The Idea Geysir

Holiday Card for 2022

December 12, 2022

Seasons Greetings! This year’s update is shaping up to be verbose, which is nothing new. I moved from Washington, DC in November of 2021 and then had roughly two months of downtime, during which I lived in a rather disappointing apartment in Bethlehem and traveled as much as possible despite the flare of covid at the time (I have not had Covid 19 at any point). I started my new job in early January, and it has also been a disappointment, but then it is modern medicine. My original work site had not been completed, so I worked at 4 different locations each week until the one I liked least offered me a job, and I was basically forced to take it the beginning of April. It is far from torture and everyone there is very nice, though it turns out the Lehigh Valley is nowhere near as chill as I thought it would be. Like everywhere else, there is a dearth of mental health services and a plethora of needs. I am getting paid a lot more money to put up with it, with big raises on the way, but my career is experiencing existential crises. I do like where I live after paying a lot to break my lease at the dump apartment early. It is a newly opened luxury apartment building near Bethlehem’s historic district and downtown.

Culture: Obviously, the Lehigh Valley is not DC. I do miss being able to walk to great, often free, museums and run all over such a scenic area. I do not miss the swarms of tourists, seeing the struggles of the mentally ill and homeless up close, and my long walks lugging groceries home. Bethlehem is not as fun to walk in, but the running is pretty good. The city is keen on loud cars and terrible street paving. I have been able to attend two operas at Lincoln Center and have been to the museums of NYC multiple times (thanks for the lodging, Greg and Michael) and made one trip to Philadelphia’s excellent art museums. I attended two concerts of my favorites in the Philly area and really enjoyed Musikfest in Bethlehem. I went 8/10 days and loved everything about it except the uncomfortable chairs. My favorite comedian, Gary Gulman, came to a theater about 40 minutes away. I have not done much hiking in the area, saving it for trips.

Fitness and Health: My health has been fine overall, but I keep injuring my calves, which is a drag. I also have had a sore and tight back for months, though the trend now is better. I ran a slow time in my only road race (though I won my age group), and I have not been able to get anything else going. I have access to a number of gyms (just joined a new one) and am still in great shape for my age. My middle-aged skin is the only difference from 30s me (:-)

Travel: 2022 began for me on the cruise ship Plancius off the coast of Antarctica. We were winding down our time there, getting ready to go back to Ushuaia, Argentina. Antarctica is a spectacular place. I only saw a small part, but it is spellbinding, gorgeous beyond every place else I have been, and I have been to some places (see below). That said, it was hard to get there and back, especially at the dawn of the Omicron Covid variant. The seas were extremely rough – we sailed back through a cyclone with top winds in the 80+mph range and 30 foot waves. We were then held in port for over 12 hours while we were tested for Covid (I believe 10 people on board eventually tested positive over the last ten days of the cruise, including one of the doctors), forcing many to miss their flights back, including me. The epic story is recounted in my blog post:

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/travel-blog/2022/1/12/epic-antarctica-trip-12192021-01062022

The next trip was a short ski trip to Copper Mountain with Andrew and Christina. That was an enjoyable place to ski, and Andrew and I barely made it back through a snowstorm on Sunday.

I went to Switzerland in May. I got off to a rough start there, losing my wallet right after buying my train tickets. I wasn’t able to buy any lunch, and I looked for it a bit before going on to the place I was to stay (I’d paid for everything there in advance). Switzerland is stunning. I enjoyed the hiking a lot and met some super nice people who helped me out. I also had the worst allergies of my life. I got my wallet back about three weeks after I got home. Blog link:

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/travel-blog/2022/6/13/hiking-the-swiss-alps-with-a-shocking-twist

The final big trip was a road trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. I hiked there for 5 days. The hiking is tough – lots of steep and rocky climbs, and the scenery only so-so for someone like me, but it was a good adventure, and I was finally healthy enough to run every day while there as well (average hike was 4.5 hours). Blog link:

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/travel-blog/2022/9/24/acadia-2022-hiking-test

I was able to do short trips to Keuka Lake, New York City, Philly, and back to DC.

YouTube links:

https://youtu.be/TChNzhnAsUY Acadia video

https://youtu.be/P_bqJF4pqNA Swiss slide show

https://youtu.be/wzJl0b4P2nY Swiss video

https://youtu.be/OBahqmW3Yng Antarctica video

https://youtu.be/89pMM-kqD0E Antarctica slideshow - the most beautiful photos I have ever seen.

The most scenic areas I have ever been:

1. The Antarctic Peninsula. On a sunny day, nothing comes close

2. The Grand Canyon. Overwhelming in scope

3. Yosemite National Park

4. The Icefields Parkway (Alberta, Canada)

5. Remote Iceland

6. Svalbard

7. Aoraki, New Zealand

8. Yellowstone

9. Chilean Patagonia

10. Kicking Horse Resort, BC, Canada

Books: After a disappointing 2021, I had high hopes for 2022, but other than my trip to Antarctica, where there were days at sea with not much to do, I still didn’t read many books. I continue to read the New Yorker (awesome) and the Atlantic (improving), which take up a lot of time. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, Mir Tamim Ansary, an enjoyable history of things seldom taught here. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You, Rachel Heller and Amir Levine, which was indeed helpful. The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel. I loved her style and this trilogy. Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney. I thought her first two books were masterpieces, but this one took the bloom off the rose and made me question my judgment, especially when I tried to watch the series. The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, Louis Menand. Mr. Menand is a national treasure, but this book did me in for months. I finally gave up on reading it all during the long section on poetry criticism, but most of it is excellent. Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System, Alex Karakatsanis. This book makes so much sense and exposes so much wrong with our system of justice, everyone should read it. He fails to supply any alternatives, though it would seem almost any other way would be better. The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Strategies that Work…, Vivian S. Lee. Decent look at how our messy health system can work better for everyone while costing much less. Barracoon, Zora Neale Hurston. This is a rough go. It is about the last living survivor of the Clotilda, the last ship to try to bring slaves to the USA, now the basis of a series from National Geographic, available on Hulu, and “Descendant” on Netflix. His tale is harrowing at best, and it is told in a controversial way in the book, but we all should know about these elements of our history.

Music: The biggest impact on music for me was Musikfest. I loved 4 of the acts and still listen to them all the time. Hot4Robot is a Lehigh Valley band who were skilled live and put out a great album last year. Every song is fantastic, but I really love “Just Human”. Conor and the Wild Hunt is principally a young and charismatic man with a folksy singer-songwriter vibe. Matt Nakoa is a blues pop sensation, wickedly talented with accessible piano and electric guitar-based songs. Hard to understand how he isn’t huge. Alex Cano is an earnest young rocker from New York state. The rest: Beabadoobee: “Beatopia” Clever and inventive pop from a young Asian living in the UK. Maggie Rogers: “Surrender” Super talented and passionate. The Joy Formidable: “Into the Blue” continuing innovative rock and roll, saw them in Philly in October. MUNA: “MUNA” Not always my cup of tea. The Goo Goo Dolls: “Chaos in Bloom” Surprisingly good. Grant-Lee Philips: “All You Can Dream” lovely songs with the best lyrics you will find. Saw him in Philly. Try “Cut to the Ending”. Feeder: “Torpedo” Another Welsh rock band, very catchy, but not as much variety as prior. Recent releases: my hero, Phoebe Bridgers, “So Much Wine” a holiday EP. The Black Crowes: “1972” a rocking EP of originals and great covers. Tegan and Sara: “Crybaby” Not quite as catchy, but need to hear it more.

Amusements: I didn’t complete a single jigsaw puzzle this year. I did do the Spelling Bee game at the NYTimes website every day I had internet access and missed “genius” status only thrice (tired from traveling). Way too many reels on Dachshunds. My own video of me throwing axes with my coworker Mo, shot by his girlfriend Liz (with the key “Nice!” at the end), attracted way more interest than I could imagine, with 24,000 views and 507 likes on Instagram. I listen to few podcasts, but I did my first one for Moravian University. It turned out great: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-em97v-122ddae I am contemplating doing my own. I would like to call it “Futurist Curmudgeon and Storyteller".”

Funny story: One hike I did in Switzerland required a return trip on a train. I had hiked fast to make it to the station about 15 minutes early. My calf hurt, so I had not been running, but I could walk with only mild discomfort. There was no one there. The train I needed only came once an hour. I looked around and thought it would come to the other side of the tracks, which had a small station with a toilet and was reached by walking through a tunnel. I went over there and ate a snack. I noticed a button to push to signal the train to stop and hit it about 5 minutes before it was scheduled to come in. All set. I heard it coming, so I got up and stood on the siding. It came around the turn and PULLED INTO THE OTHER SIDE! I immediately started running as fast as I could to the tunnel and through it, not wanting to wait there another hour! I felt my calf strain more but kept running up from the tunnel to the train. I hit the door opening button. It didn’t work. I looked at the train and figured out only the first two cars were open, ran to them and got the door open. I rushed inside and sat down, all out of breath. I was the only person in the car, and it left right away. I made it and had a good laugh. The people I had started the hike with missed the train under similar circumstances 2 hours later and were late for dinner.

Quotes: I apologize in not being able to recall the exact origins of several of the quotes below. There is an emphasis on power, perhaps appropriately. Who we choose to give it to and how we choose will be the great challenge to humanity of the next 50 years.

Me: “I have all the tools to have an extraordinary life, so I get tired of doing ordinary things.”

The New Yorker :“perhaps the most destabilizing aspect of the #MeToo revelations was learning that the movies themselves - which I had taken to be reflections of universal aesthetic norms, maybe even of biological or “hardwired” realities - were largely the imaginative products of a small group of sex criminals.”

Wendell Berry: “Take a simpleton and give him power and confront him with intelligence – and you have a tyrant.”

Me: “I am definitely a glass half full kind of guy. I just want more in the glass.”

James Burnham: “The Machiavellians (that is, the realists) are the only people who understand the truth about power: that ‘the primary object, and practice, of all rulers is to serve their own interests, to maintain their own power and privilege. There are no exceptions.’”

O’Brien: “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

The Atlantic: “In fact, our natural state is dissatisfaction, punctuated by brief moments of satisfaction. You might not like the hedonic treadmill, but Mother Nature thinks it is pretty great.”

George Kennan: “Totalitarianism takes advantage of people’s weaknesses: it manipulates the irrational sides of their nature. What preserves us from being manipulated is the recognition that although we are imperfect, our problems are susceptible to solution by rational processes, and should be approached so and solved.”

Me: “This country is truly divided, but it isn’t Democrat vs Republican or Progressive vs Conservative. It is between those who want to cooperate to make a better world and the selfish.”

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/religionpolitics/2022/5/7/the-rise-of-the-jerk

W.E.B DuBois: “There was no Nazi atrocity which the Christian civilization of Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race.”

Sonke Johnsen: “The thought of light traveling billions of years from distant galaxies only to be washed out in the last billionth of a second by the glow from the nearest strip mall depresses me to no end.”

Casanova: “Mad are those who think the Supreme Being could ever enjoy the sorrow, pain and abstinence they offer up to him in sacrifice.”

Alec Karakatsanis: “You can’t shut out climate change the way a gated community shuts out crime, litter, or traffic. It’s a delusion to think that we can harm the whole planet without suffering too much ourselves.”

Me: “Medicines only make you less unhealthy. To be healthy, in the accepted sense, is more about managing your environment, what you put in your body, how you use your body, and your attitudes and thoughts.”

Alec Karakatsanis: “The groups who wield power in our society benefit from the punishment bureaucracy. It privileges their private property, their racial supremacy, their jobs, their voting rights, and their segregated neighborhoods.”

“One effect of the Republican assault on elections- which takes the form, naturally, of the very thing Republicans accuse Democrats of doing: rigging the system – might be to open our eyes to how undemocratic our democracy is. Strictly speaking, American government has never been a government ‘by the people.’”

Bob Dylan: “People talk about trying to change society. All I know is that so long as people stay so concerned about protecting their status and protecting what they have, ain’t nothing going to be done.”

Me: When asked what talents I have (answer somewhat in jest – wink), “It would be easier to list the things I am not good at.” Those things, by the way, include sleeping, relaxing, remembering names, playing an instrument, foreign languages

“The most magnificent of rebels find themselves thrown into the arms of another orthodoxy. The high school punk rejects the culture of the mainstream only to embrace a subculture with norms no less exacting; how different a goth looks from everyone else, and yet how similar to every other goth. It is no surprise that it should be so; we need other people to be anybody at all.

Giorgio Parisi, and Italian physicist:” I don’t think the planet is in danger, but we are.”

I will draw to a close now. I hope your year was great and next year is even better. Try to help those around you to have better years as well.

Address: 305 Prospect Ave, Apt. 411, Bethlehem, PA 18018. tlojrmd@gmail.com 570-238-2084

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/religionpolitics/2018/9/23/my-proposal-for-the-28th-constitutional-amendment

2021 Holiday Card

December 13, 2021

2021 was better than 2020, but it was a pretty low bar. One week after I sent out last year’s card/links (still in 2020, the worst year of my life), my mother died, the reality of which was much worse than I had anticipated (it didn’t help we could not be with her and were poorly informed about her status). We only had her funeral and a memorial service November 26th, and I did my best for her at both. Her death certainly added to my discontent with my living and employment situation, and I decided to take a position with the Lehigh Valley Health Network and move back to Bethlehem, PA, where I went to college and lived for 2 years after getting out of the USAF. I will be paid substantially more with a markedly lower cost of living, important with only a few more years of quality earning potential, and my life will be much more normal, with things like a car (Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid), sunlight (I often joked I could live in a cave, and I essentially did – though lit with artificial light – for the past 12 months. I did it, but it gets old.), and the subtraction of tourists and the bleeping scooters everywhere. My move from DC was OK for a move, since the LVHN paid for pros to do it for me, but I moved again two days after getting into my new apartment due to a leaky bathroom ceiling. The ceiling creaks like crazy, but I am settling in ok. I don’t start work until January 10th, so I planned a trip to Antarctica* from 12/19 – 01/06. The plan otherwise is to find a house near Moravian University.

Neologism: I love to make up new words, and this is the best recent one: Doublecroxx: timing the crosswalks and walk signs just right to not break stride while crossing both streets at an intersection to arrive catty-corner.

Travel:

The skiing in the Rockies is the best, especially if you aren’t very good.

Obviously, minimal. I went to our summer house on Keuka Lake for a few days on 2 occasions. I did manage a ski trip to Colorado in late February with my nephew, Andrew, and Christina, which was pretty great. Staycations in DC are ok – still lots to do.

*So, Antarctica: leaving Dec. 19th and returning the 6th (I just had to revise the trip due to a flight cancellation), will be doing a “base camp” cruise where they anchor for 3-4 days and then you do activities on land and in the water, including snowshoeing, mountaineering, kayaking and camping, as well as walks. 2 activities a day. It is hard to get there and back, especially with Covid, but I should be able to pull it off despite Omicron. I am more than a bit stressed about it.

Tiresome movie/TV tropes I can’t stand:

1. The cathartic sucker punch to the face. NO ONE should ever punch someone in the face, much less without any warning or from out of their field of view.

2. A justice system that somehow has an investigation and trial in a matter of days, all conducted by the same 3 or 4 people.

3. Car chases. They are tedious, wasteful, and dangerous, while encouraging susceptible people to do them in real life.

How are these still a thing?

1. UFC/MMA/Boxing – beating someone into unconsciousness? Please, please stop.

2. Single use plastic water bottles – The water is no better than from your tap 99% of the time, is expensive, and almost none of the plastic gets recycled. Buy a filter and fill your bottle up from that.

3. Car commercials featuring the vehicles being driven illegally and recklessly – so a fine print disclaimer makes it ok? See “car chases” above.

Fitness/Health: I am doing pretty well at the moment, but I got a frozen shoulder in May and it hurt a lot. My foot and knee bothered me some, but I was tenacious. I joined Moravian’s gym and will be back to working out with students again.

Music: Still only listening on Apple music, which has come in handy with the new car (Android Auto isn’t perfect, but better than hooking up an iPod, though somehow it still picks the worst songs I have very often).

Albums I recommend/enjoy (no particular order) I first heard in ‘21

Julien Baker, “Little Oblivions” and “Sprained Ankle”; Feeder (maybe the single greatest find, yet another Welsh rock band), “The Singles”; Group Love, “This is This”; Bob Mould, “Blue Hearts”; Belly, “Ring” (from 1995, but I’d not been aware of it); Beabadoobee, “Fake It Flowers”; The Jayhawks, “Xoxo”; REM, “Reckoning - Deluxe Edition”; Grant-Lee Phillips, “Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff”; Son Volt, “Electro Melodier”; Van Wagner, “The Boone Sessions”; The Verve Pipe, “Villains, Live and Acoustic”; Noah Gunderson, “A Pillar of Salt” and “Selections from ‘White Noise’ Live”; Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Starting Now”; Oasis, “Knebworth Live 1996”; Snail Mail, “Valentine”; Dinosaur Jr, “Emptiness at the Sinclair”;

I saw a few acts live before leaving DC: Bob Mould, Toad the Wet Sprocket (with Raquel and Brian Bishop as a guest of the band – it was quite good), and Beabadoobee.

I also went to comedy shows by Sarah Cooper and Ronnie Chieng.

Books/Reading: It was a bad year for books and reading overall. I had more distractions (oh, the REELs/Tik Toks!!)

I got very behind in my New Yorkers and Atlantics and had to take away time from books. I also wasn’t taking the Metro enough to finish any books while riding.

Barack Obama, A Promised Land : well written, but mostly campaign minutiae, all the more justification to reform the whole system, but he seemed to like it.

Michael Lewis, The Premonition : the failures of the system to deal with the pandemic and the people who saw it coming, knew what to do but couldn’t.

Kurt Andersen, Evil Geniuses : how the right wing, since the 1970s, hijacked the USA with lies, propaganda, subterfuge, money and sheer force of will.

Early morning photo at the beginning of the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin

Quotes:

The New Yorker: “Emory University recently released the results of the most comprehensive analysis to date of people who are prone to conspiracy beliefs. According to the study, the personality profiles most often associated with such beliefs are entitlement, self-centered impulsivity, a sense of being wronged, and elevated levels of depressed moods and anxiousness.”

The New Yorker, in a humor piece on the drawbacks of referring to Hitler while public speaking. It discouraged it, and it ended with this line: “The good news, however, is that improvement is possible. Hope, like Argentina, remains within reach.”

The Atlantic (multiple authors): “over the past century, the United States has deported more immigrants than it has allowed in. Since 1882, it has deported more than 57 million people, most of them Latino, according to Adam Goodman, a historian at the University of Illinois at Chicago. No other country has carried out this many deportations. This challenges the simplistic notion of a long tradition where the U.S. has welcomed immigrants,’ Goodman told (the authors).”

Me: from my blog post called “Modern Trumpianity” - “Was there anything more ridiculous than the biggest election cheat in history raising hundreds of millions of dollars to ‘stop the steal’ all while trying to steal the election for himself?” He is literally in charge of trying to steal it.

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/religionpolitics/2021/3/8/modern-trumpianity

Kurt Andersen, “…during the 1970s and 80s, liberty assumed its powerfully politicized form and eclipsed equality and solidarity among our aspirational values. Greed is good meant selfishness lost its stigma. And that was when we were in trouble.”

And: A member of Congress … said, ”you are a slave to the donors. They own you. That’s the (real) corruption, the ownership of Congress by the rich.”

And, echoed by me, “apart from passing a constitutional amendment, there isn’t anything the government can do [about regulating campaign finance} now.” So, let’s get a 28th amendment on election reform!

And, if people worked less: “Those who ask what the average working man and woman could do with so much free time forget that in Victorian England the ‘upper classes” did not seem to have been demoralized by their idleness.”

Louis Menand, in the New Yorker: “it excuses Republicans from debating policy proposals or offering alternatives. They can be purely oppositional. Today, that is virtually the only platform the Party has left to stand on.”

A guy named Poullian, in the Atlantic: “We could do without princes, soldiers and tradesmen, but we cannot do without women in our childhood.” (the nurturing work of women should be elevated, not debased) “We offer great rewards to a man who can tame a tiger, admire those who can train horses, monkeys, and elephants, and praise to the skies the author of some modest work, yet we neglect women who have spent years and years nourishing and educating children.”

New address:

2252A Aster Rd

Bethlehem, PA 18018

Happy Holidays!!

2#$@!&0 Holiday Card

December 6, 2020

Many of you are, like me, feeling this year can’t end soon enough (and January 20 come!). It has been a slog. I often ruminate on what it must have been like to live in a world where polio, measles, TB, Strep Throat, meningitis, influenza and other infections spread unabated by vaccines and treatments and aided by an even deeper well of ignorance. Somehow life went on, and life still goes on now, but it is a very strange life. At least I have a new neighbor slated to move in soon; it is hard to believe the election was as close as it was, but it is also soothing to see competence and rationality starting to get the upper hand.

JOB: I am still working for Medstar at the World Bank Headquarters in downtown D.C. The Bank won’t let anyone who has been sick recently or has traveled in the building, so we do a limited amount of in person visits and augment that with video visits. We started doing Covid testing a few months back and that has gone well, though the doctor’s side of it is very repetitive and tedious, and lately the staff have been overwhelmed. I have gotten used to wearing a mask all day and a face shield when I am seeing patients. Sigh, but it is for the best, and we probably should have been doing it to protect ourselves long ago. I have not been sick at all for over a year.

TRAVEL: Fortunately, I got in two trips before things got weird. I went to Portugal alone for a week in January and enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was as nice as Spain, but there was plenty to see and do and the weather was pretty good (Lisbon and Porto). I went to Austria to ski (first time in 19 years) the last week in February with my old friend, Vince Seiwert. Innsbruck was beautiful, and I got to know it well after tearing the medial meniscus in my right knee in a freak accident on the last run of the first day. I was skiing better than ever, too, after taking a lesson. Sigh. We had a few big arguments (religion, the Constitution) while we were together, and I haven’t heard from Vince since he got on the plane home. Two fantastic people he knew from Germany visited us, and I still keep in touch with them, so I have that going for me.

In the US, it was a true blessing to have our house on Keuka Lake as an escape. There is not a safer place where I can relax (in my own way, without the heat on, and doing some sort of physical activity all day). I was there for a few days in May alone, in July with a small group of O’Rourkes (never more than 10), and alone again in September, when I also drove to Roanoke to spend 5 days with the Wrights, playing (terrible) golf for the first time in years.

FITNESS/HEALTH: My health is still excellent (and I look pretty good for 56). I was in fantastic shape before I hurt my knee, best in years (see above), but I finally took it easy for a few weeks after a knee injury, and it settled on its own. I got into really good running shape again in a few months and then a nagging foot injury flared up. I needed that exercise during all that was happening, so I tried to fight through it. It hasn’t gotten better despite lots of different strategies (the recent plan seems to be working on some levels, though). There are no races or pressures other than the relentless aging that gives me less and less time left to be able to do the things I like. Sigh. At least the gym is open in my new apartment building, and I am usually able to work out there alone. I have gotten good at working out and running with a mask on all the time. I think of it is a training aid.

