Birthday Announcer
February 16th, 2010It seems to me that there's an unspoken cultural code in the American Midwest, which subtly discourages the celebration of one's own birthday. One can celebrate a friend's birthday, whole-heartedly and unashamedly; but to celebrate one's own birthday by throwing oneself a party -- or even by simply informing other people, "Today is my birthday" -- is considered selfish and uncouth. Back in college, a friend of mine coined the term "Birthday Announcer" to describe the type of person who goes around proudly telling people that it's his birthday; and I knew exactly what he meant. There's just a certain perception about these things, back where I come from. Perhaps I'm overstating the American cultural position here, but it definitely seems like birthdays are meant to be held as some kind of loosely-kept secret.
The Dutch, on the other hand, are almost categorically "Birthday Announcers." Birthday parties are usually organized by the birthday celebrant himself (or herself), and it's even common for someone to bake or buy their own birthday treats to share with friends at work or in school. There's no shame in celebrating one's own birthday. And while it's taken me awhile to get used to the cultural shift, I have to say that there's something nice about the Dutch way of doing things. It makes sense, actually -- and it helps to alleviate any potential feelings of self-pity or disillusionment. Quite awhile ago, I started admiring the Dutch tradition of unashamedly serving as one's own "Birthday Announcer." But I've still had a hard time crossing that cultural barrier for myself...
Until this year.
I feel like it's a sign of my cultural integration that I'm finally going so far as step across the divide and become a "Birthday Announcer" myself. Indeed, I'm not only announcing my birthday (coming up on the 26th of February) -- but I'm also throwing my own party, together with two other friends who happen to share birthdays within a week of my own. This week, I sent out the following birthday invitation by e-mail...
Dear friends,
Once upon a time, there were three friends living in Amsterdam. They were different in many ways: one coming from the mountains of Colorado; one coming from the farmlands of Ohio; and one coming from the flatlands of Zuid Holland. But in other ways, they were the same: enjoying good food, good music, good stories, and good time together with friends. As fate would have it, their birthdays all fell within nine days of each other. So one day, they decided to celebrate their birthdays together, with a big party. They prepared all kinds of good food, good music, and good stories, and they invited their friends to celebrate with them in the heart of Old Amsterdam. And they lived happily ever after. The End.
OK. So that may not be the best story ever -- but it does get the point across that a very special Storytelling Triple-Birthday Extravaganza is being organized for Saturday, the 27th of February, starting at 19:00 at the [e-mail me or send me an e-mail if you really want to know the address, so I don't have to post it here as a matter of public record]… And you are hereby cordially invited to join us for the celebration! Patricia Flynn, Ariënne van Leussen, and Eric Asp are the hosts / birthday celebrants, and we are really looking forward to a great party. Like most parties, there will be time for simply chatting while sharing in drinks and snacks and birthday cake (remember: this is a party involving the baking talents of both Ariënne van Leussen and Marci Asp!). But in addition to this, we will also share in several rounds of storytelling. Not readings, like you might find at a typical open microphone event, but oral storytelling. Thus: no pre-arranged, carefully worded, written accounts, but rather spontaneous, random storytelling, like you might have heard around the fire 1000 years ago. The idea came from the Mezrab Cultural Café here in Amsterdam -- where people regularly gather to share myths, fables, legends, remembrances, and personal anecdotes -- and it seemed like a fun idea for a birthday party. Yes, of course, you could choose to share stories that involve the birthday celebrants (i.e. stories about Patricia, Ariënne, and/or Eric). But this is by no means the only type of story allowed. You could share an amusing story about something that happened to you on your way to the supermarket… or make up a legend about how the leopard got his spots… or tell a stylized version of a Bible story… or pass on a treasured family story about how your grandparents got married… The possibilities are nearly endless! The specific form of the evening will be determined by those of you who come to celebrate with us. We just want to spend time enjoying the company of good friends enjoying good stories.
So all that to say this: please mark your calendar for Saturday, the 27th of February, starting at 19:00 and going until late (towards the end of the festivities, there may even be some dancing!). If you wanted to bring a nice card or gift or bottle of something to drink, that would certainly be welcome. But more than anything, we hope that you will be able to come with your stories and be a part of the fun. We're looking forward to celebrating with you at the end of the month…
Patricia
Ariënne
Eric
And to show just how Dutch (and "Birthday Announcerish") I've become, I thought I might even go so far as to post the invitation (with the exception of the location information, to protect my friends' privacy) here on my blog, just to make sure that I haven't forgotten anyone. If you'd like to come and celebrate with us, please let me know and I'll supply you with the rest of the information. Forgive me, my Midwestern friends, if it seems that I've gone astray. I promise that, on this particular point, it's only one day of the year. :-)
This American Health Care
October 16th, 2009Marci got me started with listening to This American Life. It's a radio program, broadcast by Public Radio International (PRI). For the last couple of months, I've been downloading their weekly podcast and enjoying the program while I bike throughout Amsterdam. My main reasons for enjoying the program are its artistry and entertainment. Just plain good storytelling. But this week's episode about health care in the United States was not just entertaining and artistic (as usual), but also remarkably educational.
