Quote of the Week – The Magic of the Written Word

This is the time of year where numerous close friends of mine have passed away. It always is a sad time of year for me as I remember them and the part they played in my life. And I turn on the news and it seems death greets me each day: the fires in Australia, the 176 individuals in the plane shot down, gun violence…

There is a way, that for me, has kept memories of those I lost alive more than a picture or a gift they gave me. It’s their words written down in the cards I saved, in the notes they left me, in old e-mails. I recently came across this quote while reading Diane Setterfield’s novel The Thirteenth Tale. Her character, Margaret Lea, describing her life as a biographer, says “People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath…Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper preserved. It is a kind of magic.”

Your departed loved one does not have to have been an author. Even handwriting on a scrap of paper can work this magic of the written word!

Quote of the Week

With the death of 176 innocent people, there is a lot of grief in this world, even by people like me who personally knew none of them. So I would like to present this quote from Seneca’s Consolatio ad Marciam – consolation for Marcia, a Roman woman who’d lost her father and son. “They have now been released into the free and vast spaces of eternity; no dividing seas stand between them. The path before them now is level, and they move swiftly and without obstacle in a reciprocal coexistence with the stars.”

This quote will not take away the pain of loss, but I hope that maybe it’s poetic beauty can dull it a bit.

Collateral damage

Collateral damage is the incidental or unintentional injury or damage caused to persons or objects that may not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack.

The plane crash in Iran resulted in 176 civilian lives lost. Like the game of dominoes where one stacked behind the other needs only a slight push and all collapse, there wouldn’t have been a shooting down of that plane if President Trump hadn’t ordered the killing of Suleimani. So can we say, that according to the damage (civilian lives lost in the plane crash) that it was “not excessive in light of [what the assassination gave] as a military advantage” to the US? I believe that one civilian life lost is excessive. Doesn’t matter if the Iranians made a mistake or shot the plane down on purpose. These were 176 people who had nothing to do with “military” matters. President Trump has so far not made any comment about this as collateral damage, has not recognized that his directive to kill Suleimani was the primary cause they lost their lives. Can the US live with this and what our president did to create it? This is why the Constitution was written with checks and balances so that Congress would be able to make sure any such military action was in the best interests of the country and thought through thoroughly, not just some president’s egomaniacal desire to exercise power doing what he thinks is right.

Where Do Words Come From: Bubble Wrap

Now that the holidays are over we’re left with tons of packing materials. Ever wonder how Bubble Wrap came about? It started as a decorating product. Alfred Fielding and Marc Shavannes tried making 3D wallpaper in 1957 by creating sheets of trapped air. It never caught on. Fielding realized that what they had come up with could very well be used as next-generation packing material. In 1960 he founded the Sealed Air Corp. They trademarked the name “Bubble Wrap” and the rest is history!