MOVING: My old apartment was very expensive, the building full of college students who rarely followed the rules, and I had a very noisy neighbor fond of causing crashing and banging sounds between 2 and 4am, so I moved to a new apartment just on the other side of the White House, coincidentally a block from what became Black Lives Matter Plaza. The apartment is nice enough, with limited natural light and lots of random noises, but it is far quieter and way less annoying than the other place. It is not close to any groceries, but I get some delivered and often walk at lunch or Sunday mornings to get things. It is very near the action and the Mall, which I like, but I am also well stowed away from trouble. The walk to work is a few minutes longer, but once they open things up in front of the White House and Lafayette Park it should be a pleasant stroll.

Favorite Compliments: I see a lot of male patients at the office, and some of them are surprisingly complimentary of me. It prompted me to recall a few other unusual compliments I have gotten in the past 10 years or so.

1. I replied to a patient’s statement that he had a “typical face” for his region that I had the typical bald guy face. He cringed and said, “No, no. Your face is very chiseled.” (I found this very amusing because I had described my face with that word a few days prior for the first time).

2. While I was getting the computer ready, a new patient said, “Doctor, you work out! You are in great shape!” I said I try to take good care of myself. His reply: “No, you are in great shape! I can tell you have a six pack even through your shirt!” (I clarified it was only a 4 pack).

3. I was playing golf at Bucknell’s course about 6 years ago with an elderly man I’d joined who had grown up in Danville. I carried my clubs and walked while he rode in a cart. Towards the end of the round, he said, “I have to tell you, I have never seen anyone move so fast and easily while carrying their clubs.”

4. During a neck ultrasound following up on my thyroid surgery, the technician, with whom I was friends, started saying things like, “Yes, he is really healthy. Yes, he works out a lot,” while she was on the phone with the Radiologist who was reviewing my study. After she hung up, she said, “He kept asking me about you. He said you have no fat at all in your neck.”

MUSIC: This was a weird year for music as well. I bought a new laptop, which I like, but the new iTunes/Apple music won’t allow me to download the albums I buy, and no one from Apple has been able to fix it. So, now I subscribe to Apple Music for $10/month and stopped buying albums. It is super annoying, but I am getting used to it. I still have my vast catalogue of 5000++ songs in my iTunes to shuffle play.

Here is what I did buy: The most valued purchases were Phoebe Bridgers, “Punisher” and “Stranger in the Alps.” She is fantastic, a once in a generation talent (I am a bit obsessed), and led me to her side project, Better Oblivion Community Center and its self-titled debut album, and from there to Noah Gunderson’s great album, “White Noise” and its less rocking but still great follow-up, “Lover.” Other good ones: Grant-Lee Phillips “Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff”; Soul Asylum “Hurry Up and Wait”; Fiona Apple “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”; Van Wagner “You Can’t Force a Mule”; Grouplove “Healer”.

On Apple Music: Bob Mould “Blue Hearts”; Beabadoobee “Fake It Flowers”; Belly “King”

BOOKS: I have struggled, despite what should have been abundant free time, getting books read and keeping up with the New Yorker and Atlantic. It is probably my addiction to the “Spelling Bee” game in the NY Times online edition (I achieve a “Genius” rating almost every day), in addition to watching too much MSNBC (no reason to anymore:-). I only finished 11 books this year, and I have three I am in the midst of. I will surely finish the best of those, “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama, soon. Otherwise, here are the 11 with a brief (ha!) blurb:

“The Little Red Chairs” by Edna O’Brien, hard to pigeonhole, but a good, if troubling, novel.

“Calypso” by David Sedaris, always amusing, especially his penchant for overdoing things

“Biased” by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, territory I have trod before, but important for humans to understand, though those who need it most are least likely to read it.

“Moneyland” by Ivor Bullough, explains how the super-wealthy are taking advantage of the system and each of us while making our lives worse. Makes me think the old 90% tax rate would be a great idea. Definitely worth it.

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusa, a well-regarded mining of the Nazi era yet again.

“The End of October” by Lawrence Wright, a great journalist with impeccable timing for a book about a worldwide pandemic, but it was ultimately a disappointment, with many cinematic tropes and deus ex machina – clearly wants to be made into a movie.

“Flights” by Olga Tokarczuk, an award-winning novel that is very strange and not for me.

“Egghead” by Bo Burnham, a comedian and filmmaker, he also writes. Meh. A frivolity.

“Everything is Trash, But It’s OK” by Phoebe Robinson, a talented comedian and cultural figure, but her book of essays is way too long and padded.

“The Wizard and the Prophet” by Charles C. Mann. A great, great writer telling the story of how the green revolution, which helped humans grow enough food to feed the billions of us, depended so much on the efforts of just a few people who were coming at it from very different angles.

“Disloyal” by Michael Cohen. Not a bad read at all, infuriating and revealing of what I certainly expected to be the reality, though even a bit worse (see an analogous quote below).

CITY LIFE: At its best, DC is a very livable city with plenty to do. In a pandemic, it isn’t so great. There were plenty of tense times where food was short, but I could always get something (few people were fighting over the baked tofu or lentil pasta). My main activity out of the apartment was walking. I walked all over (in addition to my runs):

I tried to find some new friends, but that was not easy, so I was often alone or with friends I’d made before the “lockdown,” one of whom was a fairly reliable companion for some really nice, long strolls (one was 13 miles). Once the protests started, I often went to the area that became Black Lives Matter Plaza, both at lunch with my doctor friends, on weekends by myself or with my niece, Kelsey (that day, in the first photo above, had the most people), who was also good for a low key adventure every few weeks. BLM Plaza was very interesting and often moving. The city handled it well during the height of the protests, as it did the pre and post-election times (not true for the Park Police). I hope all the extra fencing and plywood will be removed soon; we still need to social distance and stay out of restaurants, but there are some nice spaces that have been off limits for too long. Since I am not on the front lines, I will not likely be one of the first to get a vaccine, but I would guess I should have the series finished by March. I am willing to try any of them, but the Moderna one looks best. Perhaps the saddest side of the pandemic, at least what is obvious to anyone walking this city, is the plight of the homeless and mentally ill. Rare are the days when I don’t witness someone overtly psychotic shouting and/or pacing.

This is the day the news outlets proclaimed Biden the winner.

QUOTES:

Adam Gopnik (a genius), in the New Yorker: “The pressure of extreme and unexpected events forces the flaws in our common character to the surface.”

Lauren Groff, The Atlantic: “(Florida) has been built on the promises of an eternal present, on blithe and deliberate disregard for the past so as not to learn from it – on a refusal to give a single whit about the future…. Florida votes for precisely the people trying to strip necessary life-giving protections from our neighbors and from the glorious natural environment that we are dependent on.”

Me: “There has to be a genetic basis for gullibility, and it would appear to be very common.”

George Packer, The Atlantic: “But on racial matters, the U.S. could just as accurately be described as a land in denial. It has been a massacring nation that said it cherished life, a slaveholding nation that claimed it valued liberty, a hierarchal nation that declared it valued equality, a disenfranchising nation that branded itself a democracy, a segregated nation that branded itself as separate and equal, an excluding nation that boasted of opportunity for all. A nation is what it does, not what it originally claimed it would be. Often, a nation is precisely what it denies itself to be.”

Evan Osnos, the New Yorker: “According to the standard measure of complexity in writing, the Flesch-Kincaid index, ______ communicated at the level of a 4th grader.

Henry Adams, “I expected the worst, and it was worse than I expected.”

Me: “Y’all should turn around and face the other direction. The most dangerous people in this area are in that big white house behind you, not us.” Imaginary shout to the unfortunate souls standing across 16th St NW in riot gear in 92 degree heat during one of our lunchtime visits to the protests.

My new address: 733 15th St NW, Apt 318, Washington, DC 20005

Phone: 570-238-2084

Instagram: drterryo64

Halloween costume for work:

Mr. Clean for a few hours, then back to Mr. Abitslobby.

Unfortunately, as this terrible year ends, things are only going to get worse before they get better. Hold on tight to what matters in life and try to do what it takes to improve things when you get a chance. There is an end in sight, and perhaps a better world on the other side of this if we remember how working together makes life better for the most people possible, and how being selfish and uncooperative makes everything worse for everyone.

Please be in touch. I love to hear from you! Be safe!

Terry O’Rourke

Happy Holidays! Holiday Card 2019 Edition

December 14, 2019

*Bonus features are in bold italics*

As my first full year living in downtown DC is drawing to a close, it is time again to retrace the happenings since last December. I love living in the city; there is always something to do, and I am never bored. I made a new friend, Roumeen Islam, and enjoy spending as much time with her as I can. A highlight for us was the opera, Otello, at the Kennedy Center in later October. We have also taken Tango, Waltz, and Contra Dancing lessons. Work is work, but Sue Brunsell and Betsy Heathcote, friends for nearly 30 years, make it more fun. In addition to our sock fashion, we have had steady games of Scrabble on a magnetic board in an office there (I have only won once. They will deny it, but they cheat and put up specious words).

Travel: I got off to a fun start with my first trip to the Bahamas in January. I took my niece, Madelaine, and her friend, Julie, and we had a great time at the Atlantis resort. I loved the water slides, which was the reason I chose that place, and we had a number of good adventures (A highlight was snorkeling in their aquarium with a huge manta ray). In April, I did a long weekend in New York City, staying with Greg and Michael, loving it. In May, I went for a week to Toronto and Montreal solo. I liked Montreal better, but they were both fun and interesting, and I did some great runs. In July, I did the usual family week at Keuka Lake. The best trip was an epic 6 days of hiking the Kerry Way in Ireland in early September. I ran 5 miles every day, rain or shine, and hiked about 80 miles. The weather wasn’t too bad, except when I was hiking in the clouds, and it is such a beautiful area. I followed that up with a super fun 5 days in Bermuda with the Wakelys in mid October at their fantastic new waterside house. I did a staycation here in June nursing a sore hamstring, and attended three medical meetings in the area as well.

Health and Fitness: I recovered well from my December 7, 2018 right knee surgery and began running again in late January. It came back fast and I managed to finish 4th in my age group in the Parkway Classic Ten Miler in late April (out of 104, placing in the 140s overall out of 4300) in a decent time. I was disappointed to have a recurrence of hamstring troubles that bugged me in 2017 in June, and I have been unable to race since then, but I am in better shape now than in the past 4 years, partly due to quitting the expensive and annoying Equinox gym and joining the convenient and less crowded World Bank gym in July. Otherwise I am feeling great and still have endless energy. (I have been concentrating a lot on good posture, and once I get it right, an ongoing challenge, it is like I am a new person. I can’t emphasize it enough).

MUSIC : This was a great year. I was able to see quite a few live shows and I bought a lot of music. My favorite was Catfish and the Bottlemen – The Balance, and I got to see them at the Anthem here with my sister, Candace. They are great live (their fans, however…). Big Head Todd and the Monsters coaxed me to make my return to the 9:30 Club and I loved them so much I bought 4 albums when I got back: All the Love You Need, Live at Red Rocks 2015, Black Beehive, & Live Monsters. Their opening act was memorably good, Blue Water Highway. I got Heartbreak City and Things We Carry by them. I got Flight of the Conchords reunion show, Live in London, and I have not gotten tired of their repartee and the funny songs (The Summer of 1353 may be the cleverest song ever written). An inspired performance on The Late Show convinced me to get Tegan and Sara – Hey, I’m Just Like You, and I loved it, buying 3 other albums and an EP: Get Along (live), Sainthood, and If It Was You. My friend, Van Wagner, released 2 albums, Shortleaf Pine and the often electrified change of pace (it is really good) Wales, with his nephew on drums. Other good releases: Bob Mould – Sunshine Music; Idlewild – Interview Music and A Distant History: Rarities 1997-2007; The Joy Formidable – A Balloon Called Moaning. These were lesser efforts: Son Volt: Union (I saw them live as well at the 9:30, and they were good); Todd Snider – Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 (not sorry there aren’t volumes 1, 2 and 4), Pixies – Beneath the Eyrie; and the downbeat solo album by a man I thought was a musical genius, Jon Fratelli – Bright Night Flowers. I also saw the Lemonheads at the 9:30 and Grant Lee Phillips at Jammin’ Java in Vienna (he is an American treasure, one of the most talented humans drawing breath). I also attended a Mozart concert and two operas (Faustus and Otello) at the nearby Kennedy Center.

BOOKS: I didn’t get to read anything at work, and I started running again most days, so I was no longer reading on the stationary bike. I didn’t get as much accomplished, but still a good variety. I continue reading most of the New Yorker weekly and the Atlantic.

1. Sally Rooney – Normal People – hard to say why, but brilliant. Her plotting and the flow of events are superb.

2. Mir Tamim Ansary – Games without Rules – an amusingly written history of Afghanistan and why it is impossible to rule by outsiders. Recommended by Roumeen - very good choice.

3. Rutger Bregman – Utopia for Realists – mind blowing. The world would be so much better if we only tried some of the ideas contained in here. We shouldn’t let the heartless ambitions of the greedy and power hungry ruin it for the vast majority of humans.

4. Andrew McCabe – The Threat – well written account of current events

5. Matthew Stewart – The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong – Recounts how management training gets almost everything wrong and ignores the only reliable ways to get people to do more: pay them better and treat them better.

6. Jill LePore – These Truths – brilliant American history that shows how discrimination (racial and gender based) has penetrated every aspect of American society to its detriment since the first European settlements.

7. Michelle Obama – Becoming – moving and entertaining (especially once Barack appears) account of a remarkable person’s life.

8. Eric Idle – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – the funniest and most name-dropping Monty Python memoir.

9. Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends – again, brilliant.

Quotes:

Me: “Being alone is a lot more tolerable when you have other options.”

The New Yorker: “Other affect theorists noted that, amid a sense of dawning futility, many people seem to derive their greatest pleasure from making others feel bad; disaffection and disillusionment are contagions we can spread ourselves.”

Adam Gopnik: “The gingerly treatment of the secessionists gave the impression – more, it created the reality – that treason in the defense of slavery was a forgivable, even “honorable,” difference of opinion. Despite various halfhearted and soon rescinded congressional measures to prevent ex-Confederate leaders from returning to power, many of them didn’t just skip out but skipped right back into Congress.”

Matthew Stewart: “(Management) Strategy is therefore all about figuring out how to secure profits without having to make a better product, work harder, or be smarter.”

Me: “Einstein posited that time could indeed be relative. I have found that to be proven again and again in D.C. Time never moves slower than when you are waiting for a Metro train and watching the clock telling you when it should arrive. It moves very fast between the time I rinse out my cereal bowl and when I lock the door to my apartment to leave for work.”

In an article about Maxim Osipov, a Russian Cardiologist and author: “The disposition of the people he treated reminded him of the way Anton Chekhov, who had worked as a village doctor, described the human condition, as ‘a dislike of life strangely combined with a fear of death.’”

Rutger Bregman: “In fact, a British think tank estimated that for every pound earned by advertising executives, they destroy an equivalent of 7 pounds in the form of stress, overconsumption, pollution, and debt; conversely, each pound paid to a trash collector creates an equivalent of 12 pounds in terms of health and sustainability.”

And: “Billions of people are forced to sell their labor at a fraction of the price that they would get for it in the Land of Plenty (the developed world), all because of borders. Borders are the single biggest cause of discrimination in all of world history.”

And: “’A man with conviction is a hard man to change.’ So opens Leon Festinger’s account of these events in ‘When Prophecy Fails,’ first published in 1956 and a seminal text in social psychology to this day. “Tell him you disagree and he turns away,’ Festinger continues. “Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.’ …Cognitive dissonance, he termed it. When reality clashes with our deepest convictions, we’d rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview.”

And, especially: “Meritocracy? Bring it on. Let’s finally pay people according to their real contributions. Waste collectors, nurses, and teachers would get a substantial raise, obviously, while quite a few lobbyists, lawyers and bankers would see their salaries dive into the negatives. If you want to do a job that hurts the public, go right ahead. But you’ll have to pay for the privilege with a heftier tax.” ED. This should go right along with things like riding a noisy motorcycle or owning polluting livestock.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (Polish poet): “When you arrive at the very bottom, you will hear knocking from below.”

And, finally, me again: “Food and wine don’t make people more interesting, but they can make them less interesting.”

I was inspired by Haikus posted in this area to try to write a few for this, but then I decided against it. I also vetoed the usual assortment of comedy lists, neologisms (English needs way more words!!), and observations. I will include these, though:

My time in the city running around in the early hours has revealed how a prosperous, wealthy city like this works: hundreds of people of color up early doing various sorts of dirty work in and around buildings and areas too expensive for them to live near. I am also often moved to gratitude for my own health and abilities at age 55 when I see so many overcoming challenges of health, injury, deformity, poverty and discrimination to go out and live their lives, asking no favors and only desiring a fair chance to show what they can do.

If you come to this city (and perhaps any other major city), I think the first thing you may notice is the abundance of scooters, which I cannot think of without profanity coming into my brain. The bleeping scooters, all the honking horns and the sirens from all the emergency vehicles and motorcades are the biggest negatives to city life.

I am not sure what the future holds for me here. I will probably move from this apartment to something a bit cheaper with less college students living in it if I stick with this job. My life otherwise is pretty great. I am very blessed and fortunate.

I hope all of you had a great year and that you have an even better one next year. Please keep in touch and I love visitors and showing people around.

2221 I (Eye) St. NW, Apartment 728

Washington, DC 20037

570-238-2084

tlojrmd@gmail.com

instagram: drterryo64 (I only have 52 followers despite the high quality of my posts, so throw me a bone and follow me if you are not one of them and are on Instagram)

Facebook: T.L. O’Rourke (I don’t post much or look at it much anymore)

All my best to you in 2020!

Terry O’Rourke

Holiday Card, 2018

December 15, 2018

Holiday Card 2018

It is time again to sum up a year in my life. This one was pretty interesting overall, not always in good ways, but certainly it was never bad. I resigned from my job at Susquehanna University with Geisinger in November of 2017 but finished the year out through May of 2018. It was definitely time to move on, no matter what I did next, but, as luck would have it, I heard from my friend Sue Brunsell about her pending new job at a clinic at the World Bank Headquarters for the employees of it and the IMF in downtown Washington, DC in January and decided I would like to join her there. It took a while to get everything finalized, but I started work there in August after moving into an expensive apartment a few blocks away from the World Bank and in a really nice neighborhood. I sold my car in July and rely mostly on the Metro to get around, since the Foggy Bottom station is right across the street. I love this city and the job is just fine, but my enthusiasm will be even stronger once I start running again. I tore the medial meniscus in my right knee in July, and I just had surgery on December 7th (it went well). Thus follows my usual lists and compendiums, and though I try to keep it short, by doing it all digitally I make it as long as it should be and spare at least the trees needed for paper if not the materials used to create the electricity that powers the device you are looking at it on. It is a bit much for one sitting, but certainly those with good appetites should have no problem.

Travel: I got off to a cracking start in January when I went to Spain for the first time with my nieces Madelaine Mills and Kelsey O’Rourke. We packed our days with fun, great food and exuberant culture. It wasn’t bad despite the time of year, though Madelaine would recommend a good scarf. We spent 4 days in Madrid (with a side trip to rainy Seville by high speed train) and 3 days in Barcelona, two worthy cities with lots to do and see on foot. I went to Seattle in March for a medical meeting and liked it. It has a European vibe in that it is set up for people to get around well without cars and has good places to run. My two big summer trips were to Iceland in June and Wales in July. I joined a guided hiking tour in a remote area of Iceland on a traditional trail and had a great time. Our group was so much fun and got along so well, and the weather was good enough, with several stunning days and only occasional rain. The sleeping was hard – crammed into small rooms in huts right next to each other, but we made it work. The only downer was a sore Achilles that wouldn’t let me run as much as I wanted, especially on the trails. I went to Wales with my doctor and friend Ray Douglas. It was another hiking trip, covering 72 miles in 5 days on a well-established coastal trail, and unfortunately it was right after I hurt my knee, so I put up with that the whole time and couldn’t run at all there. Wales is so lovely! I can’t recommend it enough, especially the delightful city of Cardiff. It is hard to get to, though, so think any travel plans through. I made it to our cottage a few times and otherwise enjoy very much being a tourist in my new home. There is so much to do here!

Spain, starting in Madrid on the Cibelene Palace roof, then the royal palace, a temple brought from Egypt, then to Barcelona and Sagrada Familia outside, the ceiling, and then Gaudi’s Parc Guell.

https://youtu.be/Mf0rggTyMF8 link to the video.

Iceland trip, with me in every photo at various scenic points along the way. Every place was scenic and/or interesting. https://youtu.be/Gk-9JsA42E0 video link

Wales, with a few scenes on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path and from the Keep in Cardiff.

https://youtu.be/4LRV-UmERs0 link to the video of the trip

What is the deal with….(I saw Jerry Seinfeld in April – hardest I’ve ever laughed)

-People with long, bushy nose hair. How can they stand it?

-Noise pollution. Why is someone allowed to ride a motorcycle whose engine is at 130 decibels through neighborhoods? People decry the “Nanny State” for intervening in society, but would that be worse than our current “Jerk State?”

-The people who seem to object the most to “political correctness” want to be able to say mean things about others without repercussion.

- The highest standards for scientific “proof” of well-founded theories like natural selection and anthropogenic climate change seem to be held by people who find some of the most preposterous ideas and conspiracy theories more credible.

Music 2018: It was a good year, and I made a significant shift to bands fronted by women. I went to three concerts, all long time favorites : Trashcan Sinatras’ excellent acoustic tour with my sister Candace in Sellersville, PA, 25 years after we saw them playing the same albums at the 9:30 Club in DC; solo to Grant-Lee Phillips (along with a guy named Josh Rouse) , at the Pearl St. Warehouse on the new DC waterfront; and an awesome night seeing Tancred (they are really good – I’d never heard of them!), then The Joy Formidable (crushed it! In the front rows, too) at a club called The Black Cat in DC.

My favorites for the year, with the female singer(s) initially - Belly – “Dove”**; The Joy Formidable – “AAARTH” ; Tancred – “Out of the Garden,”* “Nightstand”* ; The Naked and Famous – “A Still Heart” *; First Aid Kit – “Ruins” *; Snail Mail – “Lush”. Now the Male-led groups: The Fratellis (these guys should be superstars) – “In Your Own Sweet Time” **; Grant-Lee Phillips – “Widdershins”*; Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – “Chasing Yesterday”*; Van Wagner – “King of the Quarry” and “Recluse”; Soul Asylum – “Live from Liberty Lunch 1993”; Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – “Sparkle Harder”; Alejandro Escovedro – “The Crossing” ; Powderfinger – “Internationalist” (reissue from 1998). Less good: Our Lady Peace – “Somethingness”; Manic Street Preachers – “Resistance is Futile”; World Party – “Arkeology”; Colin Devlin – “High Point”; Jon Batiste – “Hollywood African”. ** denotes ones for the ages, * is good, accessible music anyone would like.

I try not to waste too much time on social media and celebrities, but here is one takeaway: You can never get enough of Brie Larson, Saiorse Ronan, Chiara Francini and Hayley Atwell.

