Byron Edgington's Blog, page 11

February 22nd, 2013

It’s smaller than a football. The writing on it is ancient Babylonian cuneiform amounting to something fewer than 1,000 words, many of which are missing, chipped away and lost. Considering that the artifact dates from around 600 years before the common era, it’s in remarkably good shape. The so called Cyrus Cylinder is touring the U.S. It’s now on display at the UN in New York, then will travel to Washington DC, Houston and Los Angeles. It’s estimated that more than one million Americans will view this object, referred to by archeologists as the first ‘bill of rights.’
Here’s what I took away from the NYT piece by Roger Cohen. The Cyrus Cylinder is remarkable not for its state of preservation, though that is amazing. It’s remarkable for its simplicity, and its inclusive message. Compared with the current U.S. Legal code, which in the latest printing in 2006 contains 200,000 pages, the Cyrus Cylinder would fit in the average legislator’s coat pocket. And its basic message is simply this: everyone must be allowed to worship the god of their choosing. Bear in mind that the cylinder was inscribed in 600 BC Babylon, ancient Persia, what today we call Iran.
So the message to us two and half thousand years later is clear. The simplest message of all, one that fits on a football, is acceptance, inclusion, religious tolerance. Or perhaps not. Perhaps instead it is this. That religion is best kept private, and in the public market we all accept each other. Perhaps in another 2,000 years that will be reality. Perhaps.

Message on a napkin: A true story from Mason City.

The photo is a closeup of a napkin. A common napkin found in a restaurant. The restaurant in question was in Mason City Iowa. The benefactors of the meal were members of the AirCare team of flight RNs, medics and pilots based in Iowa City Iowa, at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. The 'team mates' being memorialized were based in Mason City Iowa. The AirCare team from Iowa City had been attending a memorial service for three of their colleagues killed in the crash of their Air Medical helicopter the week before.  The person who left the note on the napkin is unknown. Whoever it may have been they saw the AirCare team, sensed the somber tone around their table in that restaurant, and reached out in sympathy, showing their support in a way we all understand. If food is love, this is a way to demonstrate our care and empathy in trying times. In such times as these, when the media is engulfed in cynicism and harshness, when most of what we see day to day is judgement and a kind of wary distancing from each other, it's awfully good to know that, once in a while, others see our shared grief and respond in purely human terms. It would be easy to brand the gesture a commercial ploy to burnish the restaurant's image, or to dismiss the picture as a clever piece of 'P' shopping. But the note is real, and just because it came from Mason City Iowa doesn't make it less meaningful somehow, just another Midwestern show of sympathetic cliche'. Having spent considerable time in Iowa, I'm compelled, even without seeing the actual napkin or reading lab results as to its authenticity that it is genuine and heartfelt. Just reading it, I know that whoever wrote it meant every word, that the gesture was real.

New Book Project

THE CAUSES OF HELICOPTER CRASHES – Part 1 — Aviation …

aviationsafetyblog.com2/3/11

The start of this analysis must be the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) and its web site. The IHST was created in 2004 by manufacturers, operators, government agencies and NGO’s to slow the increasing rate of …

This just in…as they say. Anyone who has read my book, The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life knows that in my previous existence I was heavily invested in helicopter safety. Now that I’ve retired from aviation and become a writer it seems I’m even more invested in it. My new project has a working title: “Air Medical–People Flying People.” The book is to be the definitive story of the Air Medical helicopter industry--history, operation, management, growth, challenges, and yes, safety record. I’m looking for all the input I can get for the project, and expect it will take at least a year to complete. It’s being written from the perspective of people who do the job, as I did for twenty years, the flight crews who take off day and night to ‘save lives and fight disease,’ as we often said, tongue firmly in cheek. The Air Med story is a great one about dedicated, highly-focused people who love what they do and disregard the naysayers.

The ad referenced above is just one of many issuing from various safety-related agencies: AAMS, NEMSPA, FAA, NTSB. No one has checked in with the pilots and medical crews. That’s my purview, and I’m going after it.

