Opening Day '08

When the parking scalper hands you back money, take it as a sign. Or better yet, advice. And find somewhere else to put your car, regardless of the hour or the scarcity of spaces. Because otherwise you may find yourself saying, "I wouldn't mind sticking around to see if they play, but I'm afraid my car, assuming I can find it again, may be starting to sink." Take it from the girl in the plastic bag poncho.

No harm, no foul, not even a game, officially. But it was Opening Day, and I saw what I came for, even if I had to learn never to park quite that far under the highway again--especially in a rainout. What is it with this downtown and its near total lack of solid pavement? My friend and I had a fine time, once we were soaked to the skin, concocting the Cardinals' next slogan--Catch the Fever! Yellow Fever!--as we sloshed through the concrete gullies that surround the stadium and pictured the coming mosquitos, but perhaps it seemed more contagious to us in the same way that an $8.5o margarita seems like a better deal than a $9 beer.

But that was later. After the Clydesdales. After the ushers greeting, "Welcome back to Busch." After the motorcade, after the crowd cheered for "Louuuuuuuuuuuuu." After Red Schoendienst bumped knuckles with players too young to be his grandkids, after Mr. Stan Musial, God love him, appeared and took swings. A crowd roused and contented by local traditions, common marvels. Bob Gibson, 40 years past 1.12, looking like a human dare to those anonymous pitchers. A local boy taking his first steps onto a major league field as a pro and as a Cardinal, family and friends and 50,000 well-wishers in the stands. A first pitch thrown out with a Missouri FOOTBALL (if only it had sailed over the plate).

What more could we ask for? Oh yes, the baseball. And for three innings we had some. Line drives. A sweet catch. A walk on four balls, naturally. A Pujols home run. Technically, none of it counts, and they'll try it again tomorrow, and then 161 more times. I won't return for the do-over, though my ticket is good. I'm going out of town, and I've too much to do. But that's okay; I'll give it away and won't feel I missed much. This was Opening Day, and I saw everything I wanted to see: I got everything I came for.

The Potluck Bride

Once upon a time--so far-- there was a little girl who decided to get married, lack of education or two dimes to call her own or even full-time employment being no barrier. After all, God wanted her to work at Starbucks--this was her pious justification--and her boyfriend would get a teaching job someday, or when he graduated from college on the 12th of Never or in the year 2525, whichever does come first (all the smartest people take 8 or 10 years to graduate; their brains are just that big). Love is awesome and we are in it, they announced to the silly grown-ups: a wedding cannot wait. And also, by the way, could you cater our reception? Outside? On Memorial Day weekend? When it always, always rains except when it tornados. Consider it your gift to us; we have no need for things. Think of it as a potluck, except we'll tell you what to cook. The food must match our theme. (The theme, technically, was something "international," and not Misguided and Potentially Tragic Choices, or How to Send Miss Manners to An Early Grave, but, I digress.)

And thus was born the saga of my niece, The Potluck Bride. For a while there, what humor she did bring us, of the You Can't Do That, Can You? variety. Until it went all to hell. The wedding plans, I mean, and the resulting family secrets, and not the Potluck Couple. They are far too righteous for that. Just ask them if you doubt.

At some point I got disinvited from that wedding. One may think it would have been when I said, "have you asked one of your many restaurant friends to be your 'catering coordinator'? Because no, I'm not going to cook, or keep hot food hot, or cold food cold, outside, on Memorial Day weekend. You may have the celestial connections to keep enchiladas for 200 from turning into the Great Ptomaine Outbreak of '08, but I've never babysat for the infant Jesus myself." But that didn't do it. Then again, I didn't even say the last line aloud, at least not to her, directly.

Apparently the potluck groom's family objected more strongly, and not just to the details. Perchance they thought he'd have done better to continue being a shepherd. In Alabama. Where he was. (I couldn't make any of this up.) At any rate, they advised him to think it over, and the potluck betrothed thought hard. They not only decided to get married anyway, they decided to get married earlier. Spite! How biblical. Perhaps they wanted to see how many relatives assumed a less-than-immaculate conception. Plenty, by my count, though I persisted in giving them the benefit, and so far I seem to be right.

But verily when this wedding was moved to March, it did indeed become intimate. Theoretically. Momentarily. Non-exclusionarily-- or so they insisted. Their motives, they said, were so pure to be holy. Only immediate family, except that his would not be coming. Or, only immediate family plus all of their friends plus the landlord of the bride's basement (it's not an apartment, it's a basement). Plus whomever they chose to invite. But definitely no uncles or aunts--except the one who cut the cake. Apparently my ass (and that of some other second-rate relatives) is just too distracting, and if it were plopped down in a folding chair they'd never focus on their vows. Or that's one version of how they explained the need for their contracted guest list, not that they ever explained it directly to me. It's hard to have that conversation with someone who suddenly began to spend every family function hiding out in a back bedroom as if she were again in 8th grade.

But that was the second-hand gist, that a wedding is serious, and only between the girl and the boy (there's no man and no woman involved here). Anyone who had watched her grow older (though not yet grow up), taken her places, offered advice, shared both serious conversation and laughs, given gifts, tried liked hell to get her to live up to a fraction of her potential? Unwelcome. And if we were hurt, that was our problem, not hers, but she couldn't talk about it now. She had a wedding to plan.

A simple wedding, they kept insisting. A simple wedding that included a bridal tea and a bachelorette party (shhhhh: we're not supposed to know), showers and tuxedos, party favors and a band-- everything that most any wedding could. Except half her family.

So not only was I deprived of the spectacle of the potluck wedding ceremony--I'm told it included a videoconferenced speech from a deported Mexican, a devotional "over in the corner" for the bride and groom only--I pray they were not distracted--and later,a meal that I'm pretty sure was potluck, complete with plenty of booze (water into wine, don'tcha know)--I'm deprived of a story that ought to be strictly hilarious and not by turns maddening or upsetting. Because she's not only the potluck bride, an icon in the annals of bridal you've-got-to-be-kidding, she's the niece who hurt and disappointed me, who came close to breaking my heart.

Really Casual Friday

I hope I don't have to go to the ER today. About a year past my last ambulance ride, I'm fairly confident, but it would just figure. This morning I was looking for a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and not finding one in my closet--no one around here believes in laundry-- I remembered a newly available resource and went across the hall to my daughter's room. So don't tell anyone, but under my state basketball shirt--apparent school spirit is the ticket to jeans on Friday--there's a big sparkly butterfly.

timing is everything

It was Brown Night at the Chuck E. Cheese; impolitic to say but true. For certain federal funds to be disbursed to schools the government requires an annual parent meeting of the ESL students; it's almost like Miranda-- these are your rights, these are our procedures, this is what we'd like to do. The guidelines don't mention pizza, but nothing brings them in like free food, unless of course it's tokens. It's nice in a way to offer these families dinner and games in exchange for a signature and a few minutes of attention; I don't begrudge any positive associations, the ease in any parent's budget, or any child's fun. I can't, however, help but calculate that the price of this endeavor for the 177 who attended was more than has been allocated to me and my classroom for the past six years. Total. And yes, that is indeed pitiful. Such are our priorities. Or someone's or no one's, the latter probably more true and more maddening.