Books 2018: I read a number of books at work in the spring, but after that most of the challenging reading was done on a stationary bike rehabbing my knee injury. Each will be denoted with an ®. Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schott ®, a survey of all knowledge related to eating one’s species (pretty good, witty); The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR by Jules Archer ®, the incredible story foiling a plot to overthrow FDR by JP Morgan and other rich guys who hated the New Deal – they didn’t achieve their goal but were not punished at all; Tent Life in Siberia by George Kennan ®, perhaps the greatest travel book ever written, hilarious and fascinating account of exploring Kamchatka after the Civil War; Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong by Paul Chaat Smith ®, often tedious accounting of Native American culture by a curator at the National Museum of the Native American; Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink ®, Exhaustive and exhausting account of the hours after Hurricane Katrina turned to days at the hospital, where more than a few patients were euthanized when they were on the verge of leaving to uncertain fates; All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski ®, a novel set in eastern Germany at the end of WWII as the Russians approached and life fell apart – stylishly written; War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow ®, interesting look at the State Department as our leaders deferred to the military more and more, to little positive effect and many dead and injured; The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis ®, a great explainer at his best showing all our government does extremely well but gets little credit for, and how the current administration is at work dismantling most of it; My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper ®, amusing look at a sneaky hot comedienne’s life and opportunities. The books not read at work or while exercising now - - Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall – and Those Fighting to Reverse It by Steven Brill, comprehensive look at our country and society, why it doesn’t seem to be working, and what to do to fix it; Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Steve Coll, the brilliant journalist’s look at all the problems rising from the US government’s relationship with Pakistan while it tries to establish a working government in Afghanistan. How is that going in year 17 of trying the same ideas over and over while Pakistan supports our adversaries?; Chance by Joseph Conrad, in his complete works I bought for $.99. This wasn’t worth the time; Sonechka: A Novella by Ludmila Ulitskaya, a well-regarded historical novella from Russia; This Is a Book by Demetri Martin, hilarious drawings and philosophical jokes from an insightful comedian; It’s Better than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear by Gregg Easterbrook, an analysis of how all the piles of positive data about our world are overshadowed by the small bits of negativity harped on by various propagandists who usually win the argument by yelling loudest.; The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past … by Peter Brannen, a massive undertaking of supreme accomplishment as it explains the most recent research about the 5 prior mass extinctions in a humorous and enjoyable (?) way. America: The Farewell Tour by Chris Hedges, the opposite of the Easterbrook book, and a lurid companion to the Brill book, it wallows in the gutters of porn and drug addiction to explain how the US is circling the drain, saved only by his insight into human behavior in adversity and how to achieve change when the powerful will do anything to keep the status quo. I also got Shade by Pete Souza, and Kelsey and I went to his traveling show, which was really good.

It is a commonly held belief that laughing while walking alone is suggestive of madness, but I found myself doing it fairly often the past year, first in Selinsgrove on my way home from work and then doing the same in D.C. It always occurs after I survey my surroundings to see if the coast is clear to release the highly pressurized gases contained in my body without anyone else being aware, and then doing so in ways that somehow still surprise me after all these years.

Quotes:

From The Plot to Seize the White House: “Finally I asked him, ‘Then, in your opinion America could definitely have become a Fascist power had it not been for General Butler’s patriotism in exploding the plot?’ ‘It certainly could have,’ (Congressman) McCormack acknowledged. ‘The people were in a confused state of mind, making the nation weak and ripe for some drastic kind of extremist reaction. Mass frustration could bring about anything.’”

General Smedley Butler, one of the greatest Americans and hero of The Plot to Seize the White House: “(War) is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses…The general public shoulders the bill: newly placed gravestones; mangled bodies; broken hearts and homes; economic instability; back-breaking taxation for generations….I had a suspicion that war was a racket, (but) not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.” “(American boys in past wars) were made to regard murder as the order of the day…We used them a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing and being killed. Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to do their own readjusting…Many, too many, of these fine young boys were eventually destroyed mentally.” “The only way to smash this (war) racket is to conscript capital and industry before the nation’s manhood can be conscripted…only by taking the profit out of war…Let the officers, directors and workers of the munitions makers and the bankers be conscripted to work for the same wages of the drafted soldiers.”

Me: “There is a fine line between tough and crazy/stupid. I try never to cross that line.”

George Kennan, from Tent Life in Siberia: “I had never before realized what a proud and enviable distinction I enjoyed in being a native of our highly favoured country! I could stalk about in foreign lands with a reckless disregard for everybody’s toes, and the full assurance that the more toes I stepped on the more honour I would confer upon benighted foreigners, and the more credit I would reflect on my own benevolent disposition.” Note – he is being sarcastic.

Louis Menand, in the New Yorker: “Most people don’t like righteousness in others. They can be quite righteous about it.”

Donald Glover, in the New Yorker: “the characters aren’t smoking weed all the time because it’s cool but because they have PTSD – every black person does. It’s scary at the bottom, yelling up out of the holes, and all they shout down is, ‘Keep digging! We’ll reach God soon!’”

Wong Ping, Chinese artist, in the New Yorker: “To all righteous thinkers, perhaps it is worthwhile to spend more time considering how meaningless and powerless you are.”

Me, in a letter to Steve Coll: about the US military - “Almost everyone you come across seems to be a dedicated and quality individual, but as you rise up the ranks, it also seems every decision of consequence they make is in their own self-interest or is dominated by how it will advance or sully their careers.” AND “Presidents Obama and Bush famously said there was nothing harder than sending people into combat, but there apparently was, and admitting you made a mistake is at least one of them.” AND “Now that I am older (54), I am always discouraging young men and women from joining the armed services. The sense of discipline and camaraderie are worthwhile things to experience, but they come with the cost of having your life callously cast aside or working with psychopaths and bullies who operate without checks on their behaviors. You can get positive experiences playing on sports teams (but not football, which has similar psychopathologies and risks for long term injuries and callous treatment) that encourage only the good in humanity (I ran cross country and track in high school and college and have kept up the healthy habits to this day) rather than dealing in death and dismemberment.”

Lewis Hyde: “(The con man) is one of America’s unacknowledged founding fathers.”

The comedic genius, Jack Handey: “Crime is down, even petty crime – at least, that’s what I read in my neighbor’s newspaper. In the old days, you always had to look over your shoulder, in case you were being followed by some nut. Today, you can look straight ahead, and maybe even call out to the person walking in front of you, asking him where he’s going and where he got that shirt. But I do miss some things from before. The waitress at the café would call you ‘Sugar’ or ‘Hon,’ and the panhandler would call you ‘Buddy.’ Nowadays, I don’t think they even know your name. There are plenty of shops where you can buy a fancy, expensive cupcake, but where can you go in and have someone pull your hat down over your eyes?”

The New Yorker, author forgotten: “It may be true, as Buddhism teaches, that only when we calmly accept that everything ends, including ourselves, can we see the miracle of this world for what it really is.”

Steve Coll, in Directorate S: “Bordin’s work contained an emphatic streak of skepticism about commanding generals. (He) explored how elite governmental decision makers come to ignore or refute valid information during their deliberations in his work Lethal Incompetence: Studies in Political and Military Decision-Making. Early in his career, Bordin worried that he had been too hard on the commanders he chronicled. Later, he decided, ‘I wasn’t hard enough.’”

Demetri Martin, in This Is a Book: “CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Terrible way to die: being stoned to death. Worse way to die: being pebbled to death. Better way to die: being bouldered to death. (Much speedier.)” AND “DICTUM: A know-it-all is a person who knows everything except for how annoying he is, Mike.” “TO THE IDIOT THE WORLD PRESENTS MANY MORE MYSTERIES”

Karl Polanyi, economic historian, paraphrased in the New Yorker: “Whenever the profit-making impulse becomes deadlocked with the need to shield people from its harmful side effects, voters are tempted by the ‘fascist solution’: reconcile profit and security by forfeiting civic freedom.”

Me: “Life is hard. Even for me, and I would have to admit my life has been ridiculously easy compared to most. Think of what it must be like to grow up on a desolate homestead in rural Africa, or poor in the USA with incarcerated parents, and most notable recently, a refugee fleeing war and violence to try to find a better life for themselves. The best way to make each of our lives better is to make everyone’s life better. This is now a realistic goal for humanity if we can only shift our priorities.”

Demetri Martin, again: in a humorous fake bio, “He had also done pioneering research in the field of historical biochemistry, recreating chemical models of famous historical figures’ breath based on their diet and ethnic origins.” AND! “The leading killer of daredevils is the ground.” “As soon as I jumped out of the airplane, I realized I had forgotten my parachute. Thank God we were still on the runway.”

The New Yorker: “For many imaginative people, artists or winemakers, life always feels like a failure seen from inside; where the rest of us can only see the accomplishments, they see the unrealized scale of the ambitions that preceded the accomplishments.” After this I typed, “Me.”

Chris Hedges, never one to tamp things down: “The true credo of the white race is we have everything, and if you try to take any of it, we will kill you.” AND: “The alt-right is bankrolled by the most retrograde forces in American capitalism. It has huge media platforms. It has placed its ideologues and sympathizers in positions of power, including law enforcement, the military, and the White House. And it has carried out acts of domestic terrorism that dwarf anything carried out by the left.” Just the usual work of authoritarians, American style, ED. AND : “Instead, rage is most often forsworn by those who seem most entitled to it, and civility is demanded by those who least deserve it.” “Surplus labor, desperate for work and too frightened to challenge the bosses, is the bulwark of corporate capitalism.”

Thanks to all who got this far and again to those who welcomed me or went with me on trips and made the most of their time with me otherwise. Keep me in mind for visits, trips and fun! I hope all of you make great decisions and can enjoy your lives in 2019!

My new address: 2221 I ST NW, #728, Washington, DC 20037. Same phone: 570-238-2084, same email: tlojrmd@gmail.com, same website:

Terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com Same youtube channel: Terence O’Rourke

Holiday Card, 2017

December 9, 2017

I am finishing off another calendar year of little change with change planned for next year. The biggest change is leaving my current job at Susquehanna University after the spring semester. It is not interesting or challenging enough to stick around despite the generous pay and enough time off, and it is all the annoying you could want in an easy job. I am planning to go back to New Zealand to work at the same place I worked before for 6-12 months starting next fall. My last two trips there were affected by injuries and I hope to make the most of my fitness this time around.

TRAVEL: It was a good year. In January I went to Bermuda for nearly a week and had a great time with the Wakelys (golf, running, Sharkinator). In March I was in Punta Gorda, FL for spring break with Aunt Judy while a blizzard hit Pennsylvania (golf, running, eating, not shoveling). In June, I went to Norway for the first time, from Oslo to Svalbard, in the Arctic, then on an arctic cruise in search of polar bears (running, hiking, sight-seeing, kayaking, snorkeling, polar plunging, and wilderness medicine). I drove right from Newark airport to Keuka Lake for our family week in early July (running, kayaking, games). I worked a week in July and then was off to the Canadian Rockies again with Greg and Kathy Wright for a great adventure holiday. I cannot recommend the area around Golden. BC enough, especially the Icefields Parkway to Jasper (running, hiking, Via Ferratta, mountain coaster, majestic scenery). I also made several trips to our cottage solo. I will start 2018 breaking in a new passport in Spain.

Boycotts: What do I do when something annoys me, or is clearly not the right thing to do? BOYCOTT!!! The current list is long: Red and processed meats; chicken; Football (NFL, College, high school, and especially the ridiculously dangerous junior/midget/pee wee); Div. 1 Mens College Basketball (the dirtiest sport other than boxing); Papa John's; Michael Jackson; Jim Carrey; O'Hare Airport; Drug Reps.

BOOKS: I read much more than last year since I didn't have boards to study for (I did great on those, by the way), so here is the list. RAW means I read it all at work...1493, Charles Mann: a most enjoyable and informative history (full of one profound insight after another) of the Americas after Columbus' arrival; Wolf Hall AND Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel: masterpieces of historical fiction, made me a fan of Thomas Cromwell; Trump's Brain: An FBI Profile of Donald Trump, Dr. Decker: slip of a book that elaborates on the thinking of narcissists; Unbelievable, Katy Tur: a TV journalist recounts her life on the road with Trump. Good, light reading except for the despair it causes; Thanks, Obama, David Litt: a speech writer's look at the Obama White House, especially the funny parts. An American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal: a compelling and infuriating history of how health care got to be a huge, unsustainably expensive business in the USA; What Happened, Hillary Rodham Clinton: Hard to put down account of the fateful campaign that conveys clearly what our country missed in choosing the wrong candidate. Climate of Hope, Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope: how cities and regions can make a positive difference for the climate and our futures. Really good.; Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance: mediocre memoir about growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio with dysfunctional parents; On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder: must read short book by an expert on 20th Century European and Russian history; Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh: Quirky novel about an unusual but likeable young woman set in New England; Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders: a strange and marvelous novel of unqualified genius. A masterpiece; The Rules Do Not Apply, Ariel Levy: beautifully written memoir by one of my favorite New Yorker writers; Race, Incarceration, and American Values, Glenn Loury and others: (RAW)The facts on the injustice and failure of mass incarceration, an American disgrace.; The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes: not your usual novel by a great writer.; The Dead Hand, David E. Hoffman: one of the best written and researched histories of our time, it recounts the cold war weapons of mass destruction programs and all the poor judgment, lying and waste on all sides that went into them. We are all lucky to be alive, and we NEED serious and knowledgeable people in charge.; Zama, Antonio Di Benedetto, trans. Esther Allen: a re-publication of a neglected novel of pride and little accomplishment in South America in the 1700s: Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, Timothy Pachirat: (RAW) A first-hand account of the operations of a modern slaughterhouse in the Midwest. You should not be eating meat, and this is all the information you need to make that decision easy; Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin AND Jackson, 1964: Collections of the peerless humorist and journalist's writings, with the latter a rewarding first-hand take on the civil rights movement; The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale: an overly long but eye-opening history of a surprising murder by a youth and his subsequent remarkable life; Mortal Sins, Michael D'Antonio: (RAW) If you can read this and still call yourself a Catholic, there are some parts missing in your brain. It heaped dirt on the coffin my Catholic faith was already in; Stringer, Anjan Sunderam: (RAW) often tedious memoir of reporting from the fringe, especially in the Congo. The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, Frances FitzGerald: (RAW) Another historical masterwork, which points out again and again that the reasonable in any religion are usually shouted down by the unreasonable who value their positions of authority more than reality. Slightly more boring, but still fascinating, is Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy, Eri Hotta, about the events leading up to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. It showed how gutless politicians allowed a very small group of jerky military figures to take them into an unwinnable and devastating war only for appearance's sake. I also read Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, King Richard II, King Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, and King Lear, and I continue to read the New Yorker and the Atlantic.

The best thing about being me: The stamina. Runner-up: sense of humor

The worst thing about being me: The Gas. I make the best of it and have figured out no other way to live, but it is a horrible curse. Runner-up: insomnia

Music: Not a great year, especially for new artists and me. The most rowdily enjoyable is a blast from the past, The Replacements - For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986, before the death of their lead guitarist; also nostalgic and recorded live, Jeff Lynne's ELO - Wembley or Bust. From down under, solid collections from Bernard Fanning - Brutal Dawn & Civil Dusk as well as Jeremy Redmore - Clouds Are Alive (two of rock's best voices, especially Mr. Redmore). Old stalwarts with new stuff were Our Lady Peace - Somethingness, Big Head Todd & the Monsters - New World Arisin', Roddy Woomble - The Deluder, The Goo Goo Dolls - You Should Be Happy, Van Wagner - River Rat, and Son Volt - Notes of Blue.

Quotes:

"Alcohol consumption is a way to make doing almost nothing or something pathetic seem like fun to the consumer." Me
"If more and more of a political party's members hold more and more extreme and extravagantly supernatural beliefs, doesn't it make sense that the party will be more and more open to make-believe in its politics?" The Atlantic
"The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy. There's not a single exception." The Atlantic
"I know as much about God as any human, and I know almost nothing." Me
"The nationalist, 'although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,' wrote Orwell, 'tends to be uninterested in what happens in the real world." Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kis put it, nationalism "has no universal values, aesthetic, or ethical.' A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means by asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges the nation, always wishing it well - and wishing that it would be better." Timothy Snyder
"The European history of the twentieth century shows us societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why." Timothy Snyder
"In all human history, there has not been a bigger waste of public funds than the nuclear weapons programs." Me
"There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. The dissection of America reality, in all its complexity, is essential to political progress, and yet it rarely goes unpunished." and from the same article, "One is not always in raptures over this country and it prowess in nurturing, in its own distinctive manner, unsurpassable callousness, matchless greed, small-minded sectarianism, and a gruesome infatuation with firearms." The New Yorker
"The changing climate should be seen as a series of discrete, manageable problems that can be attacked from all angles simultaneously. Each problem has a solution. And better still, each solution can make our society healthier and our economy stronger." Climate of Hope
"It is always dangerous when those in power deceive themselves into thinking that they are acting in the interest of others, or of abstract principles, when, in fact, they are serving only themselves." Mark A. Wolfgram
On expensive watch collectors: "There's some pocket of rot in the oak of their soul that can only be patched up by watches." The New Yorker
"Sloman and Fernbach see this effect, which they call the 'illusion of explanatory depth,' just about everywhere. People believe they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people....So well do we collaborate, (they) argue, that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others' begins." And "'As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.'... If we dismiss as unconvincing any information that contradicts our opinion, you get, well, the Trump Administration." The New Yorker
"The one thing that stands out in my short time in Norway is how the government clearly tries to make everyone's lives better in meaningful ways." Me, on hike in Svalbard
"Whatever I may have seen as (Nixon's and George W. Bush's) limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency and wielding a vocabulary of 77 words that is better called Jerkish than English." Philip Roth, in the New Yorker
"If a linguistic anthropologist camped out in Manhattan for a while, I suspect he'd discover that New Yorkers have fifty or sixty different phrases for expressing irritation and maybe two for expressing enthusiastic approval ('not that bad' and 'it could be worse')." AND "New Yorkers have believed in the old saying that they learn at their mother's knee: 'If you can't say something nice, you're never in danger of being taken for an out-of-towner.'" Calvin Trillin
"(James) Madison argued that as you increase the 'variety of parties and interests' contained within a republic, 'you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.'" The Atlantic
"To actually watch Trump's miracle (election) come in is a shock like missing the last stair or sugaring your coffee with what proves to be salt. It's not just an intellectual experience. The whole body responds." Katy Tur

My new word for the year: Jerkocracy. This is the government you get when you elect mostly jerks to run it. America is currently a Jerkocracy. I have a short essay on this posted in the Politics and Religion section of this website. There are also several new travel articles from my trips. I got two very positive comments from some travel agents in India who found the site and read some of it. I also reread many of these past letters and I must say they stand the test of time, as do my many videos on my Terence O'Rourke youtube channel. It is too bad they are so little appreciated.

Health: No big issues. My thyroid has been fine. Still don't need reading glasses.

Fitness: Fighting aging is a struggle, but I got into decent shape a few times since last year's letter - right before Christmas of 2016, in June, and the end of August. I had a bunch of weeks where I exceeded 50 miles of running. Each time was right before trips where it was hard to keep up all of my habits, though the running was the easiest to sustain (I did get in outdoor pull ups in a park in Oslo and several times in Golden and Jasper in Canada - I just tallied I have done pull-ups in at least 18 different countries). I had a really annoying hamstring tendinitis (high up at the pelvic origin in my butt) from early January until the middle of May I tried to train through, as rest didn't help much, and it was such a relief to have it ease up - pain with every stride is not much fun (I ran 16 miles with it once!). I only ran two races, a relatively spontaneous one in Bermuda in which I won my age group, though when I finished the announcer said I was one of the better older runners in the race but certainly not one of the best (!). It was a tough route, with a brutal hill in the last mile. The other race was with my sore hamstring holding me back, but I managed to break 70 minutes for 10 miles on a fast course in Alexandria. Now I am rehabbing some elbow pain again after getting rid of it for about a year.

Car: I got my VW Jetta diesel revamped for free and it still runs well and efficiently. I also got a big chunk of money from VW. The downside: VW mistakenly took my car title from me in the state of Michigan and I had to make a lot of phone calls and send a lot of emails to get it straightened out so I could renew my registration in Pennsylvania.

New Faves: Xero shoes, Daiya non-dairy, non-soy yogurt, Newman's Own Organic Chocolate, Vega Sport Bars, 24 hours of daylight in Norway/Svalbard, Buffs, Kombucha

Hobbies: I love jigsaw puzzles, and after I took my boards, I allowed myself to go wild. I did 7 1000 piece puzzles (I framed 2) from January to June, including one in just over 24 hours (Venice). I stopped them again in July in order to get a bunch of talks together and to write this beast, but I hope to do a lot more next year before putting my stuff in storage.

Hypocrisy Watch: I am sure only a few will make it this far, so I will indulge myself a little. When I was in high school, I became starkly aware of the amount of hypocrisy in the world. I vowed I would try to limit my own hypocrisy as much as possible throughout my life, and it has served as my guide rail throughout. Insight and self-awareness ride alongside mental toughness and self-sacrifice. It's not enough to recycle, walk most places, keep your thermostat turned down in the winter and the AC off in the summer, to not just preach good health but live it all day, every day. I can still do better.

Thoughts for the year: I exercise a lot, and I can imagine someone looking at me and thinking "Terry is addicted to exercise." But it is the exact opposite: I am addicted to sitting around and reading, and I have to work every day to fight that addiction. It is astonishingly easy for me to take a few days off from exercise and completely forget what it is like to do it. It helps that I am really good at it and it makes me look great, but am I delusional about my personal toughness? Would it be more impressive if I wasn't blessed with huge lungs, a comfortable life with enough free time and this physique and still put in as much time, or if instead of overcoming muscle stiffness, inflexibility and bad feet and ankles I was dealing with even more difficulties?

Thank yous: As always to my mother Sandy and father Terry Sr. for their generosity, hospitality and tolerance of my lack of patience in dealing with them. Aunt Judy is a gem of a hostess. Greg and Kathy Wright for sharing a week of their busy lives on a great trip that would not have been much fun at all by myself. Kelsey O'Rourke for being a most able sounding board. My cousins for making get-togethers possible.

I hope you all have a wonderful end of the year and enjoy your time with others and can find ways to make next year even better for you and for the world around you!

Terry O'Rourke

2016 Holiday Card and Photos of the Year

December 10, 2016

Season’s Greetings!

Thus begins my year-end correspondence of 2016. With the exception of the nightmare of the election, both its buildup and aftermath, which I will not mention otherwise, it was a great year for me. I went to less than full time at work, so I had a nice, relaxing summer doing some Pediatric urgent care before starting back with the university, where I enjoy connecting with the students a lot and put up with the rest. My biggest annoyance was studying for my Family Medicine Boards, which I took right before Thanksgiving. I am still waiting for those results. My family did fairly well with a few bumps here and there, so all is as good as it can be for me as the year ends. I moved in June from my tiny, noisy apartment in Selinsgrove to a very small rental house in a quiet neighborhood an 8-minute walk from my office. It is the perfect size and energy efficient, especially with the thermostat at 61 this winter.

Change: Many of you, I am sure, feel I am a creature of habit, now set in my ways at 52. I disagree, as I welcome change and challenges. I like to think I am exceptionally good at life, but there are still many opportunities to improve. I came to the realization this year, for example, I am quite generous with my money (for sure), my time, and my good will, but I much prefer it to be on my terms and (rarely?) can be a jerk if it isn’t. I also think I am as good at making wise decisions as anyone, which is part of being good at life. None of this allows me to coast. There is plenty left to strive for, and I am still trying to find ways to use my talents to their maximum.

