JohnPaulJustLikeThePope

The Storm before the Calm

2012-03-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

The Storm before the Calm

Across the river
from the beach
where cars can come and park
lies a split of land
between the river and the bay
that is swallowed by the sea each day.

A ribbon of sand
is the only land
where the river and bay
stand side by side.

In the bay are rocks and surf
big enough to break a boat.
Although small enough to see across
many sailors have been lost.

The mouth of the river is almost a pond
except the current is strong.
The wind is enough to fill you sails
but only boat wakes make for waves.

This spit is a place on earth
walked only by those
who take a boat to reach it.
The trip makes clear the mind
so the heart is free to enjoy it.

When the tide gets high
foam rises
as waves break against waves
headed in opposite directions.
Then together both bay and river rise
till no land divides them.

When I die
burn me so no water is left within me.
Carry my remains to this spit
so my friends and family will know it.

John versus the Board of Ed, et al

2012-01-20T03:49:00.000-08:00

The acrimony surrounding the state of our school down the road is almost as upsetting as the conditions inside the school, itself. This sort of upheaval, dividing parents and administrators, including calls for dismissal and wide-ranging expressions of disgust are not an unexpected response when the fortunes of our children are at stake.

We have to keep in mind that the problems presented by the loss of discipline in the classroom are not entirely due to anything the school system has or has not done. The chaos inside the minds of children reflect long-term trends in our society, and are especially concentrated in the lower strata of the socio-economic spectrum.

Typically, we live in these separate strata, and so the problems of one seldom matters to the occupants of another. Racial divisions have long existed along these lines of separation, and the injustice of people of different races attending separate schools is something Americans have worked to solve since the days of Brown v. the Board of Ed.

The desire to move to a color blind culture is the noble imperative behind the legislation that put children together in the same classrooms who before were not. And out of this, the collision that occurs is to some degree the inevitable pains of merging across distinct sets of experiences and expectations.

Out of control behavior by students is nothing new in our schools. My first teaching job was at a school for emotionally disturbed teens that charged $51,000 a year to take these children off the hands of parents and school districts that could afford the tuition. This kind of mania is not isolated to the lower rungs of the economic ladder. However, the frequency and youth of students given to these outbursts is noticeably greater in communities where more children have fewer parents with less education and income.

Our integration of school children is an attempt to break the isolation of minorities in settings that tend to lead to a cycle of poverty. And so we have, after redistricting, more and younger students who are not coping with the classroom setting to the point that the entire student body suffers a consequence. What used to be somebody else’s problem is now ours. And the classrooms that were supposed to be a ticket to a better life succumbs to the chaos that happens when a critical mass of students decide to tip the apple cart just for the hell of it. I saw this happen on many occasions in Haddam Killingworth in the 90s. It is happening today in Farm Hill, but to a degree that is orders of magnitude worse – to the point where it can no longer be tolerated if learning is to occur at all.

We cannot, and should not look to keep people separated by geography that mimics economic, and in turn racial differences. But we must separate the students who disrupt the education of others, and stand to learn nothing in the process. After so many strikes, you have to leave. When violence occurs, and threats are real, even a child does not have the right to stay.

We want the new families at Farm Hill to have an opportunity to send their children to a school where their children can learn and lead to a new future. Redrawing lines on a map without addressing the challenges this poses falls short of meeting the needs of all our children.

Setting standards for student conduct required to earn a seat in a classroom is necessary, overdue, and nowhere in sight in this district. Children can and will respond to adult leadership, as they will falter without our clear and considerate guidance. Until students are clear on what they absolutely can and cannot do in a classroom, this school will not be where I send my children to get their education.

Pages to Turn

2011-12-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

In the secretary
I found an old notebook
With notes written long ago
before the children became her work.

Now the only pages of interest
are the ones with no writing.
The blank ones are for me to fill.

The pages from the past
are the ones to turn
so I can reach a place
with room for the thoughts of the day.

Her morning

2011-12-05T17:46:00.000-08:00

In the morning I leave her
eyes shut and shades still drawn
to go to another part of our house
where morning chores will not wake her
from her last hour of rest.

The children stir first
awaking with fresh questions for their father,
thoughts nurtured overnight in ceaseless imagination.

Our boy often joins his mother in his father's place
until the shades are raised
in the groggy search for clothes for the day.

What dreams come to her during the days early rays?
Secrets of her soul run deep beneath ample covers.
Reluctantly she draws back the bedding
emerging as from a cocoon
like a butterfly stretching its wings for the first time.

The waking world surrounds her.
Quizzical kids ask her their first questions of the day.
An earth unto herself begins to turn again.
Clothing comes after a while,
after breakfast and a check of the calendar.

Only slowly does she take to the awoken stage.
What beautiful bliss sleep must bring her.
She leaves behind the consolation of rest and silence
the instant she stands to greet her anxious brood.

