wrote a suicide note and included instructions for cremation of the bodies. He left a check to cover the cost. He advised loved ones on how to handle his estate, says his attorney Steve Balash, cautioning them to be careful about probate lawyers who charge too much.
The exhaust might have done the trick, but a neighbor saw what was up and called police. Jimmy Wheeler ended up behind bars, charged with attempted murder and elder abuse. He slept on a mattress on the floor of the overcrowded Santa Barbara County Jail.
A county prosecutor called Wheeler a threat to himself, his wife and the neighborhood. Superior Court Judge George Eskin listened to that argument but at a recent bail hearing he said the case called for "compassion and understanding."
"I am aware of the tragedy of Alzheimer's," Eskin told me by phone. He noted that unlike other countries and the state of Oregon, California has not embraced legalized options -- including assisted suicide -- for people nearing the end.
Eskin allowed Wheeler's release on $100,000 bail pending a preliminary hearing Oct. 8, and ordered him to be supervised and undergo grief counseling.
"He's not going to do her in," Eskin reasoned, so the judge's emphasis was on making sure Wheeler gets help to see if "he can find the strength to go on."
Even if California had passed a death with dignity bill (the bill has failed three times, with strong opposition from doctors and organized religion), the Wheeler scenario wouldn't have come into play. The proposed bill, patterned after the one in Oregon, would have required a terminally ill patient to be of sound mind and to self-administer the lethal drug. Alzheimer's is not considered a terminal illness, and Beckie was in no shape to make the decision to end her life.
"Somehow they have to figure out how to create a new area of law that's about compassion and mercy," said Jeff Wheeler, Jimmy and Beckie's son.
With good reason, he finds it incomprehensible that his father is being treated like a common criminal, prosecuted the same way as, say, a spurned boyfriend who gets a revolver and goes gunning for his girlfriend's new love interest.
After three swings and misses, Assembly members Lloyd Levine and Patty Berg have given up on a death with dignity bill in California. But they now have one before the governor that would require doctors to give terminally ill patients information on all their options, including hospice care and sedation.
Let's hope Gov. Schwarzenegger signs it. But still, it would be a far cry from what they've got in Oregon, and Californians might go on using bridges, guns, toxic cocktails and underground suicide options. Or they might make botched and bungled attempts like Jimmy Wheeler's.
Kathryn Tucker, a lawyer with Compassion & Choices, says that patients in Oregon can sign an "advance directive" stipulating that in cases of progressive dementia, they would want no steps taken to keep them alive.
Here in California, we've got the prospect of an 84-year-old grandfather going to jail if a jury finds that he tried to lie down beside his wife and die with her. Sure, you could argue he had no right to decide for his wife whether she should go on living. But prosecuting him aggressively and sending him to prison would be a miscarriage of justice and a waste of tax dollars.
"I'm trying not to think about that possibility," Wheeler told me.
I asked if he had considered taking his wife to a nursing home -- she's in one now -- instead of trying to die at her side.
"My sister is in one of those convalescent homes," Wheeler said. "Those people are just passing the time of day, not knowing what's going on. That's no kind of life."
And what would he want to happen to him, I wondered, if he were as sick as his wife?
"I'd want to be gone," Jimmy Wheeler said.
I understand completely.
If I ever get to where I don't recognize the people I care about, I wouldn't want to hang around. And I'd be grateful to any friend or family member who helps me move on.
I'd consider it an act of love.
...
From today's LA Times
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Lori Roode 1933-2008
Yep, that's me. Don't laugh. I know, I know, not a cool Calvin Klein outfit. But, when you're six, you don't have that many choices. And not a lot of say in the clothes you're supposed to wear.
Looking at this picture makes me very sad. No, it's not the haircut. It's the feeling of a lost opportunity. The sadness of something that could have been. But never was. When this picture was taken, I might have been as close to my mother as I've ever been. I read her Astrid Lindgren's 'Children of Bullerbu' each and every day while she was preparing lunch. And she enjoyed being with me. For once.