Speaking of which, next week the great state testing window opens, No Child Left Behind in all its infamous glory. For reasons unexplained and possibly irrational, my school is now leaping out of the gate immediately. The upshot is that I'll be mingling with 6,000 other ESL teachers in New York City while my 10th and 11th graders will be mired in science and math. Sucks to be them--and possibly me as I try to get them accommodated before I get out of town. (Insert your own "leaving them behind" joke about here.) I have minimal hope that my instructions will be followed, but at least whatever happens won't be my problem, or at least I won't be a witness. Or, bottom line, at least it doesn't really matter. "Do your best, don't stress," I tell everyone affected. They look doubtful. The tests are daunting, and no one likes to feel stupid. "I'll try to find someone we trust." They remain unconvinced. The subs are strangers, and no one likes to be embarrassed, most of all a teenager. They're just accustomed to me. And it's such a long, stupid and pointless day. Mostly no one wants to do it, their teacher included. "Or if nothing else," I tease, begin to embrace the gift of running away, "be good and I'll bring you a souvenir."

all ballpark no village

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,"or so the lyrics go. If only! Maybe next year, for the All-Star game. Won't that be a sight. On the verge of three seasons later, there's but a tax-abated ditch where once the real Busch stood. Standing water. Broken concrete. And yet another intended tenant made yesterday's headlines by backing out of the seemingly imaginary Ballpark Village. "Why can't we have anything nice around here?" is one oh, so St. Louis question--we kinda love to have a complex, even more than a downtown "plan"--but mostly I wonder how those hotels in the foreground get away with charging extra for the view.

Class of Someday, maybe never

Push-pull. Approach-avoidance. To want something but not want to do what's required to get it. Or maybe not be able. Tough choices, decisions. All that wrapped up in an unlikely obsession with a catalog full of class rings. Quite the symbol, they are, but of what I'm not certain.

"Perhaps, George, the first thing you need to determine is what year you'd have engraved on the thing," I say, gently teasing. Dead serious.

"I know it," he smiles. Sheepish. The brochure slides out of his grasp but not out of his gaze. He picks it back up, looks hard at the $400 token of. . .something. Not a promise to himself, though I wish it were. A substitute, perhaps. If diplomas could be purchased he's be first in line, I'm afraid, I believe. Perhaps that's not quite fair.

He has taken a third shift job, is the thing. Full-time. He doesn't want it, except that he does. Getting off work at 7 a.m. doesn't bode well for making an 8:15 class, and yet first thing Monday morning, there he was. "I didn't expect to see you," I told him, "I heard you were working." And after he said that he might quit, or might come if he got off early (not today, he didn't), our conversation wandered all over the top of that catalog, from the futility of just putting the time in, to the pain of the third shift--I had my own short been there, done that story--to the importance of him committing to something, to his dreams of a house and maybe a business in Veracruz, to our shared ignorance of why anyone would put a NASCAR driver on the side of a class ring.

On the page of symbols-available-for-purchase that he showed me, George preferred the eagle or the scales of Libra. Typical that he hadn't read the fine print well enough to realize that neither were available on the ring he had chosen--only the year. How impossibly appropriate. If the design of this imaginary ring were in my hands, I'd outline a student with his hands politely folded. Still except for the thoughts running through his restless mind.

When I talk to him about school, I talk about improving his reading and writing because that would surely help him. He doesn't really want to hear it, because he's afraid it might be impossible, and thus better not to try. When I talk about graduating, I only say that I know that he wants it, that it's a matter of doing the work. I tell him things that he knows. I don't say things I don't believe--I'm afraid he might be out of time. And, really, we both know what he'll do. Perhaps that's not quite fair.

But I have no magic words, or don't recognize them if I do. If that's what he wants from me, I suppose that I have failed him. He's already eighteen, a freshman on credits, and a wish and a prayer do not make one a sophomore. I can outline his choices, encourage every good thought, but that's not what he wants. What he wants is that ring. Whatever it stands for, whatever it means.

Senator Robert Byrd: 4,000 Souls

from the HuffPo

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the start of our nation's invasion of Iraq. Again we are confronted with a sorrowful reminder of the consequences of that fateful decision by the death of four Americans killed in Baghdad, bringing the total number of American troops who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq to 4000. Each brave soul leaves behind devastated loved ones -- sons, daughters, wives, husbands, moms, and dads. Each tragic loss leaves a void -- a missing smile and loving embrace, an empty chair at the family dinner table -- that can never be filled.

As we mark this painful milestone, we must ask ourselves: what is the moral justification for allowing this war to continue? Can we honestly say that the disastrous mission in Iraq warrants the sacrifice of more of our troops and the heartache and loss that so many loved ones continue to suffer?

In March of 2003, just prior to the invasion of Iraq, I made a final plea to the administration and my colleagues in Congress to avert a war that I believed would reap sorrowful consequences for our nation. In a speech entitled "We Stand Passively Mute", I expressed my outrage at the fact that the United States Senate -- the world's greatest deliberative body -- stood "for the most part-silent-ominously, dreadfully silent" on this monumental question.

Sadly, my worst fears have been realized. The decision to invade Iraq may go down as one of the gravest foreign policy blunders in our nation's history.

Yet the war continues. American troop levels are higher than they were the day President Bush flamboyantly swooped onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to declare "Mission Accomplished."

Four thousand Americans have now lost their lives, including twenty-three brave West Virginians. Almost thirty-thousand Americans have been wounded in action, many gravely, and countless thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed.

It is long past time to start bringing our troops home. Our men and women in uniform toppled the dictator. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There is scarce evidence that the Iraqi government is working to achieve the kind of political reconciliation that could end the continuing sacrifice of our brave men and women.

At this somber moment, let us resolve to take steps to finally bring this tragic war to an end. In 2008, the American people must not stand passively mute, as far too many of their leaders did five years ago. Let your voices be heard.

Obscene senselessness -- six dead in Iowa

Unlike the 4,000 dead US troops who "volunteered" for their demise, according to Darth Cheney, these children had no choice in the matter.

Donner Party Democrats

by Timothy Egan
from the New York Times

When they set out, it all looked so bright — away to the West, to the Denver convention, nothing but blue skies ahead. They had a continent to cross, a nation to convince, and they vowed to do it in a way that had never been done before.