Health-care in the USA a very worn-out topic, but I feel that this piece covered it from some angles that I had never heard before. You'd have to hear the whole episode to know what I'm really talking about, but I was particularly intrigued by one anecdote from "Act 2" of the program.
It tells the story of a teenage girl who was in a minor car wreck. As a precaution, she was brought into ER, with her neck stabilized as a precaution against potential spinal injury. When the doctor on the scene performed some manual exams, he was able to determine that a fracture was extremely unlikely and that the girl was, in fact, not seriously injured. When the girl's father showed up, however, the doctor was confronted with a very different situation: "a very tall, very powerful figure who was very upset and spoke very loudly and he also happened to mention that he was a lawyer and that there would be consequences for anyerror that we made." Basically, in spite of the physician's professional opinion, the teenaged girl's father demanded not just an x-ray but a CAT scan, which involves significantly greater cost and greater exposure to radiation. As the doctor explained on the program, the dangers that an otherwise healthy girl would face by taking an unneccessary CAT scan could eventually result in not just trivial harm, but "important harm" (for example, a greater risk of thyroid cancer later in life). But the father persisted in his aggressive tactics, insisting on a CAT scan. Again, the doctor was 99.9% sure that a CAT scan would be more harmful than beneficial to the patient, but he was faced by a dilema that he was suddenly able to articulate to the patient's father, like an epiphany, as he explained to him below:
"You know, for me it really is the right thing to do the CAT scan. If I don't do the CAT scan, you're probably going to lodge a complaint about me; if I do the CAT scan, you're going to be really happy with me. In addition, I'm almost certain that your daughter is fine; but there's a, maybe, one in a million chance that she isn't, that there really is a hidden factor and I'm missing it. If that's the case, then the CAT scan will save my butt. On the other hand, if I do the CAT scan and your daughter gets a cancer, maybe 20 years from now, no one will blame me. In addition, I'm spending a lot of time talking to you here that I need to be going and doing other things. If I got the CAT scan, I could do it in a second. It would be done with; it would be easy. Finally, the really strange thing is that I'll get paid more if I do the CAT scan. With the way that bills are made, you get paid more for more complex patients. The insurance companies of the world think that it proves that the patient was more complex and more difficult if you had to do a CAT scan! So everything about this was pushing me to do the CAT scan. There's only one problem: which is that when I decided to become a doctor, I made a pledge. And the pledge was that I would put my patients' interests in front of my own interests. In this case, my judgment was that it was not in my patient's interest to do the CAT scan, and therefore I can't do it."
Eventually, the father of the daughter from the car accident elected not to press the issue further, and the doctor's judgment stood. But the whole situation dramatically illustrated many of the problems facing health care in the United States of America.
I've run across many of these same dilemas, first-hand, since moving to the Netherlands and experiencing a different health care system. To be honest, the Dutch system has often frustrated me, the disgruntled American patient. But I've been learning about how things can be done differently. And the above-mentioned broadcast helped to make things even more clear. Perhaps you'd be as interested in listening to it as I was.
Petting the President
July 6th, 2009I saw this photograph on the The Big Picture, and I was so moved by it that I thought I'd post it here as well (with its original caption copied beneath).
President Obama bends over so the son of a White House staff member can pat his head during a family visit to the Oval Office May 8, 2009. The youngster wanted to see if the President's haircut felt like his own. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Now I'm not totally ga-ga over Barack Obama, like many others. I have genuine issues with some of his policies -- but I really respect him as a person (at least what I know of him). And it's especially meaningful to see the way that his life offers significant hope for future generations of African-Americans.
Boreham on Lincoln
March 22nd, 2009After reading my post from last week about my admiration of Abraham Lincoln, my friend Marco (a Dutchman) sent me an e-mail with this text written at the turn of the 20th Century by Frank W. Boreham (an Englishman living as a missionary in Australia). I love the text itself -- as it fills in some of the missing pieces (about Lincoln's faith) from the biography that I've been reading -- but I also think it's cool to see how international the impact of Lincoln's life has been (even though he himself never set foot off of American soil). I hope you'll enjoy it, too.
