Hindsight is 20-20 (or Why Joe Paterno [respectfully] shouldn't have been fired)

I dislike Jerry Sandusky. Unlike some of the other blogger know-it-alls, who formulated their dislike for him about a week ago, I have disliked him for about the last 15 years. That was when I saw him berating one of his sons at the Park Forest Jr. High School near State College, PA. I was waiting to pick up my daughter, who had stayed for after-school activities, when I saw a tall, well-dressed, gray-haired man "dressing down" a teenage boy. This man was aggressively, and loudly, yelling at the youth in a manner that I'm sure was nearly mortally embarrassing to the boy.

To my daughter and me, it was an uncomfortable scene. I remember thinking to myself that I was very glad that my father was not like that. Then, my uncomfortableness quickly turned to disbelief and confusion when I recognized the belligerent man as Jerry Sandusky. How could this be? Sandusky was Penn State's defensive coordinator, a football genius and, more importantly, a beloved icon around the State College area. He was most known as a philanthropist, due to his charitable activities helping disadvantaged youth through his Second Mile foundation. It was all very puzzling.

I searched in my mind for a justification... Then suddenly I had it: It must be tough love! Because the iconic Jerry Sandusky couldn't actually have been doing what I thought I saw, that must be the explanation. In my heart of hearts, I couldn't really accept even this explanation, but at least I was able to mollify my feelings that way. But my overall opinion of him, at that point, became decidedly negative.

I subsequently mentioned the incident to a few other long-time Penn State football fans. Their reactions were generally along the line of thinking that I had tried to come up with: I must have misunderstood the circumstances, or it was a "teaching moment", etc.

It should be understood that Sandusky was basically a stranger to me -- I didn't know him or had ever talked to him. I only knew of him enough to recognize him.

It did seem somewhat curious when Sandusky suddenly retired after the 1999 season. The photo above was taken at his last home game against Michigan that November.

Being a long-time State College resident, I was also familiar with, obviously, Joe Paterno and, to a lesser extent, Mike McQueary.

When I moved to State College back in the seventies, Joe Paterno was a bit of a rough sell for me. While I generally respected him and his Penn State team, I found him to be a bit of a "nerd", as well as having a generally underwhelming persona. I sensed the great respect that "locals" had for him but just couldn't quite see it myself. One of the first times I heard him speak was when he helped broadcast Penn State's spring game (the "Blue-White" game) on a local TV station. I must admit that half the time I either couldn't understand him or figure out what he was talking about!

Over the years, though, as he graduated almost all of his players and basically "bought" the school an expanded library, my respect for him became immense. Helping win most of Penn State's football games, as well as two National Championships, was admirable but that was only a minor reason for my respect. Running a clean program that emphasized academics and sportsmanship was the main reason I liked him.

I often saw Joe walking around campus, and my wife and I even had brief conversations with him a few times. He was always approachable, congenial, and polite.

I knew of Mike McQueary as an all-star quarterback at State College High, and his family was also well-known in the area. I'm pretty sure he played football with some of Sandusky's children, and suspect the two well-known families were acquainted. McQueary went on to be Penn State's starting quarterback in 1996-97. He led Penn State to a 7-0 start and #1 ranking his senior year before Penn State's two biggest stars, Curtis Enis and Joe Jurevicius, were suspended by Joe Paterno for relatively minor offenses. That team eventually limped to a 9-3 record.

I give all this background to illustrate that when McQueary allegedly saw Sandusky sodomizing a young boy, it was more than a grad assistant seeing an unknown former assistant coach committing an illegal act. It was probably closer to a family member seeing a well-regarded authority figure/family member doing the same.

There has been much self-aggrandizing outrage expressed in the media and on social-networking sites that I (the speaker) "would never allow such behavior to occur unchallenged or unreported (to police)". Unfortunately, the experience shown in other cases is that, for most people, this is largely untrue. It's well documented that many, if not most, people will turn a blind eye to a crime being committed, rather than to "get-involved." People have sometimes been assaulted, raped, and beaten in public places with little or no intervention. I'm obviously not saying this is right but I feel I must counteract those who say that they, if not everyone else in the world, would have intervened.