Health: Lots of striving goes into my health and fitness. I am still blessed with a tremendous natural endurance and love of physical activity even with normal thyroid functions since my surgery. I do two workouts almost every day, running in the morning and then a trip to the gym later and maybe one or two other activities. I lost my running fast mojo (I didn’t run any races, mostly due to nagging calf problems) and have not quite gotten it back, but I built up to over 50 miles/week of running recently and am still “weight room strong,” working rings around the students at the gym. A recent project is the restoration of one of the fine works of the late 20th and early 21st century: my triceps, allowed to atrophy with chronic tendinitis and now a bit hairy with less elastic skin, but showing signs of responding. I was also starting to play some better golf as the season ended, too.

Travel: This was a great year for travel. Right after New Years I left for Italy (almost 2 weeks!) with my niece, Kelsey O’Rourke, who was an ideal travel companion as we walked all over Rome, Venice and Florence. January is a good time to go, though it rained a bit. In March I did a CME trip to Washington, DC for an adolescent medicine conference and had a fine time walking and running around the city. After SU graduation in May, I went to Paris and Amsterdam with my niece, Madelaine Mills (both trips were graduation presents – I am the best uncle, on my terms) for 8 days. We kept busy and had fun everywhere. The three of us hope to go back to Europe together. In early July I spent a week with my family at our cottage at Keuka Lake, which was quite enjoyable, especially the last few days, and right after that flew to Calgary to revisit my friends Belyaneh and Yenu. We went into the Canadian Rockies, specifically to Yoho National Park, which I loved despite bad weather, and also more briefly to the Banff area, which is spectacular. Before school resumed in August I popped down to Roanoke to visit the Wrights. In mid-October I went to Homecoming at Moravian and then to Keuka for the last of many weekend trips there before shuttering it for the winter

Music: This was a very good year with multiple strong albums that had almost no stinkers. My favorite is Catfish and the Bottlemen – “The Ride”, full of great songs, including my song of the summer, “Soundcheck”. I’ve spent hours watching their concerts on youtube. Other great releases were The Joy Formidable – “Hitch”; Grouplove – “Big Mess” with the super-fun songs of the fall, “Welcome to Your Life”, “Do You Love Someone” and “Spinning.”; The Naked and Famous – “Simple Forms; Pixies – “Head Carrier”; Against Me – “Shapeshift with Me”; Trashcan Sinatras – “Wild Pendulum”; Grant-Lee Phillips – “The Narrows” There has never been a better singer than Grant-Lee, and his songs are uniquely beautiful and meaningful – “Just Another River Town” and “San Andreas Fault” in particular. Next, a step down, but still really good, were Soul Asylum – “Change of Fortune; Idlewild – “Live in 2015”, and Dinosaur Jr. – “Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not”. I always love some new Van Wagner – “A Mountain Man’s Dreams” and Norah Jones – “Day Breaks”, and seeing Van playing at Bucknell, I found a delightful Bluegrass band Coal Town Rounders – “Numero Uno” and “How It Used to Be”. I am a long time fan of Goo Goo Dolls, but I am still not sure what to think of their “Boxes.” It sounds like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift must if I listened to them, only better, and it is ok for a sellout, I suppose.

Books: A great year as well. Despite having to study, I managed to read a lot, including The New Yorker and Atlantic, and often at work (RAW – means I read the whole thing while being paid) during the summer. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (right before and during my trip there – fantastic); The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan by Michael Hastings – an unprecedented account of the buffoonery at the very top of the US military (RAW); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder, a hard but worth it slog – few areas have had it worse since humans evolved; The Ripple Effect by Alex Prud’homme, a thorough and compelling look at modern (mis)management of water, our most precious resource (RAW); Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single Superpower World by Tom Englehardt, a somewhat repetitive look at why we need reasonable people running the government more than ever (sigh – RAW). Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve by Tom Bissell, a very entertaining travelogue by a skeptical journalist that will make you rethink your beliefs (if you believe). Probably my favorite. High Dive: a novel by Jonathan Lee, a moving novel set in more troubled recent times than ours. In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides. I am really tough, but these men were off the charts. Too much peripheral detail, but really good. The Game’s Not Over: In Defense of Football by Gregg Easterbrook. One of professional football’s most influential critics (TMQ) looks for ways to save the overly dangerous game he loves from its cult. The Command: Deep Inside the President’s Secret Army by Mark Ambinder. A short book about the bad things our military is doing all over, mostly in secret, to make everything worse. The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century by David Rieff. A very long and convincing expert analysis of current food policy and thinking that points out all the shortcomings and says we cannot effectively feed the world through capitalist, technologic and free market mechanisms alone (RAW). Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams, a humorous and informative account of the authors adventures – really good. So, Anyway… by John Cleese. Good, but I tend to disagree with him on what was funny. Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide by Joshua Goldstein. Tedious but informative book about modern peacekeeping. Peace is easier when guns are taken away from violent people, it turns out. Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford; The Conundrum by David Owen. One of the most thoughtful reporters looks at climate change and finds we can’t win unless we go back to a preindustrial life. Any other plan is delusional, but trying to make a difference for the least worse outcome is still the right thing to do.

Neologism of the year: MANUCOPIA: A play on cornucopia, or horn of plenty, it is a somewhat mocking reference to men who think they have it all but are delusional. I made it up when I saw photos of me on my travels looking narrow-shouldered and old, rather than ripped and full of energy, which is what I see in my mirrors.

I don’t have a dog or cat, but I do have a pet….peeve: This year’s biggest peeve is the guys (it is rarely a woman) who come to the gym and work out in sweatpants and with their hoods up on their sweatshirts. It is 72 degrees and perfectly comfortable to work out in a t-shirt and shorts and still sweat! I saw a guy yesterday with his headphones on over his hoodie! I used to work out in the unheated Waimate gym in winter in a t-shirt and shorts, but maybe I am just super tough and they are _____.

Quotes: I have too many, but I will do my best to keep it short.

From Mary Beard: “And in a much-quoted phrase that still hits home, he sums up the Roman imperial project: ‘they create desolation and call it peace.’”

Walden Bello: “…if we do not take the necessary measures to limit our population, our consumption, and our carbon emissions, nature will indeed find much less pleasant ways of re-establishing the equilibrium between herself and us.”

Jacques Lacan: “If a man who thinks he is a king is mad, a king who thinks he is a king is no less so” A sense of perspective may be among the most critical leadership qualities. For better or worse, however, it’s the one we ask our leaders to hide.

The Atlantic: “(Humans) lead lives not of quiet desperation but of superficiality, insensibility, and rank illusion. We live as if our petty business counted. We live as if we weren’t as numerous as sand, and each of us as ephemeral as clouds. We live as if there hadn’t been a hundred thousand generations here before us, and another hundred thousand were not still to come.”

Me, after an impressive workout: “If there was a God of Lats, He would pray to me.”

Alex Prud’homme:”In 2006…Americans bought 31.2 billion liters of (bottled) water. To make a typical one-liter plastic bottle, cap, and packaging…requires about 3.4 megajoules of energy. In 2006, it took 106 billion megajoules of energy to make enough bottles (for that much water)…(and) about 17 million barrels of oil… to produce the plastic water bottles…By contrast, the energy required for local tap water is about 0.005 megajoules per liter. Every liter of bottled water required 3-4 liters of water to produce…and 38 billion (bottles) a year ….end up in landfills (and are not recycled).”

Tom Bissell: “Our primitive propensity to faith begins as the tribal impulses to exclude, as the amplifier of genetically encoded fears.”

Timothy Snyder: on the German invasion to the east in WWII, “Colonization (of the Ukraine) would make of Germany a continental empire to rival the United States, another hardy frontier state based on exterminatory colonialism and slave labor.” and

“For Germans who accepted Hitler as their leader, faith was very important. The object of their faith could hardly have been more poorly chosen, but their capacity for faith is undeniable.”

Jonathan Lee: “If you looked at people closely, you realized most of them were acting abnormally most of the time.”

The New Yorker: “Thompson’s book demonstrates one thing for certain; no matter how badly you think of Richard Nixon, you have not thought badly enough.”

And “Prison reform doesn’t happen in response to violence in prisons. It happens in response to awakened consciences about the violence of imprisonment.”

David Owen: “New Yorkers, individually, use less energy in all forms than any other Americans, and they have the smallest carbon footprints (less than 30% of the U.S. average).”

The New Yorker: “The independent-minded philosopher-saints are so sure of themselves that they often lose the discipline of any kind of peer review, formal or amateur. They end up opinionated, and alone.” I am self-aware enough to wonder if this applies to me.

David Owen: “But if environmental troglodytes were the only obstacles to global action on energy and climate our challenge would be less daunting than it is. The real problem isn’t them; it’s everyone – especially those of us who, however enlightened we may feel, are quite comfortable consuming a grotesquely disproportionate share of the world’s resources.”

The New Yorker, George Packer, in one of the best articles I’ve ever read: “In her proud ignorance, unrestrained narcissism, and contempt for the 'establishment,' (Sarah) Palin was John the Baptist to the coming of Trump.” And “Those voters with favorable views of Trump are not, by and large, the poorest Americans; …They’re more deficient in social capital than economic capital.” “A sense of isolation and siege is unlikely to make anyone more tolerant.”

Religion: I saved this one for near the end so maybe my mother wouldn’t make it this far. I am not original in this regard, but I have lost all faith in Catholicism, and likely Christianity in general, as an explanation of existence and of God’s relationship to humans. I still go to Mass, but only out of some small need for community – we do need to support each other in some way, even if in quiet with rolling eyes. I no longer pray, except to occasionally think, “Your will be done.” Instead of reading the Bible before bed (I was getting so tired of it after 35 years!) or something of a spiritual nature, I have been reading Shakespeare, first Hamlet (I saw the play performed as well), then MacBeth, and now Othello. There is at least as much wisdom for life there, and lots better writing. I have learned too much about the Catholic Church in my studies of the abuse and financial scandals to trust them with anything else, and my studies of religion in general have shown me how the success of a religion has almost nothing to do with its doctrine or practices and almost everything to do with the power of its leaders and the gullibility of certain human beings (see the Mormon Church as exhibit A). I did subscribe to Headspace.com and learned how to meditate (I was good at it), but the guy’s voice is so annoying I had to stop after 8 weeks or so. I am naturally mindful otherwise, and I still consider myself a mystic and a prophet, with my idle thoughts dominated by the great questions of humanity.

Thank yous: I am, as always, grateful to those who hosted me, traveled with me, and to my parents for testing my patience while letting me visit a lot and watch my TV shows. I am especially grateful to those of you and others all around the world that go out and do good things for other humans, animals, and the environment. We won’t likely have the good will of the US government behind us for a while, but we don’t have to let that stop us.

A reminder for those who made it this far: I have a youtube channel under “Terence O’Rourke” which now has a big archive of travel and other entertaining videos (I do appear pale and topless in one this year), and if you are not reading this at my website, I still have that, with accounts of my trips complete with photos, at

https://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/

where someone read one of my political posts and commented within the last 3 weeks!

Terry O’Rourke

2015

December 10, 2015

Artisanal Holiday Card (GMO FREE) 2015

I almost retired, but then I thought of one of the ideas and was off and clicking. The original had a different font for every section. This version is sanitized for your protection.

This past 12 months has been filled with many landmarks and highlights. Here is far from a comprehensive list, in no particular order:

1. I had cancer! An incidental thyroid cancer, of a type that is felt to be relatively harmless (papillary), was found when my right thyroid was removed to find out what the hyperactive mass in it was. I am doing FANTASTIC since – Heaven only knows how long this was a problem – it was found only by coincidence.

2. I vomited for the first time in 22.5 years after the surgery. I can stand nearly everything but general anesthesia, as it turns out.

3. I signed up for a “permanent job!” I am the doctor at the Susquehanna University Student Health Center, where I only see the students (and am surprisingly busy). It is fun and I enjoy it, but I had to sign up with Geisinger to get it, and that is not so much fun. That gave me the great benefits I then needed for my health dilemma (it all started a week into the job), so I take the good with the bad.

4. I got a smart phone. Of course it was cheap, but I do enjoy having it.

5. I spent around $800 on glasses – turns out I have astigmatism not fixed by my LASIK in 1999 I’ve put up with that long. Makes the world more HD.

6. I got an apartment – first time since 1998! It is small, cheap, poorly insulated, sparsely furnished, and only just now has heat in the bedroom, but it allows me to walk to work most days. I have no TV here! I lived with my parents for just under a year prior!!

7. I am a regular columnist on the editorial page of the University newspaper (only about medical topics).

8. I celebrated 1 year of my website with the award for “Least Visited Site of 2015.”

9. I spent a night on my nephew Andrew’s couch.

10. Only 1 country visited all year (Ireland! The BEST one)

11. My vestigial ties to social media were cut in August. I do miss it some, but not enough to do something about it.

Obvious Proverbs*

The only Universal Truth is there are no Universal Truths

The man who says he won’t help out but then does is better than the one who says he will help but doesn’t, but both of them are dicks.

When anyone other than a child is begging for attention, they are best ignored.

Too much honey is better than too much feces. The lucky human has both and a way to flush the latter.

The most classified information of heads of governments and industries, the one thing above all else they don’t want people to know, is they don’t know what they are doing.

Poverty correlates more closely with lack of opportunity than laziness.

The poor woman with two jobs will gladly trade her jobs for the rich man’s with her same pay. The rich man would never do the same. Who works harder?

Most systems of Justice produce nearly everything but Justice.

The moment you think yourself wise, you are not.

Most nations would be better off with their leaders in jail and the jailed freed.

It doesn’t matter how many correct conclusions you draw from a false premise.

*any resemblance to other proverbs (including my own in the past) is coincidental. I made all of these up in a few minutes for better or worse.

Books of 2015: It feels like I didn’t read that many, but it was an average year.

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nahesi Coates – Essential discussion of race in the USA. Deserves every award it gets.

Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat. She gave a charming talk at Susquehanna. Moving memoir of Haitian immigrants

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, Matt Taibbi. Jaw-dropping, true accounts of how poorly the system works for the poor in contrast to Wall Street. Highly recommended.

Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, James Risen. The harassed N.Y. Times reporter pulls no punches as he ridicules the terrible waste of lives and treasure in the U.S. and our violent conflicts.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande. Beautiful study of the issues of end of life care at any age. Couldn’t be better.

We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money, Edward D. Klein. A common sense review of our misguided spending.

I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend, Martin Short. Very touching and amusing account of this supremely talented man’s life and career. Prompted many nights on Youtube watching his clips.

Great Plains, Ian Frazier. The best and funniest travel writer of this era.

Leonardo da Vinci, Anna Abraham. Short but interesting account of one of history’s most famous men about whom very little is actually known (psst – he was a pedophile).

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, Steve Coll. Took me forever to finish – a monumental work of superb journalism which left me with some admiration and some contempt for the people who run this massive company.

Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide, Joshua S. Goldstein. Slogging through it now. More of a history of recent peace-keeping efforts.Turns out peace is easier to restore when you take away as many weapons as possible.

Work: After missing out on New Zealand due to work visa issues and getting out of a bad job in Raleigh without having to go there, I went through the flog of credentialing at Geisinger – staggeringly poor communication that ultimately cost me an entire month of work/pay for the minorest of reasons. I did manage to find part-time work with my friends at Lewisburg Family Practice for 6 weeks in February and March. Once working for Geisinger, I was placed at the dismally busy and understaffed Montoursville location (90 minute round-trip commute, just under 400 unreimbursed miles a week – when I tried to get the mileage reimbursed, they changed my main work site from Susquehanna to Montoursville so they wouldn’t have to pay since it was then my principle worksite) where my only solace was I was providing care that was far ahead of their standards. I finally got to go to Susquehanna in late August, moving into my hot apartment just in time (still waiting to be reimbursed for my moving costs of $64). I fit right in (the people who interviewed me for Geisinger said I wouldn’t last 6 months), and I really enjoy seeing the students and dealing with their peculiarities. I am also really good at it.

Music: Only four purchases worth a mention. The good were Catfish and the Bottlemen: “The Balcony”; The Fratellis: “Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied,” and Van Wagner’s “Ash to Ash.” Less good but not terrible, Surfer Blood: “1000 Palms.” Fortunately I found over 100 alternative rock CDs of mine I’d put in storage 17 years ago and am gradually adding the good songs to my iTunes.

Health: After diligent training through the brutal winter (I ran every day it was below zero F outside), I was looking for big results in some races, but in March I started to notice diminishing returns, and my first race in May was very disappointing. I changed some things and did even worse while also finding out my thyroid was overactive in an unusual way. We watched it and I kept trying to get better but only seemed to get worse, bothered by perpetual tendon problems in my arms and a loss of ability to sustain faster paces. I had more and more trouble doing my track workouts and felt like I might actually die when sprinting at the end of a half-marathon in September. I wasn’t surprised when my thyroid studies were more abnormal in October, but I was surprised to have a mass replacing my right thyroid on ultrasound, though that mass lit up hyperactively on the nuclear medicine tests. I agreed to have surgery and did that the 11th of November. It went well and resulted in a cancer cure as well as a hyperactivity cure, and I have recovered spectacularly, going back to work in 5 days, and I am already doing workouts in the gym I haven’t been able to do in two years (though my voice is still affected by the swelling). I am excited; I feel the same energy level I always have, but I have much less soreness and recover much quicker. I still don’t sleep well and my bowels are churning out the same, if not more, final product to my chagrin, but I am used to that.

Travel: I only used my passport once, but I still got around. I visited my Aunt Judy for a week in Punta Gorda, Florida in January, getting in 4 or so rounds of golf and enjoying the weather and her company. At the end of March I visited the Wrights in Roanoke, Kerry and Charles Smith in College Station and popped by to see the beloved Aby and Shoba Philip in Katy before heading back. There was a quick trip in there somewhere (Master’s Weekend?) to Silver Spring to see Sue Brunsell and do some sight-seeing and have lunch with the Heathcotes. I had the good timing to visit Greg and Michael in April in New York when we could all go to the special opening of the new Whitney Museum, complete with some two-bit celebrities and a memorable go round of its exhibits. The big trip was with Greg Wright, my go-to exotic travel buddy, to Ireland (my 4th time, his 2nd) to play golf. It was such a fantastic trip: read my blog entry at your leisure. My only other major sojourn was back to Roanoke during fall break, where Greg Wright and his wife Kathy and I enjoyed more great weather. I did at least three weekends at the Keuka cottage, trail running and kayaking to my heart’s content. I even drove out to Pittsburgh to do a trail race in the mud (I fell three times hard) with my nephew, Andrew. I made one sad trip over Thanksgiving to say good-bye to my Uncle Mike who died of cancer three days later.

Empty Thoughts: I have read some good things about meditation and thought I might try it out. I lasted about 90 seconds, during which I had the following thoughts: “Wonder what the highest rate of farts is per minute of mindfulness?”; “It is hard to meditate when you have to cook your own dinner and you’ve already eaten the appetizer.”; “I need more oil in my joints than the Tin Man would if he were left outside for 7 years in Maine.”; “How is football even legal employment with its high rate of on the job injuries?”; “Katy Perry again would be better than Coldplay.”; “I don’t even go to my website and its content is awesome.”

Quotes:

From Great Plains: “America is like a wave of higher and higher frequency to each end, and lowest frequency in the middle.”

From We Are Better Than This: “Behind the pious statements of what we can and cannot afford resides a darker picture, of smirking “haves” thinking they can segregate themselves and their economic outcomes from the futures faced by large swaths of American society, and a Congress that has shown itself more attuned to the opportuning of the affluent than to the needs of the poor.”

Me: “Can you imagine what this country would be like without football? All that money wasted on monster stadiums spent instead on parks and better schools?” Football player: “Yeah, but then everyone would have to watch soccer.” Me: “You make a valid point.”

We Are Better Than This, quoting Adam Smith: People who lack virtue, and who therefore dismiss any commitment to “the happiness of the society,” in fact are a danger to the society in which they hope to advance: “The person under the influence [of avarice, ambition or vain-glory]…, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires.”

Atul Gawande: “The problem with medicine and the institutions it has spawned for the care of the sick and the old is not that they have had an incorrect view of what makes life significant. The problem is that they have had almost no view at all. Medicine’s view is narrow. Medical professionals concentrate on repair of health, not sustenance of the soul. Yet—and this is the painful paradox-we have decided that they should be the ones who largely define how we live in our waning days.” Later, “One has to decide whether one’s fears or one’s hopes are what should matter most.”

From Pay Any Price: “A 2011 study by the Pentagon found that during the ten years after 9/11, the Defense Department had given more than $400 billion to contractors who had previously been sanctioned in cases involving $1 million or more in fraud.”

From the New Yorker: “Hysteria about change is rarely earned by the change when it comes.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “Race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming ‘the people’ has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy.”

I am as always sincerely grateful to all who indulge me with their time and lodging/laundry facilities, especially my parents who patiently endure my eye-rolling and occasional mockery all while trying to do everything they can to make my life easier when I want it to be even more challenging. I am especially grateful to the force that makes this universe hum for how everything worked out so well with my unusual brush with illness and all the options to do good that present themselves to me on a daily basis no matter where I am. Life is supposed to be hard, but it can also be a lot of fun.

All the best for the rest of this year and next to you and those you love!

Terry O’Rourke

Card 2011

February 27, 2015

Happy Holidays!!

I welcome change, though I also like the basic patterns of my life to stay the same. I go into more depth on my health later (consider yourself warned!), but since I wrote last year’s missive things have not gone as well as usual. After leaving Tanzania early, I decided to work some in the USA, principally so I could get some up to date references for future employment (ha!), and I had to settle for a less than optimal position in Waycross, GA from February through April. During that time I had one of the highlights of the year: we kids surprised my mom the weekend of her 75th birthday in March by all coming home. I flew in on Friday and hid out at my sister Kelly’s, then snuck upstairs while the rest went in my parents’ house. I reenacted a tradition of running down the steps at the last minute on Sunday morning for Mass (I enjoyed that aspect of it far more than anyone else). It was a really nice weekend; a lot went into it, as we got her sisters (except one) to come and reminisce and eat too much. Just before that my mother found out her mitral heart valve was bad enough to need surgery. Just before THAT, I found out about a job in Northumberland, 11 miles from Danville, which sounded good. I got that job and got home from Georgia the day after her surgery. I wasn’t required to do too much as she did great initially, but it was helpful for everyone to have me around (for once). It was the first time I’ve worked from home; I must say I didn’t always like it, but I sucked it up at times (not that often, M&D) for the greater good (I think I had to reach some sort of record for eyeball rolling dealing with my parents and their peccadilloes). Because of my knee, it was the worst summer I’ve had: almost no adventures. The only other highlight was I endowed, in honor of my parents 50th wedding anniversary, the Dr. Terence and Sandra O’Rourke Scholarship in perpetuity at Moravian College (a story immortalized in the most recent Moravian College Magazine). That requires much more than pocket change, but since I had regular work and didn’t spend as much as I’d planned while in Tanzania, I was able to swing it.

Now I am back in New Zealand and only have my own peccadilloes (and those of the Kiwi medical system – sigh!) to roll my eyes about. I returned to Waimate (Why-matty), as they really needed some help. I will be here until the end of the year and then will head up to Coromandel (it is supposed to be REALLY nice there) for the first 5 weeks of 2012. If all goes as planned, Greg Wright will arrive then and we will have a rollicking journey around Australia and New Zealand before I head back.

It was a drag being away for Thanksgiving again; at least this year I had that Thursday off and I was able to go on a much tougher hike here in honor of the traditional morning hike that starts at 209 West Market. I hope to gradually get back to my running and may lower my standards a bit from now on, as it really stinks to be injured and it costs a lot to have surgery.