* * * * *
Abraham Lincoln
by F.W. Boreham
The massive personality of Abraham Lincoln is like a granite boulder torn from a rugged hillside. Too gigantic to be localized. He bursts all the bounds of nationality and takes his place in history as a huge cosmopolite. As Edward Stanton so finely exclaimed, in announcing that the last breath of the assassinated President had been drawn, "He belongs henceforth to the ages!". He piloted the civilization of the West through the most momentous crisis of its history; and, in so doing, he established principles which will stand as the landmarks of statecraft as long as the world endures.
He was an immense human.... Some men arc far mightier than their achievement. What they do is great; but what they are is infinitely greater. Abraham Lincoln is the outstanding example of the men of this towering and gigantic cast. The world contains millions of people who know little of American history, and who have but the haziest notions as to the issues at stake in the Civil War, yet upon whose ears the name of Abraham Lincoln falls like an encrusted tradition, like a golden legend, like a brave, inspiring song.
In view of this, an analysis of the rise and progress of Lincoln's faith is particularly alluring. It divides itself into three distinct phases....
THE IRON AGE
Lincoln climbed Mount Sinai with Moses: That was how the Iron Age began. Abraham Lincoln's young mother died when he was barely nine. Her husband had to nurse her, close her eyes, make her coffin, and dig her grave. Abraham helped him carry that melancholy burden from the desolated cabin to its
lonely resting-place in the woods. He never forgot that mother of his. "All that I am," he used to say, "my angel-mother made me!" And the memory that lingered the longest was the thought of her as she sat in the old log-cabin teaching him the Ten Commandments. Many a time afterwards, when he was asked how he had found the courage to decline some tempting bribe, or to resist some particularly insidious suggestion, he said that, in the critical hour, he heard his mother's voice repeating once more the old, old words: "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before Me."
He treasured all through life her last words: "I am going away from you, Abraham, and shall not return. I know that you will be a good boy, and you will be kind to your Father. I want you to live as I have taught you, to love your Heavenly Father and to keep His commandments."
AGE OF CLAY
Lincoln climbed Mount Carmel with Elijah: That was how the Age of Clay -- the plastic age -- began. Elijah learned on Mount Carmel that his loneliness in the midst of unscrupulous foes mattered little so long as the God who Answereth by Fire was with him. Lincoln learned identically the same lesson when, in
1860, he'd left his old home at Springfield and turned his face towards Washington. It was for him the hour of destiny.
President McKinley has told us how, in that fateful hour, Lincoln received a flag from one of his admirals. On its silken folds he read, beautifully worked, the words: "Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: For the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so shall I be with thee."
The words inscribed on the flag became the keynote of this second phase of his experience. He regarded himself as a Man with a Mission. Indeed, he had two missions -- one immediate and one remote . The immediate mission was the preservation of the Union; the remote mission was the abolition of slavery. On both issues he was in deadly earnest; for either cause he was prepared to die. And he knew perfectly well that death was not improbable. Plots were laid to assassinate him before he could reach Washington. But he never wavered; the words on the flag were constantly in his mind. At every wayside station crowds gathered to greet him. And Dr. Hill points out that, in
addressing each of these groups, he declared emphatically that he was going forth in the name of the Living God....
Like Moses he would be clay in the hands of the divine Potter; and, by those Unseen Hands, he would be molded and shaped and fashioned. It is for this reason that I have called this second phase the Age of Clay. It is the plastic, pliable, formative period of Lincoln's inner life. Yet it is by no means the climax.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Lincoln climbed Mount Calvary with John: That was how the Golden Age began. But before Calvary comes Gethsemane; and certainly Lincoln passed through that Garden of Anguish. Mr. H.C. Whitney says that, during the war, Lincoln's companions would leave him by the fireside at night and find him still there -- elbows on knees and face in hands-when they came down in the morning. "Father," he would moan again and again, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" Late one Sunday night he called on Henry Ward Beechen, looking "so bowed with care, so broken by the sorrows of the nation, that it was difficult even to recognize him. A look of weariness had crept into his sunken eyes. "I think," he confided to a friend, "I think I shall never be glad again." Yet, as Dr. Hill points out, it was this discipline of suffering that rendered his faith irresistible and triumphant.
But how?
The greatest grief of his life was the death of his son. As the boy lay dying, Lincoln's reason seemed in peril. Miss Ida Tarbell has told the sad story with great delicacy and judgment. When the dread blow fell, the nurse and the father stood with bowed heads beside the dead boy, and then the nurse, out of her own deep experience of human sorrow and of divine comfort, pointed the weeping President to her Savior. The work that this private sorrow began, the public sorrow completed. Lincoln had long yearned for a fuller, sweeter, more satisfying faith. "I have been reading the Beatitudes," he tells a friend, "and can at least claim the blessing that is pronounced upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness." He was to hunger no longer. A few days before his death he told of the way in which the peace of heaven stole into his heart. "When I left Springfield," he said, not without a thought of the flag and its inscription, "I asked the people to pray for me; I was not a Christian. When I buried my son -- the severest trial of my life -- I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ." From that moment, Dr. Hill says, the habitual attitude of his mind was expressed in the words: "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" With tears in his eyes he told his friends that he had found the faith that he had longed for. He realized, he said, that his heart was changed, and that he loved the Savior. The President was at the Cross!