Hardened Hearts: TWSB Post #1

Equal marriage rights (and rites) is an issue that is not going away. As American citizens, I believe we should all have the right to marry the person we love. See the website & FB site for more on this. For those who’ve hardened their hearts against marriage equality, I have this question: Look at what you have–spouse, family, social approval, fulfillment–would you deny that to a fellow human being? If you would not, good for you. If your answer is yes you would deny that same fulfillment to another, shame on you.
Civil marriage equality isn’t an ideological struggle, an anti-religious issue or an agenda; it’s simply an issue of fairness and equality. It’s about people and their families.

Memoir starts with 'Me.'

At my recent book reading/signing, after I finished and closed my memoir, I opened the floor to questions. A young fellow jumped in and asked why I felt compelled to write my memoir, what drove me to put words on paper? It was a legitimitate question. After all, doesn't everyone have a story? Of course we do, so maybe the real question is why doesn't everyone write them down? 

I rambled on in response, something about the marvelous life I'd led, the adventures I'd had, things I'd seen and on and on, concluding that I thought my story was worth telling.

Later that night it occurred to me what my real response should have been. Yes, we all have a story. We all tell our story in some way. Here's what I wish I'd told that young fellow. Did you ever go to camp? At camp, do you remember sitting around a campfire in the woods, crackles from the flames, sparks shooting into the night sky, heat on your face while utter dark surrounded you. What did you do there? Sure, you watched the fire, felt the safe comfort of friends, ate s'mores and toasted marshmallows. But mostly you told stories. 

It's all writers, especially writers of memoir, do. We sit around the fire in the dark woods, protected by friends from the unknown and savage surroundings and we tell our tales. This is what happened to me. This is how I got through the day. This is what I saw. I've read numerous memoirs recently: John Young's 'Forever Young; Connie Shultz's '...and His Lovely Wife'; Moby Dick, which is memoir set in fiction and many others. There's a common thread: Here's what happened to me.

We tell our stories for a number of reasons, to impress others, to share similar experiences, to gain and/or deepen friendships. Mostly we tell stories to ourselves. We spin tales because we must hear them told, in our own words, just to hear ourselves say these things, to convince ourselves that what happened to us is important, and valued, and worthwhile. We tell stories because we need to know we were there--and that we are here.

So my answer to the fellow at the bookstore, or personal website--the modern equivalent of the campfire--was mostly right. I do think my life has been marvelous, meaningful, valuable. I do think others will enjoy reading about it. But I wrote my memoir for me because I cherish those memories, and I wish to stamp them with at least an aura of permanence. The word memoir does start with 'me'. We do spend a good deal of our lives around that campfire. Here's hoping you enjoy my story. I'd like to hear yours, too. 

Here's a good place to start. As they say, less is more.

The evocative world of the six-word memoir: A Q&A with new TED ...

Reblogged from TED Blog: Pause for a moment and imagine the grand, confusing and ultimately exhilarating drama that is the sweep of your life. Think you can summarize it into a half-dozen carefully crafted words?

Where in the world are women safe?

Where to begin. The contrast is almost too much. This morning early I watched the brilliant and much needed 'Rising' video, Eve Ensler's dramatic and heartwarming world-wide effort to end violence against women. Next came news that Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murdering Reeva Steenkamp, his long time girlfriend. Early reports indicate that Mr. Pistorius had a long-term history of abusive behavior toward her. The violence Ms Ensler and millions of other women are trying to stop does not, it would appear, come only from those backward, illiterate, ignorant and culturally deprived corners of the planet, but from everywhere. One must conclude that if a woman isn't safe in a gated community in South Africa, surrounded by wealth, lavished with media attention and credited with much accomplishment of her own, then where on earth are women truly safe? The obvious answer is nowhere. Not until women are seen not as objects, or possessions, or shunned by religious zealots as the root of temptation and dangerous allure will women truly be free, and safe. Ms Ensler's effort notwithstanding, we need not look far to see violence against women. We must ask ourselves if, in our own backyards, our own cultures and our own minds women may venture forth into the world confident and protected from the scourge of violence.
As Ensler's inspiring song has it, women are 'Mothers, teachers, beautiful creatures.' Sadly, they are too often the object of male rage and aggression, as well.

Marriage Equality: A Theme for Valentines Day 2013, 14, 15...