Good Music: *****Powderfinger, ITunes Live – Sunsets Farewell Tour; ****Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks “Mirror Traffic”; *****Fountains of Wayne, “Sky Full of Holes”; ****Buffalo Tom, “Skins”; ***J Mascis, “Several Shades of Why”; ****The Naked and Famous, “Passive Me, Aggressive You”; ****REM, “Collapse into Now”; ****Social Distortion, “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes”; *****Todd Snider, “Live: The Storyteller”; I also found out my friend Van Wagner’s CDs could be purchased on iTunes and bought 5 of them: “Be a Tree,” “Lost in the Mountains,” “North of 80,” “Shikellamy,” and “Woolrich Coat.” They are all excellent (I have a review posted for each one. Van told me they sound like a professor wrote them. Then he coughed and said something that sounded like “NERD!”). I just saw Kiwi prodigy Hayley Westenra in concert and her new CD “Paradiso”, made with Italian music legend Ennio Morricone, is absolutely beautiful.

Books I read and recommend (these are NOT all the books I read – just the good ones): Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church by Jason Berry (a bit too long, but important); The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson (very clever); Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges; Private Life by Jane Smiley (a very nice historical novel); Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean (I would say this was the most important book I read all year, as it explained why so many political figures and their supporters act the way they do – the quotes I saved from it would fill pages); The Plundered Planet: Why We Must- and How We Can – Manage Nature for Global Prosperity by Paul Collier; A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace; Reread Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky; The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II by John Cornwell; The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel by Arthur Phillips (a must for Shakespeare fans – I am ambivalent); Padre Pio Under Investigation by Francesco Castelli, and I will likely have finished Noam Chomsky’s Hopes and Prospects (everyone should read some Chomsky, I have found) before I send this out.

Most years I include a (somewhat?) boastful account of my physical status. I was looking forward to building on some changes in 2011; instead I had my worst year health-wise since I lost nearly 10 pounds (10% of my weight) with diarrhea and vomiting in 8th grade (I was never taken to the doctor). After struggling with some minor injuries at the beginning of the year, I developed stiffness and pain in my left knee while in Georgia. I ran despite it for a while, but then got an MRI, which showed a complicated degenerative medial meniscus tear, saw an orthopedist, and eventually had an arthroscopy on August 11 after failing again to train through it. For two weeks before the surgery I had benign positional vertigo – I learned to treat myself with a well-positioned pillow and have not had that since. I had my worst allergies ever as well (Georgia!!). Unfortunately I think the surgery accomplished almost nothing: I have more pain now than I had before it. To my credit, I’ve dealt with it all well. I have cranked up my incredibly hard non-running workouts more and more to stay fit and keep my weight down until I can resume running every day again. Nothing compares favorably to running for me; I will never understand why so few people seem to enjoy it (because they do it wrong? Because they might have spent the time since freshman year of high school injured, recovering from an injury, or about to be injured?).

From a local Danville want ad: FREE FIREWOOD. Must cut down tree and haul away yourself.

Living people I would most like to have a conversation with: Wendell Steavenson (if you don’t know who this is, you will be surprised if you google the name), Fiona Apple, Daniel Johns, Garry Wills, Chris Hedges, John Dean, Jill LePore, Dexter Filkins, Jon Krakauer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of propaganda in the USA, especially while watching my nephew play with his GI Joes. I know since I have been self-aware I have been hammered constantly about the great honor of dying for my country, the excitement and accomplishments of soldiers, and how we have to fight for this and that. For several years of my life I was prepared to give up my life (though not to take the life of others) for this country. Now I know it is all a monumental load of crap. Who has died for anything bigger than the safety of the humans around him/her at the time, all of them there for no good reason as well? No one wants to die for a meaningless cause, so we are all constantly lied to about national interests, our freedoms, and the actual costs. There is nothing worse than war, and nothing worth it. We will be paying for all our current conflicts for the next 50+ years, both in cash and the human misery of our veterans and their families. Unfortunately, this issue is not limited to the USA, has been prevalent throughout human existence, and it is likely to never go away, especially as oil gets harder to extract and potable water scarcer (THE issue in the next 50 years, especially if FRACKING is widespread). I just bought Winning the War Against War, so maybe there is some hope.

The Crankiest 47 Year Old:

I am boycotting all movies that include the following plot devices: Time travel; Body switching: Marijuana smoking; Getting so drunk and/or high you can’t remember what you did the night before; Adam Sandler. Karaoke scenes are discouraged, but I will tolerate another rappin’ granny (only without the Sandler).

From now on, when the President or the Congress want to declare war or send soldiers into harm’s way, there should be a referendum of all voting age adults: everyone in favor of fighting will have the entire bill for the fighting split up amongst them, so the blood is not longer on all of our hands.

The problem with a representative democracy is finding qualified and ethical representatives. Wanting to run for national office should automatically disqualify whoever is interested. Much as I hate the concept overall, we need publicly funded national elections, all “first to the post” without primaries, and campaigns restricted to a shorter period, say 6-8 weeks (even if it takes a constitutional amendment to make it possible). This would cause a few problems, true, but it would solve so many terrible ones it would be worth it. (psst – It will never happen)

There was a lawsuit filed this year in Georgia to end reimbursement discrimination against primary care physicians (we generally get far less for our time than specialists). While I agree with this suit in principle, I think the result should be specialists get paid what we do (I make plenty of money) rather than paying us more; their hourly reimbursements need to drop immensely to make the future costs of medicine affordable.

Why do managers (usually) make so much more money than the people they manage? They don’t produce anything, and anyone who’s worked for a manager knows they don’t make as much difference as having an extra person doing something would. Modern management boils down to getting people to do more work for less money without doing an obviously terrible job = the American way.

There is a reason public sector workers have gotten generally nice benefit packages: their jobs can be terrible, and the only way to get someone competent to do them is to promise them a good retirement and health benefits (same with the military – don’t get me started on how much our men and women in the services have been lied to). Most of our government employees are startlingly competent. We all have seen highway workers standing around and can recall slacker teachers from our youth, but teaching, for example, is extremely important, and it is a hard job, even if you get summers off. I sure don’t want to trade, and being a doctor can annoy the crap out of me. The best way to get better teachers, or any type of worker, is to pay them more, whether by merit pay, good benefits, or some other scheme, not by making them out to be villains.

Things I keep forgetting when I decide to return to New Zealand:

No matter how many times you ask them about the things they have come to see you for, half the patients keep one thing secret until you stand up to usher them out. It is usually the most important thing to them.
Somewhere between 10-20% of the patients every day come just to get papers filled out to get them money for not working. Sometimes this is the secret thing.
The GPs in New Zealand are expected to print everything out to be signed in their office/exam room. There are two different sizes of paper for forms and prescriptions. I have to change the paper in my printer around 40 times a day.
The people who work at the New Zealand Medical Council aren’t worthy to have a horse tail hanging over them.
The slang! I hate the term “Brekkie.” That refers to greasy breakfast sandwiches and is used way too much with too much enthusiasm for something so foul. Same with “heaps” (you’ll save heaps at the big sale!); “wee” (Just a wee favor to ask); “Sweet as” (Me: “This antibiotic will have you starting to feel better in 48 hours.” Teenage patient: “Sweet as.”; “lollies” (any kind of sweet), and now, “prezzies” (what you give someone for Christmas).
The people are decades behind US trends: kids (and adults) still have rat-tails/mullets; short shorts on men (with dark socks, often as part of their work uniform); scooters abound.
I tell the staff at the office there is no need for speed limits or enforcement of them: there are so many campervans going 20km below the posted limit to be overtaken you can never average above the limits (especially during the Rugby World Cup).
While the sheep are famously ubiquitous, another species runs rampant: cats!!! They are roaming all over. One of them comes in my garage every time I leave the garage door open and walks on my windshield. Grrrrr.
The extra letters in their words, especially diagnoses I have to code: anaemia, hypoxaemia, oedema; and their spellings of medications: amoxycillin, aciclovir, oestradiol (even my spell-checker keeps changing them as I write this – these lists could otherwise be oendless).

Things I love about New Zealand (I am not always complaining here):

The yogurt/yoghurt is awesome: so many choices and gigantic containers
Tim Tams: the best mass-produced cookie-based snack in the world.
EFTPOS – like an ATM card only much better. And the banks pay you a thing called “interest” (4%!!) for saving your money with them.
The best muesli in the world (Hubbards Berry Berry Nice – I <3 u!)
The wallabies at Victoria Park (near my office).
They recycle everything possible – my recycling bucket weighs much more than my trash each week.
Drug-seekers and prescription drug abuse almost unheard of.
No snakes, ever, and no predators.

Streaks: Rosary: just passed the 5 year mark for praying it daily. I have not vomited since approx. March of 1993 – 18.5 years.

Quotes:

One of the great features of a Kindle is you can highlight passages in books and magazines and save them to a folder that organizes them for you. While I don’t absolutely agree with everything compiled here, and I realize this makes a very long document obscenely long, they are all intriguing, including the ones from me I have mixed in. I have put this at the end, as I know most of you will not make it this far.

“That’s the way most New Zealanders drive.” Me, in reply to an elderly Kiwi patient, who, during a vision test for his driver’s license renewal, said he thought I asked him to cover both eyes.

“We have an ethical responsibility to bequeath to unborn generations either the natural assets bequeathed to us, or other assets of equivalent value.” Paul Collier

“I read the owner’s manual and followed the instructions.” Me, to my anesthesiologist, when he commented on how healthy I was.

“Private capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones.” Albert Einstein, explaining why he was a socialist, in 1949

“’Women can be extremely cruel to each other.’ The idea that the world would be ‘sweetened’ if women ran it is preposterous, she says.” Christine LaGarde, the current IMF Chief, in an interview before accepting that position.

“More than the divides of race, class, or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, our culture has been carved up into radically distinct, unbridgeable, and antagonistic entities that no longer speak the same language and cannot communicate. This is the divide between a literate, marginalized minority and those who have been consumed by an illiterate mass culture.” Chris Hedges

“I’m used to functioning at a level just below a superhero.” Me, griping about my health problems to Kerry Smith.

“A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.” Chris Hedges.

“It’s coming out like hot lava.” Megan, while emptying her food-poisoned colon in the bathroom sink of the posh wedding shop in “Bridesmaids”, the funniest movie since Monty Python.

“Blind faith in illusions is our culture’s secular version of being born again. These illusions assure us that happiness and success are our birthright.” Chris Hedges.

“The reason “anonymous Republican” does well in the polls is the actual Republicans (running for President, in this case, but may hold true without that clarification) are all jackasses.” Me, in a comment to the NY Times. This comment was deemed inappropriate and not published despite its readily proven accuracy. I have since gotten away with referring to them as “a bunch of fools.”

“People whose governing habit is the relinquishment of power, competence, and responsibility, and whose characteristic suffering is the anxiety of futility, make excellent spenders. They are the ideal consumers. By inducing in them little panics of boredom, powerlessness, sexual failure, mortality, paranoia, they can be made to buy (or vote for) virtually anything that is “attractively packaged.” Wendell Berry

“One will search in vain for evidence of the superior understanding and abilities of those who have a major influence on policy.” Noam Chomsky

“After the Republican whip, Jon Kyl, of Arizona, said on the floor of the Senate that abortion constitutes ‘well over ninety percent of what Planned Parenthood does,’ Planned Parenthood reported that abortions make up less than three percent of its services, whereupon a Kyl staffer offered that what Kyl said “was not intended to be a factual statement.”!!!!!!!!!!

“There is a hint of cedar, more obvious wood smoke, with the essence of peeled grapes. But mostly I smell like a hobo.” Me, on getting a whiff of myself, as I drove back from my Thanksgiving Day hike.

“Over the years the campaigns have had two primary enemies: unions (naturally) and government. The antigovernment campaigns have to be nuanced and sophisticated (not a characteristic of any aspect of current Republican presidential poseurs, Ed.), because the “architects of policy” understand very well the need for a powerful state that intervenes massively in the economy and abroad to ensure that their own interests are ‘most peculiarly attended to.’ The goal of sophisticated business propaganda is to engender fear and hatred of government among the population, so that they are not seduced by subversive notions of democracy and social welfare, while maintaining support for the powerful nanny state for the rich…”Noam Chomsky

“The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. As Immanuel Kant wrote, moral autonomy is possible only through reflection, self-determination, and the courage not to cooperate. Moral autonomy is what the corporate state, with all its coded attacks on the liberal institutions and ‘leftist’ professors, have really set out to destroy.” Chris Hedges.

The more things change, the more they stay the same:

“Look at the exhausted Treasury; the paralyzed government; the unworthy representatives of a free people; the desperate contests between the North and South; the iron curb and brazen muzzle fastened upon every man who speaks his mind, even in that Republican Hall, to which Republican men are sent by Republican people to speak Republican truths – the stabbings, and shootings, and coarse and brutal threatenings exchanged between Senators under the very Senate’s roof – the intrusion of the most pitiful, mean, malicious, creeping, crawling, sneaking party spirit into all transactions of life.” Charles Dickens, to a friend, after he viewed a session of the US Congress debating the budget in 1842. It must have been quite session, even for the Congress.

“It is impossible to any mind of common honesty not to be revolted by the contradictions in their principles and practice. Look at them at home; you will see them with one hand hoisting the cap of liberty, and with the other flogging their slaves.” Anthony Trollope’s mother, after traveling through America in the 1820s.

“Senator James Reed, of Missouri, told the lobbyists that ‘Birth Control is chipping away the very foundation of our civilization,’ that ‘women should have many children and that poverty is no handicap but rather an asset’ at a 1926 meeting about birth control in Washington.

“In the House, Representative George H. W. Bush, of Texas, said, ‘We need to make family planning a household word. We need to take the sensationalism out of the topic so it can no longer be used by militants who have no knowledge of the voluntary nature of the program, but rather are using it as a political stepping stone.’ From 1968

Thanks again to everyone who makes my life possible and so enriching. I owe so much to my mother and father I cannot come close to breaking even (even running their Netflix and mom’s Facebook from here), and my physical condition would have been much worse without Chris’s basement gym and Kelly’s bike and trainer. I got to visit the Wrights, always a favorite stop, in January, Ollie and Heather Wagner in March, The Spells in April (and those who came to their party), Dr. Bob and Mrs. Albertini on Hilton Head in April as well, and Matthew and Niru Abraham (with the much beloved Aby and Shoba) in August, but otherwise didn’t get around much( um, for me, I guess). One of my few rounds of golf was a great day with Joe Hoffmeier at Saucon Valley. I have enjoyed spending time with Selwyn and Sue Long in Waimate (no one could adequately explain rugby to me, but they’ve tried while sharing a love of chocolate and cashews), and Tim and Janet Fletcher, who just stopped by on their travels (one must give “props” to anyone who visits Waimate). I apologize to anyone I might have missed.

I hope to hear from you, and I have to ask that anyone who might have stopped praying for me after I mentioned you could spend your prayer time on someone who needs it more in last year’s letter, please resume doing what you can for me. I can trace all my problems in the last 12 months to that single sentence….

All the best!!!!

Terry O’Rourke

Card 2010

February 27, 2015

Seasons Greetings!

2010 was a good year for me. I left in mid-January for 6 months in New Zealand: same town (Waimate), same job (Oak House), and new boss (a big improvement!). I had some good new adventures, and it was nice seeing some of the same beautiful spots again. This time I also popped over to Sydney for the first time: great city. I returned to the US in July after the usual bungy jump, sky swing, and shivering indoors to a nice, relaxing summer that went on a bit too long. There was enough time for a quick trip back to Bermuda (I left just before the hurricane hit), but I couldn’t make myself get on a plane to visit anyone else. I was idle until departing for Arusha, Tanzania October 14th. I am living in a little house on the outskirts and commuting to a small Catholic hospital in the city. It is not a perfect setting (not even close to as good as Swaziland!), but I am helping out a bit and hope to do more and work at some other places. So, 5 countries in all, two of them new (and I was in India until right before Christmas last year). I have taken on a lot of public speaking, giving a talk to a women’s group in NZ (on African women!), a talk about how not to be a bad doctor at Moravian College, and multiple grand rounds and student lectures here in Tanzania. For someone as shy as I am, I have few qualms about getting in front of strangers and prattling on and on.

I worked on this card/letter/torture in spurts all year, inspired by referring to myself as a “humorist” on my new business cards. I hope you will enjoy the effort if not the jokes.

Ten Things you don’t want to hear me say on a golf course:

10. That 10 I made on 17 cost you $70.

9. Yeah, your ball is over here, on this turd. Yeah, the turd is mine.

8. When you throw your putter, you should aim to the right of where you want it to go, just like you do with your putts.

7. Before you hit this shot, can I ask if you have accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour?

6. If I were trying to hit you, I would have missed by way more than that.

5. Don’t stand down wind of me just now, OK?

4. I think that is casual water, if by casual water you mean Greg’s urine.

3. I’d play it from there if I were you. That’s not a poisonous snake.

2. When I played with Nicklaus, he hit one like that, except it was longer and straighter and landed on the green near the flag.

1. I think when you swing and miss it should count twice.

My golf game was not good most of the year. I think I only broke 80 once and generally hit the ball poorly. I was ready to give up the game until Mike Guro pledged to get me playing better and inspired me to practice here with a long metal rod I found (you will have to provide your own long metal rod jokes).

Fitness update: I was really running well in the barefoot shoes until I developed pain and numbness in the right foot. I had to back off and eventually give up on the Vibram Five Fingers (they are useful water shoes, though). I really worked out hard otherwise the rest of the year and added some new exercises I really enjoy, finally doing more for my “core.” I am pleased with how things are going in Tanzania with my running and home gym, and I am hard to please.

Ten Super Hero graphic novels that were rejected this year:

10. The Screener: So Many Prostates; So Little Benefit.

9. Bible Quoter: Nehemiah 7: 61-69

8. Bailout Bonus Man: Whom Do You Call in the Treasury Department When You Need to Build More Garages for the 2011 German Luxury Cars?

7. Locavore: Are These Red Peppers Sustainable at $1.99/lb?

6. Nighttime Hiker: Small Towns in Kentucky with Adequate Street Lights

5. Spicy Eater: Can You Make that Really Hot?

4. Solar Man: The Infinite Drying Power of Proper Clothes Hanging

3. Untalented Jogger: That Hill Is Really Hard. I Mean It.

2. The Phlebotomist: I Suck Blood, Too! Isn’t That Cool, Jaded Teens?

1. The Peacemaker: Pursuant to Article 4, Paragraph 12: Transit Zones

Proverbs and Aphorisms with a Twist

10. “You can’t get blood from a stone,” but you could use a stone to get blood from Mitch McConnell (for example; applies to all elected turtle-human hybrids).

9. “Man does not live on bread alone” but it is pretty good with some quince jelly.

8. “The early bird gets the worm” but they’re on sale at Walmart all day if you need some and want to sleep in.

7. “A penny saved is a penny earned,” but don’t call me until you’ve saved 100,000.

6. “Don’t put the Lord God to the test” unless you really deserve to be blessed with a new 12,000 square foot house with no down payment and an ARM.

5. “It’s better to light one candle than curse the darkness” unless everyone just had beans.

4. “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”, but fear is really, really scary.

3. “An apple a day will keep the doctor away” but you have to have extremely good aim.

2. “Haste makes waste” especially if you have a really fast internet connection.

1. “It’s better to keep quiet and be thought intelligent than to open your mouth and reveal your ignorance” unless you work for a 24 Hour news channel (ignorance directly proportional to salary, especially, but not limited to, Fox). “A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion.” Proverbs 18:2

Reading: It is hard for me to believe how much I read this year. It helped to be without TV most of the time (if you want a better life overnight, turn off the TV and do something else until you go to bed early). Good books: Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (great, easily one of my all time favorites); Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman (unusual); George Eliot, Adam Bede; Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Ubervilles; Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (both powerful nonfiction books I cannot recommend more highly); John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope and Seminary Boy; David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter (yet more proof war is never worth the fighting); David Owen, Green Metropolis (it is a very good book, but he also gets a mention because he returns my emails). I bought the new generation Kindle when it came out the end of August and it has been one of my best purchases. I have 14 books yet to read while here (I finally slogged through Tristram Shandy….- don’t bother, same with Freedom by Jonathan Franzen), plus Dante’s Divine Comedy to reread (and a Scrabble game), and I am able to get the New Yorker and Atlantic over the internet instead of waiting for them to arrive in the African post. I also have a Bible on it, so it saved many pounds from my luggage.

Unsolicited Advice

I’ve grown up in a relatively large family, traveled a lot, and spent a lot of time with people and observing their behavior. Almost everyone I’ve met is a decent person, but I cannot tell you how many times I have cringed witnessing arguments and discussions. The world would be a much better place if everyone could restrain themselves from saying that last hurtful thing, that unnecessary sentence or phrase meant to inflict a parting injury. Whatever you may gain is not worth it – take the high road.

Parsing Words: When someone says….

“America is a Christian Nation” – that is correct if by “Christian” they mean “money-worshipping materialist” and by “Nation” they mean “people who are looking out for themselves first.”

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are “entertainers”, they must be entertained by flabby guys who make asses of themselves every time they open their mouths (and the rest of the time as well).

Barack Obama is a “tyrant” and/or a “fascist,” they make sense if when they say “Barack Obama” they mean themselves and/or the people they associate with and vote for.

Comedy is easy 101: rejected new car names:

10. Spinout 9. Weaver 8. Pole Hitter (my mom likes this one) 7. Breakdown 6. Leaker 5. Wobbler 4. PassMe 3. Stall 2. Smoker 1. Abruption

My music purchases were down. I picked up a few oldies but goodies (“Live Rust” anyone?), but for new music: I heard a great song by a New Zealand group: “Youngblood” by The Naked and Famous – can be downloaded from their website for a dollar – the video is good as well, on youtube I’m sure), and got good albums by The Trashcan Sinatras, “In the Music”; Colin Devlin, “Democracy of One”; and the Goo Goo Dolls, “Something for the Rest of Us”

Travel Notes:

-New Zealand has the best cereal and the best yogurt (available in large one kg tubs) but some of the worst, most thoughtless drivers I have seen (who else speeds up when you try to overtake them?).

-Both Tanzania and Kerala have a surplus of very beautiful women and a paucity of men with any appeal at all.

-I am continually amazed at the relatively mild New Zealand winter’s ability to chill one to the bone on a daily basis. Even my little cement-block house in Tanzania retains the heat of the day better than those Kiwi homes.

-Arusha has the worst city services I have ever seen. There is not a dustbin in sight, the water is off more than it is on, and the electricity is maddeningly erratic except that it is never there when you really want it. Lonely Planet ranked it 8th Worst City to visit.

Comedy is easy 101: Rejected Sports Team Names:

10. Mushy Peas 9. Depressives 8. Hollers 7. Nightcrawlers 6. Panties (this ranking also takes into account the less commonly considered “Pantaloons”) 5. Flat Tires 4. Tinkerbells 3. Septics 2. Flaccid Members 1. Failures

Worst-Case-Scenario Future Headlines:

10. Euro-butter Trading at 0.76 Amish-butter After Butter Standard Adopted by WTO and IMF

9. Pope Gingrich (yes, he became a Catholic) Sets Divorce Limit at Three

8. President Britney: More Questions Than Answers

7. Jesus, at His Second Coming, Startles Everyone with His First Words: “Party On, Bikers!”

6. Amazing Cancer Cure Also Causes You to Like Wrestling

5. Squirrel Farming Lucrative Alternative to Python Farm Glut

4. Wait for Airport Security Check Is Now at 4 Days: Enema Stations Blamed

3. $66 Billion Giant Broom Nearly Operational for Dust Bowl Cleanup.