Tornadoes

2011-10-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

When the tornadoes come

There is no warning

There is no remembering

Only debris to remind you of their path

Fortune favors no one

When the gyres wind up your world

And toss it to the sky

Scattering far and wide

What on earth was home and heaven

They will pass.

But will we survive?

Time will tell, and soon.

When the tornadoes come

That is all that is certain.

Return from Odyssey

2011-09-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Return from Odyssey

I walked again today
along a familiar way.
The sights were all the same,
only my mood has changed.

An old friend came driving by
offering me a ride.
I declined with a smile.
"I need to feel my feet" was all I said.

It is a fine thing to return to a place
that long ago was your home.
The sights are mainly the same,
but my mood has changed.

Some bushes have grown taller.
Some trees older than I have fallen.
By storm or saw, it matters not how.
It will take more time than I have for them to grow back, now.

The children that used to play
have almost all grown and gone away.
I am one of those
whose home is no longer my parent's house.

But, whenever my feelings turn foul
I tend to return to my ancient sod
to feel my feet beneath me,
and my mood never fails to change.

Black Pond

2011-06-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

There is nothing so special
as the sound of rain
falling on a million leaves
early in the morning
early in the summer
along the shores of Black Pond.

The sound of a bull frog
carries across the pond
and returns an echo
off the far stone wall.

This is the pond I sailed
with my wonderful daughter
delighting in every step
of rigging the mast, boom and sail.

We did not have enough time that that day
to make it to the far shore.
Someday perhaps we will.

King George, Libya and Elmwood

2011-04-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

I took the long way around my beloved Elmwood on the way from Hartford Hospital to my mother’s house, looking to bypass the snarled rush hour traffic crawling from light to light along New Britain Avenue. Along the way, I ran into a delay from a congregation of police cars too numerous to be anything short of grave situation. The local news carried the shooting in Elmwood as its lead story.These days I often think a portion of the Irishman Yeat’s poem that reads,

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

In my mind, I always replace Kiltartan with Elmwood, and wonder what battles around the world are worth a drop of the blood of my neighbors. Canvassing the accounts of great villainy in far off Libya, the spoken words of a King whose eloquence in trying times of epic proportions was made more illustrious by a personal history of stammering applied equally then as today, and equally relevant to the siege of Misurata as to the siege of Abbotsford Avenue:

We have been forced into a conflict, for we are called, with our allies, to meet the challenge of a principle which, if it were to prevail, would be fatal to any civilized order in the world.

I care for the victims of both sieges, but Abbotsford is more familiar to me. I remember a girl in my class at Conard who was a great beauty, and she lived on one the two streets on the other side of Piper Brook still a part of West Hartford. The southeastern point of our town was the home of the lowest of incomes, but every bit as dignified as any other classmate of mine. I can remember how she stood out in my mind as the rose of Elmwood, semi-sequestered by a black ocean of asphalt in front of Caldor’s that bled into the cement banks of Piper Brook like an urban moat between me and her. One day I rode the bus with her all the way to the end of the line just to talk a while longer. The walk back to Corbin’s Corner seemed a small price for the privilege of her company. I can certainly relate to a young man driven by desire to go out of his way to seek the favor of a young woman.
So, the matter of a gang of boys, too foolish to merit a title of adulthood, and who may never grow to be true men, affects me personally. I cherish such memories of my late childhood, and the degree to which Abbotsford causes me to recall recent events in place of more pleasant times is a cause of some distress. Mindful that the current student body at my alma mater is, of course, the future fellow alumnae of a great tradition, I wish to address you all

with the same depth of feeling for each one of you as if I were able to cross your threshold and speak to you myself.

You see, the principle that good King George VI spoke of, out of duty to nation that defined his being, with no great affection for the task of putting one’s feelings on public display, is the same that calls me to draft this text.

Such a principle, stripped of all disguise, is surely the mere primitive doctrine that might is right, and if this principle were established through the world, the freedom of our own country and of the whole … Commonwealth of nations would be in danger.

But far more than this, the peoples of the world would be kept in bondage of fear, and all hopes of settled peace and of the security, of justice and liberty, among nations, would be ended.

How sad to read in wild wonder of accounts of so many held in the bondage of fear in far off lands and then know that the same is true in your own backyard. Can the count of the victims be the sole driver of whom we should rally to defend and of whom we should refrain from defending? If so, I am sure the masses of those deprived of any sense of security in the face of the onslaught of selfish brutality are greater here in our own country than the tallies of even those besieged by an entire army fighting against defenseless cities. Lucky for the Libyans, we have armed forces to counter those that seek their subjugation. We have the will and the ability to rush to their defense.

For the sake of all that we ourselves hold dear, and of the world order and peace, it is unthinkable that we should refuse to meet the challenge.

But our defense of the roses of the Abbotsford Avenues of our nation face a fortune in isolation, often hidden from view, and commonly undefended in the face of violent deprivations of their safety.

