Pitt biplane

Aloha!

Flew this yesterday with a friend at the controls. A couple of rolls -
it is a Pitt biplane for acrobatics. Gorgeous yes?

A two hour ride today. Stopped at the dock on the lake we think was
created by the 1906 earthquake. The San Andreas fault is right here
and less then a mile from my house.

It always bothers me that Bush denied stem cell research 'to protect human life but then invaded Iraq. Hundreds of thousands Iraqi deaths, Americans die and he wants to protect human life? We contribute less than 1% of our national budget to foreign aid and he wants to protect human life?

Now at long last, the corrupt, idiotic and misinformed policies of the past will be consigned to the ash heap of history.

My Rejection by Medincines sans Frontieres

Aloha - I realized I had not written that Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors without Borders) had rejected my application. I flew back this last January (2009) and interviewed. I watched a very good half hour video of life in the field which resonated greatly with me. I was interviewed for another 45 minutes by one person who was a Water/Sanitation engineer and then given a chance to ask some questions. I left and heard from them approximately a month later that I was not considered. The letter was sloppily written (printed crookedly) and was a form letter consisting of three sentences.

I knew within the first ten minutes that she (the MSF interviewer) did not like me. It should not depend on that but there you have it. No panel interviewer, no interviewer that had anything to do with medicine or nursing. When asked for feedback, her response was to say, "We don't give personal feedback". Nothing? I asked? "Correct". Well, how about non personal feedback then? Her response was, 1) Learn French, 2) Get more management experience and 3) Get more developing country experience.

All good advice but difficult to get very quickly. As you may have guessed or wondered, she was French. I know the American's can be offensive but really, her attitude was horrible and very unprofessional. With the three things she said, they knew ALL of that before I ever went back to New York, even paying my own way! If that was the cause of my rejection then they should have rejected me and saved me a trip to NYC.

I am in touch with an MSF staffer in the field. She does not know French and was never told she MUST learn French. She also has Peace Corps experience.

All in all, it was an offensive experience to be treated without much respect or kindness. All organizations have their challenges and perhaps this is the best approach they have found over time. Nonetheless, I am not convinced as to its efficacy or professionalism.

My plan is to learn French as best I can, get more management experience and somehow get the developing country experience that is more fresh than my Peace Corps service some 23 years ago. I also am in touch with James Orbinson and hopefully he can put me in touch with someone in MSF that can independently review my qualifications. Even if rejected, it would be nice to know exactly why.

I am open to suggestions and constructive criticism. Thanks for reading.

David

Visitors from Hawaii!

John & Peni Gibbs, visiting from Hawaii. Among my closest friends on
this planet. We had a grand time!

Words upon a Distant Shore

I'll see thee upon a distant shore
Not of thine own imagining
Yet as real to me as you are to fate
Caught between the real imaginings.

Do not let the distance between us
Lessen the bonds of humanity
For those ties that bind
Give us our humanity.

David McCullough
February, 2009

Would Love be Mine Again?

Would love be mine again
And thou mine heart
Betwixt love and hate,
Sundered no more?

I would thee love again
If thine hate transformed,
Would'st renounce thy hate,
To hate all else
Cept it's own reflection.

So these words I scribe upon thine heart,
To set free and adrift
To hope it lands
Upon thy heart
Thine soul
Alone
No
More.

David McCullough
February, 2009

Check out this other beautiful blog!

Aloha - I met someone who writes a much more focused and beautiful blog than myself. I thought quite a bit of her and was inspired by her blog - inspired as to what I am not yet sure but want to make my blog more beautiful perhaps, more disciplined?, more focused. Her blog is at:

www.changesandcolours.blogspot.com

Be sure to check it out, linger, enjoy, have a cup of tea and partake of a keen wit, great observational skills and an appreciation of art, beauty and life.

Jan 2009 ride!

Suggested Book to Read

I just finished reading An Imperfect Offering by James Orbinski, M.D. who worked with Medicines sans Frontieres (MSF aka Doctors without Borders) for many years. It was one of the most moving, frightening and thought provoking books I have ever read and quite the inspiration. I needed to know what it might be like if MSF hires me. Now I know, at least intellectually and it scares yet thrills me that I might be able to do something so meaningful. Try I must and eventually I know that I will go with MSF or no MSF. The title is an apt one and yet it resonates with me in that I feel like my 'offering' is also an imperfect one. There is some hope in that.

Thanks for reading.

D.

A man, his dog and mountain bike (a Santa Cruz lite).

Klari Hands! The night before leavetaking. Late night good friends
good wine.

What could be better!?

