One of Us
Chances are Dr. Edward Van Dyk was one of us. A person who has battled mental illness.
At its worst, every morning the alarm buzzes and your first thought isn’t what’s on the agenda today or did I make the kids’ lunches or even what sounds good for breakfast. Your first thought is - damn. I’m still here.
The Black Hole is all around you, and it’s of a depth and breadth you’ve not known. The ache in your chest is heavy and suffocating. Nothing can take it away except to silence it. You want to close your eyes and go away. Far away to a place where there is no pain. Just peace.
The pain of living has become unbearable and now outweighs the fear of the unknown. And you just want the pain to stop. You just want it to stop.
Most of your family and friends have no idea of your secret. Over the years, you’ve become an expert at faking it. So, it seems, had Dr. Van Dyk. Colleagues, family members and neighbors don’t know why he threw his two young sons and himself over the balcony of a Miami Beach hotel.
All they and we know is that yesterday Dr. Van Dyk’s father admitted that his son, sounding panicked and upset, had phoned him two days earlier. And we know that Dr. Van Dyk, a radiation oncologist, had three jobs in three states in the past five years.
There is oh so much we don’t know and most likely can’t even imagine.
Poppies
When my dad died four and a half years ago, I became an orphan. I was 46 years old, and it was hard. It’s still hard, but life, as it must, goes on.
Dad was a Navy veteran of World War II and Korea. Though not a day passes without him in my heart, Memorial Day and Veterans Day have taken on new meaning.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says that 652,696 Americans have died in battle since the American Revolution. Another 539,639 American men and women have died during war. Their deaths are categorized as “Other Deaths (In Theater)” and “Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater).”
That’s a total of 1,192,335 men and women. Roughly the population of Dallas, Texas.
We’re on the eve of the first long weekend of summer. In between the burgers and beer, the trips to Home Depot and breaths of sweet fresh air this long weekend, take a moment to look back. And go buy a poppy.
Mama God
My first instinct was to begin by writing, “I’m no radical, but …” Well the hell with that.
The longer that mainstream organized religions keep women off the altar and out of the pulpit, the more ridiculous their justifications sound.
When you move past the rhetoric of tradition and the so-called authoritative text cited from the Bible, the Torah, or other holy books, what’s left is a religion of exclusion. From the glass around the pulpit to the patronizing descriptions of the role of women in the church, the message remains deafeningly clear.
Let’s give them something to talk about. Grab a cuppajava and Hercode.org.
Judge Richard Palumbo
Last October 10th, Yvette Cade’s husband went to her workplace and doused her with gasoline. When she ran, he chased her into the parking lot, held her and threw a lit match on her.
Three weeks earlier, Judge Richard A. Palumbo had dismissed the protective order she’d gotten from a Maryland court.
Yvette had appeared in Judge Palumbo’s court asking that the protective order against her husband be extended. She didn’t ask that he be arrested or imprisoned. All she asked for was time.
Evidently even that was just too much of a bother for Judge Palumbo. Get over it, Yvette. Get a divorce. Next case.
Yvette Cade has an associate’s degree in computer science from Southern Ohio College. Richard Palumbo has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland.
Yvette Cade is a certified mortgage consultant. Richard Palumbo has a law degree from the University of Baltimore.
Yvette Cade is a top sales representative for T-Mobile Wireless. Richard Palumbo is a former Maryland state legislator.
Yvette Cade is a mother. And last October Yvette was a petitioner in a courtroom.
Richard Palumbo is a judge. And last October Richard Palumbo was the judge in that courtroom where Yvette asked for more time.
Maryland’s Commission on Judicial Disabilities finally found their sex parts and filed official misconduct charges against Judge Palumbo, according to the Washington Post.
Good. Judge Palumbo should have his gavel taken, his black robe removed and be escorted from the bench, permanently.
The Day After “The Da Vinci Code”
I emerged rattled but reborn from an early opening day showing of The Da Vinci Code. Hallelujah! I’d been been converted by the Gospel according to Dan Brown and Ron Howard.
Thankfully, my confusion, nay, brainwashing was short lived, albeit titillating. A shout out to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Amy Wellborn for translating The Da Vinci Code and saving me and legions of others from the damnation of eternal ignorance.
Wellborn sorted, packaged and labeled a heirarchy of “Da Vinci Code faithful” in a nine-and-a-half page Truth According to Wellborn lecture on a website developed and paid for by, according to the website, the USCCB.
No “distorted impressions” there. Just “clear and accurate information.” Historical facts and plain, unvarnished truth.