It is to this high purpose that I now call my people …
I ask them to stand calm and firm and united in this time of trial.

The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead, and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield, … If one and all we keep resolutely faithful to it, ready for whatever service or sacrifice it may demand, then with God's help, we shall prevail.

Ground Hogs Day in the Twentieth

2011-02-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

Feb 2, 2011

On this Ground Hog's Day, we see a ballot in the 20th Assembly District with Allen Hoffman appearing on two lines, just as was the case when he overcame long odds to prevail as the people's choice for state representative in 1994. Back then, he was cross-endorsed by Governor Weicker's "A Connecticut Party." This time, the Republican nominee is also cross-endorsed by the Connecticut for Lieberman party. Both times, I was the one who rallied supporters to his side.

The fact that I have sided with this Republican twice, now, comes as a surprise to those who know me as a champion of many liberal causes and campaigns. My first campaign was George McGovern's bid in 1972, when I tagged along with my dad as a seven-year-old. I liked Jimmy Carter, and I still do. Gary Hart was my favorite in 1984, when I cast my first vote in a Democratic primary as a senior at Conard High. I never liked Reagan, and I campaigned for a little known governor from Arkansas in the bitter cold New Hampshire January of 1992. In January of 2008, the Obama campaign selected me to be their spokesperson at the Middletown Straw Poll. Most recently, as the CFL candidate in this district last fall, I praised the merits of the Democratic incumbent as the best man to serve the district.

David McCluskey and I agree on many things, but at this point, we are not in sync as to who will best serve as his successor. While Allen Hoffman has a record of serving in the House and bringing to bear a keen intellect and a realistic balance of compassion and fiscal responsibility, nothing has come to my attention that convinces me that Joe Verrengia's concerns extend beyond the narrow constituency of public workers bequeathed unsustainable compensations at the expense of the solvency of the state treasury.

While I have high regard for someone who serves in a profession where you regularly pull over people who may or may not be wanted felons, sometimes with a loaded weapon and with nothing to lose, but go in harm’s way, nevertheless, to defend the rest of us against such criminals, this does not exempt a candidate for elective office of the responsibility to share with voters his intentions once elected. To those of us who suspect a public employee will serve their special interest over the common good, his silence is tantamount to a confession.

Sincerely,

John Kilian

Courant Guide

2010-09-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Courant Guide

Name: John P. Kilian

Office Being Sought and District: 20th Assembly District

Party: Connecticut For Lieberman

Family: Yes

Education: Yes

Civic Involvement: No

Past Political Office: President of Wolcott Elementary Student Council

TOP THREE ISSUES (in order of priority, each response should not exceed 200 words)

Issue 1: Our government's role is to enable our citizens to realize opportunities by bringing out the best we have to offer. To too much of a degree, our government today is mired in the role of providing for people's welfare with a series of very large band aids that in the long term can not be sustained. Our state legislature is especially adept at taking out large loans to provide generous benefits without consideration for how the bills are going to be paid down the line. A political empire has been fashioned that lures people into dependency on the state, instead of leading people to follow a path that, in the short term may be more strenuous, but in the long term is the way to go.

We need to find a consensus on what government is supposed to do for people, and what people are supposed to do for themselves. There is a widening gap between people like me, whose families pay for government services that we have never used, and other families who use services they never pay for. That is an underlying source of a lot of the friction that is undermining cohesiveness in our community.

Issue 2: Some of our state's largesse is counterproductive, as well as expensive. Our culture is being transformed by the increased prevalence of single parents whose partner in raising their children is a government check instead of a committed and contributing spouse. If there were only two things I could convince my children to buy into, it would be for them to wait until they have a decent education before getting married, and to wait until they get married to have children. It is difficult to stand idly by while so many children in our state casually, even purposely, decide as minors to have children out of wedlock. The state comes to the rescue of these individuals in the form of government aid, but who benefits when it becomes common place that mothers and fathers have no intention of marrying the person with whom they have children? Minors should not be receiving direct aid for having children. Paying children to get pregnant is a very bad policy, and no one is hurt more in the long run than the mothers and their children who fall into this trap set with the allure of a short-cut to adulthood.

Issue 3: Our economy is suffering from a lack of willingness on the part of private capital to invest in our state. Government spending to bridge a recession is not a bad short term solution, but it is not a long term solution. What government needs to do is encourage the private money sitting on the sidelines to get in the game.

I think the economy could be better if the government phased in significant energy taxes and that would create a market for private industry to solve the problem of needing to be more energy efficient. Changes to the income tax could compensate for the regressive nature of consumption taxes. Also, government investment in mass transit solutions will spawn economic activity around stations while easing the blow of energy costs that will rise whether or not the government raises taxes.

Without a phased in, deliberately executed plan to wean us off foreign oil, we are prone to be stuck driving to work, paying whatever the world market will bear, and every dollar spent on imports will be unavailable to provide the incentives and infrastructure to cushion the blow.