My interview with MSF

I have had a day or part of one to reflect upon my interview with MSF. In retrospect I think I may have appeared too eager (but how could one not be?). I would be excited to be a part of MSF and consider it an honor to even be interviewed. I was asked the usual questions one would expect . . . why MSF? Why now? My answer to why now was that I am now ready, ready with my skills, in my personal life but most importantly I can no longer afford to NOT go. By that I mean that my conscience demands action. When I see people, friends, whoever it might be react to the archetypical 'suffering' image in the news with pity, sadness or tears, my reaction is one of frustration, I think some disgust, some anger in that what use is pity (if that is truly what it is)? Is not action better? Pity and sorrow sometime come cheaply and all too easily. Empathy is a better thing but it too remains meaningless without concrete steps.

So how can I stay where I am without becoming less human than I strive to be? I cannot say what is true and right for others confronted by this choice. I have no children or family of my own. In part, whatever legacy I leave behind, whatever memories I create . . . I want to have meaning, to have mattered, to have made a difference. In the end analysis, it is a selfish thing but if much good is accomplished, if I have proverbially touched the life of another human being to give them a chance at life - then it is enough at this moment in time. I will have lived a life with meaning and given something, however small, back to society, to something larger than myself.

When it has become easier to take action by leaving to do humanitarian work then I know it is time to go. It is increasingly untenable and difficult to simply stand by even though I work as a nurse in the San Francisco Veterans Hospital. Need exist everywhere but the degree of need differs so greatly.

Did I do justice to my motivations in my MSF interview? I partly did but I will reflect more and in my thank you letter I hope to further and better articulate my motivations but also to ask better questions. My hopes are not up at this point but I know my references are good, truthful and will give them a true picture of who I am, what my skills are and they will not 'sugarcoat' the excellent recommendation they will provide. So whatever lacked in my interview I hope will be made up in my letter and subsequent discussions with those who support me.

As a bicyclist (both mountain and road) I like the saying I have seen on bicycle jersey's, "Shut up and ride". I am applying this attitude to myself now.

David

Ceiling of Union station, Washington DC. Familiar ground, albeit last
seen in 1989, a lifetime ago.

View from NYC's Penn station.

In line for the Amtrak Acela train to Washington DC. Just finished my
MSF interview. Felt true, right and good, like a culmination of my
life skills. However, I remain plagued with second guessing on how
well I interviewed. Specifically, did I ask the right questions of
them?! In my heart I know this is my correct path and I remain
committed. Thanks for reading.

David

This is what I love - my head, dreams, conceptions - all cracking open
in a heady rushing confluence of life. Challenged and cherished. Into
NYC tonight, my super shuttle driver is also super nice (from Haiti
originally). So I joke with him, we laugh, I help with bags and soon?
The beginnings of friendship. He drives miles out of his way at the
end of a long day to pay our respects at the World Trade Center site.

I'm out of my 'comfortable' life. Duty, empathy and witnessing calls.

David

Aloha,

I'm flying East to NYC for my interview with Medicines sans Frontieres
- I'm at 35,000 feet with full Internet access at $13 for the flight.
I'll simply upload this missive later. What a difference with a new
plane (airbus 320). . . flying on Virgin America with an outstanding
flight crew. They are very professional yet still retain that joie de
vive and friendliness that are clearly hallmarks of those who love
their work.

Just finished reading Hope in Hell (by Tom Bortolotti) about MSF. A
great but very sobering read so I highly recommend it. I'm also just
beginning to read, An Imperfect Offering (James orbinski) by a past
President of MSF.

So in the height of luxury I ponder where and how I will be in six
months.

More soon. Thanks for reading

D

Sunset, Hwy One & Meyers Grade Road.

New Year

The constancy of change
Begets melancholia of sweetness
To revel in past exploits
And in the love besotted hearts of youth.

Were it not for you
I'd tear from the fibers of my heart
A minute reprieve
From the vicissitudes of warring hearts.

Yet far shores beckon
Shelter sought in as yet strange bays
Soon to be called home,
yet as unfamiliar to me as the unintended consequence of your love.

The view from near the top of Meyers Grade. This is somewhere near
where Black Bart held up a stagecoach. My view when I am leaving my
house (about 8 miles South).

Zippy Singer on left, myself on the right. It was cold!

Snow and hail mountain bike ride. You would not believe it but a half
hour after this foto we finished our ride in snow and hail. What
beauty amidst the chaos! More fotos to follow!

December 8, 2008

One view of a 1906 earthquake lake at Plantation Farm Camp. Taken on
one of our daily mountain bike rides on Seaview Ridge. Nice and
beautiful to share this with community in a beautiful place now called
home.