They moved briskly across the plains of the Bush presidency. There was the scarecrow president who didn’t know the price of fuel or the ways of war. Flapping in the wind, he pointed one way, while 70 percent of the country wanted to go the other.

On to the arid side of the prairie, they passed one sunbaked skeleton after another — Larry Craig and his wide stance, Scooter Libby and his breach of trust, and a man from the Arabian Horse Association, Brownie. Each had the stench of yesterday on them.

Along the way, they moved by Mitt the Muddler, who couldn’t decide which way to go, and Rudy the Robo, muttering, “9/11, 9/11, 9/11.” Dining on squirrel was a guitar-plucking Huckabee, who at least knew how to keep folks entertained around the campfire.

These refugees from the other party had their nutty preacher, Pat Robertson, who blamed fellow Americans for the big attack. It was their fault, he said: the civil libertarians, the gays, the feminists brought this mass murder upon themselves.

Uphill now, through the high plains, and still the Dems held together. They would not be like that tragic Donner Party of 1846, feuding and scrapping. It would all be over before the snows were gone.

They shared their rations and steeled their will, convinced that one way or the other they would make history: a black man or a woman would lead them. They were Democrats doing the impossible: moving in one line, together.

Deep in the treeless expanse of the West, they came upon one of the stragglers from the other party: John McCain. Once, he had been a maverick. Now he looked old and worn and lost. His own party had left him for dead, he explained. Called him amnesty man.

He seemed harmless enough, saying he knew nothing about the economy, confused about who was fighting whom in a distant part of the world. They didn’t give him a second thought.

And then, as the snow piled high deep into March, the Dems turned on each other. One of their leaders had been hanging around the camp of another preacher man, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. — a nutball like Robertson, blaming America for bringing on the horrid attack. What is it with these men of God? Should have left them home.

The Dems grew raggedy, worn, desperate. Whereas the first Donner Party was bogged down in the snow of the high Sierra, these Dems could not get out of the Rockies. One faction wanted to declare it over, based on greater popular support. The other one wanted simply to stick around long enough, waiting for the rival to self-destruct.

Their former leader, Clinton the Elder, was kept on a leash — nothing but cards at night. He said he’d seen far worse in his time. “Will there be more animosity as this thing goes on? Yes.” That didn’t help.

Looking for leadership, they turned to a quiet man in the rear, a doctor from Vermont: Howard Dean. Do something, Doc! Scream! But he cowered, mumbling about do-overs and going back to Michigan or Florida.

At their lowest ebb, they looked back and again saw the straggler, McCain. He was stronger, walking with renewed vigor despite his age.

He was joined by a grizzled old cuss named Cheney. One strange hombre, Cheney had shot a man in the face. He’d forgotten that his country was a democracy. When he was told that two-thirds of the nation wanted to heed the founders’ advice and avoid prolonged foreign conflicts, he spit on the ground, and said, “So?”

His party was united. What had been hatred for McCain was now hatred for the other party’s preacher. They could direct all their historic resentments, their bound-up frustrations, against this preacher, the Rev. Wright. So long as they hissed and booed at his picture every night, they stayed together, saying the nastiest of things.

The original Donner Party made history for one reason: by eating their dead. Cannibalism — it was all they could do to stay alive.

These modern Dems press on, tearing into each other, crawling to get to the summit, still five months away, in the mile-high city. They are now ravenous with hunger, and it is starting to show.

only Easter

If the Easter bunny is not dead, tomorrow I shall have to kill him. For the chocolate rabbit in the basket to my left came from the market in Milwaukee, and I will be telling that story. "See, child, you got a souvenir. And, by the way, the chocolate covered Oreos were delicious. Perhaps there's even one left in the kitchen." Though I might have to leave that part out. That basket is already a sugar coma in waiting, and those cookies are really very good. Were.

Holidays, for the "lonely child" can be a bit of a spectacle. Or just a little odd. For Easter lunch we will go to my mother's, as always. And as always my brother will have a basket for her, though he knows she gets one at home. And as always the only grandchild, only niece, only everything will go out in the brown Zoysia plain of her grandparents' back yard and hunt for eggs, as much as one can hunt amongst the dormant azaleas and unplowed garden spot that provide the only relief from the flat stretches of dead grass so early in the year. Solo, except for the familial paparazzi. Ridiculous on so many levels, except normal just the same. I suppose that's what family is for.

This week she got a little taste of what most of us know, what it's like to keep being related when you're sick of it. After spending the better part of three days with one of her cousins, a boy a little more than a year older, she got the news that out of necessity he would be coming to spend the night with us the next day. He's not her favorite cousin, but she'd had a great time at his house, and they get along fine. His arrival wasn't dreaded, but it wasn't really welcomed. "He was already starting to get annoying in the car," she said, after I shared the change in plans. For a moment, it was almost as if she had a brother. Perhaps, I thought, this could be my new strategy, the way for her to understand what she's not really missing. Serially invite cousins to stay, and then when everyone's ready for them to go home, have them stay a little longer!

Except really, it's not the same. For better or worse, there's no relationship quite like being a sibling, and yes she has been denied it. This came clear to me when I overheard that twelve year-old boy ask my daughter if they could play with her Littlest Pet Shop toys as she sat down to watch the Apprentice (neither one of us could believe it). No way that exchange happens between brother and sister except as a prelude to a joke or a tease. So much for the cousin theory, on so many levels; so much for knowing about normal.

a realization

"Ms. P, yesterday I think I said the most mature thing I've ever said."

I nearly hold on to the side of my desk to anchor myself against the eye-rolling urge. Instead, I check my e-mail. "Oh, you did, did you? What was that?"

"No, really," he says, and the tone is sincere.

I turn, give my full attention. "All right," I'm game. "What did you say?"

He looks up to frame his story, starts to gesture. "I think it sounds better in Spanish," he stalls. "But Oscar and George and those guys, they were talking about quitting."

I sigh involuntarily, shake my head at the thought of Oscar, whom we both know is done for reasons good, bad, and indifferent.

"But you know I'm good with computers." I nod, save my smart remarks about smart pirates for later, or never.

"And I can speak English, and in Uruguay they pay you double for that. And I can write, too."

"You can, you write well when you put your mind to it. That's all true." Not that I know of South American salaries, but "bilingualism pays" is a tenet of the ESL faith.

"And really," he says, sounding somehow like a salesman warming up his pitch, "I learned English pretty good in only three years." What he really wants to say is, "So I know I'm smart, and I don't want to blow it," so I say it for him as part of my reply. Because he is. And he shouldn't. And I'll kill him if he does, though I don't think that he will, not him.

And then he gets to the part where he repeats back to me everything I told him in January, when he, in an immigration-induced funk, was so insistent he'd just work three jobs like his father, that what was good enough for the old-before-his-time man was good enough for him.