Sincerely,

John Kilian

The Gospel Truth about the Tribeca Mosque

2010-08-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

I am downright disgusted by the way the controversy over the proposal to construct an Islamic community center in the vicinity of Ground Zero has evolved into a political donnybrook of inflated proportions. A great investment has been made by those who seek to manipulate a truly ignorant public for ulterior motives, and it is alarming to see the success that this approach is having. The senseless bias against fellow American citizens, whose crime in the views of the minions of Rupert Murdoch includes devotion to the tenets of Islam, is a good argument for adopting anew the Bill of Rights, that until recently conservatives would have rallied to defend.

Such rhetoric is only the latest in a pattern of stoking racial bigotry for political gain. It is very similar to how Shirley Sherrod from the U.S. Department of Agriculture had portions of her address to the NAACP taken out of context and used in a transparent effort to manipulate public sentiment.Then, as now, the target audience included people predisposed to criticize those whose identity includes the possession of a different skin color, religion or whatever else constitutes for them a "normal" American.

The animus fostered in a most calculated fashion by well-heeled propagandists is the kind of strategy articulated by George Orwell’s 1984: the surreal, but all too common version of a “Two-Minute Hate”. This is the kind of sophomoric exercise that belongs in the bleachers of Fenway when the faithful call out “Jeter Sucks!” Everyone knows he does not, but he is wearing the uniform of the arch-rival, and we want to get our money’s worth before security escorts us out the door. It is a mentality that does not wear well on serious matters, at least among those of us who know what is going on.

I fear our nation is being purposely misled, in a word, lied to. What advantage can there be for our nation if our decisions are made by the profiteers of poor counsel and knowing misrepresentation that carelessly dispossesses our fellow citizens of the liberties that we reputedly send our sons and daughters in harm’s way to defend? Political advantage. There is no merit to the claims that anything being proposed by a group of Tribeca Sufis amounts to a threat to our nation. This is just a vehicle to sweep the gullible off their feet and cultivate their worst fears into votes for politicians who likely know the truth, but prefer to profit from the stirring of emotions of an uninformed public.

To break it down for the average American, Islam has various sects, just like Christianity. The Shiites have a hierarchy similar to Catholics. These are the folks who run Iran. Sunnis are like Protestants in that they have a congregational approach to their organization. A very small number of these are in Al Qaida. Sufis are like Unitarian Universalists. No one understands what their doctrine is, because they don’t have one. They are like Amish with autos. They are unlikely to hurt a fly, but if they ever did the experience would lead to several volumes of cryptic poetry capturing the spiritual essence of the dearly departed insect.

So, the Sufis are building a glorified YMCA in the Holy Land near Ground Zero wedged somewhere between a strip joint and an off track betting site. Who are we to say, “There goes the neighborhood”?

Those who would benefit from this woeful piece of dishonest presentation lack the basic qualities to lead our nation. If we don’t figure out the truth of the matter soon, it will be our fault for what happens to us should they gain control of our country.

Kilian is Your Destiny

2010-06-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

I am a fortunate son
of the twentieth assembly district.
Born and raised in the heart
of the land of steady habits.

Middletown has better nightlife,
(at least the kind the public is invited to)
but we can work on that.

It is more than nostalgia
that draws me back to my old haunts
along the shores
of the Rockledge Brook Flood Plain.

I saw Jaws amd Star Wars
in the Mall 1-2-3.
My neighbors and I watched
The Sound of Music
and An Officer and a Gentleman
at the Elm, and later the Elm 1-2.

My first communion was at St. Brigid's,
my confirmation was at St. Helena's.
Nothing could prepare me better
to challenge with conviction
the duplicity of a status quo gone awry.

On my Army weekends
I run around the football fields
of my youth,
where today play the children of my old teammates.
Where once I played to my heart's content
today I stare and worry about fractures
to an epiphyseal plate
and pray my kids opt for soccer.

Talcott was my Junior High.
Sedgwick was my middle school.
Would I be half the man I am today
if the closing of one set of doors
did not lead to the opening of the other?
Change is seldom easy,
but it is never avoidable.

I grew up playing
with nerf balls and frisbees
on Burnham and Fowler
when we played till our mothers rang their bells
calling us home for dinner.

Cable came first
and then the remote control.
ADD and obesity came later,
and this ill tide continues to rise today.

Kids wear helmets when they ride their bikes today.
If we wore them when
we played bicycle-polo through my mom's rock garden,
well, I might be a contender today.

I may never enjoy the privilege
of assuming the honorable titles
the law bestows on those
who win on election day.

But I have had my name called enough times on the Conard P.A.
that if I hear it again
I may unplug the microphone for shame.
If no reporters call,
no headlines misspell my name again,
it will suit me just fine.

Running for office is more of a thrill for your girlfriends
than it is for the mother of your wee children.
That is why my wife doesn't even know I am a candidate,
and I would ask everyone to help me keep this secret
for the sake of my marriage.