Every year on Valentines Day my wife and I go to our local courthouse. We don't go to affirm our own marriage vows. We go to affirm, if we may call it that, the fact that not everyone in 21st Century America is free to marry the person they love.
We meet Jimmie & Mindy there every year. J&M are a great couple, been together sixteen years and counting, have a wonderful daughter together, have great careers, a beautiful home, pay a lot in taxes. They are, in other words, model citizens. As such, they obey the law. Every year Jimmie and Mindy go, while obeying the law, to confront its inequality, and the fact that the same law holds them in second-class status. Jimmie and Mindy are lesbians. Two women who have a firm, open commitment to each other and the family they've built. They're crazy about each other, and likely more 'married' than a lot of hetero couples. Every year, a tradition of long standing, Jimmie and Mindy go to the courthouse. They pay the $50.00 fee for a marriage license, fill out the computerized form, stand in line...to be told no. Every year. Someday my wife and I will be in that small room at the Franklin County Courthouse in Columbus Ohio when the law, the same law that Jimmie and Mindy are careful to uphold, that law is changed. Someday the law in Ohio will recognize that they are indeed model citizens, deserving of equal rights including the right to marry each other in a civil ceremony, including all 1,138 separate benefits, rights and legal protections civil marriage affords. My wife and I will be there, and we will celebrate with Jimmie and Mindy when the clerk, someday, says yes.

Reading

Tonight I'll schlep off to Barnes & Noble and read from my book. Just my second reading/signing, tonight will likely not be the last, because at some point the writing morphs into marketing. All things considered I'd rather be reading than selling. Nonetheless, the reading/signing/promoting part is what authors have done since publishers (frustrated authors) started hounding us to get out there and sell more product.
The best part of my evening will be reading from the book of course, not the selling of it. I couldn't care less if people buy the thing, as long as they read it. I've put copies in the Columbus Library where, last I checked, there's no charge to read anything, unless you keep it. Even then, the fines would be minimal compared to the asking price.
Reading is the thing. We've been doing it since age four or so, and for a very long time in human history. The cave paintings at Lascaux may have been the world's first author reading/signing. Alpha & Beta weren't far behind. Humans may be separate from other species by our ability to speak (or to kvetch, in some cases) but reading isn't far behind. So if you're in the vicinity of the Barnes & Noble at 11th & High in Columbus Ohio, hard by the OSU campus, schlep by tonight at 7 and listen to some dandy stories. Or just stay in your cave, your call.

S.A.M.E. Day: 3 months from today.

Three months from today is national S.A.M.E. Day. Straight Allies for Marriage Equality Day will affirm the right to marry the person you love. Though upheld many times by the Supreme Court, that human right is currently denied LGBT citizens of most states. S.A.M.E. Day May 9th is an opportunity for straight people to call attention to this inequality. Visit the website for more info & resources, and three months from today, speak up for civil marriage equality. Here’s a list of co-sponsors: Marriage Equality USA, Family Equality Council, PFLAG, White Knot. There will be others, stay tuned.

Drill baby, drill!

With all the tedious, mind-numbing yadda-yadda about fiscal cliffs and budget woes and entitlement spending and cutting and pasting it's easy to lose sight of who we are. The picture above doesn't look like much; perhaps the beginning of a post hole for an Iowa fence row, maybe the indentation a kid made looking for fishing worms or the cup on some exotic seventeenth green. The hole is actually the very first drilling on another planet. About the size of a nickel across and a quarter deep, it doesn't amount to much as drilling endeavors go. Don't look for a gusher of crude to spew out of it. We won't find gold, or diamonds there. No, the nickel by quarter hole is on Mars. It was dug by NASA's rover Curiosity a month or so ago. Some may look at the puny hole and see the chasm the financial outlay to make it has created in the aforementioned budgetary discussions. Sending Curiosity 125 million miles into space did set us back a hefty billion or so.
But did it set us back? Or did that tiny pin-prick 125 million miles away bore into the essence of who we really are? Were human beings ever meant to squabble about fiscal restraint, and budgetary complexities and cuts and restrictions? I think we were meant instead to launch into the unknown, leave the mundane and the miniscule behind and bore into the universal ideas and complexities of our mystery-rich environment. We are star stuff, as Carl Sagan said. Preoccupation with the minute and the miniscule here on earth is an insult to the greatness in all of us.