"I don't want to have to do that, so I'm not gonna quit school," he concludes, months later, all come to his senses. "And so that's what I told them, but it sounds better in Spanish."

"That's the thing about education, Maxi. It saves you from work: just look at me."

Three Guesses

As to where I spent the last thirty-six to forty-eight hours, though one of those clues is kind of a trick. I mean, by rights shouldn't Bud Weiser have a car dealership here? I'm sure it's pronounced with a long E, too, but I really don't care. He sells cars with with a nickname and I desperately try to pass the time between Beloit and Bloomington until they finally fix that thumpa-thumpa-thumpa highway. We all do what we can.

Even if that involves going North during Spring Break, or at least part of it, if that's where the E Street Band is playing. Yes, dear readers, it is a theme. The mr. and I spent a freezing cold St. Patrick's Day in M'waukee with Bruce, and despite the smelly drunks, the idiots who asked if he'd play Jack and Diane, and the hour late start, we had a hell of a time. Why did we never do this before? No accounting. But I will say there are tickets left for Indianapolis, and it's two hours closer, and school doesn't start until Monday. And the forecast is for a balmy 51!

Two tickets to Jungleland

Aside from memories, stubs are all I have left from two Bruce Springsteen concerts I've attended last night and 20 years ago, to the day.

The 1988 show was in Chicago at the Rosemont Horizon. The stub clearly states "The E Street Band," but it's an uncorrected error. Bruce toured without the band, though with Patty, the other woman at the time, promoting his disappointing solo effort "Tunnel of Love." It was not Bruce's finest work, and the show didn't inspire like the other four times I've seen him. Then again, the E Street Band was playing each other time.

So it was last night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Though Patty, having transformed herself over 20 years from vixen to caring mother, was home with their teenagers and Danny Federici is sitting out while undergoing treatment for melanoma, this was Bruce Springsteen AND the E Street Band, and it rocked! And just like 20 years ago, I was with my wife Lisa (we married 10 days after the 1988 show) and our Chicago friends Rich and Jane.

Call me a creature of habit, but there's something to be said for consistency. I take comfort in lifelong friendship. And I like knowing that when I shell money down for a Bruce Springsteen concert, I'm going to get my money's worth. Last night, I enjoyed both.

Clarence Clemens, my god! And Steven Van Zant, Badda Bing! Max Weinberg, I'd rather see you there than on Leno. Bruce, what can I say? We go back a long ways man, it's been a fun ride, but when did you start to look like Tom Harkin?

Here's this from the St. Paul Pioneer Press review: One moment said it all, when he was standing at the lip of the stage, away from the microphone with his eyes closed, singing the chorus of "Long Walk Home" joined by more than 17,000 fans in the audience. It was the sort of intimate moment that's tough to achieve and even tougher to fake.

Sunday night's 140-minute show was littered with such warm flourishes as well as plenty of good, old-fashioned rocking out. The set list roughly mirrored his last visit to the X back in November, which meant a show weighted toward his last two E Street Band albums, 2002's "The Rising" and last year's "Magic," as well as his 1975 breakthrough "Born to Run," including the show-opening "Night" and "Jungleland" during the encore.

And, sure, other encore tracks like "Dancing in the Dark" and "Born to Run" had the crowd on its feet, but much of the fresher stuff has graduated to true modern-classic status. Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt gleefully traded licks during the two manic solos of "Gypsy Biker," while 2002's "Lonesome Day" has grown to epic proportions. "Devil's Arcade" rumbles with the melodic majesty and contemporary feel of U2 or Coldplay. His show-closing "American Land" recalled 2006's excellent, and sadly under-attended, "Seeger Sessions" tour that saw Springsteen tackling classic folk numbers in a sing-along style. (And just in case anyone didn't get the point, the song's lyrics scrolled on the big screens.)

Well said. And we got "Jungleland"! How cool is that? And in case you missed it, the writer rates Springsteen right up there with Coldplay. Not bad for a 58-year old man.

Last night's show ranks third on my list. Number two was when Bruce broke my cherry, so to speak, in 1984. I bought tickets from a scalper for $75, which was a lot of money for a college student at the time, and took a girl I was trying to impress to the show at Hilton Coliseum in Ames. I think I was more impressed than she was.

Number one, the single greatest show I've seen, period, was the 2004 Vote for Change concert sponsored by Moveon. After someone called Bright Eyes opened, the St. Paul stage gave way to REM, Bruce and the Band, and John Fogerty. Neil Young made a surprise appearance. Holy shit! Even if it wasn't in support of a cause I supported, and even though I accompanied local media types who risked their jobs just to see a rock and roll show, the performances were outstanding.

And, just to be complete, #4 would be "The Rising" tour in 2002, also at Xcel (a fabulous concert venue that I suspect is great for Minnesota Wild hockey too) and #5 is the aforementioned "Tunnel of Love" tour. My friends from Chicago would agree.

Sometimes stupid is funny

My policy on e-mail forwards is simple: send me one and instantly sink in my personal estimation. Unless, of course, I really like it. No pressure.

Any kind of FW: in my work inbox is normally guaranteed to irk me, given that I'm always one or two notes away from another YOUR MAILBOX HAS EXCEEDED ITS SIZE LIMIT warning. If that guy sends "A Pastor with Guts" to All Staff again (true story) my ticked-off response will surely be audible. But this, that arrived amongst the staff memos and meeting reminders? This makes me laugh every damn time. Can't help it. I blame the teenagers.

Why I Was Fired

Coverboy

Does any media on the planet do a better job covering old news than Sports Illustrated? Having just finished reading the cover story on the latest issue, I think not.

Making his third cover since December (!!!), Brett Favre's retirement received the kind of coverage I've come to expect from SI -- emotional, passionate, generous, raw, real. In my lifetime, Favre's retirement press conference only compares with Magic Johnson's, only this time I cried. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

SI: Favre's farewell was the last in a long series of memorable performances. Emotional, passionate, generous, raw, real -- Favre said goodbye the same way he played the game.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Better than anyone, Alan Shipnuck summarized the self-fulfilling prophecy that led to the exit of the longtime face of the Green Bay Packers, if not the NFL.

SI: There is plenty left in Favre's rocket right arm, but the expectations of the sport's most passionate fan base exhausted him, and he was weary of the preparation required to summon his best.

A masseuse table in the basement of the Favre home was evidence of his burden. There, Deanna regularly tried to rub away her husband's stress.

SI: Why not hire a pro? "Brett is a little weird about strangers touching his body," Deanna said with a laugh.

He wouldn't cut it as a politician, not that it would ever be a consideration.

SI: While the Mississippi twang and aw-shucks charm conjured comparisons to Huck Finn, last week Favre felt more like Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral.