2. James Cameron’s New Movie, “Serotonin”, Downloads into Your Brain as He Films It.

1. “Tea Party” Candidate Christine O’Donnell Finally Admits She Is a Witch: Says Her Only Spell Is to Get People to Vote Against Their Own Interests While Angry

What can I say about America that hasn’t already been said? Our justice system is rarely about justice, our health care doesn’t make us healthy, our defense is used in offensive ways, and some of our best minds devote their lives to making a large pile of money much larger without actually doing anything productive with it. Yet somehow, day to day, it has allowed the majority of people to live a fairly good life. I think I have stumbled on the reason why: we have spent well over $10 trillion that we don’t have. You give that money to India, China, even Russia, and then see what happens to them. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans have made a lot of bad decisions based on poor information in the past few months, and the abyss is getting closer than ever before. Makes it easier to live as an expat.

Quotes:

“You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the better treatment of the colored races, every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world…” Bertrand Russell
“The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity…” William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
“The evil of militarism is not that it shows certain men to be fierce and haughty and excessively warlike {though it does – T.O’.}. The evil of militarism is that it shows most men to be tame and timid and excessively peaceable. The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of the community declines.” G.K. Chesterton
“There are six things which Yahweh hates; yes seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue; hands that shed innocent blood; a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief, a false witness who utters lies, and he who sows discord among brothers.” Proverbs, 6:16-19. Sounds like every current Republican politician I’ve heard of…
“The alternate dominations of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” George Washington.
“Maren, who came to regard humanitarianism as every bit as damaging to its subjects as colonialism, and vastly more dishonest, takes a dimmer view: that we do not really care about those to whom we send aid, that our focus is our own virtue. He quotes these lines of the Somali poet Ali Dhux: “A man tries hard to help you find your lost camels. He works more tirelessly than even you. But in truth he does not want you to find them, ever.” From “Alms Dealers”, by Philip Gourevitch, the New Yorker, Oct 11, 2010

Every religion (and life in general) is full of paradoxes, and I have for a long time thought that the following one is quite true, especially in the last year as I have intensified my own internal debate about what is important in this world and how we are to approach new challenges. My paradox is the closer you feel you are to God and to understanding Him, the farther you are from Him and His truth. I honestly think now the most divine state a human can be in is sincere doubt: doubting yourself, God’s purpose for you and the world, and what you are to think about it all. The holiest men and women in history were filled with agonizing doubts yet kept going, doing what they felt was God’s will, trying to help people in any way they could to leave the world a better place for all. The scariest people are those who are sure they know what is right for themselves and everyone else. They are frequently wrong and always unwilling to accept that fact.

As always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my parents who let me stay with them when I am off the road and let me borrow their cars when I need them (I need only listen to their stories in return, but sometimes that doesn’t seem a fair trade off). Not having my own car is a bit of a drag when I am home, but it would be more of a drag when I am gone (if I had one it would be one of the new VW clean diesels). Thanks also to Dr. O. Fred Miller for his solid gold advice and his Garry Wills books, his son Greg and Michael for their helpfulness and hospitality (and classic books), the Wakelys for their continual good cheer and lack of complaining (and their house and huge car in Bermuda), Barney Clayton for getting me back to New Zealand and taking good care of me, Greg and Kathy Wright in Roanoke who seem honestly happy to see me, the Guros (despite my losing every game of ping pong I played there) and to Amazon.com for coming up with the Kindle. I gripe about this world and how it all works, but my life continues to be great and blessed. I have no unmet needs or wants and could safely say I don’t even need your prayers, though I appreciate them. Here in Tanzania I do miss The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, ice cream, and drinking water right from the tap (with loud slurping noises), but those are small sacrifices when you see how the people I am around get through the day.

Card 2009

February 27, 2015

I have to get this out early due to traveling: when you get this I will likely be in India or on my way there to visit Aby Philip and his wife, Shoba, friends from my time in Swaziland. I hope to do a little medical volunteer work and some sightseeing in the Kerala state and won’t be back until Christmas Eve. I finished my time in Zambia in January. I rode out the humid wet season in the South Luangwa area and fortunately never had anything go wrong on the job or while moving about in the wild areas. While there, I felt at times like I was the man I am meant to be – the term that popped into my head was “a man in full.” The key was that I was sharing my faith more and putting myself out there, especially in the little Catholic church I attended, culminating in a modestly attended Healing Mass where I spoke and prayed over all the people. I left in good standing and headed for Livingstone to visit the amazing Victoria Falls and bungy jump off the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe. I flew out of Lusaka the next day and was back in time for my birthday and to finish all the paperwork for a job in Arizona with Gila River Health Care south of Phoenix (It seems like I spent much of my time outside of work filling out forms for work). I lived in Chandler for 3 months working two jobs with them then drove over to Albuquerque to work for the VA for 2 months. The southwest US is a very interesting and beautiful place and I would like to return. I had most of the summer off and traveled a lot, leaving the country to go to Cancun with my sister Kelly and her family. I had to wait for 4 weeks to get approved for another job with the VA (despite just working for them) in Wilmington, NC at a satellite clinic that was terribly run. All the while I was hoping to get to Ireland this year, but I eventually gave up on that for now and instead decided to go back to Waimate in New Zealand for six months next year. There are a lot of places I did not see before and a lot of changes for the better at the job I held, so I am really looking forward to it.

Match the quote with its author (there can be more than one quote per author):

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
“For the secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for.”
“There are no greater myths to mislead humans than nationalism and patriotism.”
“Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.”
“The Veterans Administration will spare no expense to save money.”
“If you really want to ‘support our troops,’ BRING THEM HOME!”

A: Terence O'Rourke Jr.; B: Abraham Lincoln; C: Fyodor Dostoevsky

(answers:6A,5A,4B,3A,2C,1B)

Excellent 2009 Reading: The Dark Side, Jane Mayer: The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky; Angler, Barton Gelman; Born to Run, Christopher McDougall (a life changer); Middlemarch, George Eliot; The Forever War, Dexter Filkins; What Paul Meant, Garry Wills; The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein (eye opening); The Healing of America, T.R. Reid (for those of you keeping score, it is correct I have read three 19th century novels over 800 pages in length in the last year, and all of them were great).

In music, it was the year of the Who. On the internet I found a young man in Louisiana who sent me (FREE) 4 DVDs of the Who in concert from the 70’s and 80’s, a documentary and 3 concert CDs. I supplemented this with significant back-catalog purchases from iTunes. No one could convince me they are not the greatest band ever by several orders of magnitude. My other big fave this year is “Little Moon” by Grant Lee Phillips. Other nice purchases (I download now to save space and money): Todd Snider: “Peace Queer” and “The Excitement Plan.” Roddy Woomble: “My Secret is my Silence,” and a reunited Buffalo Tom: “Three Easy Pieces.” I had the great fortune to see Todd Snider live in Phoenix and would gladly do so again.

It is well-documented that I dislike cell phones (outside the fact they will be shown to be harmful, and not just as a distraction), but over the past 18 months I had the occasion to use a few and even to send some texts. There are a multitude of acronyms and abbreviations used to shorten typical texts. I put forth these additions for those of a more refined literary palate (they are capitalized here not to infer shouting but to clarify the letters utilized):

LOTIWIC – “Laughing on the inside where it counts”. Typically followed by #2.
CT – Chest tapping. Infers internal acknowledgement.
ICBTD – “I can’t believe those douchebags.”
FKATL – “First kill all the lawyers.” Nothing personal.
LMAITAC – “Leave me alone. I’m taking a crap.”
FSBTD – “find something better to do.”
GDLNDF – “God doesn’t love Notre Dame Football.” One I would never get tired of sending on Saturday afternoons.
JNYYBJ – “Judge not yet ye be judged.”
ICWTIMS – “I could write that in my sleep.”
WWDCD – “What would Dick Cheney do?” My guess: something terrible, then a good bit of lying.
TFTG – “Triceps from the gods.” I used this one often, but it might not be so handy for you.

Golf/fitness update: I played a bit in the southwest on some very nice courses to no great effect but kept at it, knowing that if I hit the ball just a bit better I could shoot a good score. It all came together one day in Roanoke when I shot a two over par 73, my best by two. It didn’t last long and my lack of patience played a bigger part than a lack of skill in that.

My fitness is my favorite topic. I was down to 172lbs (in good shape) on returning from Zambia, but I got back into my weightlifting and found a useful gym in Albuquerque where I got about as strong (and heavy) as I’ve been since the early 90’s. It went away, as it always does, but I got it back and then some in North Carolina. I tried to run faster and had some nice runs in Arizona before deciding to overhaul my running form. The results were mixed in Albuquerque, though I did get faster, but then I found several excellent sources of info (including Born to Run) that helped me put it all together and I’ve never enjoyed running and exercise more. Knowledgeable physiologists agree you can keep pushing yourself into your mid-60s before you have to accept much decline. There is also a mountain of evidence that most running shoes (especially the motion control and heavily cushioned ones) are bad for you. To paraphrase DDE, “Beware the Sneaker-Industrial Complex.” I am wearing Vibram five fingers shoes several days a week and otherwise train in shoes with hardly any padding, meant to simulate running barefoot. I highly recommend it, but you must start gradually.

I usually cannot resist some politics. I have been disappointed by the way things have gone since President Obama took office. He has been, despite a frenetic pace and a full plate, too passive. He was elected to change things, but he seems to place a very high priority on trying to get along with Republicans and not doing anything divisive. I hope he soon realizes that is a complete waste of effort, but perhaps it was worth it to build even more evidence that the leadership of that party and far too many of its members are not interested at all in making America a better place for all Americans: they only want power and the money that comes with it no matter what it takes. It has been said before, and perhaps better than this, that conservatives cannot govern. They have contempt for government and, in many ways, want to destroy it, but government is necessary and serves many valuable purposes other than as a way to make you and your friends rich. When they are in charge, they don’t want things to work and don’t care if they do: instead they sit around arguing about who is more against abortion. That’s what we had from 2001-2009 – only a fool would want that to occur again. There’s a lot that needs to be done, and we need to work together to get the best results, but that won’t happen until we all realize that every person has dignity and no one is inherently superior to anyone else. Until then, this country is no longer worth fighting and dying for.

I did a lot of traveling this year (Thanks to all who hosted me), but the best trip was one of the shortest. My father had his 75th birthday in June, and I was trapped in Albuquerque then. I planned a celebration Terry-style for him on my return. Much of it was a surprise, and I owe most of its success to my good friends Joe Hoffmeier, Mike Guro, and Robert O’Reilly. I came up with a trip during a week off he’d already scheduled that started with us going to the US Women’s Open golf tournament on Friday with Mike Guro, all with tickets from Joe H. I contacted his med school roommate who lived in Bethlehem, and he met us there with his wife, the biggest surprise. It was a beautiful day and Saucon Valley was awesome. We followed some of the biggest stars (they play SO slow). I took him for cheesesteaks before we left for Philadelphia. The next day we played golf at Glen Mills, a great course, and then went to a Phillies game with seats right behind the Phillies’ dugout (again courtesy of the marvelous Joe H), all with Dr. O’Reilly. It was a lot of fun. Sunday we went home after going to Mass at the big, beautiful basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in downtown Philly. I loved showing him a bit of adventure, and we couldn’t have had a better time. Thanks again, everyone.

Let’s try to finish strong…..

Getting Cranky, 2009

I know it is possible to walk around without talking on or looking at a cell phone – why does it seem so impossible for so many? What could be the appeal of having long braids or dreadlocks hanging out the back of your football helmet? In Australia, car commercials are not allowed to show a car being driven in an unsafe or illegal manner – sounds like a good idea. But that’s not the American way – 48000 traffic fatalities a year is. Balanced reporting is not letting two people with different opinions argue about an issue. Perhaps I am coming at it from the wrong direction, but if you’re at the gym and you decide to use a machine that is set at some ungodly weight, maybe you should do your set quickly and then get off it so the pumped up bald guy pacing nearby can keep using it. It is a common mistake to underestimate both the ignorance and the pluckiness of Americans.

I can’t believe….

1. I have been out of the Air Force for 13 years!

2. People watch Glen Beck (and believe him!!).

3. Hardly anyone seems as outraged as I am at the scope of torture and war crimes perpetrated by our recently departed government. They should all be in jail.

4.How ashamed I now am at having swum with dolphins while in Mexico. Rent “The Cove” for the reasons why.

5.Increased “awareness” of problems with chronic pain has led to the true crisis of prescription drug abuse in our society, a problem whose vast scope is only minimally understood.

6.The Call of Duty video game was expected to sell 6 million copies in its first day of release. Whatever happened to fresh air, Mom?

7.I bungy jumped at Victoria Falls. I wish you could have been there to see and hear how crazy the whole thing was. Oh, the twisting! The reciting of the Presidents’ names!

Yes, it’s not groundbreaking, but I did it:

Like many of you, I am aware of the horrors of industrial scale farming and food production, but until this year I didn’t do much about it beyond boycotting veal. While in Wilmington I gave up eating all meat (except for some fish), dairy products, and high-fructose corn syrup. I also tried to buy organic foods when possible. It was opined that a certain fragrant malady of mine might be augmented by this diet, and I can say without a doubt now that it was, oh my. I will try to do it everywhere I go from now on, but moderation and common sense have to have their say as well. Soy yogurt is not very good, but I got used to it, and I didn’t miss meat much at all – it made me slightly ill to see it marketed so aggressively and in such malignant forms. So much of what we do not only doesn’t make sense; it is horrible for us and the planet. Farmers who do their work ethically and prudently deserve much more money than they currently make – what is more important than good food?

Jesus taught us to die to the world. Here is how I apply that to my life:

I don’t care if Britney Spears is wearing underwear while she lets her kids drive.
Instead of paying a lot of money for a new driver to hit my golf ball farther, I have been trying to swing harder with the one I have and hit it even shorter.
Things like Facebook strike me as too narcissistic. It’s better to write and email a 5 page letter at the end of the year. It teaches everyone patience as well.
A good guide for that life is to do the opposite of Oprah.
Like Jesus, I have never owned a gun.
I joyfully give my recycling to my mother to sort and drop off.
I have forgotten my password to view my investment portfolio, so I am forced not to dwell on how much of my money has vanished.
I lived in the southwest for 5 months without turning on the heat or air-conditioning.
Little seems tedious or uncomfortable once you’ve sweated through a 3.5 hour Mass jammed between two smelly men on a foot-wide piece of concrete.

Card 2008

February 27, 2015

Thus begins the second Holiday Form Letter from Africa (initial version 2002). Because I can email it, I will make it as long as it needs to be and keep the type-size large enough, so a few of you will be more than satisfied and the rest of you won’t even have to get up to go to the trash. I am sorry some of you didn’t get it directly, but I only have so many email addresses. For those not up to date, I am in Zambia, living in the South Luangwa Valley right next to one of the world’s largest and best wildlife parks (of the same name). I share my yard frequently with elephants, baboons, and giraffes, run the crowded road of the town of Mfuwe, and serve as “The Doctor” to a group of game lodges and at a small (free) local clinic. I spent the first six months of 2008 working in Williamsport, PA, and the second job I had there was so bad I actually quit early in July. That move gave me an extra three weeks to travel and tremendous satisfaction. The location served me well otherwise, as I was able to spend a lot of time with my family and had only a short trip to my brother’s wedding, where I was at last officially acknowledged as The Best Man. I left for Zambia Sept. 9th and arrived in Lusaka the 11th. I lived there for 3 weeks, volunteering some at an AIDS clinic and reading and writing a lot (which continues). I am on call here 60/168 (useful, eh?), so I can’t wander far, and it is quite dangerous at night outside the house. It feels good to be back in Africa, but I will return to the US in time for my 45th birthday. Things have not worked out the way I hoped otherwise, and Zambia is not very hospitable overall (very expensive, woeful infrastructure and picky about permits and visas). And now, the entertainment….

If I were a superhero, these would be my powers

Snore-proof giant nostrils
Irresistible legs for dog or dog-like-villain* licking
Stomach enlarged by radioactive hog bite
Colonic linear particle accelerator (might require specially designed costume)
Large-piece-of-cake capacity oral cavity
Indefatigable fidgeting (to annoy the more sedate evil-doers**)
Nearly Undetectable Hypocrisy
Darwin’s Tubercle***
Political Prophesy (you should have saved those old letters, doubters)
Resistance to Cell Phones
Bonus power: Extra long ……… Christmas card.

*something like a werewolf, or maybe those gamma-radiated dogs from that first Hulk movie (the one with Jennifer Connelly).

** It is a well-known fact that only the evil are annoyed by fidgeting (see also Ezekiel 23:20-21).

***Only funny to Robert O’Reilly, and not that funny to him. See Bates Physical Exam, or Google.

Great Books: Growth of the Soil (Knut Hamsun), War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy – oh, to write like him!); Worthwhile to read to find out how the world really works, Perfectly Legal (David Cay Johnson) and The Secret History of the American Empire (John Perkins). Great Music: Silverchair – “Diorama” (a classic, from 2002), Good music: the Fratellis – “Here We Stand”; The Dissociatives; some of those old ELO songs are pretty good, too (right now I am liking “Sweet is the Night”). Best TV Show ever still The Colbert Report (replaced the Simpsons after 1st episode of Tek Jansen).

As much that really comprises modern America (home ownership as investment, unmitigated greed, conspicuous consumption, willful ignorance, self-righteousness, thinly-veiled racism and xenophobia) is staring at us in the mirror as the world crashes around and with us, perhaps it presents us with the opportunity to remake the USA into what some people mistakenly think it already is - an example of what can be done when people work together to make a country something more than the sum of its parts, a country that is the best it can be to as many as possible instead of to the super-rich few, an example of justice and fairness throughout the world. In our representative democracy, I think it is supposed to be our choice, after all, and it looks like we might be off to a good start for the next four years.

Ten Easy Ways to Make a Difference in Zambia

10. Use abundant elephant turds to fill the equally abundant potholes.

9. I’m sure there are nine other things, but it is really hot and I’m wishing I had some ice cream. They might want to try a little prohibition in Mfuwe (definitely not easy), or put recycling bins for glass near the road (there is, by the way, only one road, though it is briefly divided) where everyone smashes their bottles during their evening socializing. If anyone has a lot of money and lots of ideas about infrastructure improvements (I only have this part), this is the place to try things out.

Eco-friendly tips you won’t hear elsewhere

Drive in the highest gear possible with the tinted windows up when being chased by paparazzi.
If you live in India or Siberia, don’t encroach on or kill any tigers (and while you’re at it, keep your music a little less shrieky, especially you, Siberians)
Natural light is always cheaper (but it makes that sex tape you were thinking about shooting a little less likely to be legal).
Adjusting the tire pressure on your pull cart may help you reduce your energy expended per round, but you need to burn more, fat ass. Pick up the pace, too!
If you are comfortable, you are using too much energy.

It’s the little things that allow Africa to grow on you…..

1. When I walk around camp shirtless****, none of the many monkeys feels my back is hairy enough to have anything worth checking for (a good thing?).

2. Toilets flush so hard only the strongest crocodiles could swim up the pipes against the current, and they’re WAY too big to fit.

3. My house may be infested with beetles (no, they’re not Dung Beetles), but there are lots worse things in Africa with which to be infested.

4. It got so hot by the late morning the clinic’s thermometers no longer worked.

5. Who would think that you would see more people on a 6am run in Mfuwe than at 8:30am in Manhattan?

6. The other side of the pillow here is not cooler, but it is usually a bit drier.

7. The cost of a gallon of unleaded gasoline in Zambia was just over $10 in October (after a pre-election price cut – the incumbent won - but before the dollar strengthened).

8. Everyone should get to experience giraffes in the neighborhood. There isn’t a more enjoyable species to have around.

****I never walk around the camp shirtless. I get enough bug bites as it is on my back.

Lexicon 2008, the Neologisms

Sweatstache – a chronically sweaty upper lip due to heat or tension (remember Nathan Thurm?) (Martin Short, SNL?)(interviewed by a fake Mike Wallace?) (“Is it me?”)
Religious tolerance – not forcing your religious beliefs on others and leaving them alone to practice their beliefs as long as they do the same. We all need to be reminded of that from time to time, as it is what first set the USA apart (in theory, as its practice has been eternally spotty).
Fox-Newsledge – the mistaken belief that one can rely on especially this (but really any) cable news network for anything resembling the truth (currently available with jokes on Comedy Central from 11-12 weeknights).
Geniass (“jean-yass”) – any of the extremely biased commentators on the aforementioned cable networks. Who would have guessed 60 years ago that this many boneheads would be well paid to make stuff up and repeat other made-up stuff on camera now?
Stupid Syndrome – a widespread affliction involving low intelligence, poor judgment, and impaired impulse control. Usually identified by 3 or more (but most likely to include seven or more) of the following: tobacco use; multiple tattoos (diagnostic if more than one lover’s name is found); morbid obesity; DUIs and/or a history of jail time; having more than one vehicle on the property that doesn’t run; dangerous dog ownership; ponytails on men; high/low riding pick-up truck ownership; NRA membership; lack of shirt in public (not during exercise); multiple activity-related long bone fractures; appearing on reality TV; fewer teeth than intact fingers (number of teeth must usually be greater than zero – actually wearing dentures may be disqualifying unless they were made for someone else); displaying a Confederate flag on anything other than toilet paper. It can result in less visible signs and symptoms such as: voting Republican despite being poor; prescription and illegal drug abuse, especially the sale of the former right outside the pharmacy; television viewing of over 5 hrs/day (if those hours include wrestling on pay-per-view, the diagnosis is assured); attachment to significant other with the syndrome. Not to be confused with Being a Dick (owning a Hummer/playing loud music at all hours/cheating on your spouse/touching people inappropriately/currently occupying the office of Vice President of the USA/threatening to withhold the Eucharist from anyone who votes for a Democrat/thinking this letter is not funny). Stupid syndrome appears primarily to be learned, as it is not found in every culture, though genetics play a significant role. It has reached epidemic proportions due to current American cultural trends, poor role models and educational system failures, but social historians can surely identify similar phenomena in other eras. It is often fatal, though modern medicine has made the Syndrome less likely to result in premature death, allowing more time for those afflicted to procreate to society’s great loss. It is not all negative, as it does enhance revenue production through additional sales of cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets.
W-Bushed – so tired of our current president that you stopped thinking of him as even being in office months ago.
The Roman Anti-Abortionic Church – Subgroup of Catholics who seem to think there is only one thing that matters in this world and don’t understand why everyone else doesn’t agree with them.
Forgetness – goes beyond forgiveness to not even remembering who wronged you and how. A saintly virtue, unless you just have memory problems.

