Pulpit Harbor
North Haven, Maine

A smokey SW wind blew me up West Penobscot Bay today—from hazy, hot sunshine, through a wall of thick fog and back into the sun. I’m anchored in Pulpit Harbor, on North Haven. I like North Haven, because everyone waves, kids still ride in the back of pickups and every third or fourth person looks like they must be famous. Last summer, sitting at the picnic tables outside North Haven Grocery drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, Pete Dupont and his wife pulled up in a 1930s era Ford. I asked him about the car but he told me I would need to speak with his wife, because it was hers. She explained that she had converted the electrical system from 6 volt to 12 volt and put in a new carburetor (without asking I felt it safe to assume she had someone do those things for her instead of actually doing them herself.) Still, she had decided to stop driving it at night because it broke down too often and she ended up hitchhiking home.

How would you like to watch a video lecture about the changing patterns of global health? Sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it? And for some inconceivable reason you can’t get this on YouTube? But you can get it here.

This is a Swedish professor named Hans Rosling, and he’s a bit like Al Gore on crystal meth, with an endearing European accent. And you don’t have to be a complete wonk to enjoy this video.

Michael Winship

There’s an old joke I first heard years ago in Washington at a political fundraiser.

A senator is primping in the bathroom mirror and muses aloud to his wife, “I wonder how many great men there are in the world.”

She replies, “One less than you think.”

Each of the 100 seats in the United States Senate comes with elevator and franking privileges, a pass to the congressional gym and a customized suit woven from hubris and ego. The warp and woof vary from member to member. Some wear the suit more lightly than others.

Until recently, many of us had placed Connecticut’s Senator Joe Lieberman in the category of those who didn’t assume the mantle too ponderously: a low-key, smart, decent guy; pro-labor and minority rights. More off-the-rack than bespoke, as far as metaphoric senatorial tailoring went.

Now, however, mostly due to Lieberman’s staunch support of Bush’s Iraq strategy, he faces a primary challenge from Greenwich millionaire Ned Lamont. Suddenly, Lieberman is in danger of falling into a trap of vainglory and inflated self-esteem, dragging a lot of others down with him.

Lamont’s neophyte candidacy was initially considered a long shot but has shown remarkable strength. He has pumped $2.5 million of his own fortune into the contest and recruited grass roots support not only from a statewide constituency fed up with President Bush and the war, but such Internet-based groups as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, headed by Howard Dean’s brother Jim.

Uncharacteristically, Lieberman has come out swinging. In his one and only, scheduled televised debate with Lamont on July 6, he declared, “Ned, I’m not George Bush. So why don’t you stop running against him and have the courage and honesty to run against me?” (Which prompted many to wonder, where the hell was this guy in 2000 when we needed him? As Al Gore’s running mate, he rolled over like a cocker spaniel in his vice presidential debate with Dick Cheney.)

What’s more, should he lose to Lamont, the senator has filed papers to gather petition signatures to run as an independent, creating a new party called “Connecticut for Lieberman.”

Here be dragons. Bitter experience tells me so. In the not too distant past, progressive New Yorkers discovered what can happen — twice. We owe it to our Connecticut neighbors — especially the Senator himself — to remind them of the hard lesson learned on both occasions.

In 1970, I worked as a volunteer on the campaign of New York Republican Senator Charles Goodell. Goodell, a congressman from Jamestown, NY, was appointed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to fill out Bobby Kennedy’s Senate term after RFK’s assassination.

Goodell proved more progressive than even your average, Rockefeller limousine liberal, especially on the issue of Vietnam. Although he received the GOP nomination for a full term, right-wing Republicans deserted the party in droves. The liberal vote was split between Goodell and the Democratic candidate, Dick Ottinger. As a result, the Conservative Party’s Jim Buckley, brother of William F. Buckley, was elected to the Senate.

Fade out, fade in: Ten years later. Four-term Republican Senator Jacob Javits was defeated in the party primary by Hempstead, Long Island, town supervisor Al D’Amato, but decided to continue the race, running on the Liberal Party line. On the Democratic side, Brooklyn Congresswoman Liz Holtzman won a tough Senate primary against — remember? — Bess Myerson.

Holtzman begged Javits to withdraw from the general election, knowing he and she would split the progressive, as well as the Jewish, vote. Vanity reigned. Javits refused to budge and we got 18 years of conservative Senator Pothole.