The Day Before “The Da Vinci Code”
Stephanie Zacharek, senior writer at Salon.com, writes in her 5.18.06 review of The Da Vinci Code, “I was in Catholic school when “The Exorcist” was released, and one of the nuns warned us that if we went to see it, there was a chance we could become possessed by the devil ourselves. Naturally, some of my classmates took that as a signal to rush right out and see the thing; Sister Joanne had managed to vest the movie with more power than it could ever have had intrinsically.”
Our local Catholic high school hasn’t disappointed Sister Joanne.
Garbage Day
Every Monday morning the garbage truck comes. Never fails. Every Monday. Well, except holidays. But even those aren’t many, at least for the garbage truck.
It feels good to know that the garbage my family and I produce every day can be neatly bagged and hauled away on a regular basis. The banana peel from breakfast, the crumpled paper towels from wiping the dog’s muddy prints from the kitchen floor, the coffee grounds and the past-due-for-a-parent-signature progress report from the seventeen-year-old’s chemistry teacher.
Now if I would just do that with the personal garbage I carry around. The judgments, the doubts, the tapes in my head. Dig through it. Keep what I can use. Pitch what I no longer need. Stomp and burn the crap that’s old and stinks.
Phew. Where are those bags?
Kudos to Qwest
If you don’t call your mom this Sunday, the National Security Agency will know. And if you do call your mom this Sunday, the NSA will know.
Under CIA director nominee Gen. Michael Hayden, the NSA has been tracking your phone calls since 2001, according to a recent USA Today article. And not just when you call your grandma in Poland or your customer in Hong Kong. We’re talking the call you make to your spouse, your doctor, your stock broker, your lover, your therapist, your bookie, your dealer, your escort service, American Idol and that every-so-often phone sex line.
Once upon a time, President Bush told us that he’d given the NSA permission to eavesdrop on the international phone calls of suspected terrorists or people suspected of having links to suspected terrorists. He said he could do this because he’s the President of the United States, and he didn’t need no stinkin’ permission or warrant from a FISA court or anybody else.
Besides, the NSA would only do this, President Bush said, when one of the people on the phone call was outside the United States. If both people on the call were in the United States, well then, gosh darn no way the NSA is tracking that call.
Turns out President Bush was mistaken. Again. Faulty intelligence?
Not to worry. The NSA is “only” collecting call records. You know, merely the history of whom you’ve called and who’s called you since late 2001. They’re not including customer names, street addresses or other personal information. Can you say cross-reference? Reverse lookup?
The point of all this? The NSA says it’s to create and maintain a database of every phone call ever made within the borders of these United States. Every phone call. Ever made. By anyone. Ever.
When approached by NSA soon after the September 11 attacks, telecommunications giants AT&T, BellSouth, SBC and Verizon didn’t hesitate to dole out the data.
The only major telecommunications company to decline the invitation to cooperate was Qwest. Its lawyers had the unmitigated gall to ask a few questions. Like, how about running this by the FISA court? Remember FISA? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that set out a few rules for this kind of stuff? Or maybe a letter of authorization from Alberto Gonzales? You know, the Attorney General of the United States? The NSA refused.
Now go make that phone call.
Now Playing on a Flight Near You
If I’d written, produced and directed a splashy video, you can be damn sure I’d take credit for it. Not so the United States Department of Defense. They’d prefer to operate under camouflage of United Airlines.
A 13-minute video singing the praises of extraordinary opportunities in military careers conveniently leaves out, among other reality checks, the fact that the Pentagon not only produced the film but also paid United $36,000 to run it. Passengers just might surmise either that United was behind the production or is running it as a public service announcement. But we certainly wouldn’t want to mislead anyone.
Hurry. The current run ends May 17.
Your high school student will get a chance to see the full length 48-minute version. Coming this fall to a high school guidance office near you.
A Fresh Pot of Coffee
I’ve learned the hard way that I’m worth it. Even in the little things. Especially in the little things.
I’m worth enough to make myself a fresh damn pot of coffee. Even though there’s half a pot left. And it’s still warm in the carafe.
I don’t have to wait for the weekend away or the spa day. Or even the occasional manicure.
I wanted to relate a poignant memory of my mom’s self care and make some brilliant analogy to my own. But I couldn’t think of any. Not one.
She was seventy-two and I forty-one when she died. You’d think that forty years of memories would have turned up one example. Like how she made a special trip to the Rexall drug store to buy a new lipstick rather than sneaking it in with the weekly groceries. Or how she treated herself to salon hair color once a year instead of the Clairol chestnut brown at home. But not one story.
I’ll be right back. Coffee’s done.