You have to understand, my mother was a tortured soul. She had to deal with bipolar disorder and all the medication the 70's, 80's and 90's provided her. In industrial sizes. In any shape. Or form. Or strength.
In exchange, our family had to suffer with her. Through crisis after crisis after crisis. And we all felt imprisoned, tortured and sad. I responded through rebellion, didn't speak to both of my parents for decades, denied their existence.
Having a kid and her being severely sick for the last year, made me reconsider. And I'm glad I did. I'm glad she saw her second grand daughter, was able to enjoy her. I'm glad she was able to meet my beloved wife. And I'm glad I could hold her hand and give her some kind of emotional support in her darkest times.
My mother died this Sunday. I'm glad she didn't have to suffer any longer. It's a cliche, but she's in a better place right now. Her life in the last few weeks was just pure torture. I wish I could make it out to the funeral but, on the other hand, I'm glad I was able to have Astrid and myself to be with her before she passed away. I hope I gave her just a glimpse of our presence and it made her feel a little bit better leaving this world.
It's very sad when both of your parents die within 2 months. No matter how close you are. It's a big blow. Something I've problems dealing with.
But, real sadness creeps up when I look at this picture. Thinking about what could have been. What we could have had. How much love there could have been shared. How much more love and joy we could have brought to this world.
She will be buried this Friday. My heart will be with her during that hour. I hope she finds the peace she was looking for all her life. She deserves it.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
In case you were wondering...
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We said goodbye to my mother, hoping for her suffering to end soon. We spent some time with my father at his grave and felt a strange connection between him and Astrid. She just loved being there (We went to the grave 3 times) and checking out the lovely hearts, windmills, ladybugs that decorate his beautiful grave. We connected with family, saw strong connections there. We tried to help family through despair upon hearing that one of our closest family members is battling inoperable cancer. We laughed with friends. Made new friends. Spoke a lot of German with each other. Tried to make each other comfortable and happy. While being parent and daughter at the same time. We fed goats. Walked through my old world. Experienced the first summer rain of her life. Missed mom, wife, best friend etc. desperately (While she worked herself to death at home)
Basically, we helped each other through these very strange and intense times. While my heart is still heavy, my mind cleared up. Traveling does that to you. And it made me ready for new challenges. Change is imminent. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
That's why I started out as a copywriter
A stroke of the pen can change perceptions.
Fourth annual Short Film Online Competition - Cannes 2008.
Director : Alonso Alvarez Barreda
Running Time : 04:50
Year : 2007
Country : Mexico/ U.S.A
Category : Short film
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Ready to take on the world
I had to travel to Europe one more time for an emergency. This time I took my fellow road warrior and precious daughter with me. Yes, we look super tired and it's a challenge to maneuver through the world with a 3-year old, 2 suitcases and a gazillion small bags. But I feel privileged to be with her for almost 2 weeks.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
It will affect your life
1 in every 2 male Americans will get cancer. 1 in every 3 American females. Cancer is an under-researched illness and we need to increase our efforts to eliminate this disease. It has killed dear members of my friend tribe and family.
Do me a favor and watch this video. Jimmy Valvano was a coach for Rutgers and an ESPN basketball commentator. He was diagnosed with cancer and 2 months before he died, he received the Arthur Ashe award at the ESPY show in 1993. Supported by ESPN, the V Foundation was founded on the day of the speech and is getting stronger and more impactful each day. If you have a dime to spare, donate.
Don't forget: Cancer will affect your life. That's guaranteed.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Book Diet
The week went too fast, we had some problem with the food in our destination and caught up on sleep. And we had a lot of time to read. Netherland and While they slept confronted me with a few episodes and overall situation during my childhood. Lush Life took a long time to get off the ground but I loved the dialogue and overall pacing.
It felt good to catch up with all the New Yorkers, Atlantic and magazines I never seem time to find to read. And, more importantly, it was good to catch up with some thoughts. And reflect.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Gone fishing
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