I worked harder than I knew I could
to become an RN.
My wife stayed home with a house full of kids
while I studied and practiced nursing.
She did not complain when I was away,
because she understood
if I did not become a person
whose life helps others
that half of me would not be there
even if I was home on time.

You got to be
who you got to be.
When you come from a place called Conard
and suit up in a soldier's uniform,
you have big shoes to fill,
but none are bigger than the ones you own and wear,
because you are the only one who can fill them.

Even if no one else knows what you did on any given day,
we all have to look in the mirror to our souls and ask,
how did I fill my shoes today?
Did I live up to the promise each day presents us?

My hair is not getting any thicker.
Maybe this nomination is just a half dead pony on the same track as thoroughbreds,
but this is the horse that has been offered to me today,
and I have no intention to decline a chance to ride again.

I am back in Elmwood.
And I am back in the saddle again.

John Kilian
endorsed candidate for the 20th Assembly District
Connecticut For Lieberman Party.

Connecticut Agenda 2010

2010-01-01T08:49:00.000-08:00

Here is what I want to see happen in Connecticut:

1) Health care Reform - allowing small companies and non-profits to join the state insurance pool.

2) Medical Liability Reform - capping pain and suffering awards that are driving up malpractice premiums to the point that health care providers are leaving high risk practices, such as obstetrics.

3) End of Life Reform - allowing physician assisted suicide where it is the patient's wish.

4) Medical Marijuana Reform - Do what they did in California, and let doctors prescribe marijuana to people who will benefit from using it.

5) Estate Tax Reform - The State of Connecticut is facing a financial crisis. This is no time to give tax breaks to rich, dead people.

6) Reducing our dependence on petroleum.

Please take a poll on the above at Agenda for Connecticut 2010

Regarding Obama's speech in Eisenhower Hall

2009-12-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

It was interesting to see the expressions on the faces of the cadets listening to their commander-in-chief explaining our plans for Afghanistan. The quote of Eisenhower echoed in Eisenhower Hall: "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

I wonder how hard cadets at West Point weigh broader considerations. Eisenhower maintained a low profile in Vietnam because he felt that was the practical scale of engagement in a war of attrition he realized was bound to last a great while. Perhaps that is the direction we are headed in Afghanistan. Limited engagement. Persistent, but at levels that are sustainable. But nothing black and white, and no commitments etched in stone.

There was an almost stony intellectualism in the President's speech. A very different commander-in-chief than we have seen is a while. The whole presentation boils down to this: We did not choose this war, so now we must fight to get into a position where we do choose the battles we will fight.

And John McCain vouched for much of the President's approach, with the exception of setting a target time for a draw down. A loyal opposition with a caveat. Senator McCain is very valuable ally to the President on Afghanistan, albeit an incomplete endorsement. An honorable extension of good faith at a time when our republic is replete with partisan bickering at each and every turn. Would Senator Obama have extended the same gesture if President McCain was speaking this evening? Tonight I feel grateful to have Senator McCain supporting with passion the cerebral approach of a President that is deliberate to a degree that might be seen as lacking temerity to those unfamiliar with the complexity of Afghanistan. McCain is very much a soldier who simply seeks to put the mission first without considering all the other factors that a President must to keep our country the preeminent leader of both force and freedom.

A mariner never drowns

2009-11-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

A mariner never drowns
but only returns to the surf
from which he sprang.

The waves are calling me today
on a late October day
when the winds whip the sound
into a gauntlet of breakers
battering the indifferent shore.
Waters like this will take you down
and return you so bloated
only your sweater will prove
whose corpse has washed ashore.

The sea birds have gone inland
but I remain to listen
as the wind and waves
speak my name
and welcome me
like a yearning lover
who misses my touch
and lives to breath beside me.
How can I refuse her?
I wade up to my ankles and feel sand rush
from beneath my soles.
The undertow will take me
If I wade in above my knees.

The Undecided

2009-11-19T18:57:00.000-08:00

Without consensus
without confidence
a conflict continues to burn low but steady
while a hesitant will continues to tarry.

Will fate be left to chance?
What deserves swift action
when so much can and will go wrong?
I am no merchant of chance.
Should I roll the dice with my life bet on it?
Perhaps it is safer to sit pat, and not tempt fate.
Cowardice has its place in a dangerous world.
Who but a fool wanders into the breach
for no reason at all.

At the same time,
the ground beneath me is not terra firma.
Every storm washes away more ground
exposing roots that no longer hold back eroding soil.
The atmosphere is ripe with turbulence
undermining the shore at ever chance.
This is no place to build a home.
The waves threaten to swamp
the foundation dug too low for this terrain.

Time to move to higher ground?
I will have to consider it.