Happily, he lived to see the sunshine that followed the storm. He lived to see Peace and Union and Emancipation triumphant. His last hours were spent amidst services of thanksgiving and festivals of rejoicing. One of these celebrations was being held in Ford's Theater at Washington. The President was there, and attracted as much attention as the actors. But his mind was not on the play. Indeed, it was nearly over when he arrived. He leaned forward, talking, under his breath, to Mrs. Lincoln. Now that the war was over, he said, he would like to take her for a tour of the East. They would visit Palestine -- would see Gethsemane and Calvary -- would walk together the
streets of Jeru___!
But before the word was finished, a pistol shot -- "the maddest pistol -- shot in the history of the ages" -- rang through the theater. And he who had climbed Mount Sinai with Moses, Mount Carmel with Elijah, and Mount Calvary with John, had turned his pilgrim feet towards the holiest heights of all.
Abe is Awesome
March 13th, 2009
I've been reading a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." And I have to say that I've been freshly impressed by the character and personality of the 16th President of the United States of America.
Abraham Lincoln was a man who knew hardship. He grew up in complete poverty, with an abusive father and a mother who died when he was just nine years old. He was never afforded the advantages of formal education (he himself estimated that the entirety of his formal education -- all the way up until passing the Lawyers' Bar Examination in Illinois -- amounted to less than one year). He had to learn everything he learned strictly by self-study, snatched from any time he could get away from hard physical labor: splitting rails, piloting river boats, farming, whatever... He was the quintessential American Midwest Frontiersman.
And then, even when he started getting into practicing law and politics, he became something of a perennial loser. People enjoyed his story-telling ability and sense of humor (these were some of most consistent compliments of Lincoln, throughout his lifetime), but they didn't vote for him very consistently. He lost numerous local and state elections -- only succeeding in serving one term in the United States House of Representatives before being elected President. And even when he was nominated to head the Republican campaign in 1860, he was generally considered to be only the 3rd- or 4th-best candidate among the Republicans (they say Lincoln managed to capture the nomination by being the second-favorite of everyone, with little to create objections among the voters, when the other factions stuck stubbornly to their favorite candidates). He barely won the national election to the Presidency (because the South was united against his party's platform declaring that the spread of slavery into new territories must be stopped), and within months of being elected, roughly a third of the states seceeded from the Union (declaring themselves to be an independent country). And all of this was before he got elected!
Truly, Abraham Lincoln was intimately acquainted with hardship and difficulty.
But one of the adjectives most frequently used to describe Lincoln in "Team of Rivals" is magnanimous. Lincoln was gracious towards allies and antagonists alike. He dealt well with disappointments, defeats, and divisive personalities. He listened well, even when others were very caustic toward him. He had a firm personal policy against writing letters in a state of anger. He was a good and gracious loser. He exhibited extraordinary humility, but he rarely allowed himself to be swayed from his firm convictions.
It was ironic -- though appropriate -- that Lincoln was President during the time of the American Civil War.
The whole country was being torn apart by opinionated, stubborn, prideful factions. Not just the slave-holding states in the Deep South. There were also the "Border States" (like Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) who allowed for slavery but didn't want to secede from the Union and slave-holding states who only reluctantly joined the secession out of solidarity for their Southern brethren. And even among the "unified" Northern states -- even among the Republican party -- there were vast differences of opinion. Between the former members of the Whig Party and the former members of the Democratic Party (who had been united into the Republican Party because of their opposition to slavery). Between anti-immigration Americans (particularly set against Irish and German Catholics) and the immigrant populations themselves. Between radical abolitionists (who saw the abolition of slavery as the main objective of the Civil War) and moderate Unionists (who didn't really care about slavery, particularly out of deference to the Border States, but who felt that the preservation of the Union was the most important goal of the war). So as he prepared to take office in 1860-1861, Lincoln formed his cabinet from among representatives of all these various factions. And then, throughout the rest of his Presidency, Lincoln spent his time maintaining the delicate balance in his coalition and leading the country through its perilous period of coming of age.
Lincoln was truly a fascinating person. I think I'd like to be like Abraham Lincoln "when I grow up." Not necessarily becoming a President (or a politician of any kind) -- but someone fighting extremism, practicing grace and magnanimity, humbly following my convictions, and leading well.
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