Lieberman may yet pull this one out. He’s counting on the perks of incumbency and organized labor’s ability to get out the vote. Turnout will be key. If he wins the August 8 primary — and assuming Lamont doesn’t suddenly get dizzied by the rarified air of the blogosphere and decide to mount some zany rump candidacy — the concerns become moot.

But if Lieberman loses the primary and continues running as an independent, he endangers not only a crucial Democratic seat in the Senate but also three House races in Connecticut in which the Republican incumbents are deemed vulnerable to their Democratic challengers.

Say it ain’t so, Joe. If Lamont wins the Democratic nod, accept defeat with grace. Don’t make the same mistake liberal New Yorkers and their candidates made in 1970 and repeated in 1980. As Troy Schneider of the nonpartisan New America Foundation wrote in Sunday’s New York Times, “If Mr. Lieberman, with all the benefits of major-party incumbency, can’t persuade Democratic primary voters to nominate him over Mr. Lamont, he should have the decency to accept that verdict. Any other response reveals a sense of entitlement and arrogance that’s disdainful of both his party and the public.”

In other words, Senator Lieberman, be a mensch.

copyright 2006 Messenger Post Newspapers

_________________________

All newspaper editors want to know what their readers like. If you would like to read this feature in your local newspaper, please do not hesitate to share your enthusiasm with your local newspaper editor.

Amy Sutherland (from Portland) wrote a great piece for the NYT about using the techniques that she learned from exotic animal trainers to modify her husband’s behavior. Seems like a pretty straightforward idea. And I’d say it resonated with a lot of people: for the last couple of weeks it has consistently been on the top of the list of most-emailed stories on the NYT website.

Amy joins us in the studio Saturday at noon. Here’s a sample of the column:

The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn’t so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He’s an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.

Once I started thinking this way, I couldn’t stop. At the school in California, I’d be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I’d be thinking, “I can’t wait to try this on Scott.”

Amy has written a book on animal training (but not how you can apply it to husbands) called Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched : Life and Lessons at the World’s Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers.

I was pointing out some of the details of Glenn Beck’s early life to Nellie (9th Funniest Mom in America, according to Nick at Night.) This is how she responded:

dear willy,

i had not read about glenn. you have a long road ahead of you. i do not recommend becoming a drunk/drug addict and hurling yourself out of a window — he deserves his success i guess. maybe you haven’t suffered enough.

i would be more than happy to give you ideas of how you can make yourself suffer. every idea i have would be character building which would in turn make you better on the radio. you say the word and, free of charge, i will send them to you (oddly enough i’ve already got some jotted down.)

nell

I’ve had lots of conversations with people (some of whom actually expect to be paid at the end of the so-called “hour”) about the experiences we have early in our life and how they shape us as adults. There is a line, I think, between putting your head in the sand about your childhood and falling face forward into a big puddle of victimhood.

Here’s where I’ve settled on the topic: it’s worthwhile for all of us, regardless of our early experiences, to understand how our childhoods’ have affected our adult lives. Our responses to situations and the decisions we make could very well be driven and fueled by those early experiences, which are festering away deep within us. But that doesn’t mean that our hands are somehow tied by how we grew up. As adults we have the opportunity (and the responsibility) to sort out those issues, understand them and then move on with our lives, learning how to make choices and decisions as adults, and not as kids. (This step is the one that I think gets left out with some people.) You wouldn’t let a 12 year old drive your car, so why let a 12 year old drive your life?

ETH has a couple of great shows coming up in Maine, and a new CD out soon. I really like these guys personally and musically. (Although my personal interaction with them has always been colored by beer so I’m not entirely sure what they are really like.) They’ll be in Boothbay at the Opera House this weekend–you can buy tickets HERE. ETH will also be in Maine on August 3d, at the Lobster Festival.

Turn up your speakers and watch them here:

Michael Winship

“Omnes una manet nox.” The same night awaits us all. The Roman philosopher and poet Horace said it and, despite our frequent denials, everyone knows it. Yet right now we seem to live in especially parlous times. To me at least, it feels these days as if we are too much with death.

As I write this, there are 2540 American servicemen and women dead in Iraq. At least 50,000 Iraqis have died from war-related injuries since the fighting began. According to UPI, in the United States, that would be the equivalent of 570,000 Americans.

More than 400,000 have died in Darfur, and between now and the end of the year, nearly three million are close to death from hunger and HIV/AIDS in southern Africa.

Then there are the deaths that are far more personal and much too close to home. Last week, my dear friend, colleague and mentor Jack Sameth, a television producer and director whose career in commercial and public TV spanned almost the entire history of the medium, died of a heart attack. He was 79 and had battled emphysema for several years.

