Dick Cheney's Tell-Tale Heart

I will discourage wagering among the ghouls, but I’m telling you that Dick Cheney looks like he’s about to croak. Have you seen his pressers lately? Between sentences he is laboring for breath and interrupting himself to partake of coughing jags. This world tour of his to promote waterboarding isn’t about national security – this is about Dick doing damage control immediately, to keep Dubya from blaming him for everything when he’s dead.





David Letterman seems to be thinking the same thing. Here’s a clip of Dave riffing on Dick’s labored breathing.



Ok, but in all seriousness? I listened to about nine minutes of his speech on May 21st. Between every sentence Dick is reaching hard for air. Clearing his throat. Coughing now and then. I thought about his health history and his notoriously bad heart.

Dick has been very outspoken against the Obama administration in the past few months. It used to be that members of a former presidential administration reserved their criticism of new presidents in books published a few years after leaving office. Not Dick – he has been extremely visible on news programs, to the point of becoming redundant.

In all of Dick appearances of late, he has sneeringly defended his point of view on torture and warns us about unknown, invisible evildoers, while implying that Obama isn’t man enough to handle them. Dick’s daughter, Liz, has jumped into the fray, accusing Pres. Obama of siding with terrorists. These commentaries have had a sense of urgency about them, mixed with righteous indignation.

When I hear Dick speak, I wonder how he would sound if he replaced the words “terrorist” and “enemies” with “heart disease” and “respiratory failure”. Is Dick’s struggle against terrorism and defense of torture symbolic of his failing health and the lengths he will go to for more time? I think so. I know what a man sounds like when his pulmonary system has betrayed him. I lost my father to COPD a few months ago, and perhaps I am reading too much into things. My Dad wanted more life and every detail seemed urgent to him. Sometimes he was arrogant about it. Time will tell if I am right or wrong about Dick, but he is certainly behaving like a man at the end of his world.

This is the last paragraph, where I should sew up the hem and offer goodwill to the Cheney family as a woman who had a very sick father, too, but I won’t. The only thing I can offer to the Cheney’s in the way of advice is to step away from the heat when the former Bush administration (and the Republican party) burns their father’s legacy in effigy to save their own hide. You ain’t seen the meaning the meaning of the word ugly yet.

U2 – Until The End Of The World

We Only Look Small

If an alien took a photograph of the Milky Way you and I would best be viewed in a microscope. Feeling small? Don’t, it would be a mistake. Cheer for the alien who had the inspiration to look closer. That person is going to help you make this life matter.

Yesterday I tried to write a blog about news I had missed while I was out of town. I never felt what I was writing because my mind has been settled on Olcott Beach and my father dying. I had this crazy idea that I should try and type something mainstream-ish in order to be a part of the on-line community. Like I used to. Much of my work is based on improvisation so I tried to react to the present. I’ve heard that it is important for grieving people to get back on track but I can tell you for certain that this process has a mind of its own and little regard for timetables and blog traffic.

The truth is that I want to wave at the alien with the microscope. Something important has happened in my life and I am eager to connect with other people. My experience is not unique; we’ve all been through things so why not go through it together? However, I have learned that everyone has an exclusive story that the big picture fails to show. We are as rare as our own fingerprints and not everyone has the time or patience for a better look. I’m making more time because I know better now.

If you’re wondering where I am going with this it has to do with torture. As many of you know, the US government has tortured some of the men accused of masterminding 9/11. This revelation has affected me.

I know what it is like to see a parent tortured and I can’t forgive my father’s doctor or his disease. I doubt I ever will. Likewise, those men in jail (as awful as they were) probably have children who will remember the inhumanity their parent endured. Torture perpetuates hatred. Real hatred, always echoing and violet in color, feels impossible to eliminate. For that reason alone I know that torture is never correct. Torture deflects humanity. It overcomes reasoning.

Compel yourself to take a closer look at the world. Decide that there are better ways to do things.

That One Time When My Father Died

The problem with trying to write something after my father’s death is not a lack of words. Rather, it’s been a struggle to figure out how much I can stand to say.

Thank you all for your condolences. Your kindness meant a lot to my family and me.


I spent seven weeks at Dad’s bedside and traveled back to Chicago for a few days. Dad’s situation changed dramatically within those few days and I had to turn around. Wouldn’t you know it – my flight was delayed and I was hung up at JFK for five of the longest hours of my life. My sister met me at Baggage Claim in the Buffalo airport shortly after midnight and I was waiting for my suitcase when a nurse called to tell us Dad was dying. I tried to urge the conveyor belt along with my boot heel (does not work) while Sister #1 called Sister #3 and told her to pick up our Mom. We made it to the nursing home at 1:05 AM, which was a late Saturday night or early Sunday morning depending on your point of view. From the entrance I could see my brother sitting in the family room and a nurse met me at the door. She pursed her lips and shook her head back and forth slowly. That is how I found out my father had died ten minutes earlier. He was still but warm when I went into his room.

Folks have asked me what happened to my father and how I’m doing. The best short answers are that he died of respiratory failure due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and I am going through the normal stages of grief.

Dad pre-arranged his funeral in March 1999, ten years to the exact month of his death. He picked out his headstone, too. It’s a polished black stone (“I can see my reflection in it!” he said), etched with the image of a fisherman flanked by two deer at a cabin on a lake.

Dad: Ain’t it purdy?
Mojo: Oh my God.

My father’s favorite decorating theme could be called “sportsman chic”. The stone compliments his deer rugs, the bear lamps in the living room and the stuffed trout that used to hang on the wall above the refrigerator. It is wonderfully terrible.