And: Favre's detachment from his own celebrity has always been his most winning trait.

Shipnuck's concluding paragraph summed it up perfectly while helping this Packer fan come to grips with it all.

SI: In fact, Favre has always had an unerring sense of timing. So many athletes stick around too long, displaying diminished skills and a depressing mortality, but he is leaving at exactly the right moment. How can we be sure? Because it hurts to say goodbye.

mom

"I had to ask this older lady, 'My friend just passed away. What do you think I should buy?' " They were standing in the grocery.

"It's like I had never done that before," she said, speaking of taking food to her friend's family. And from her tone, she's clearly at a loss.

My mother always knows what to do and does it. Unless, of course, it's one of those rare moments she needs to accomplish some exceedingly simple computer activity and the universe instructs her to call me up and push my buttons instead of clicking the one that's right. in. front. of. her. THERE. At least she would never forward or believe any ridiculous crap. She's entirely too sensible, no-nonsense--unless it's really good nonsense. The woman watches Snoop Dogg.

"I know we're all nuts in our own way," she has said to my good-natured assent, but even her crazy-making ways are really quite sane, given the range of mothering I have heard-tell of and witnessed. Which is why it's so affecting to see the embodiment of competence be so moved by the loss of her friend. It's not that she's ever cold--Do Anything for Anybody comes from the heart, not the head--but she's always the one who carries on, does what needs to be done. This loss is a flash to the future, the big ones to come. I hope we do right by her then.

A sudden goodbye

"I can see her feet. They're blue. "

It's an image I can't get out of my head, not that I've had time to shake it. My mother, standing in the postage-stamp yard of that same little brick house, peering in at what's left of her friend. The paramedics wouldn't let her get closer despite there being nothing at all for them to do. The time for rescue had passed before anyone had even come home.

But 911 was called, and the emergency services responded, and my parents were summoned, and instantly, they were there. That has been the pattern for forty-some-odd years. After all, they were friends. "Russell and Becky may be nuts"--this is my mother talking--"but they will do anything for you, no questions asked. You gotta give them credit for that."

The occasion of that last pronouncement was Russell driving through an ice storm to St. Louis to rescue my brother from having locked his keys in his running car--mania has its advantages--but I'm sure she'd said it a thousand times before. Whatever will that man do without his constant foil, his comic relief, the woman known for her quirky obsessions and infinite talents? "Becky can do anything." And really, she could. Fill up an extra bedroom with every Beanie Baby manufactured and every movie John Wayne and Frank Sinatra ever made. Sew, paint, sing, crochet with remarkable skill. Alienate everyone in the movie theater with her constant commentary and questions, but, in the right mood, make a turkey fun.

My inventory of memories runs to the ceramic baby booties on my dresser--one that she made for me, one that she made for my daughter--New Year's Eves when I was young, that laugh, her kids. My sorrow for my mother, so temperamentally opposite. I imagined she'd always be there because she always was. Becky was full of life in a way that not everyone is--until tonight. Tonight, she's gone.

instant family

I wonder if she ever thinks, "I should have just left her in China." The daughter who had lived there twelve years of fifteen. It happens often enough, the intercontinental "I'll be back for you later," for reasons that sometimes I know about, sometimes I don't. None of my business. But people talk to me, parents and children, and sometimes I wonder what it's like for them when they go home.

"You never say, 'I love you?'" I'm not sure where this conversation came from, or who asked her, but there's a dictionary out.

"I don't like my mother." Her classmates are a little aghast; she might as well have gone out front and stomped hard on a crack. As if that would have meant anything to anyone but me.

"But I love my brother." I know there are two steps, ages seven and three, Chinese-American boys she had met but never lived with before January 7. Instant immersion, both language and familial. And considering that one has busted her iPod and disabled her computer, the fondness in her voice makes me smile. It seems as if it could be so much harder at this point, and perhaps to her mother it is.

After all, she's suddenly parenting a girl 24/7 who not only refuses to give up her Chuck Taylors but insists she will grow up to be a school bus driver instead of the pre-ordained medical professional because, to her, "It's so cool." That's gotta be a phase, but at the moment, she means it; I'd say the fact that it gives her mother apoplexy is only a perk, but I don't think she knows her well enough to deliberately antagonize yet, and isn't concerned regardless. She just is who she is, and for now that's kind of the catch.

Today's menu

"Evr'body in China eat dog." As if today weren't Monday enough.

"You know there are a billion people in China," I say, enunciating the B.

"Really?" Yes, same as last time I told you.

He disregards the odds: "I saw it on YouTub-ee."

"Then it must be true!" I say with a grin, not bothering to correct him.

He tries a different tack: "I asked Josh, and he says, 'yes!'"

"Josh is still Korean," is my automatic reply, but this time, I think, too late, that's not gonna help.

"He say they had an old dog, so when he was done, they ate him."

"Are you sure he wasn't playing?" I'm not, to be honest, but any sidetrack in a harass-your-classmate storm. They are so unintentionally unrelenting. And this particular tangent just would not be close to quelled until the picture dictionary comes out and we play a five-player, four nationality game of "Is this food to you?" Monkey? Grasshopper? Rat? Each a serious yes from someone. And I can't say that I'd ever heard the "I'm a dog person, not cat" dichotomy come out in quite such an interesting context. Thank goodness we'd already had lunch. And thank goodness I could draw some heat off of our Asian friends with something as simple as frog legs.

"Ms. P., are you serious?"

"Don'tcha know? Tastes like chicken! (hello!)"

Steve Earle: City of Immigrants

We actually came across this today because Steve Earle recorded The Wire's theme song this year. One thing leads to another. The lyrics, as you might imagine, speak to me, even here in the Midwestern suburbs:

livin’ in a city of immigrants
i don’t need to go travelin’
open my door and the world walks in
livin’ in a city of immigrants
livin’ in a city that never sleeps
my heart keepin’ time to a thousand beats
singin’ in languages i don’t speak
livin’ in a city of immigrants



city of black
city of white
city of light
city of innocents
city of sweat
city of tears
city of prayers
city of immigrants
livin’ in a city where the dreams of men
reach up to touch the sky and then
tumble back down to earth again
livin’ in a city that never quits
livin’ in a city where the streets are paved
with good intentions and a people’s faith
in the sacred promise a statue made
livin' in a city of immigrants
city of stone
city of steel
city of wheels
constantly spinnin’
city of bone
city of skin
city of pain
city of immigrants
all of us are immigrants
every daughter every son
everyone is everyone
all of us are immigrants-yeah everyone
livin’ in a city of immigrants
river flows out and the sea rolls in
washin’ away nearly all of my sins
livin’ in a city of immigrants
city of black
city of white
city of light
city of immigrants
city of sweat
city of tears
city of prayers
city of immigrants
city of stone
city of steel
city of wheels
city of immigrants
city of bone
city of skin
city of pain
city of immigrants
all of us are immigrants…….