In a case like this, people look back at a known series of behavior and then conclude what they would have done at an earlier time, knowing what they know now. People's reasoning and perception is clouded because they can't or won't filter out the result, which was unknown at the time the questioned decision was made. The simple fact is that many people probably knew something about the alleged behavior in this case, and that obviously almost no one reported or likely even questioned it. To zero in on one or two people in this type of case strikes me as a bit unfair.

Factoring in, in the case of McQueary, that Jerry Sandusky was a family friend and an authority figure adds to the difficulty of making an accusation. In the well-known Milgram experiment conducted at Yale in the early sixties, people believed they were giving very painful shocks to a subject. The experimenter giving the instructions was perceived to be an authority figure. Despite hearing (staged) shrieks of pain from the supposed victims, 65% of the subjects were prodded by the experimenter into giving the maximum 450-volt shock. A poll conducted of (other) students before the experiment indicated that all the respondents thought that less than 3% of the subjects would give the maximum voltage. This shows the power an authority figure can have over a well-meaning subject, and how people's perception of their ability to take independent (and "right") action is almost always wrong. The well-documented reassignments and cover-ups of crimes by Catholic priests further illustrates this phenomenon.

Obviously, I'm not minimizing the egregious actions Sandusky allegedly committed. My heart and concern goes out to all the victims, and believe the case should be vigorously prosecuted in accordance with due process. But I refuse to single out Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary for special blame or responsibility. They may have been guilty of inaction, but there were many "players" with equal or worse responsibility. I will not personally define Joe Paterno's legacy by this issue alone. As troubling as this series of incidents was, it doesn't lead me to negate all the positive things Joe Paterno has done for the PSU community, and for generations of Penn State student-athletes.

Backyard Bluebirds -- Part One

Back in the sixties and seventies, my dad always set up nest-boxes in the spring to try to attract bluebirds. I never paid much attention to this; I was often too consumed by school and sports-related endeavors to think about much else. I wasn't even sure how successful (or unsuccessful) he was until many years later.

My interest in birding, and bluebirds in particular, began in early 2006. I was familiar with the common backyard birds: Robins, Cardinals, Chickadees, Blue Jays, etc., but knew very little about slightly more unusual species. A new digital camera and chance encounters with a Bald Eagle and a hawk whetted my appetite to find out about other birds. In spite of my Dad's history with bluebirds, I had no recollection of ever seeing one myself. In the early spring of that year, I spotted a flash of blue in our side yard. I snapped a quick picture of it. When I reviewed the photo, I realized I had seen a male Eastern Bluebird.

Seeing my first real, live bluebird made me want to try to attract a nesting pair. I bought a small unfinished bird house for $3 at Michael's, of all places. After brushing on some varnish, and slightly enlarging the entry hole, I attached it to a piece of pipe and put it up in a wooded area in my backyard. I didn't realize, at that time, that this was a poor location for bluebirds, who normally prefer open places. I managed to attract only a house wren, who proceeded to build a nonactive (dummy) nest in it.

During the following winter, I downloaded some plans for a bluebird box, and then built the box from a single 6-foot long, 1x6 inch board. In early March of 2007, I started seeing bluebirds on the more open side of my backyard. So around the middle of that month, I bought another piece of galvanized pipe, and put up the new nestbox in that part of the yard.

I almost immediately began seeing a pair of bluebirds. They would sit above the box, and occasionally land on it or go in it. Their courting ritual includes the male picking up some dried grass or twigs and placing them in their prospective home. If the female approves of his choice, she will then enter the box or tree hole he selected. I watched this played out several times, so I was pretty sure they were going to use my nestbox. To add additional enticement, I made a mealworm feeder out of a broom stick and the bottom of a 2-liter plastic bottle. After I stocked it with mealworms from a local pet supply store, both birds quickly found it. They would empty it almost as fast as I could fill it!

The nest-building building process was excruciatingly slow. The first couple weeks after the courting display resulted in only a small amount of nest material being deposited. I suspect the cool weather caused the female to delay starting the nest in earnest. After about 12 days of activity, the nest appeared complete. During this period, the bluebird pair survived some bullying by robins, and frequent challenges by house wrens. To counter the house wrens, I set up another box about 25 feet away for them to use. Fortunately, there were few sightings of house sparrows, bluebirds' mortal enemy.