Wishing for peace

2009-10-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

When the leaves fall
The scent of decay
somehow smells sweet.
Yesterday's leaves are today's litter.
Cast away is most of a year's new growth.
Thousands of leaves come and go
to let the tree grow a single ring.
A tree does not recall leaves that fall
after pre-winter breezes tear them away.

But I am not so stoic as a tree.
I recall everything that was a part of me
long after it is torn asunder.
Even those that last but a short season
live within me forever,
making me human.
Even if they torture me with their passing,
these memories make me whole.
If I remember less each day
Somewhere inside a ring is disappearing.
This year was a good growing season.
A thick ring added around my core.
I will not soon forget
those that made it grow
even though they have now long left.

A Common Farewell

2009-09-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

When all is said and done, the greatest failure is the loss of a friend.
Someone you cared for, someone you liked.
Gone, just passed on like a ghost, never again materializing,
but there to haunt you with the question, "Why?"
There's no certainty, sometimes, just a sinking suspicion that
things are out of whack.
Someone reliable starts getting flaky.
Someone friendly grows distant.
That is as great to me as a loss of love.
Unwritten on a tombstone,
not mentioned in our eulogies,
but nevertheless they are the cores of our lives.
Some we know for years, others for months, others for less.
What will happen when our worlds cease to collide?
Sadder because nothing can replace you.
Gladder because someone else can try.

When flu flies over the coop

2009-07-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

There is a risk, with a reemergence of a new strain of flu, that the weaknesses in how we provide health care in the United States will be exposed to the breaking point. While the CBO does not consider the short term value of preventing illness through providing universal preventive and primary care, the CBO and everyone familiar with an overburdened emergency department understands how costly it is to everyone, patients, hospitals, insurers, and the insured, when people without access to a primary care physician become ill and require emergency care. The price this year for not already having these measures in place could be tremendous.
The H1N1(2009-A) virus has characteristics that indicate a propensity for the lower respiratory tract, or the lungs. Accounts from Australia suggest that artificial ventilation is often required when the disease progresses beyond its early stages. Countering this concerning news is the rapid development of vaccines and the success had in treating this disease with anti-virals that are already in large scale production. Unfortunately for the U.S., versus most other industrially developed nations, tens of millions of our citizens will not have a provider to see to get a vaccination before being infected or treatment with anti-virals within the first forty-eight hours of initial symptoms. For those who do not get better with rest and fluids, intensive care will be common to an extent not seen in our lifetime. A shortage of ventilators could leave people dying in hospitals across the nation. Use of ventilators will cost hospitals dearly, and these costs will be passed along to the rest of us. With all due respect to the CBO, it is obvious to almost all close to the issue that preventive and primary care provided to all will save a great deal in terms of finances and lives.
I sometimes wonder how bad it has to get before the status quo in health care will be fundamentally reworked. This fall, the emergence of this new flu will give us another chance to compare our system to our peers in Canada, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. We will see, if we care to look, how well we stack up when our emergency departments fill up and there are no more vents available to keep people alive. What Churchill would call an “Era of Consequences” appears to be coming over the horizon. This time the costs may be too great to continue doing business as usual.

Underneath it all

2009-06-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Living in a small town makes me appreciate riding a subway in a big city.
A walk down Main Street in my hometown usually results in a random encounter with an acquaintance. Normally that is a welcome occasion; generally speaking, I enjoy meeting someone I know. Kind of like a surprise party, but without all the wrapping between you and the present.

This almost never happens on the subway. In the big city you trade in familiar faces for complete anonymity. And it is liberating. There is no one else there to remind you of who you were, so who you are is up to you. And sometimes that is just what you need. A break from the past just long enough to let you live in the moment. Sitting on a platform in Queens, after a full night of drinking and a half night of sleep; that is when an early morning flock of pigeons can be heard between trains. And your soul takes flight with them. You have no one to answer to, and no one to listen to. A rare chance to listen to the sound of your own wings flapping in the stillness and unencumbered backdrop of a city of millions completely unconcerned with where you are going or where you have been, but still willing to offer good directions if you decide to move from where you are.

Murder on Broad Street, Middletown

2009-05-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

A Wesleyan junior was murdered on the street where my daughter goes to school.
How often have we seen a single impulsive act born of anger bring lifetimes of suffering? There is a sickness in our culture that turns heart-sick men into monsters.My daughter's school walked by this place on the way to the Y minutes before this happened. My wife was called to pick her up at the Y when the return route was blocked by a police perimeter. She was told a bad crime had taken place, and she asked "Was something stolen?" When she was told no,she asked "Was someone killed?" How will this eight-year-old feel next week when she walks past this place? And when she is eighteen, I will worry for her safety at the hands of some young man too blind with passion to know what it is to truly love a woman.
Somehow we must teach our young men the horror and destruction that will follow should they lose faith in the goodness of life in the face of emotional pain from life's many disappointments. We need to build circuit breakers into their thought process so that they never choose to destroy what they can not possess. That is the difference between seeing a woman as an object of desire and truly caring for her.