What's on tonight? Closure.

Whether it's a tribute to the writers' talents or my own literal mindedness, in my head there exists a place called Dillon, Texas and sooner or later (thank baby Jesus) I'll again be privy to what goes on there. That community isn't entirely realistic, especially lately, but then again that line about stranger-than-fiction bears the weight of my experience, so I tend to be forgiving. And, you know, Riggins. I'm so looking forward to picking up those threads and following as long as they run.

Baltimore, on the other hand, can be located in any Rand-McNally, and the stories that I've been watching there in five season of The Wire are rooted in truth. But they're stories, and after tonight, they will stop. Those cops and drug dealers, dock workers, reporters, and teachers never exactly existed--not all of them, anyway--though I kind of choose to believe they did. In that I'm not really alone; even Newsweek ran an obit for Omar, best anti-hero ever, in a space normally reserved for passing artists or politicians or athletes. True dat.

This season of The Wire has not been what I hoped for--somehow I think David Simon's hatred for The Sun got in the way--but it's getting there, finally, and at least there will be some closure, and not the Sopranos' black screen of cop-out death. Every week there's been a call-back, a glimpse at a character from seasons one, two, three, and four. Something that answers the questions, "Where are they going? Where are they now?" The Wire being The Wire, at least as real as reality, the answers are heartbreaking most of the time. But at least there are answers. I don't want to make up my own story; I want to know what happened. What really happened. In their worlds, which, when I'm lucky, intersect with mine.

In his own words

My current classroom is an anomaly: top to bottom, it is the exception, not the rule. Walk the halls of this entire building, and you'll find no other student space with carpet, mood lighting (I don't know if the switch is broken or the overhead fluorescents, but I thank baby Jesus for the lack of glare), and cabinets instead of closets. It is so quintessentially ESL. My space also has three doors: one of which I've disguised with a giant collage ("That's not a door," I say, and they believe me.), one of which leads to the warren of band rooms, go figure, and one of which is strong enough to lead to a bomb shelter intead of the main hallway. Needless to say, no window, so there's always a little air of mystery whenever we say, "Come in."

At my house I almost never answer a knock or the doorbell without peeking through the curtains. Here I'm denied that caution, but at least so far the Attendance Office does screen for Jehovah's Witnesses and magazine salespeople, and besides, no one here hesitates. A knock is just a gesture. Everyone who knows me walks in as if he's at home, and, more or less, really, they are.

This week that heavy door swung open to reveal two pleasant surprises, visitors who were entirely unexpected. Both former students had been in fairly recent touch, either by telephone or e-mail, but in-person is always better. No substitute for a smile or a hug, or even just making the effort. One of those day-brighteners left behind a commentary he wrote for his high school paper; I expect he still may be keeping a copy editor busy, but he's come a long way, and I'm pleased for him and for me, too:


Living la vida Latino

“Americans, what, nothin’ better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out? You’re an immigrant too. . .”

--The White Stripes

Growing up Latino can be one of the greatest things in this world, but it can also be the worst. Being Latino to me has been the greatest gift that life has given me, because it allows me to stand out in any way, shape or form.

What makes a Latino so special to me is not just our food or our margaritas; it’s our culture, our language, our hometowns. It’s the rhythm that we have running through our blood, the passion that we have about what we’re doing in a specific moment, and last and most important, the love that we have for our families.

But besides all of the good things that make up a Latino, there’s another side that most Latinos have to face everyday, and that’s not being able to have human rights in a country full of opportunities.

To me, growing up as a young Latino has been the hardest thing I have ever lived with, because what sets us a part from typical Americans is fear. It’s the fear of seeing your favorite relative being taken away against his or her will, or not being able to see your best friend ever again just because of a bad mistake. It’s the fear of having your babies grow up in a place and then being forced to leave this country, and go to another place with worse conditions than the place where they were born.

I’m one of the few who is eligible to be living here with the proper requirements. What makes people who aren’t eligible to be living here mad is that our government is gambling with the lives of Latinos and their rights to stay here by threatening us with an immigration law. I believe this immigration law is just another of many other cover ups to make all Americans forget about the war in Iraq, which is much greater than any other problem this country is having.

You might think that immigrants are here to stay because they want to, but that’s wrong. They’re here because they have families to take care of, they have loved ones that are sick and need the kind of money that their healthcare won’t pay. There are many other reasons why illegal aliens have to leave their countries. You may be complaining that they’re taking every single job there is, but if immigrants won’t do them, just tell me who would. You might be complaining about them not paying taxes. Trust me they pay them, but since they have to have a fake Social Security number to be able to work in this country, they don’t even get a penny back. That money just disappears; either that or the government just keeps it. But it is up to us to find a solution to this confusion. Just imagine if the solution was reversed. What would you do? You would do the impossible to survive, which is the only reason they’re doing this.

The government knows what’s up by not getting rid of immigrants that they desperately need. Plus they don’t have the resources to kick them all out.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s not just a “Mexican thing,” it’s an “every single immigrant thing,” whether you’re Italian, Venezuelan, Asian, or Australian.

Friday Night Lights renewed

Brett Favre called it quits today at a teary news conference, extending a personal funk that is nearing a week long. My mood was boosted considerably though by the news that "Friday Night Lights" has been saved. Thank you one and all who participated in the effort to save the best show no one watches.

$49 million. Or not.

Lies, damned lies, statistics. Politicians with hay to make, axes to grind. I'm certain, however, if these needs were literal, if there were fields to reap, tools to sharpen, that the labor would be farmed off to some low-bid worker, regardless of what creased cards may or may not be found inside his wallet, except, perhaps, in an election year.

The headline in today's paper, Steelman: Illegal workers short state by $49M, introduced what was not even a story, just a summary and then contradiction of a little press release, but the headline is the key. Because it wasn't State Treasurer Twists Numbers to Suit Her Purpose. Or, State Treasurer Cannot Read. But instead: Forty-nine Million Dollars. Whoa, big number. You know how they are.

According to the press release, Treasurer Steelman figures that illegal workers cost Missouri in income taxes they don't pay. Except that, the anonymous AP reporter was diligent enough to point out, the Pew Hispanic Center, Steelman's source all her numbers, says 65 percent of the undocumented immigrants in Missouri are working. Steelman jacked that percentage to 90, and called them all adults. Hardly. She also decided to claim that none of them are paying income tax, an assertion that's just laughable. Does she think that all these national hotel and restaurant and meat-packing chains are paying everybody in cash? I know immigrants who file, and immigrants who are scared to, and immigrants who use the special ID number set up so those without a SSN can do so (perhaps you've heard of it, Steelman?). I'd never argue that it's not a convoluted disastrous mess, but when taxes are withheld regardless of whatever, the government gets the money.

