Columnists

A page from My Commonplace Book ( a very old, traditional, personal literary form—a diary of short excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader): -more-

It’s been a while since we got backstage at the California Academy of Sciences. Last Friday evening was Curators’ Night, with various entomologists, anthropologists, and others available to discuss their work, plus guided tours of the collections. The museum put on a nice spread, too, including mysterious blue cocktails (alas, not Romulan Ale.) -more-

On June 16th, political pundits observed that liberals are unhappy with President Barack Obama and conservatives are displeased with GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney. If the 2012 presidential contest matches Obama and Romney, and their bases are turned off, how will this affect the outcome? -more-

Despite the Department of Defense's (DoD) official prohibition on women in combat roles, 111 female soldiers have died in Iraq and 28 have died in Afghanistan. Sixty percent of these deaths were due to hostile acts. About 200,000 women have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Women make up 14.6 percent of active duty military. Women attack insurgents with strike fighters and helicopter gunships, machine guns and mortars, ride shotgun on convoys through IED (improvised explosive device) terrain and walk combat patrols with the infantry. Actually, DoD and the military services have difficulty defining what it is that women cannot volunteer to do. What makes the Iraq and Afghanistan "hostilities" different from other hostilities is that there are no clear front lines. Therefore, the line between a combat job and a support job is oftentimes blurred. The question that must be asked, why shouldn't a woman be assigned a combat job if she is qualified and properly trained? -more-

From 1967-2005, Canadian writer-director-producer Allan King created notable documentary films, usually with only a camera operator and sound technician, typically without interviews and narration. Five of them are on DVD collectively titled The Actuality Dramas of Allan King: Warrendale (1967,) A Married Couple (1969,) Come on Children (1972,) Dying at Grace (2003, 148 minutes,) and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company(released in 2010, 112 minutes.)

Dying at Grace commences with the on-screen declaration that “This film is about the experience of dying.” Close examination of the final days and nights of two men and three women follows. They are terminally ill patients in the Salvation Army’s Grace Medical Center Palliative Care Unit in Toronto. Fourteen weeks.

When asked why he made this film, King responded, “Self-interest is the reason I make most of my films. I'm getting older and I'm going to die. I thought I'd better find out what it's about.” And he expressed interest in hospice. -more-

It would not be truthful to say a person with a major mental illness can have and do all the things that someone without a mental illness can. A major mental illness has ramifications that affect all parts of a person’s existence. “Why me?” is a commonly asked question, of a person who feels that he or she has been dealt an unfair hand by fate. One could come up with many answers to such a question. In fact it seems we are all dealt cards that are not “chosen” but are random, and it is up to each person to play those cards to the best of their ability. If you believe in God, it doesn’t have to include the narcissistic belief that God likes you better than someone else. Some people get cancer, a physical deformity, or could be given an apparently “perfect” body and then could later become a burn victim. There is not necessarily any “reason” why life gave someone a mental illness and someone else, not. (Neither is it a sign that you have done something wrong and are being punished for it.) -more-