Mid Winter's Dream

2009-02-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

There is something incredibly soothing about snow falling on a busy day. Cars slow, and the world pauses to watch a new coat of white paint dry. Familiar landmarks are subdued as a dreamscape descends and buries not just the surface, but thoughts of the day, as well.
I do not think the the same way when I am watching the snow fill the air and cover the ground. It is as though the old world has come to an end, blanketed by a fine linen sheet drawn gently across the face of a recently expired patient. For a while time is frozen by the relentless piling of powder.
Old songs on the radio play like new. Worries and memories disappear in the face of the ancient threat of wind and cold tamed by a car heater set on hi. Driving through the cloud of flakes, the traffic proceeds slowly, carefully, red lights blazing a trail to the horizon until they disappear into a point. Brake lights call out in warning of ice on the road ahead.. The danger claims me from the cloud and I grip the wheel tight, ready to turn away from whatever might hurl itself in my way. Once past the frozen bridge the tail lights line up two y two and march into infinity bliss. My ride has cut a ribbon through heaven, but it closes behind me as soon as I pass. My ride is almost over, and with it a dream of oblivion to end a busy day.

Healthcare Nation - To be or not to be.

2009-01-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

In these times when even our most dependable institutions are challenged to their breaking point, it is important to appreciate that it is the commitment of a community to provide for its members that is the bedrock of a society. Institutions come and go and are replaced with new ones as humanity tries and tries again to create systems and structures to achieve a defining mission.

All of these collective efforts include an identifiable membership with roles essential to the success of the mission. The roles played by various members change as an institution is forced to adapt to changing circumstances. An organization where roles are rigidly defined often neglects important feedback and fail to change with the times. Sometimes when a system is under stress it fails to fulfill the mission and contracts, decreasing the membership it benefits. Other times it is a change in the membership that forces a change in the system. More mouths to feed challenge nations and families, alike, to extend themselves to meet basic commitments. Priorities change. Values assert themselves at the expense of other values. A rising tide lifts all boats, except when it is a sea of red ink.

Returning to the theme that a society is defined the commitments it fulfills for its members; our nation’s identity is not just a matter of who we are, although that is a question that is the subject of great debate. Our nation is also defined by what it is we do for one another.

Other nations provide affordable healthcare to its members. In the United States today there co-exist two nations: one whose members have access to healthcare, and one whose members do not. The border between these two separate nations is not well guarded. With every pink-slip families slip across the porous border between Healthcare Nation and Healthcare-Not Nation. This is a border I wish our leaders would strive to secure. So long as we accept a sub-nation of people lacking access to healthcare there is going to be a risk that their numbers will swell, as their domain encompasses more and more Americans.

Lincoln spoke of how a house divided against itself will not stand. We must let our leaders know that we will not stand for our nation to endure the fate of a divided people.

John Kilian, RN

Bombings in Gaza: A Christmas present for Hamas?

2008-12-28T20:18:00.000-08:00

In general, extremists seem to fear moderation more than they fear opposite extremists. Hamas may cry foul about these attacks, but maybe this sort of intervention is what keeps them relevant. A secure and lawful Palestine would have little place for the antics of Hamas's militant leadership. And the leaders who prosecuted the invasion of Lebanon to save Israel from Hizbullah are now pursuing the Hamas bogeyman with excellent zeal.

What both these sides may fear most is elections in Israel and U.S. leading to more constructive engagements that will, slowly but surely, leave them behind the way the IRA in Ireland succumbed to a reconciliation of former enemies through a political process.

The truth about Iraq

2008-08-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

I am not sure the recent book on how the administration coerced intelligence services to corroborate the case to go to war with Iraq is all that earth shattering a disclosure. Cheney’s parade across the Potomac to strong arm analysts into telling us what he wanted to hear is well known. The public was fed a whopper the way Columbus lied to his crews about how far they had sailed in order to preempt a mutiny. Columbus is generally held in high regard, as evidenced by the national holiday in his name. While we are a long way from celebrating “W Day”, there is a good chance that the demise of Saddam’s despotic Baath regime will be replaced by republican institutions that will in time make Iraq a better place to live, raise a family, and explore and develop petroleum resources.

Beer Will Do

2008-08-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

I think Monty Python had it right when they said that American beer is like making love in a canoe...

July 10, 2008

Beer: Is There Anything It Can't Do?

By George Will

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps like many sensible citizens, you read Investor's Business Daily for its sturdy common sense in defending free markets and other rational arrangements. If so, you too may have been startled recently by an astonishing statement on that newspaper's front page. It was in a report on the intention of the world's second-largest brewer, Belgium's InBev, to buy control of the third-largest, Anheuser-Busch, for $46.3 billion. The story asserted: "The (alcoholic beverage) industry's continued growth, however slight, has been a surprise to those who figured that when the economy turned south, consumers would cut back on nonessential items like beer. ... "

"Non what"? Do not try to peddle that proposition in the bleachers or at the beaches in July. It is closer to the truth to say: No beer, no civilization.