The female laid one egg a day for the next 5 days, and then started incubating them. She spent less time actually on the eggs than I expected, with frequent exits for a quick fly and to look for food. She consumed many of my mealworms, but also had to spend some additional time hunting. The male, who had actively defended the nest during its construction, seemed to disappear for a few days after about the 3rd egg was laid. He then returned, but this seemed like the start of a pattern of frequent disappearances and reappearances.

After about 13 days of incubation, the five young bluebirds hatched. They were mostly bald with just some fuzz on the top of their pea-sized heads. They were tiny and mostly helpless at hatching. The female, and occasionally the male, fed the young almost constantly. My mealworms were still their favorite snack!

The baby birds started getting their pin-feathers after about a week in the nest, and were starting to look like real birds. I opened the nest at least daily, and examined them. The mother was not afraid of me, and pretty much totally ignored me.

Unfortunately, things started going wrong a little over a week later after hatching. June 8, 2007, was the hottest day yet of the summer, with the temperature hitting 88F degrees. That afternoon the adult bluebirds seemed to become listless, sitting lazily in the tree near the nestbox. After that point, unfortunately, I never saw them feed the young again.

Late that evening, we had a severe thunderstorm. The next morning, when I checked the nest, it was apparent that neither adult had visited it because the babies were hungry, and the fecal sacks had not been removed. Also, all the mealworms I had put in the feeder the previous night were uneaten. I was pretty sure something was seriously wrong. The father bluebird did return during mid-morning, but just scarfed up the uneaten mealworms while the babies cried, just a few feet away.

I finally decided to call our local wildlife rehabber around noon to report that the chicks had been effectively abandoned. While on that call, I was relieved to see the female bluebird return and sit on top of the bluebird box. I told the rehabber that things were probably okay after all, and I terminated the call. But, unfortunately, the mother never entered the box, and quickly flew away.

The male was around most of that day, but made no attempt to feed the young. A couple of the nestlings came forward to the front of the box, and could be seen through the hole. I tried to toss in some mealworms to them, but they wouldn't eat anything without the parents present.

The next day neither of the adults were present, and some of the babies continued to look out the hole and cry. I vainly hoped that the babies were older than I thought, and might be trying to fledge. When I looked in the box, though, it looked like the others were compressed into the bottom of the nest, and possibly dead. I decided to let nature take its course.

The next morning, all the nestlings were dead. I removed, weighed, and buried them. A day or two later, I saw the mother again briefly, and saw the father several times. He appeared to be doing "phantom" feedings: pushing a moth through the front of the hole as if the babies were there. Very bizarre!

My theory is that the adult bluebirds were first-time parents, and didn't completely know what they were doing. The heat and storm may have pushed the mother over the edge, especially given that the male was a largely ineffective father. When I told a couple other birders and bluebird experts this, they basically laughed at me. They said that a hawk or predator must have gotten the parents, or at least the mother, and the adults I saw after the storm were different bluebirds. I think this is highly unlikely because bluebirds are uncommon here, especially in mid-summer. The orthodox blue-birders seem to think that the birds are robots, whose actions never deviate from the mean.

I suspect that there is considerably variation in birds and animals, much like there are ineffective mothers and deadbeat dads in humans. I doubt that many of the bluebird experts and trail-owners are able to watch a pair of bluebirds as closely as I did. To them, I think, all bluebirds fit the norm (or at least average).

This initial failure caused me to become more determined to have a successful nest. I'll wrap up this installment now, and report on my later attempts in the next installment.

Ronald Reagan -- Still the Teflon President

Much media attention was recently focused on Ronald Reagan, our 40th president, with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth. I must say that these periodic outpourings of adulation for him always hit a nerve with me.

I respect President Reagan, and his legacy. He was a decent man who devoted most of his later life to public service. I just can't help feeling, though, that his current portrayal by the media as a some-time god is simply at odds with the facts. In the words of Bill Murray, playing his SNL night-club personna: "I'm sorry -- That's the way I feel about it."

Reagan was viewed as a straight-shooter and "The Great Communicator" -- a master of television's quick sound-bites. Some of his alleged accomplishments include: ending the Cold War; rebuilding respect for America among our citizens and around the world while rebuilding our military; championing and implementing fiscal responsibility; and, finally, following a high moral and religious compass while promoting the same in the American people.