I know it's shocking, a politician that manipulates. Especially one who won the the Phyllis Schlafly & The Eagles Forum God/Family/Country Award. It's right there in her bio, along with her crowning achievement as a state senator, putting the Sanctity of Marriage Act on the ballot. Mutter. Mutter. Mutter. But perhaps I shouldn't cast aspersions, make the assumption that her whack-job Republican politics influenced her calculations today. Perhaps she's just a Treasurer who can't do third grade arithmetic. Either way, I'm still glad to live over here.

Something special

I recognized it early. I’m not sure exactly when, but soon into his career as a Green Bay Packer I realized that we were witnessing something special. While I’ve always been pretty hardcore about the Packers, it became an obsession. Family gatherings, holidays, weddings, even my daughter’s cesarean birth had to be coordinated around Packer games.

I was blessed to see several of his games in person, including some unpleasant memories from Minneapolis, and have made a point of attending at least one game a year at Lambeau Field since today’s inevitability first appeared on the radar.

Initially, pre-Favre, I was with my genuine cheesehead step-brother; our fanship strengthening our tenuous familial bond. We participated together in a Don Majkowski poster-burning ritual after Favre arrived on the scene. We were side by side in the Metrodome when T.J. Rubley came in to spoil the day. He didn’t even notice I had puked under the table before our hasty departure from a Green Bay strip club.

I cherish these and countless other memories with Scott. But it all changed in June 1993, within a year of Favre’s first of what would eventually reach 275 consecutive starts at quarterback for the Packers. That’s when my first child, a son, was born.

Before he was old enough to object, his name was on the waiting list for Packer season tickets. I tolerated the Tennessee Titan dalliance as an early effort to assert his independence, knowing full well that a trip to Green Bay would set things straight. The Packers – and Favre – soon became a string that bound our relationship.

We shared many a Sunday afternoon with the Packers – often at home, at a sports bar if need be, and sometimes within the football Mecca that is Lambeau Field. I’m typically not one to take time to smell the roses, except when it involves my kids. I smelled them when we toured the Packer Hall of Fame; she saddling the bicycle display – which I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to do – and he reflecting in the shadows of three Super Bowl trophies. I smelled them that memorable Monday night after Favre’s own dad died. I smelled them when we chanted “one more year” in attendance at the season finale three years ago. I smelled them two years ago as we watched, from a hotel bar, Favre’s emotional New Year’s Eve exit from Soldier Field.

Last year, somehow, I was oblivious that the end was near when an unexpected victory over San Diego gave the hint of a special season. Or when Favre stole victories at Denver and Kansas City. Or when we desperately searched for a place to watch the Washington game. Or when connections with the manager enabled the 14-year-old to remain at the sports bar late on a school night at Dallas. Or when Thanksgiving dinner was delayed at Detroit. Or when a trip to St. Louis became punishment for bad grades.

Did I mention the snow globe playoff game against Seattle? Or the playoff dance I unveiled against the Giants? I didn’t think there would be an equal to our collective sadness after the Giants snatched a return to the Super Bowl from our mitts.

Until today.

Once I knew it wasn’t some Internet snafu, I texted “Favre is done” to Zach. By then, he had already heard the news from his Packer-fan science teacher. “I would have cried if I wasn’t at school,” he revealed later. After dinner, we settled in for the ESPN coverage.

“He’s the only Packer quarterback I’ve ever known,” he said.

“I know.”

Five years from now, I fully expect we’ll travel to Canton for Favre’s Hall of Fame enshrinement. How the Packers will fare in the meantime is anyone’s guess. All I know for sure is this was a special time. Thanks Brett.

More

I'm tempted to say that it's only appropriate that the snow still hasn't stopped coming down here today--how Wisconsin-like--but the object of our mournful obsession (would you believe a hit from Reykjavik, looking for that photo below?) is in sunny Mississippi. I might retire, too. Anyway, I really liked this, despite the fact that it contains phrases I don't comprehend, such as "the last game he ever played."

Penny for your thoughts

Once the shock wears off, perhaps I'll pen my own thoughts on my all-time favorite athlete, Brett Favre. But I can't do that now. So I give you Sports Illustrated's Peter King with one of his favorite Favre stories.

I've covered Brett Favre throughout his pro career, and when people ask, "What's Favre really like?" I might tell a story about his dead-on imitation of Billy Bob Thornton's character in Sling Blade, or about the time on a hunting trip that I heard him tracking his prey by cooing, "Here grousy-grousy-grousy." Or I might tell this story.

Ten years ago Green Bay was preparing to play Denver in Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego, and the seven previous times that I had covered the Packers, I had either dined or visited with Favre the Friday before each game -- and Green Bay had won every time. On the Monday before the big game, I reminded him of this. "Well then, we've got to go out Friday night," he said. "Find a good place." Then he thought for a second. "Do me a favor. Can you find a girl you might know, around Brittany's age? She'd hate it, being the only kid at a dinner with all the adults." Brittany Favre, his daughter, was almost nine.

It just so happened that my best friend from college, Dan Squiller, lived in San Diego and had a nine-year-old daughter, Brooke, and the Super Bowl was the biggest thing ever to hit town in her young life. Would she like to go to dinner with Brett Favre and his family? "Yeaaahhh!!!" she said, and even skipped a friend's birthday party to go. When the Favre party of 20 assembled at a La Jolla restaurant, Brooke and Brittany started chatting like new best friends, and Brett couldn't have been more pleased.

"Hey, Brooke," Brett said, "what'd you do in school today?"

"Studied Spanish, I guess. Lots of Spanish," said Brooke, who attended a bilingual magnet school. "Everybody's talking about the Super Bowl, though."

"What do you want to do with your life?" he said.

"Be a marine biologist, I think."

"You have a boyfriend?" he said.

No reply. Just a lot of blushing.

And so Brooke, who'd arrived very nervous, was part of the extended family now. She and Brittany giggled a lot, talked about how they'd redecorate their rooms if their lame parents would only let them. They got a kick out of Brett's ordering the sliced ostrich, along with tenderloin of Texas antelope. "I can just hear the announcers on Sunday," Brett said. "Favre's a little under the weather today. Must be antelope poisoning."

As we got up to leave, Brooke got a mischievous look in her eye and asked me for a penny. "Hey, Brett," she said, "here's your lucky penny for Sunday. You know, 'Find a penny, pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck.' Carry this with you, and you'll win." He thanked her and put the penny in his pocket. Brooke asked for only one thing: to have her picture taken with Brett and me.

