Cracked Window

I’d been told that an acquaintance’s son had arrived home safe from Iraq, his first overseas Army stint. When I asked the acquaintance today about his son’s experience, he filled in the story with details, details that remind me of what we all know but rarely ponder: inches and seconds often add up to the difference between life and death.

The young man had been driving a Humvee. Moving slowly, the vehicle hit an IED. The blast hurled the front wheels more then 250 feet. This slowed the vehicle, and when another IED exploded a few seconds later, the force  was centered beneath the front of the Humvee rather than the occupants. The difference? A broken arm, concussion, and minor burns instead of dismemberment.

As the father told the story, a smile never left his face.

“I felt unfettered and alive.” That lyric from Joni Mitchell’s song, “Free Man in Paris,” sprang to mind during this video. Then came this thought: would I dare be an eagle for a day if given the chance?

Like most people, I’ve had dreams of flying. Even more vivid are dreams of jumping as gravity relaxes its grip. First I’m able to dunk a basketball, a feat impossible even in my youth. Then the jumps take me to treetops and views of a much larger world. Embracing this new power, I bound higher and higher, but with the certainty that I’ll land gently whenever I want. The joy of these moments transcends those of my waking life. In such dreams, however, fear inevitably sets in: what if gravity releases me, and I can’t return?

Maybe the unemployment picture is brightening. A very helpful sales clerk at Macy’s told me yesterday that there’s been a rush on men’s suits. Why? “Guys are suddenly getting job interviews, and they want to look good,” she said. “And they want the alterations immediately.” I was trying on a suit for a different reason. In the mirror, I noticed two men half my age looking at me as I checked out the fit. One nodded in approval, and the other gave me the thumbs up. So I had no choice but to do my part for the local economy.

Regardless of your opinion of Ted Kennedy, this eulogy by his oldest son is something you won’t soon forget. I heard it today, on my father’s 81st birthday, while driving home from Seattle. Hard to see the road through tears.

Leave it to a child to ask an existential question that reverberates louder than the Pacific surf:

Will there still be waves if everybody’s dead?

Atticus, in the midst of his first beach vacation, received a truthful answer — and a question. Why did you wonder such a thing? Silence, except the sound of waves arriving and retreating.

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

Paul Krugman nails what many of us have sensed with growing unease. For a guy absurdly and obscenely referred to as Hitler by no-nothing enemies, Obama is a softie. He needs to become Lyndon Johnson-ish in pursuing health-care and other reforms. Ruthlessness in pursuit of what’s right and just can be a virtue.