There may be people who do not accept the underlying scientific principles of Evolution and natural selection as the explanation for the current earthly population of living things, but it is hard to deny that some things are either destined not to survive or are already extinct:

Caucasian-American graduate students in Mathematics
Bush family political possibilities
The South Luangwa Valley wildlife trails runner
The $17 music CD.
Company pension plans
The Concept of Computer Security
Out of all touch with reality executive compensation in publicly traded companies
Reasonable Republican voters

Sponsors of this year’s letter provided its author nothing other than their (good?) will: Proflight Zambia: not letting old planes go to waste; The Community Health Center, Williamsport – first stop after your prison release in central Pennsylvania; John McCain’s soul – badly used after being sold by its previous owner, but still has value to some; Gilbert the Elephant - will eat nearly anything, but specializes in thatched roofs; Mfuwe Running Club – one sweaty doctor and hundreds of curious spectators (does my running look that odd?); Saucon Valley’s Grace Course – nice enough to keep you liking your financial planner; Malaria – and you thought Miley Cyrus was overrated (only 4 confirmed cases out of the hundreds that have presented complaining of it); Positive Living Handbook – one of the best beetle killers I’ve ever used; “Duct” Tape – don’t leave the country without it; Sarah Palin – take your garbled syntax back under that rock; MacBook Laptops – I wasn’t sold on these last year, but they always seem to work well, even in tough conditions; Lusaka, Zambia – less dusty than Afghanistan; MVP Sports drink – Oh, Wegmans, where are you when a parched guy needs a drink? And the price can’t be beaten, just like the taste of your peanut butter; Risky Investments – if there is a chance you could lose all your money in an investment, you’d best be prepared for that to happen. I’m tired of bailing you out when it does. No one has given me back any of the money I’ve lost (I’m looking at you, Tom Collier. I haven’t perfected forgetness yet); Bush Supporters – 26% of Americans still report they are satisfied with the job our president is doing. Who are these people, and why are they sponsoring this letter? Watkins Glen Race Track – a place where even an intellectual fitness nut who dislikes wasting fuel, irresponsible driving, shirtless people, loud noises and corporate sponsorships can have a great time (depends most on who takes you).

While it may seem “cool” or “awesome” to get to spend over 3 months essentially in an African game park, it has required a monumental sacrifice in regards to comfort. There is not one thing I do every day that I can do in a way similar to how I prefer doing it. While it was not particularly humid, it was routinely 100deg F in my house and my workplace in October and early November for hours (it was often over 110+ in the sun), and it would only cool some days to around 94deg in the house by bedtime (It has cooled down, but gotten muggier, in the rainy season, which began in November). I am constantly struggling with insects (much worse than it sounds, as some are dangerous); must keep alert for elephants and hippos everywhere I go; have to eat most of my meals, which have only modest, un-American portions, at a restaurant alone (frequently while the power is out); run on a hot, crowded street or in dangerous areas where I face a limited but real risk of being attacked by animals; have to fight off water damage from anything other than vertical rain; carry a cell phone with me everywhere; and sweat amounts few could imagine. Anyone considering adventures must be prepared for discomforts of various kinds, and I am and was. In fact, I seem to be thriving despite all the adversity, which is what something like this is all about for someone like me. There is no “comfort zone” here, and perhaps that is the way life in general should be. But no, if I had the chance to do it again, I wouldn’t. I could put up with worse for something worthwhile, but this has not been worth it (so far).

Thanks again to all I visited: Mom and Dad, Kathy and Greg Wright (3 times!), Greg and Michael (2 states), Joe and Mary Morehouse, Rich and Susan Peller, Bonnie and Rob, Toni and Luke Kilyk, and Rob and Susan O’Reilly. So many fond memories: arguing about the heat/air conditioning; laughing at DVDs; walking the streets of Manhattan in fierce downtown winds and racing up New Milford’s steepest hill; making putt after putt at Northland; the monster under the boat; Ask Buddha; the beehives/jam factory/wine room; the DuPont CC. May God bless you all for your generosity to His humble servant (and for having me by as well). Thanks especially to the Smith family for coming all the way from Texas to visit my lovely home state and test my hospitality. Sorry that hospitality couldn’t be tested in Zambia, but you are much better off where you are.

Obviously, I love to travel, and after I return to the US to make some money (at an Indian Reservation near Phoenix starting in February), I hope again to fulfill a dream of working and living in Ireland for a good chunk of 2009 (if they will only come to their senses and allow me to). I am still looking for a situation in Africa to go back and forth to, and have Australia and a return to New Zealand on the back burner. I want to go to Rome and back to see other parts of Italy, finally get to Paris, and would love to have company on a golf trip to Bandon Dunes (if I can get to playing better), so if you’re interested, keep me posted.

Some of you may recall me discussing a book about my time in Swaziland (and about my life in general). I had enough downtime in Zambia to really tackle it and got it (roughly) done and am now getting feedback from various invaluable sources as to its fate. At this point it is fairly interesting and entertaining but also brutally honest and likely not fit for most consumption, but I may yet tame it, unleash it anyway, or file it away.

Prophesies, 2009+

Making everyone buy health insurance will not improve anyone’s health.
Abortion rates will be lower under Obama than Bush.
Fewer people will die or go to hell due to Gay Marriage than handgun ownership.
Quotes from the Bible will be used to justify more stupid decisions than good ones. By the way, if you looked up that Bible verse above, I got you good!
“National Service” will no longer mean licking the boots of the militarypetrochemicalindustrial complex.
Millions of doubters will be amazed to see what the world is like when someone competent is in charge.
George W. Bush will never again make a list of the top 100 most influential people in the world.
This has been Joe Paterno’s last season.
I will spend less money on things than any year since I started making doctor money.
More rappers than athletes will be busted for steroid and HGH abuse.

I am still best reached by email at tlorourkejr@pol.net and do not own a cell phone (nobody calls me anyway). Your cards and letters will eventually find me back at

209 W. Market St.

Danvjlle, PA 17821-1820

If you dial 570-275-2979, you will reach my parents’ home. They cannot be trusted with classified information but usually know how to get in touch with me otherwise, and every once in a while I am there and answer the phone.

I hope you’ve had a good year and hope to hear from you soon. Have a great holiday season and 2009!

Holiday Card 2007

February 27, 2015

Most of you will recall that I spent 6 months of 2007 living and working in New Zealand in the town of Waimate. It was a great experience in a fantastically beautiful country. I worked 4 days a week and did call every Wednesday and every 4th weekend, responding to ambulance calls and occasionally having to do something like an IV or intravenous injection. I traveled about half the weekends and saw most of the south island and a bit of the north, doing things like sperm whale watching, walking on a glacier in crampons, luging, jet boating, riding a helicopter, and the highlight, bungy jumping at the incredible Nevis site from a height of 424ft with a fall over 400ft long (the BEST!). Otherwise I did some great hikes and found some unforgettable places to run. I stayed in good shape, going back to iron-pumping at the Waimate gym, and I made some new friends as well as seeing some old ones. I also spent a lot of money on various types of merino wool garments for myself and my family (so comfortable). The only drawback to NZ is that they don’t know how to heat a home (or gym), so I needed the wool and then some. I’m now working in Williamsport, PA at an occupational medicine clinic (easy!) and will be in this area into next summer at another job. I may head back to Africa (Namibia?) next fall. Otherwise I have been spending some money of late, getting a new Apple laptop (mixed reviews so far), iPod, and irons (my golf game is still terrible). I hope you enjoy the entertainment, which I had to outsource to Bangalore (I cut out the big musical numbers).

Better on Paper than in Reality

Reading out in nature
Spending time with me
Going to rock concerts
Suffering for your faith (non-Catholics)
Short flights
The new alternative rock bands
More TV channels
Pain medications (when taken for pain)
Every job I’ve ever had
Hair loss treatments

Things to be more afraid of

Cell phone radiation
TV’s effects on young children
Dick Cheney (pssst – he’s evil)
In-ear headphones
The medical-pharmaceutical complex
Xenophobia
That creaking sound. Yeah, THAT one.
The reproductive rates of the intelligent
Distracted drivers
A wrathful God

Armchair philosopher:

While there may be 3 billion women in the world, I have come to the conclusion that there is not one that would make my life any better than it is now.
No one’s life has ever been improved by feeling sorry for one’s self.
Self-fulfillment is most likely to come from self-denial
The quickest way to improve your life is by spending more quiet time with God.
Computers don’t eliminate mistakes. They just allow for different ones.

Headlines:

Oil Barons Find New Concern With Global Warming: It May Thaw Dick Cheney’s Heart.
Teenage Boy Takes Out the Trash Without Being Asked: “It, like, kinda smelled funny for a few days…”
Reliable American Car Found in Southwest Oklahoma: “It’s never been in the shop and it runs great!”
Enterprising Young Man Tries to Get Government to Declare “War” on His Bank Account: Hopes It Will Be As Successful As Wars on Drugs, Cancer and Iraq.
Cell Phone Photo Shows Man Taking Cell Phone Photo of Another Man Taking a Cell Phone Photo
Only 22 People Left Without a Reality Show
Communications Prof Gives Bush Speech a D+: “His Best One Yet!”
Astronomer Reports “Dog Years” Are Only 365.25 Days Long
Pakistan Voted “Most Dangerous Nation Other Than The USA” in UN Poll
Coveting Thy Neighbor’s Wife No Longer Sinful: As Long as It Only Involves Her Ability to Keep Her Mouth Shut During the Game or Park the Car Without Denting It.

Many people (well, one or two) ask me what I think about the candidates running for president. I would vote in a heartbeat for Hillary despite her flaws, but I think Obama is the stronger candidate and the only true leader.

Although I am a pacifist (0 drunken brawls lifetime), there are a few humans that, if presented with their faces in the crosshairs of a high-powered rifle, I might find it in me to smoothly squeeze the trigger:

1. Nancy Grace (is there a more annoying person? How can anyone watch?) 2. Rush Limbaugh/Glen Beck/Sean Hannity (could there be bigger chumps? They must know that in their hearts) 3. Dick Cheney (isn’t he on everyone’s shoot-em in the face list?) 4. Pat Robertson (too late for J. Falwell, now getting shot in the face in Hell) 5. Bin Laden (so it isn’t only American fascists getting shot in the face).

Music: Great CDs by The Fratellis (Costello Music), the Manic Street Preachers (Send Away the Tigers), Silverchair (Young Modern), Grant Lee Phillips (Strangelet), Son Volt (The Search), and Idlewild (Make Another World).

The best thing about my current job (other than I get paid well to email, read magazines and do crosswords) is the hospital chapel. It is a big Catholic church where I go every lunch hour to pray a Rosary while kneeling in front of a very life-like (I can only presume, though it is a little short) statue of Jesus. Keeps everything in perspective (I pray for many of you!). The worst thing: hard to get the smell of truck driver belly off my hands.

Books: Anna Karenina is a great book (spoiler alert – she makes Britney seem sane), and Arthur and George by Julian Barnes is a very interesting tale well told. Stephen Colbert is making me laugh with I Am America(and so can you). I read a lot about and by the saints, with the best being The 33 Doctors of the Church by Fr. Christopher Rengers, and the St. Alphonsus Liguori compendium The Twelve Steps to Holiness and Salvation.

For those with extra free time who want to see some nice photos, go to www.flickr.com and search for TerryO’ or Terence O’Rourke. I spent a good bit of time uploading photos from my trip to New Zealand and writing captions for same JUST FOR YOU!

Before I close, I’d like to take some treasured space and thank my sponsors. If you get a chance, they would like you to patronize them. The Garmin Forerunner 205 – “Makes running more precise but even less interesting to talk about.” Cleveland Golf Clubs – “For professionals and those for whom a river on fire is an apt metaphor for the state of their games.” “Giant” store brand peanut butter and yogurt – “They’re good enough, I guess.” Vancouver Tourism Board – “Not as pretty as New Zealand but we have central heating.” America’s airlines – “All the inconvenience and discomfort of a 3 day stagecoach ride compressed into only 5 sleek, ultramodern hours.” Summer in Minnesota – “The best two weeks of the year!” New Zealand’s lambs – Cute AND tasty.” The Bush Administration – “We are also lying about how much we love Jesus.” The DuPont Country Club – “A great place to play terribly.” Lister Home, Waimate – “A friendly and caring place to be pronounced dead by an American doctor.” Crystal Body Deodorant – “Your only hope when BO meets persistent armpit rash.” GCFK Insurance – “Be very, very careful as we probably don’t cover that.” Online and iPod TV viewing - “Why watch TV shows on your new, expensive TV when you can watch them more slowly on a tinier and blurrier screen?” The Weak American Dollar - “One more reason to avoid contact with the rest of the world.” Dilettantes and Cynics – “What is out there worth knowing a lot about? Seriously.” Attention Surplus Disorder (ASSDis) – I hope I can find others who “suffer” with this blessing/curse so I can listen to them intently while also reading a magazine and watching the game.

Thanks again to my parents for all they did and do to make my life possible, my hosts in my travels (The Thorntons and Longs in NZ; D. Metzer, the Pellers and the Morehouses), K. Cooper for getting in touch, and especially Greg and Kathy Wright and Jim Roberson for coming to New Zealand and being a part of my best vacation ever.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Your Lenten Penance

February 17, 2015

Your Lenten Penance

I was inspired by a meeting with an old friend last evening to supply you, free of charge, a suitable, church-approved Lenten penance that could replace any other sacrifice during those 40 days. Ideally, you should read a little of this every day during Lent, but, if I were you, I would read it all now and then reflect on it later on a daily basis until the glories of Easter (at least). This friend takes my annual holiday/end of the year letter and reads it over Lent as his own penance, and he recommended I send that letter out at the beginning of Lent so others might do the same. This is my idea, which is way better than his, as are most of my ideas (the rest are only better).

Your first penance: you will read a brief account, as I understand it, of the life of the friend I met as well as one of my many humorous stories recounting a few of his numerous eccentricities .

Vincent Seiwert graduated from Notre Dame University with a degree in English and a plan to be a teacher. He moved to northern Maine (Aroostook County) for his first job but quickly became disillusioned with teaching and his fellow teachers and instead became a lumberjack. He eventually bought land of his own and worked it as an independent lumberman until, in one of those uniquely American life twists, he went to medical school and did a year of internship before being stationed at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia where he worked in the Emergency Room of the small hospital and met me for the first time in August of 1993.

Sometime during my first year there, some of the doctors and a few of the P.A.s decided to rent a motor home and go to the Florida gulf coast to deep sea fish. Vince got the motor home and did all the driving, obeying the speed limits at all times. Space was tight for sleeping; I spent the first night in the area above the driver’s seat not sleeping right next to a flight surgeon with our heads adjacent to each other’s feet. Vince planned to pitch a tent on the roof of the motor home and spend the night up there in a sleeping bag. During the night there was a ferocious thunderstorm with high winds; turns out the roof of a motor home is not the ideal spot in such weather, and Vince relocated to the deep grass underneath the motor home for the rest of the night.

If you are even remotely human, that is not enough penance. Many of you are familiar with the Catholic tradition of giving up meat on Fridays in Lent. I give up “meat,” meaning chicken/beef/lamb/pork almost every day because it is unquestionably the best way to live. I read recently there are no legal standards at all for contamination in chicken parts, and chicken breasts are allowed to be contaminated with Salmonella up to 50% of the time and still considered safe for sale. The USDA essentially assumes chicken will be contaminated with potentially deadly infections and the buyer must be the one responsible for avoiding any illness by preparing it properly, or purchasing it after it has been properly prepared.

More penitential thoughts on meat eating: From “Meatonomics” – “As a nation, American consume more meat per person than anywhere else on the planet.” “compared to plant protein, raising animal protein takes up to one hundred times more water, eleven times more fossil fuels, and five times more land.” “For every dollar in retail sales of meat, fish, eggs and dairy, the animal food industry imposes $1.70 of external costs on society (external costs are pollution, waste, energy consumption, food poisonings, etc. Ed.) . You may know that livestock/future meat produces about 9% of the greenhouse gases in the US and 14% worldwide.

In addition to meat avoidance, Lent is also traditionally a time when Christians contemplate the suffering of Jesus, from His life of humble poverty to His crucifixion, which may have fulfilled the will of God but by all accounts was a miscarriage of justice.

Penitential quotes on suffering and injustice

Oscar Wilde, all from the brilliant must read, De Profundis:

“(Wordsworth said – ) suffering is permanent, obscure and dark and has the nature of infinity.”

“Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little always share.”

“Society takes upon itself the right to inflict punishment on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realize what it has done. When the man’s punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins. It is really ashamed of ifs own actions, and shuns those whom it has punished, as people shun a creditor whose debt they cannot pay, or one on whom they have inflicted an irreparable, an irredeemable wrong.”

“Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.”

Ta Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic Monthly: “(We need to have) a broader understanding of black poverty as the product of public policy and private theft facilitated by racism. The belief that blacks have been given too much is made possible by the refusal to countenance how much was actually taken away in the first place.”

From the New Yorker: “Why have we become a nation that’s just obsessed with punishment? The reason is that we’ve become a fearful nation. The people that were once free and brave are so afraid of something bad happening to them. They’re attracted to politicians who say, ‘I will be tough on crime.’ And if a politician promises to be tough on crime he’s got to have something to show for it.”

To truly understand the world, we need to see how people live, get by on a daily basis, and how different the experience of life is for the poor in contrast with even the modestly wealthy. That is a better and more useful challenge than giving up chocolate for 40 days.

2014 Version

December 5, 2014

What to do with the 26th of 27th version of my year end, holiday letter, something that started out as a mockery of the form, subsumed most of its annoying characteristics, and has survived from being typed (on a typewriter!) to being emailed? Some change is in order, but certainly not wholesale change.

First, a big change: far less politics/religion/rants. I just built a website where I am posting all that, for when you are thinking, “This world is a crazy place. What is the least crazy way to think about it? Or, I’d rather read something reliably funny.” Currently there are a number of humorous things I’ve written over the years, some ideas about sports, the article I sent some of you about my last trip to India (no pix), and one article about violence, with lots of photos. I hope if you go to it you will be endlessly entertained, bemused, and, sometimes, infuriated. The address, and please go there, bookmark it, and share it with everyone you can, is

http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com

There is also a way to subscribe so any new posts would come to your email directly at the bottom of each page. You may be able to just subscribe to one of the options IF I set them up correctly.

The year in recap is retained. I started out in New Zealand in Waimate, and I celebrated my 50th birthday there (the locals had lovely parties for me, including red velvet cake). I got back to the states the end of March and had a short break before starting a job in Philipsburg, PA, about 100 minutes from Danville. It was a terrible job with some fun people who made the best of it (I have fun wherever I am). Somehow I made it through August before another short break and a job even closer to Danville, in Lewisburg and Milton (much better jobs, not as much fun).

It was a great (and expensive!!) year for travel. I got around to the best spots in New Zealand again (except, sigh, Banks Peninsula). My go-to travel buddies, the resilient Greg and Kathy Wright, met me in Melbourne and trusted a little over a week of their lives to me. We had a great time in Melbourne and also took the Spirit of Tasmania on an overnight voyage (in rough seas) to Tasmania, a unique island with a lot to see and do (oh, kangaroos – do you miss my excellent scratching?). In early July I flew to the Dominican Republic with my sister Kelly and her family for a relaxing week with pleasant weather at a resort in Punta Cana. Also in July we had a family week at the Keuka Lake cottage that went well (I also went up there for two other solo weekends full of physical activity). During my break in September, I flew to Bermuda to visit the Wakely’s and their new dog, Dougal. They really showed me a great time, including the Coconut Rocket. After landing in Philly, I drove to Silver Spring and stayed with the Brunsell-Greitzers en route to Roanoke, VA to spend 5 days with the Wrights. This letter will go out before another big trip: to Patagonia to hike Torres Del Paine National Park with my nephew, Andrew. I will send out a supplement about that trip, which should put the O’ in awesome. Other adventures: my sister, Candace, and I went to Camelback Mountain Adventures to zip line, ride a mountain coaster and do a treetop obstacle course in October, and I went with Kelly, Mike and Carlie Mills to a minor league hockey game. Candace and I saw James Taylor in concert late on the 1st of December, the eve of her birthday.

Golf: I played in 4 countries and joined Frosty Valley Country Club in Danville for the year under their discount plan. I played as much as I could (even when just above freezing) but never got good (though some signs of life near the end of the year). I also got new clubs after selling most of them in N.Z. – they did help.

Health and Fitness: I am getting better at being a vegetarian and avoid dairy as much as possible (google D-galactulose), but it is hard to avoid cheese and milk yogurt (soy yogurt is not very good). I lost about 10 pounds from March to August and am in fantastic shape at the moment, with my weightlifting coming around as I am almost over every possible kind of elbow tendinitis one can get. Since I turned 50, I thought I would start running some races again, having not wanted to compete in running other than against myself for decades. I ran 3 half-marathons, including a rugged trail one, and ran a relay leg in a bike-kayak-run triathlon. I was quite pleased with how well I did and how I handled each one (I won my age group in the trail race) and look forward to getting better yet, or at least staving off the inevitable decline. For now, I can say no one trains like I do, and it is hard to argue with the results.

HUMOR

Quips I had loaded up but never used in 2014:

a. I’m moderately hairy, about like a Berwick middle-schooler. Oh, only a male one, though.

b. I’m not much of an egg eater, but if you’re giving those “range eggs” away for “free”, I’ll take a few.

c. What’s the most scoops anyone has eaten at one time this year? I’ll have one more than that.

d. “I’m the humblest man in the world!” I might have actually said that once or twice.

e. There are 3 kinds of drivers when it comes to runners and bikers: the first go out of their way to keep things safe; the second (blessedly small, but it only takes one) are hostile and willing to endanger us; the third are so busy texting or talking on their phone they don’t notice either way.

Quips I did use in 2014: to some extent, you had to be there…..

a. “I dress for the weather I want, not the weather I have.” Uttered at the first tee, temperature 52F, wearing short sleeved shirt and shorts in April (it got warm quickly and I was fine).

b. “It has a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Eh, it doesn’t really matter, they can always randomly change it.” In response to a co-worker’s mispronouncing “arboretum” as “arbitrarium”

Food Innovations that haven’t caught on (yet):

1. Steamed grapes, 2. Poached Python, 3. Freshly Thrown Tomatoes, 4. Curried Calf Calves, 5. Death by Gluten Cake, 6. Organic Spam, 7. Wilted Meat Loaf, 8. Alaskan King Roach Legs, 9. Whale Oiled Kale, 10. Sun dried Mountain Oysters

Most Annoying Images/Memories of 2014

10. Snap hook into the trees (various holes), 9. Guy juggling while running beating me for the first 10 miles of half marathon (I finally got past him), 8. Hundreds of prescription refills in my Philipsburg inbox, 7. Augusta National choosing a war criminal as its first female member, 6. Thousands (?) of returning American citizens in line at immigration in San Francisco airport, 5. Tripping and falling hard in the last mile of my first half marathon of the year, 4. People staring at their phones, 3. Ebola hype, 2. Running in the dark. 1. People staring at their phones at the gym sitting on equipment I want to use (would easily be all ten if I let it).