Fast-forward 48 hours. Denver 31, Green Bay 24. In the postgame interview area, Favre, still in uniform, spotted me, and when he was done answering questions, he reached inside his high right sock. He pulled out a very sweaty penny. "Tell Brooke sorry," he said with a wry smile. "I guess it wasn't very lucky for me today."

"You're kidding!" I said. "You had that penny in your sock all game?"

"Of course," he said. "She said it'd be lucky."

Don't ask me how I could forget, but I never told Brooke what happened to the penny -- until I phoned her last week.

"No way! Oh my God, that's insane!" said Brooke, now a sophomore at Cardiff University in Wales. I asked Brooke (double majoring in Spanish and philosophy, by the way) if she remembered much about that night. "Are you kidding? I was sooooo stoked! One of my 10 most memorable nights ever! Do you know what I have on my bulletin board here? That photo of me, you and Brett! I look so tiny!"

Then she turned serious. "Before that night, I thought famous people were different from regular people. I thought they were a level above us," Brooke said. "But Brett was so normal. How many times can you say you were accepted into a family you'd never met before in a matter of minutes, and such a famous family? It may sound corny, but that night changed the way I look at people forever."

I told Brooke, who doesn't follow the NFL much in Wales, that SPORTS ILLUSTRATED would be naming Favre its Sportsman of the Year. And I told her I was watching him on TV at that moment, against Dallas, and he was running around just like he did that day 10 years ago in her hometown.

"He is amazing!" she said. And then she paused.

"If he ever retired, how would the NFL replace him?"

Bob Herbert: The $2 Trillion Nightmare

The $2 Trillion Nightmare
By BOB HERBERT

We’ve been hearing a lot about “Saturday Night Live” and the fun it has been having with the presidential race. But hardly a whisper has been heard about a Congressional hearing in Washington last week on a topic that could have been drawn, in all its tragic monstrosity, from the theater of the absurd.

The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy.

On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”

Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.

What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.

Mr. Stiglitz noted that nearly 40 percent of the 700,000 troops from the first gulf war, which lasted just a month, have become eligible for disability benefits. The current war is approaching five years in duration.

“Imagine then,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “what a war — that will almost surely involve more than 2 million troops and will almost surely last more than six or seven years — will cost. Already we are seeing large numbers of returning veterans showing up at V.A. hospitals for treatment, large numbers applying for disability and large numbers with severe psychological problems.”

The Bush administration has tried its best to conceal the horrendous costs of the war. It has bypassed the normal budgetary process, financing the war almost entirely through “emergency” appropriations that get far less scrutiny.

Even the most basic wartime information is difficult to come by. Mr. Stiglitz, who has written a new book with Ms. Bilmes called “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” said they had to go to veterans’ groups, who in turn had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act, just to find out how many Americans had been injured in Iraq.

Mr. Stiglitz and Mr. Hormats both addressed the foolhardiness of waging war at the same time that the government is cutting taxes and sharply increasing non-war-related expenditures.

Mr. Hormats told the committee:

“Normally, when America goes to war, nonessential spending programs are reduced to make room in the budget for the higher costs of the war. Individual programs that benefit specific constituencies are sacrificed for the common good ... And taxes have never been cut during a major American war. For example, President Eisenhower adamantly resisted pressure from Senate Republicans for a tax cut during the Korean War.”

Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”

Some former presidents — Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower — were quoted at the hearing on the need for accountability and shared sacrifice during wartime. But this is the 21st century. That ancient rhetoric can hardly be expected to compete for media attention, even in a time of war, with the giddy fun of S.N.L.

It’s a new era.

all for one

Where to sit. What to wear. Whether to do homework or not. Everyone knows every teenaged decision is a complicated calculus that factors what everyone else is doing. If she does, then I will; if he does, I won't. If they will, I can't possibly. Why didn't you tell me that he won't? We preach at kids to rise above, sing the virtues of independent thought. Do the right thing regardless of whatever, whomever. It's so simple if not always so easy. Just do it. It's what we expect, or at least hope for.

One would think, then, or at least I would, that overpaid, overeducated men and women might be capable of at least the same effort, at least for one yes-or-no decision, whenever it has to be made. Apparently not, according to the early morning evidence, at least when precipitation and state funding are involved. Snow days are all about peer pressure; it's worse than the school cafeteria at noon. I'll close if you will; I won't if you don't. That MUST be what the big boys are saying, for nobody goes it alone. I've learned to check the closing list for three districts not mine in order to judge the odds of a phone call. The forecast doesn't change, neither the radar, but no one is closed and now everyone is, and only at the very last minute? I know nobody wants to look like an idiot, especially twice in a row, but six inches on top of sleet plus wind? Do these people really need their hands held?

life lesson

The video screen is dwarfed by the space, hard to see, but I'm not watching it anymore, anyway. My eyes are scanning the crowd. I spot my newest arrival, regret for a moment she has no neighbor to translate but am ultimately glad her friend's attention won't be divided. It's realistic rather than cold--isn't it?--to think that she's accustomed to floating on a sea of language. Rows North is Josh. Alone? Maybe. Probably. Attentive, it seems, but I want to rush the stage, tug the sleeve of the presenter. Slow down, please. It would make such a difference.

Everyone else is lost in the dim light. I'll have to catch up with them later, when all the explaining begins. What must they make of all these newsreels, video. 911 calls. This pretty girl. At nearly nine years ago, Columbine is not a first-hand memory to many currently in high school, but it's modern enough that the entire student body is rapt with attention. We're killing them, this week, with all the ways they could die. I very much wonder what our new transplants must think of the American phenomenon of shootings in schools.

Mostly, it seems, they're calculating their odds. Does this happen often? Where? When? Why? How? Easy to ask, not so much to answer. And oh, by the way, have I explained how the lock-down drill works? They must wonder what they've gotten themselvs into, especially given that the more subtle points of the assembly, the main purposes, are harder to catch; abstract language comes after concrete.

My old-timers do get it, back in the gym, during the come-to-Jesus moment. "Close your eyes and think of the people who mean the most to you," instructs the presenter. "And sometime in the next three days tell them what they mean." Just in case, he says, in so many words, you don't make it home alive.

As the assembly ends and the students spill out, one of my original students strides through my door, calling to me as she does:

"Ms. P, I love you, and if I ever did wrong, I'm sorry." It's like church camp after the sermon. "Did you know I never tell my parents I love them?"

"I wouldn't have guessed that," I reply, as I return her declaration and watch her pass out hugs. I do love these kids, all these years later, knowing them so well, and thus I wonder if her fervor will last until she gets home.

Behind me, someone in the doorway hears an opportunity. As I turn, I see it in his eyes.

"Ms. P."

"Yes," I say, with a whole different tone.

"I love you."

"Go to class, Maxi." Some things may change today, but other things? Never.