Let's take these "accomplishments" one at a time.

The Cold War: While Reagan undeniably played a role in the fall of the Soviet Union, it is a gross exaggeration to say that he ended it. If I had to pick a single event or cause, I would attribute the Soviet war in Afghanistan as the turning point. And a recent PBS documentary quoted a number of Russians saying that banned Western music, and the Beatles in particular, had a far greater effect on disenchantment with the Soviet system than any statements or actions by "old" American politicians. A popular corollary to the Reagan myth is that the arms race with America "bankrupted" the Soviet regime. That policy certainly didn't start with Reagan, and I would further speculate that the repeated failures of the Soviet five-year economic and agricultural plans had far more to do with Soviet "bankrupting" than anything Reagan did.

Rebuilding respect/military: To a degree, the rebuilding of respect for America is true. But, even here, there is more myth than substance. Under the Carter administration, the U.S. had been mired in the triple-whammy of an energy crisis caused in part by Mid-East turmoil, the Iran hostage crisis, and a slowing economy with high inflation (from commodity and food shortages). President Carter had proposed a realistic, though somewhat painful, energy policy that was probably our only bona-fide attempt to deal with this long-standing problem. As Carter became consumed by the Iran hostage crisis, his approval rating fell as Americans became increasingly impatient. Reagan made Americans "feel good", after his election, by dismantling Carter's energy policy. World oil prices fell, allowing Reagan to postpone (forever?) any realistic American energy policy. We are unfortunately still paying for Reagan's short-sightedness. To his credit, though, Reagan's forceful campaign tone did bring the end to the Iran hostage crisis.

Championing fiscal responsibility: It is ironic that Reagan is associated with this, when the actual conduct of his administration seemed diametrically opposed to it. The Reagan Administration was the first to run large proportionate deficits in peace time. His vision of supply-side economics meant that taxes should be cut and at minimum never increased, even though there were large increases in federal spending under his watch, especially for the defense. Another case of postponing the painful reckoning until future generations!

High moral/religious tone: Another case of all myth and very little substance. Ronald Reagan rarely attended church, and was our only divorced president (although I don't think either of these in any way disqualify someone from being president -- I'm just pointing out inconsistencies). His administration and he personally were involved in some high-level scandals, the biggest probably being the Iran-Contra Affair. According to a wikipedia listing, at least 24 of his Cabinet or Pentagon officials were charged, convicted, and/or dismissed for legal or ethics violations during his administration. This is the highest number of corrupt officials in any administration, at least until the George W. Bush administration. You can check the evidence I used at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States

And yet, the perception exists that Reagan was all of these things and more!

HIV Travesty: This is a section about President Reagan that I feel compelled to add. A travesty that hardly anyone brings up anymore is the inertia (at best) with which his administration dealt with the HIV/Aids outbreak. They didn't push for blood collection safeguards until there was a near-epidemic. Reagan, himself, seemed to hold the opinion that it was a "gay-only" disease, and built further fear by refusing to say publicly that it couldn't be contracted by casual contact. His administration even went so far as to not allow (on moral grounds!) federal funding for the distribution of literature on safe-sex practices. The dying continued then, and unfortunately continues to this day...

I first heard of Ronald Reagan as a politician when he was California governor in the sixties. At that time, he seemed only slightly to the left of the John Birch Society. His main past-time seemed to be to insult the intelligence (and, sometimes, hygiene standards) of students at UC Berkeley. When he was first being mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in the 70s, I thought there was no possible way this country would ever submit to him being president. Was I wrong!

And now, unfortunately, there's Sarah Palin....

Rapid Robert Feller (1918-2010)

I heard the other night on ESPN that Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller had passed away at 92, following a battle with leukemia. My mind flew back to meeting Rapid Robert in 1964, well past his playing days. He was on a speaking tour of some sort, and visited the local Masonic Lodge in Sherman, NY. My dad took my older brother, Jim, and me to hear his talk. Jim and I were rapidly developing an addiction to baseball, and the thought of meeting a Hall of Fame pitcher was just about the most exciting thing we could imagine. Jim and I were both in our early teens.