The development of civilization depended on urbanization, which depended on beer. To understand why, consult Steven Johnson's marvelous 2006 book "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World." It is a great scientific detective story about how a horrific cholera outbreak was traced to a particular neighborhood pump for drinking water. And Johnson begins a mind-opening excursion into a related topic this way:

"The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol."

Often the most pure fluid available was alcohol -- in beer and, later, wine -- which has antibacterial properties. Sure, alcohol has its hazards, but as Johnson breezily observes, "Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties." Besides, alcohol, although it is a poison, and an addictive one, became, especially in beer, a driver of a species-strengthening selection process.

Johnson notes that historians interested in genetics believe that the roughly simultaneous emergence of urban living and the manufacturing of alcohol set the stage for a survival-of-the-fittest sorting-out among the people who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and, literally and figuratively speaking, went to town.

To avoid dangerous water, people had to drink large quantities of, say, beer. But to digest that beer, individuals needed a genetic advantage that not everyone had -- what Johnson describes as the body's ability to respond to the intake of alcohol by increasing the production of particular enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases. This ability is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA, genes not evenly distributed to everyone. Those who lacked this trait could not, as the saying is, "hold their liquor." So, many died early and childless, either of alcohol's toxicity or from waterborne diseases.

The gene pools of human settlements became progressively dominated by the survivors -- by those genetically disposed to, well, drink beer. "Most of the world's population today," Johnson writes, "is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol."

Johnson suggests, not unreasonably, that this explains why certain of the world's population groups, such as Native Americans and Australian Aborigines, have had disproportionately high levels of alcoholism: These groups never endured the cruel culling of the genetically unfortunate that town dwellers endured. If so, the high alcoholism rates among Native Americans are not, or at least not entirely, ascribable to the humiliations and deprivations of the reservation system. Rather, the explanation is that not enough of their ancestors lived in towns.

But that is a potential stew of racial or ethnic sensitivities that we need not stir in this correction of Investor's Business Daily. Suffice it to say that the good news is really good: Beer is a health food. And you do not need to buy it from those wan, unhealthy-looking people who, peering disapprovingly at you through rimless Trotsky-style spectacles, seem to run all the health food stores.

So let there be no more loose talk -- especially not now, with summer arriving -- about beer not being essential. Benjamin Franklin was, as usual, on to something when he said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Or, less judgmentally, and for secular people who favor a wall of separation between church and tavern, beer is evidence that nature wants us to be.

Leader of the K's backs Al Gore

2008-07-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

I received this email from the nominal leader of the Ks ( http://theksband.com )

While I have not read it, I am certain it will reach many who will no doubt wish to respond and in the process fill my inbox with ever-branching email threads.

beginning of kommunique

This is an extremely rare political message to our mailing list. Forgive the intrusion, but the seriousness of the problem is such that I have to use what resources I have. I hope you forward it and/or hit some of the links below. I am very frightened for this world. I don’t want to wait for the ice caps to melt to realize that we have a great crisis, the crisis of our age with global climate change. We will kill the terrorists, and their bleak worldview will be rejected where it grows, but that will all be for naught if we face an ecological holocaust, or if we create a world of hardship, with a vast exodus from the equator and from island nations swallowed by a rising ocean. For the most part we’ve simply turned our minds from this vast problem, but Al Gore, God bless him, has not. He laid out a challenge the other day that we should embrace as a nation. Whatever you think of Al Gore, this is too big a problem to let go and this is the solution.

Here are some things we can do: http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/action/

Here’s how you can find out who your congressperson is. Write a letter. https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Likewise, your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Here is Al Gore’s speech. This should become THE political movement of our time. Obama and McCain should be forced to adopt this challenge as their own. It sounds tough, but I think we’re ready for big changes. It can be a little scary, but that means we get to create the future, not let it happen to us. Here’s a link and the text below. http://www.wecansolveit.org/pages/al_gore_a_generational_challenge_to_repower_america/

[original kommunique included entire text of speech available at the link directly above]

That’s the end of the speech. Thanks for reading. We really need to do this. I hope you understand why I sent this, and hope you further the message.

Thanks,

Dan Kilian

The Ks
ending of kommunique

China's support for Sudan alarming

2008-07-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

The proposed indictment of the President of Sudan challenges the United Nations to honor its commitment to defend ethnic groups from genocide. Chinese reluctance to condemn an ally that provides it with oil should raise eyebrows if not the hair on our skin as the world readies itself for this year's Olympic games.
If China is bludgeoning Tibet and aiding the slaughter in Darfur and Abyei, with financial and material( http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/13/2302298.htm?section=justin ) support, on the eve its premier public relations event of a generation, what ruthlessness will foster in the future, when world opinion is less of a concern?