David

A Brief Update

Aloha - I am now living on my Family ranch by myself and working on call at two different hospitals. One of them is the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Francisco. I am working toward paying off my one credit card debt to free myself from being enslaved for the rest of my life financially. I also continue to work toward moving out of the United States and am applying for positions with Medicins Sans Frontieres, International Medical Corps and other organizations similar to them.

I was to return to Fiji this coming January but to my great sadness and chagrin I feel that I must do the 'right' thing and am unwilling to spend so much on so short a time in Fiji. That money will be better spent on going to pay off my debt for a quicker departure to work overseas.

Thanks for reading.

David

A Poem after Class

Aloha - I took a brief class from the Red Cross in International Humanitarian Law. I wrote this during class.


Caught up in the tides of history,
I am no longer am what or who I was.
But then, no one is.

Beliefs shattered, remade, forged,
behind these walls of stone or flesh or blood or mind,
I was not a warrior, who visited death upon others nor did it visit me.

Then, swept up in the tides and spoils of war,
I succumbed to the pull of circumstance and violence visited upon me.
War was an unwelcome visitor whom I tried to bar at the door with my tears.

All too soon it became my most intimate companion.
It became my wife, my lover, my succubus, a brother, a sister, a father and mother. Cradled at the breast of war I soon knew naught else.

Yet it was, is and remains my abhorrence.
I deny violence yet am capable of it.
Give me a gun of paper,
I will write you to death.
Give me a gun of steel and I will, I will, I will . . . .

Who are you to take the life of the ones I love,
my son, daughter, lover and wife and mother, father, brother and sister.

Who are you? Shiva Death the destroyer of worlds?
Let anyone who thinks they cannot kill,
the blood of the ones they love upon their breast.
The choice to kill determines the path they will write upon their dying heart.

Blessed are the Peacemakers for I know them not yet I shiver in hope that the path of peace is upon us as the blessing of Allah.

It is winter now, at least for what passes for Winter here in Northern California. My mood can be so tied to the season. Cultural imperatives set aside, I shall embrace what the season brings . . . not the artificial forced happiness go juice fed to us by corporate drones the world over. No, for me I will take the dark renewal of winter, the gentle rain on Redwood Boughs, the sprinkle of winter fog on ferns and meadow grass. Perhaps this time is the time to think again of what our lives are about, to remember, anticipate, plan, reflect and renew commitments both new and made long ago.

November 2008

A Poem unmeant for Reading

It, it is the ocean of my soul that I commit to you and it is does not heed the you or I or me and its only cares are the care we let it have.

I thought I knew love and you and myself.

But I know that now, at last, I know nothing. That everything that was . . .
was that dream
we all have it . . . a lovers glance, a wink, a nod . . .
then to awaken a different life.

I see this rock in the ocean sand, the claw of a lovers scrabble buried deep,
the endless tide of love and wash of wave and sleep and desire.

Oh my love did I not love you and did you not love me?

I saw the printed words upon the pages left for you.
I have the solidness and well meant words intended for me!

Should we be shamed in our deceit?
Without intent we love in that moment and it last . . .
in a moment I lived a life with you of babies and grandchildren
idealized and perfected without pain, hurt, agony, to roil us so.

Only you passed me in my life.
I in yours.
glimpsing possibilities in reflections of lustful waves of longing
submerged, deep with light and air, gasping hoping for love.


David McCullough
November 11, 2008

That the Divisions of Eight Years will End

At long last, the nightmare of deceit, lies, treachery and personal enrichment can begin to be challenged. At long last there can begin to be a beginning to the end of a government of hypocrisy and impulses that are a betrayal of the beliefs that this country was supposedly founded upon.

I rejoice in President Elect Obama's victory. It is mine and many others greatest fear that he will be assassinated. I would do almost anything to make sure that this will not happen. I wish the Secret Service the best of luck, planning, and intelligence in their effort to avoid the loss of POTUS and any of their principles.

This is a great victory and the beginning of hope for many Americans. At last I can once again live in a country where I am proud of the ideals we are supposed to espouse, encourage and live. I want to be proud to be an American and it is my hope that is possible.

I sat there and cried with the people of America as President-Elect Obama gave his acceptance speech. I am moved by what he said, scripted to death or not, it was a moving, inspirational and magnificent speech. The danger therein is of expectations raised too high and I fear for him, his family and the people of this nation.

It is incumbent upon us to walk with him, at every level to participate in this democracy - such as it is. I am guilty of too high a level of cynicism and pessimism and perhaps have led me to not participate as much as I should have and needed to. It will be my goal to investigate how to end that and begin to take part.

Thank you President-Elect Obama. You have given me my pride back, my hope and an idea that perhaps, just maybe . . . Yes, We Can!