The death of Ron Santo, a couple months earlier, in many ways hit me harder than Bob Feller's passing. Santo, the third baseman for the Chicago Cubs in the 60s and early 70s, was known as a good guy and great power hitter for the hapless Cubs. Later he become a radio/TV announcer, as well as the Cub's #1 fan. I watched him play many times on TV, but never met him or even watched him play live. As good a player as he was, he never made it into the Hall of Fame. Still he was known as probably one of the 10 best third baseman of all-time. Adding to his accomplishments was the fact (unknown to the public then) that Santo battled Type-I diabetes throughout his career. Since I watched him during my formative baseball years, Ron Santo held a special significance to me.

Feller's passing also hit me hard, too, but in a different way. He was one of the true giants of the game, and I had actually met him. As great as he was, he could sometimes be combative and self-aggrandizing. When my favorite baseball hero, Sandy Koufax, beat his single-season strike-out record in 1965, Feller was ungracious or at minimum ungentlemanly in recognizing the new record. Feller correctly pointed out that the average number of strikeouts in a 9-inning game was signicantly higher in 1965 than when he set the record in 1946. He forgot to mention , though, that the talent pool in 1946 had been considerably diminished by the loss of top players, due to WWII attrition. On balance, especially given that Koufax played a longer season, I think Feller's argument was valid, but he still seemed more than a little ungracious to me.

Feller also had a distinguished military career, flighting in World War II in the Navy. He enlisted three days after Pearl Harbor attack, the first major league player to do so. He served almost 4 years in the Navy, as Gun Captain on the USS Alabama, in both the European and Pacific Theaters. He received 12 military medals, and is the only Chief Petty Officer in the MLB Hall of Fame.

Feller held a number of pitching records when he retired in 1956. He had 3 no-hitters and 12 one-hitters, a record he still shares. He had 266 wins and led the league in strikeouts 7 times. (On the downside, he held the record for most walks in a career, most hit batsman, and still holds the record for most walks in a season.) Some baseball historians say that he probably would have had 350 wins and 3000 strikeouts, if he had not lost four years to the military. He always said he never missed not getting those 90-100 wins, because he contributed to the biggest win of all for our country.

http//www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/sports/baseball/16feller.html

RIP, Bob Feller

Obama forbids pat-downs of hijab wearers -- NOT!

Prior to the Thanksgiving travel crush, I was informed by a "friend" that he had heard or read that the government had decided that some people (mainly Muslim women) would be specifically exempted from having their religious headwear (like the hijab) removed or patted down during TSA security checks. Since this didn't sound right, I queried this acquaintance where he had heard it. Surprisingly, he couldn't "remember".

I decided to check various online sources to get the real story. Along the way, I noticed that some Tea Party-oriented sites were even claiming the Obama, himself, had issued this "pro-Muslim" edict. I guess they must think he has nothing else to do...

Well, surprise of all surprises, it came mostly from those Fair and Balanced "news" people at Fox, along with their most reliable accomplice, CNSNews (Cybercast News Service, formerly [and in actuality] the Conservative News Service).

It appeared that a Muslim advocacy/lobbyist group called CAIR (Center for American-Islamic Relations) had advised Muslim travelers to do as little as possible in cooperating with TSA workers, if they were asked to do a secondary scan (normally a pat-down). Someone at CNSNews (and probably "Fixed" News) apparently thought that CAIR was a government department, which brought about the initial government (Obama) claim. Then, apparently, one of their nut-case reporters asked homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, whether any special consideration was being given to people wearing religious headwear. Napolitano basically didn't answer the question (saying they were looking into it or considering adjustments) which Fox/CNS conveniently took as a "yes". A corollary claim is that Muslim women were allowed to pat down their own head and neck which, while technically true for anyone wearing headwear, leaves out the requirement that it be done under supervision, and that their hands would then be scanned for explosive powder.

What CAIR actually told Muslim women was that, if the initial body scan showed suspicion in their headwear, the TSA worker should only target their headwear and should not perform a full-body pat down. This morphed, at the hands of Fixed News, into claiming there would be no examination of Muslim headwear.