Just a couple of days before, another friend and colleague, George Page, a public television programming executive best known as the host and creator of the “Nature” series on PBS, died, too. In the combined small worlds of public broadcasting and my own head, the two deaths last week were like a mini-version of the famous Fourth of July in 1826 that saw the simultaneous passing of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

George gave me my first job writing a documentary film; Jack, as a friend recently said of another mentor, believed in me before I did. He put me to work on nearly two-dozen television specials about music and the arts and introduced me and others he loved to such wonders as Christmas in London and the beach at Saltaire, Fire Island, where he had a beloved cottage called the Gray Gull.

In December 1992, we stood on the walkway of friends next door and watched helplessly as a fierce nor’easter tore the house away. He carried on, seeking safer — and higher — harbor in Northport, Long Island.

Jack’s death came just weeks after my own mother’s, so in a matter of days it feels like not only has an era ended but that I and my friends and family have undergone total immersion in the nature of bereavement and the logistics of memorial services.

To me, there has always been an element of black humor in the enterprise of planning funerals (I will never be able to get out of my mind the old Mike Nichols and Elaine May routine about a discount funeral director: “I was just wondering, would you be interested in some extras for the loved one? How about a casket? It looks better.”)

Our mom opted for cremation, which opened a whole other realm of options (Dorothy Parker’s wish that her ashes be thrown in a certain someone’s face came to mind. The family competed to guess who would be on our mother’s list of throwees.).

Choosing an urn for the ashes (or as the funeral business prefers, “cremains”) took a while. Much as the great cathedrals of Europe feature varied and elaborate reliquaries containing bone fragments of revered saints, today, you can find containers to satisfy virtually every need or taste. Some divide the ashes into several smaller urns so that all in the family can share; others have them placed in keepsake boxes and picture frames or made into jewelry. There are even companies that use a heat and pressure method to turn the cremains’ carbon into diamonds, although it’s a process that takes several months. Superman’s a busy guy, you know, heavily scheduled and often overbooked.

Suffice it to say, if you ever need a cremation urn modeled after the fuel tank of a Harley-Davidson, I can steer you in the right direction. We turned down the models shaped like giant scallop shells or outsized acorns and opted instead for a simple wooden box, not dissimilar from my father’s casket, because we chose to place her ashes with my father in their joint cemetery plot.

Mostly, that is. We had set aside a minute portion to spread on the water of a nearby lake she loved. It seemed appropriate.

I remember being taken out aboard a boat on the very same lake right after my father’s funeral, just as a respite from the mourning. There is a solace that comes with the waters of a lake or river or sea. They calm and soothe, relax the mind and heart, purify and clarify the soul.

Now, friends took us on their vintage boat across the lake and my sister quietly let the spoonful of ash fall from a tiny cardboard box into the water. It looked like the fuller’s earth my father used to sell in his drugstore.

Fire had turned the body to ash; water put the fire out and swallowed up the ash. From water came life and now our mother’s life resolved — dissolved — in its depths.

We carry on. In the traces of lost family and absent friends, we’ll move forward with those we have still, or have yet to meet, and try to cherish them until our own night arrives.

copyright 2006 Messenger Post Newspapers

_________________________

All newspaper editors want to know what their readers like. If you would like to read this feature in your local newspaper, please do not hesitate to share your enthusiasm with your local newspaper editor.

Here’s Michael Winship from the show last week:

10:25 Whiter Shade of Pale (live)/Procul Harum
10:55 If She Wants Me/Belle & Sebastian
11:25 Denial Twist/White Stripes
11:55 Melissa/Allman Brothers
12:25 Beverly Hills/Weezer
12:55 China Grove/Doobie Brothers
1:25 Black Horse & The Cherry Tree/KT Tunstall

This is a NASA image of the shrinking Arctic Ice sheet. (Another) new study has found widespread evidence of global warming, but Sen. James Inhofe still has his head in the sand (or possibly somewhere else.)

For a sample of Inhofe’s take on global warming, listen to the audio from Fox News below. For a much more reasoned and intelligent source for information on climate change, see the work of NYTimes science writer Andy Revkin and his Postcards from the Arctic.

And if that isn’t enough Andy Revkin for you, you can even listen to him sing:

Here’s Inhofe on Fox:

We’ve gotten lots of feedback on what The Worst Song Ever is. The current reigning champion seems to be “Take it on the Run” from REO Speedwagon. But we’ve gotten some nominations that could definitely be contenders. Here’s a sample:

keep looking »

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