Music in 2014:

LIVE: REM “Live at the Olympia” Recorded in 2007, it has rousing versions of some of their oldest songs (still the best music to dance to). Bob Mould “Live at ATP 2008”; Against Me “Americans Abroad” – punk-ish. NEW BANDS: Surfer Blood “Pythons” – check out “Demon Dance” and “Phantom Limb”; Against Me “Trangender Dysphoria Blues” – groundbreaking song cycle about the singer/guitarist’s struggle with his/her gender identity. “***KMYLIFE666” and “Paralytic States” are worthy; Satellite “Calling Birds”; Liam Bailey “Definitely Now”; Twin Peaks “Wild Onion” OLD FAVES: Stephen Malkmus “Wig Out at Jagbags”; Roddy Woomble “Listen to Keep”; The Fratellis “We Need Medicine”; Bob Mould “Beauty and Ruin”; The Pixies “EP2”; Van Wagner “Fringe”; Damien Rice “My Favorite Faded Fantasy”

On turning 50: I am in spectacular health for my age, but still, being 50 has had me thinking, like so many others, about how much time I have left, what I want to do with that time, and what might do me in. I definitely feel the finiteness of my existence, and though aging has affected my abilities in obvious ways to me, I feel like this may be the best I’m going to be. I am not as strong or as smart as I was, but I am wiser, have a lot more money, and retain an enormous amount of energy, endurance, self-confidence, and self-discipline. I am functioning on a daily basis much closer to my limits (though still not very close to them). My motto, at least to myself, the past years has been, “My life is not about me.” I’d have to say it is about me more now than I would like; I have not been able to find an outlet for my penchant to help others much beyond giving money away the past few years and being a caring and attentive physician when I work. It is very interesting to be at this point in life when I didn’t think I would last this long. I hope the world will eventually be better for having me around even though, like the billions before me, I will be dust soon enough.

A young man with whom I worked told me he was rewarding himself amidst a busy day with a McDonalds milkshake. It prompted me to wonder why we so often “reward” ourselves with things that are bad for us: getting really drunk after a promotion or a victory, going out late, eating something unhealthy, etc. Instead, we should resist all the propaganda and simply go to bed early to give our stressed bodies the rest they need and stay away from crappy food – the Terry O’Rourke celebration.

BOOKS 2014: FUNNY: Coyote V. Acme and Dating Your Mom by Ian Frazier; One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B. J. Novak THOUGHT-PROVOKING: Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by Jon Ronson (the English journalist takes on an eclectic assortment of overlooked outrages); The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill LePore (the solid gold New Yorker writer’s essays on early America in all their amusing glory); 1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann (A treasure. Our predecessors on this continent were hardly primitive); OUTRAGES: Children of the Poor Clares: The Collusion Between Church and State that Betrayed Thousands of Children in Ireland’s Industrial Schools by Heather Laskey and Mavis Arnold (how Church run schools/orphanages used state support to mistreat and exploit desperate and needy children); Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much by David Robinson Simon (Your worst fears of Industrial Food Production realized – it is destroying everything in its path, thousands of meat eaters at a time, with tenacious government support); Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield by Jeremy Scahill (the secret U.S. military actions causing tremendous disruptions in the most fragile societies all over the world – see the much shorter movie of the same name for a quick mind blowing). CHARMING: Jeanne D’Arc: Her Life and Death by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant (a delightful retelling of the life of the (2nd?) greatest person who ever lived – my second biography of Joan); Escape Velocity - all the writing of the legendary humorist and reporter Charles Portis the editor could find, from his no-nonsense reporting at the frontlines of the civil rights movement to his droll travel writings and everything in between. I also reread Norwood and Masters of Atlantis by Mr. Portis while working in Philipsburg, two of the funniest novels written in the past century; Break it Down: Stories by Lydia Davis (one of the most original stylists of our time).

Odds and Ends: On one trip from Philipsburg to Danville, with a helping wind, I got 57.6mpg in my clean diesel Jetta (driving only 68mph). I have now prayed a rosary every day for over 8 years. I have health insurance for the first time since my air force days – a minimalist policy I didn’t use at all and bought at healthcare.gov. I still don’t need reading glasses. A reminder to check out the Terence O’Rourke channel on youtube – especially after I return from Patagonia.

Thank yous: as always to Terence and Sandra O’ for letting me stay with them, doing my laundry at times, handling my mail, feeding me, and especially for almost never making meals with meat the last three months (she made some really good things); Greg and Kathy Wright for their high Terry Tolerance and good attitudes; The B-Gs for their ready hospitality; the Wakely’s for all they did to make my visit nice and their ego-boosting emails; Candace, for helping when I took my mom to Pittsburgh and being motivated to try some new things; the Ricottas for feeding me (pesto!), Kelly and Mike for including me, and Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mike for pre-trip lodging. I can’t live my unusual life without your help.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and an even better 2015!

Terry O’Rourke, tlojrmd@gmail.com, 570-238-2084

2013 Version

December 5, 2014

I write this again from New Zealand; I got asked to come back in July and got here on September 30th. I started the year on a brief vacation, including a trip to Roanoke, then worked in Shrewsbury, PA until March. A few days after finishing that job, I found my way to JFK and flew to India for the second time, this time to Delhi (15hr direct flight) where I met Aby and Shoba Philip for a fantastic 10 day trip to the sights around Delhi (The Amber Fort (!!), The Red Fort, Taj Mahal, Armritsar), then flew with them to Chennai for a great finish. I doubt I will go back, but if you have a chance to go there with someone from India, don’t miss it. It is a fascinating ancient culture (I wrote a humorous travel article about my time there I will be happy to email you – it is long). I had a week to recover and then left with Greg and Kathy Wright on an eagerly anticipated trip to Iceland. Iceland gets 5 stars: super nice people (way nicer than New Zealand), spectacular landscapes and features, beautiful women, good roads, and lots of hot springs and spas. You could have a great time there on a three-day weekend (it is small enough to see the highlights in one long day). I started a job in Norristown right after that until the end of June. I HATED THAT PLACE: My worst job since the Air Force. I was happy to be done and quickly left for Calgary, Alberta to visit Belayneh and Yenu Hailu, friends from my first year in Swaziland. Calgary is my kind of place, but I got sick the first day (see “Health”) and ruined both their and my vacations: they could not have been nicer. I did see the Calgary Stampede, a top-notch Dinosaur museum in the middle of nowhere, and made a day trip with them to Banff (I must return there!). I got back in time for my family’s week at the cottage on Keuka Lake, but I was still not right. I was so disappointed; my agenda that week had included attempting to burn a record amount of calories. I returned to Shrewsbury for the last 5 weeks of the summer (two worksites asking me back in one year – rock solid proof I am better than nothing). In September I returned to Roanoke before gearing up for my trip back to Waimate.

Things I miss while in New Zealand (other than all of you, well, most of you):

1. NFL Red Zone – I am growing more disenchanted with football in all its forms, but this is the best thing on TV – and no commercials, ever.

2. Daily Show/Colbert Report/Parks and Rec (they do have last year’s shows). They’re not as fun online where I can’t fast forward the commercials.

3. My Jetta! I am driving a Jaguar, but it gets about 16mpg, and gas is $7/gal.

4. Local on the 8s

5. Smoothly paved roads/limited access highways

6. Women with nice hair – and there are beauty salons everywhere!

Things I do get (I have a DVR and pretty fast internet)

1. The Late Show (Letterman) – not very good anymore, but familiar.

2. 3 NFL games a week (currently they also show an ESPN NFL radio show, two guys talking into mics, no highlights, scoreboards or anything, for 6 hours on Monday morning. Incredible – must get McEnroe ratings).

3. 1-3 College football games (usually Big 10 mismatches).

4. Al Jazeera (it is very good). I am surprised how much the 24 hour news channels here focus on sports, or what they think are sports. I’m talking to you, cricket, darts, netball, and lawn bowling.

“____________” are for pussies*.

1. Golf pull carts/trolleys

2. Hairs on top of the head

3. Car seat warmers

4. “Mild” or “medium” spicy meals

5. Leaf and/or snow blowers

6. Handguns and assault rifles

7. Statins

8. Take home boxes at restaurants

9. Tea breaks

10. Personal trainers

11. Steak knives

* Ed. note: I am aware that “pussies” may not be the greatest word to have in a holiday letter, but it is funnier than its synonyms.

Health: Great start to the year and was running very well in the cold, but then I got influenza in late February (I had a fever for 8 days and missed an unheard of 3 days of work). I pushed myself hard while I was in Norristown, but I got a terrible case of food poisoning after eating a salad (Cyclospora?) at the Newark Airport en route to Calgary. It took about 5 horrible days for the wide variety of symptoms/plagues to lessen, but it also seemed to damage my muscles for a longer time. I eventually was able to resume my prodigious workout regimen and put up with occasional aches and pains. Before I left for New Zealand, I had a few days where I ran early, walked 18 holes carrying my bag, walked to the gym and worked out for an hour and then kayaked in the Susquehanna River for 45 minutes (also dragging the kayak to and fro).

I’ve spent the majority of my life living alone, and I have a few “habits.”

1. I like to have a fan blowing during the night for white noise, but as soon as I get up I can’t stand the sound and rush to turn it off.

2. I have a lot of different shoes and set up a changing area everywhere I go.

3. I like a big bowl to eat cereal, and I often have to improvise; currently I am using a metal dog dish.

4. I never cook a meal that requires anything other than a fork to eat it.

5. In order to save on buying tissues, I let incompletely used ones drape on the tissue box until I have used all the space.

6. As those of you who spend time with me know, I have a high tolerance for my own clutter. Though everything has its place, that place might be on the arm of the couch. It is all about efficiency (why put it away if you can keep it right where you need it?).

7. I rarely clean (except in the kitchen) or vacuum. I don’t like the person at the hotel coming in to clean the room, either.

Music: Nothing stole my heart. Good rockers were Idlewild “Post Electric Blues”; The Joy Formidable “Wolf’s Law”; Dinosaur Jr. “I Bet on Sky”; The Pixies “EP1”; best Alterna-Pop were The Naked and Famous “In Rolling Waves” and Grouplove “Spreading Rumours”; Folk Rock – Grant-Lee Phillips “Walking in the Green Corn”, Son Volt “Honky Tonk”, The Avett Brothers “Magpie and the Dandelion”, and Mark Knopfler “Privateering”; and best nostalgia: The Who “Quadrophenia (Super Deluxe Edition)”and “Tommy (super deluxe edition)”, REM “Green” (remastered - meh) with “Live in Greensboro” (the reason to get it)”, The Replacements “Songs for Slim”, The Wonderstuff “Oh, No, It’s…The Wonderstuff!”, and the priceless reunion of Grant Lee Buffalo “Live at the Royal Festival Hall”.

Reading/Books: I suffered the heartbreak of my Kindle (keyboard), my most valuable companion of the last 3 years, breaking on my flight to New Zealand (with 7 hours to go to Auckland). With that I lost the ability to play Scrabble against a computer, play a great word scramble game, and do hard NY Times crosswords electronically. I got a not-as-good replacement (new, basic) sent quickly and shifted all I hadn’t read to it. Books I read: Copies in Seconds, David Owen (always solid gold); Lamentations of the Father and The Cursing Mommy’s Book of Days Ian Frazier (very funny); Lincoln at Gettysburg and Why Priests? Garry Wills; The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power….. John Thavis; Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Reza Aslan; The King of Sports: Football’s Impact on America Gregg Easterbrook; The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy (new version); the best book I read by far - I cannot recommend it enough - was Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser. On a more frivolous note, I also just completed Dr. J: The Autobiography, a surprisingly well (ghost) written life story of one of my basketball heroes.

My faith continues to be challenged, particularly by three of the books (I had to laugh at a reviewer of Why Priests who pointed out that the ideal church Mr. Wills was talking about already existed. It was called the Episcopal Church). An intellectual grappling with his or her faith is a cliché by now, so I am far from unique. I am closer at this point to the beliefs of the older Tolstoy (he followed the moral teachings of Jesus devoutly but no other dogma after getting kicked out of the Orthodox Church) than Pope Francis (who may yet make a big difference and win me back). I go to Mass weekly and continue to pray the Rosary every day (haven’t missed a day in 7 years), but mostly because I don’t know any better way to show devotion to a God I still believe in. One of the stories of The Decameron has a Jew wanting to convert to Catholicism. A worried friend told him he should go to Rome and see how the clergy there acted before he converted. He returned and told his friend the clergy and church hierarchy were terrible, hypocritical people, but that made him want to convert even more because any church that could survive that was full of the Holy Spirit and was the church for him (I do not agree with that position).

Words we should all try to use less (and my recommended substitutes):

1. Amazing (astonishing, astounding, tingling) 2. Awesome (sequoiac) 3. Cool (Icelandic), 4. Dude ( )

Driver’s Seat Philosopher, 2013: I was driving in annoying traffic on the PA turnpike when it occurred to me how much I am held up by other people in my life. It’s not just bad drivers, but credentialing, licensing, visas, etc. I thought about how much I’d have accomplished otherwise: how many countries I would have worked in or traveled to, how many people I might have helped (not that I am that much help, but…). I don’t think I want to be treated as special (indeed, some of the obstacles serve the purpose of protecting patients from the incompetent, though so far I have not been in that group much). Instead I wish everyone had the obstacles holding him or her back minimized. So, I guess what came out of this is I am going to try not to be the obstacle in my way and be more patient in dealing with the things out of my control that slow me down (I am much less patient than when I was younger).

I will be 50 January 29th, 2014 (I think it’s hard to believe, but most people who guess my age already have me there). I say that to solicit cards and letters (but not presents) to keep me company in Waimate (It is lonely here. Please, if you don’t mind, send your holiday cards to me here as well – it is only about $.50 more and about 7 days to get here ;). In coming to New Zealand again I had to give up a planned trip to Patagonia to hike and run as my birthday treat, and I still hope to do something special (involving hiking and running) in New Zealand instead in January. George Orwell said when a man reaches 50 he has the face he deserves. Except for its relative mole-iness, I’d have to say I’ve done well. I have gotten things looking about as good as they can at least twice this year and hope to do so again in NZ. I am not sure what drives me to be in the best shape I can be in (within reason – and I am reasonable above all), but I keep going with it. May it serve some greater purpose.

My Waimate address:

Oak House Medical Centre

161 Queen St.

Waimate 7924, New Zealand

Thank yous : As always to my parents for putting up with me (more assets than debits), taking me to airports, providing free golf and food, and not getting too jealous at how much more the dog likes going for walks with me; my brother for getting and sharing a kayak with me; Greg and Michael for having my brother and me to one of the nicest weddings I’ve seen and allowing me to stage my India trip from their Manhattan loft; Greg and Kathy Wright for being willing to travel with me and have me to their home whenever I can come; Aby and Shoba – sorry I missed you in the US, but that trip was great! Thanks for setting it up. And for letting me visit: The Hailus, The Brunsell-Greitzers, Mike Guro, Joe Hoffmeier, the Heathcotes, and in advance to Selwyn and Sue Long for having me for Christmas.

All the best for the rest of the year, all the holidays, and 2014!

Terry O’

2012 Version

December 5, 2014

Happy Holidays!

I started 2012 in Waimate, New Zealand and quickly left for Coromandel, a pleasant little town on the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula of the North Island of New Zealand, due east of Auckland. I had a very pleasant month there staying in a retirement village and getting in what sight seeing I could, include a great hike along the stunning Coastal Walkway. I left Coromandel by ferry near the end of January and met Greg Wright in Auckland. From there we departed for Australia, landing in Sydney the next day. After a few days there (a great city), we headed north into the tropics and Cairns. It was a muggy change from NZ, but they at least had AC. We snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef (a 5-6 foot black-tipped reef shark swam near me), toured the rain forest (“No worries, too easy…”), but didn’t swim at most beaches: box jellyfish (everything can kill you in Australia). From there we did a great whip through the south island of NZ, hitting all my favorite spots for another week and then headed home.

I started a job in Rocky Mount, NC a week later, effectively avoiding winter. There are worse places than Rocky Mount. I had a quick trip to Atlanta for a small-scale USAF reunion in April, a great week in California (first time ever there) in June with the Smiths (Charles, Kerry and Parker), with a few days in Yosemite and a few in Sequoia National Park They are both truly awesome places, and the weather was the same: not a single cloud in the sky for 6 days. In July I spent a week at our summer cottage with the family, and then on Aug. 24th I was released from Rocky Mount.

My first major action was to buy a new car. I wanted a clean diesel Jetta or Golf, and used are hard to find, so I had to pay just a bit less than I spent on the scholarship last year for a Jetta TDI (white) with 6 speed manual. It is a great car and the fuel economy is amazing. I started an easy job on the west shore of the Harrisburg area in late September, working as the employee physician for Highmark Insurance. I will be there through the end of the year, so I will be able to spend some time in Danville, visit my local friends, and be around for the holidays without much travel.

This year’s preoccupation, if there was one, was writing letters speaking truth to power (however limited). It started as 2011 drew to a close and I wrote the District Health Board in Timaru, New Zealand about their system, its problems, and their treatment of general practitioners. Along with my yearly donations to the Catholic Church in Danville, I took the opportunity to voice my displeasure with many ongoing problems in Catholicism to my parish priest. Once I got to North Carolina, I was bombarded with demagoguery from the pulpit about the impending referendum on same-sex marriage, which prompted a 6 page letter to the Bishop of Raleigh. I followed that with a letter to the local priest about his continued distortions as he relentlessly preached about religious freedom, specifically his freedom to impose his religion on everyone else. I closed the protest letter year with one to the Composite Medical Board of Georgia demanding they inactivate my medical license there in protest of their new anti-immigration laws. Of note, only one of these missives drew a response: the letter to the District Health Board in New Zealand. I did recently receive a generic letter about renewing my license from GA, and they want to charge me $200 to inactivate my license – guess I will drop them completely. I was not always complaining: I wrote a nice letter to Coach Bill O’Brien at Penn State this week.

Music Update: I bought several worthy albums, my three favorites being the delightfully melodic The Avett Brothers “The Carpenter”; The hook-laden rock of The Gaslight Anthem “Handwritten”; and, from New Zealand, the anthemic rock of Midnight Youth “World Comes Calling”. Just below those are Bob Mould “The Silver Age”; Grouplove “Never Trust a Happy Song”; The Joy Formidable “The Big Roar”; Our Lady Peace “Curve”; Soul Asylum “Delayed Reaction”. Two huge favorites who had substandard but still very worthy albums were Fiona Apple “The Idler Wheel…..” and Todd Snider “Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables”; Quirky but nice music from Esperanza Spalding “Radio Music Society”; Of Monsters and Men “My Head Is an Animal”; Van Wagner “The Flood Sessions” and Jack White “Blunderbuss”.

Travel: After Greg Wright and I got back in New Zealand, we did the following in 7 days: All day walk of the Fox Glacier; Canyoning in Wanaka; kayaking in Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound (I performed a unique double, swimming briefly in both – quite cold despite it being summer); Bungy Jumping, Sky Swinging, and Street luging in Queenstown; hiking and running near Mt. Cook, and an aerial tour of the southeast coast of the island courtesy of Crispin Langston (our two bodies served as his extra weight flight training). Greg did a serviceable job accompanying me as I gave him a good taste of traveling “Terry Style”: up early to run, all day adventure, drive to next town/city, dinner, bed, repeat. Our time in Australia was more relaxed than that (and included prettier women).

While in North Carolina, in addition to the trips noted above, I hiked and ran in the Uwharrie National Forest, in Boone and Grandfather Mountain, and made three trips to Roanoke, VA (and still the Wrights wanted more). I made one solo trip to Keuka Lake to do some trail running and kayaking over Labor Day weekend, a three day weekend venture to Pittsburgh to see Andrew and Kelsey O’Rourke and run in Schenley Park, twice took Amtrak to New York City from Harrisburg for a weekend visit to Greg and Michael’s (I threw in a night as a bodyguard in Bushwick the first time), one of them in celebration of my sister Jennifer’s 50th birthday. I did a zombie run the 27th of October, which was very muddy fun.

Fitness and Health: after a miserable 2011, I turned it around in 2012. I am sure time alone helped my knee, but I left little to chance and developed, with the help of a few physiotherapists and study, a quite good, though time intensive, routine of running and leg exercises that have my knee back to essentially normal function. I do some “sprinting” 3 days a week and have done quite a few runs over 10 miles without problems. I am still careful not to overdo it, and I continue to buy and use many types of shoes (current faves Altra Zero Drops) and go to the gym otherwise on a regular basis; I am looking pretty good even though I operate on the assumption I am not vain - just making good use of my time and being healthy with the bare minimum of posing.

Books: I read a lot about Russia – it is a weird place - and lots of nonfiction. Good to great ones: Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels; Travels in Siberia by the amusing and insightful Ian Frazier; The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by the fearless Masha Gessen; The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress by the incendiary Chris Hedges; reread one of my all-time faves, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain (even better the second time); laughed as hard as I ever have alone while reading Stephen Colbert’s America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t (possibly the funniest book ever written); The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer (available free at his website – amusingly (yet somewhat terrifyingly) explains how the divides and conflicts in this country and elsewhere are the result of certain personal traits that can be reliably measured); and the most important book of the year and one we should be required to read: The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars by John Tirman. It is hard to imagine a better book about such a difficult subject.

Mr. Tirman’s book contained a passage that has haunted me and changed how I approach many things. It almost kept this letter to a brief few lines. He told of an interview with a soldier returned from Vietnam. This infantryman had done amazing things, seen horrible things, and he wanted to tell people about it when he got back, but he said he tried and “no one gave a damn.” It opened my eyes to how little people really cared about anything, even themselves and their own health, their families, neighbors, the needless sacrifices of soldiers, the horrible things governments do. It is particularly troubling to me, since I care a huge amount about everything that matters but meet apathy more often than I should. Why continue to bother? I can’t help myself – I am compelled. So, you get to keep reading.

Great quotes:

From Ambrose Bierce’s The Complete Devil’s Dictionary:

Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

Edible, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

John Tirman: “That American elites and the broader public do not seem to care much about innocent bystanders in the wars we begin is not really in dispute.” “that to the extent the American public reacts at all, it sees the civilian deaths, injuries, disease, and displacement as (if not “normal” in wartime) something the war zone population has brought upon itself.”

Anyone without his or her head in the ground had to be annoyed beyond tolerance by the election. The people in office changed little (possibly for the better), so not much accomplished there, but I see an encouraging rejection of magical thinking and big money and a reach instead for reasonability, something there has been too little of for too long in this country (see Bob Altemeyer, above). There is much hype about the impending budget and tax changes, and I hope the trends noted above will continue with a practical solution.

With that, I remind you that my tlorourkejr@pol.net email address is defunct in January, so from now on you must contact me, if you give a crap, at tlojrmd@gmail.com most likely the address from which you received this and a few photos. I started a video channel of my own on YouTube, called, originally, “Terence O’Rourke.” You can check them out – generally well-edited, cleverly captioned, and mercifully short. All the best in 2013!

Terry O’Rourke

Comedy Addendum:

The boy scouts got some bad publicity this year, and that was far from humorous, but there is still a need for young men to be mentored and for role models. If I started the “Terry Scouts”, these would be a few of my Merit Badges:

1. “Critical Thinking” – find and describe three non-miraculous events in the Bible that could not possibly have taken place as written (hint: you don’t need to go too far into Genesis.).

2. “Endurance” – average 6-7 hours of activity a day for 7 consecutive days.

3. “No Pain, No Gain” – finish two of the 1000 page plus (not large print versions) novels published before 1900, even if you don’t enjoy them (but you will….)

4. “Music” – find 10 albums by groups you’ve never heard of and listen to each of them at least 5 times.

5. “Spice” – order meals made “hot” at an Indian, Thai, Wings and Korean/Vietnamese restaurant. Finish them all.

6. “Humor” – watch 4 Colbert Reports (preferably recorded) and count every time he says something funnier than you could have come up with. This will take much longer than you think.

7. “Hydrology” – drink nothing but tap water for 1 year (can be filtered and chilled).