As in the case of death panels and an alleged government-enforced ban on "In God We Trust" on coins, an omission or shred of ambiguity was glorified into an anti-Christian/pro-Muslim rant. If the Tea Party and some fundamental Christian groups would only believe the obvious instead of obscure conspiracies, there could be a lot less hate in the world. (Obviously, this value judgment also applies to many other political and religious extremist groups, including those in the Middle East.)

The real fear I have about this type of thinking is that a President or Congressional leader, especially an unqualified candidate along the lines of Sarah Palin, could fall into this simplistic thinking when a truly complex, crucially serious issue needs to be decided. Our current President, I think, actually understands the complexity of issues, and that nuanced decisions are most often appropriate. The people "who want their country back" seem more oriented to the quick Reagan-esque, often blindly "America-first"-type, decisions that have often alienated people around the world.

A few links, including Fox News in their full misleading glory, are worth checking out:

http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/general-political-discussion/156642-who-started-rumor-muslim-women-were-exempt-tsa-pat-downs.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB5XykfW6T4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MAQj2Rn06c

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=67655

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013428303_scans14.html

Why do they hate us?

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, it became commonplace to hear the question: "Why do they hate us?" Even though the "they" and "us" were never really defined, the Bush administration put forth the brilliant theory that they hate our "freedom". This seemed to strike a chord with the American people: a concise, almost unchallengeable explanation; end of discussion, that's the answer. If someone wanted a somewhat a slightly broader explanation, there was always the nearly as cryptic answer that they "hate our way of life".

It seemed implicit in this question and answer that there must be some mystery as to why "they" hate "us". I have even explicitly heard some people say that there's no substantive political reason for the hatred, because we "never did anything to them". To people who say that, I would suggest that perhaps they should find and read a good, unbiased (and recent) history book.

In November 1979, Iranian student militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, and took 53 Americans hostage. I, like many Americans, was shocked and dismayed that Ayatollah Khomeini's new government didn't intervene in this blatant kidnapping of innocent Americans. In December of that same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. That winter/spring, I observed some Iranian students in the lobby of Kern Building on the PSU campus, both defending Khomeini's government as well as decrying US policy in the region.

I stopped to talk with them, and expressed my concern about the actions of their government. I believed then, and believe now, that Iran's action wasn't in their best interest: It led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with Iran as their ultimate prize, because the Soviets ultimately wanted a port on the Mediterranean. I believe the Soviets decided, in part, to invade because the US and Iran were preoccupied with the hostage crisis, and maybe wouldn't react. (Ultimately, I believe that the Soviets' actions in Afghanistan had far more to do with the eventual fall of the Soviet Union than anything Ronald Reagan ever did, but that's a topic for a future blog.) I further think that the hostage crisis isolated Iran in a way that is still causing them internal political problems and unrest.

The Iranian student I talked to in Kern Building didn't accept or seem to understand my Afghanistan theory. But he did do something that ultimately made me see the excesses of American Mid-East policy: He handed me a few typed, stapled sheets of paper. He said it showed the reason why so many Iranians disliked the American government. I read with interest, but also with skepticism, about the CIA participating a coup in Iran in 1953 in conjunction with the British government. I no longer have the literature the student gave me, but I believe it stated something about the CIA harassing or trying to remove Shiite mullahs. That part may or may not be totally accurate, although perhaps US animosity toward the mullahs was. But the essential tenet of the students' literature was: That the US and British led a coup in Iran in 1953 with the intent of installing pro-Western Mohammad Rezi Pahlavi as the absolute leader (the "Shah").

The Shah's 26 year reign of terror in Iran, carried out by his secret police (SAVAK), is well documented.

The main reason for initiating the coup was maintaining US and British control of Iran's oil. In 1951, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh led a successful movement by the Iranian Parliament to nationalize the oil industry, effectively removing US and British royalties. It took the US a couple years to get on board with the British desire for a coup, but, as in many things Middle-Eastern, oil interests were all-powerful. Within the Eisenhower administration, the coup was further justified by implicating Mosaddegh as a Communist sympathiser.

This literature was a revelation to me. Although I didn't know for sure it was true, it did have that ring. This was something I had never heard in any history course. But, for then, I just tucked away these conjectures in my mind.

Fast forward a decade or more -- It was becoming apparent from international and Middle East scholarly journals that the Iranian students' claims were essentially true. Then, in the 90s, three different CIA directors agreed to release hundreds of pages of documents related to Project Ajax (the CIA's code name for the Iran coup). At present, only one sentence has been released. Fortunately for the truth, the NY Times leaked many of these documents in 2000:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

The documents pretty much corroborated what the Iranian students had told me in 1979-80.

There have been other incidences of the US breaking promises with the Iranian government: According to a PBS documentary, George H. W. Bush promised, after some concessions were made to the US by the Iranian government, that he would release during his presidency assets frozen during the hostage crisis. When the political winds changed later in his presidency, the first Bush Administration reneged on those promises. Why would Iran trust the US now?

In these cases, the "they" (the "haters") are the Shiite Muslims in Iran, and the object of their hatred (the "us") is mostly the US government. I have read that Iranians don't generally dislike the American people, and are fair enough to realize that we don't always know or completely understand what our government is doing (which I'm sure is also true in Iran).

I hope to cover the perceived grievances of Sunni Muslims in a future blog post.

I am thankful that we live in a country that would allow Iranian students to protest their grievances against us, fostering the enlightenment of at least one US citizen. As we saw on news reports last year from Iran, that is not a right widely shared in Iran. Although we are far from perfect, we do live in a great country with a multitude of rights, privileges, and freedoms, and we should always cherish that.

My Dad, Charter member of the "Greatest Generation"

Two years ago today, my dad was just being moved from the hospital to to a skilled-care nursing home. He was 85 years old, suffering the after-effects of a broken hip and resulting (or possibly, coincident) stroke. He had not been his former self for at least a couple years before the, then recent, fall. He had been showing some dementia -- it was sometimes unclear what or who he was talking about -- but he had always maintained his good-natured, uncomplaining, outlook. But, other times, he was as sharp as a tack.


My mom had become his full-time nurse -- and, like him, never complained. Only a year younger, but in much better shape, she almost cheerfully accepted this role. After all, they had celebrated their 60th anniversary with a nice catered family dinner only the year before. With her generation, taking care of a frail spouse was just what you were "supposed to do." I trust that there was nothing special about them (even though in my heart I think there was) -- their story has probably been played out a million other households.

My dad was one of the several million US World War II soldiers. He fought in Europe, in the Huertgen Forest between Belgium and Germany, in the 9th Infantry Division. I'm pretty sure he saw unspeakable horrors, in part because he almost never talked about it. The Battle for Huertgen Forest was one of the longest and bloodiest battles in military history, but it is seldom talked about today. Opinion is split on whether this battle even made sense. Historically, it seems that it was totally nonsensical, but looking through the prism of history sometimes simplifies events in misleading ways. In any case, he had to fight in a dense pine forest in the middle of winter with German ordnance fracturing trees all around him. He soon learned the survival strategy of "hug a tree." Even in at mid-day, visibility was often near zero.

In relative terms, my dad got "off easy," seeing active combat for less than 90 days. My father-in-law, by constrast, had 4+ years of combat. In absolute terms, though, I'm sure my dad lived through total horror. On December 12, 1944, he was shot through his shoulder by a German sniper while leaning back to look out of the shell hole he was in. My uncle told me that they immediately captured his attacker. Interestingly, my dad told me that he was first treated by a captured German physician. My uncle also told me that the commanding officer offered my dad first "dibs" on killing his attacker, and my dad refused. While his refusal sounds right, I'm not sure I totally believe this story. Shooting anyone would have been difficult or impossible for my dad, who had just had his right shoulder almost blown off, and I'm not sure why they would have killed the German soldier, anyway, as opposed to capturing him. But it was consistent with the personna of my dad to not want to kill an enemy soldier.

He spent the better part of the following year in and out of hospitals in Europe and the US (Fort Dix), even though the telegram my grandmother got said he was "slightly injured."

Back to two years ago, my dad lived only a little more than a week in the skilled nursing home in the Fall of 2008. His death, in many ways, was a relief. I have trouble saying that, even now, but we were all ready for his suffering to end. And I know he still lives through me and the rest of my family. I will always value the years I had with him, and the sometimes unspoken things I learned from him.