It is Dr. King’s Day, and he is one of my heroes. It struck me one day in Atlanta, walking through his church and by his tomb that he was a man who took on the entire United States of America, with the serene knowledge that he would, sooner or later, be shot down. A hero.
 
I was going to mention that, and lurch into just what it was that punk Bradley Manning did while he was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division this morning, and then tell you who he told about it and who ratted him out.
 
It was very much one of the digital parlor tricks that the kids do so well and are so baffling to the generation who remember pay phones.
 
It is awesome in scope, implications and banality, with just one of the outcomes still in play as the military is asserting itself to restore order in Tunisia.
 
I am getting dragged out of that story line and others are flying by. I mean, check this: the Australian is reporting that a “reign of terror” has descended on the Communist Party in Pyongyang. Apparently the Cadre needs to be purged to ensure the smooth transition from L’il Kim to his younger boy, Kim Jung-un.
 
The new kid seems to be a real chip off the old Stalinist block. The younger Kim is said to have called for “gunshots across the country.” There are rumors of purges and executions and the papers in Seoul are claiming more than 200 officials have been executed or detained by the state security bureau.
 
The New York Times is blaring the details on the STUXNET plan, which is too delicious for words, and confirms speculation that I have voiced before. It is a great story, and I wonder why someone had to spill his guts to some reporter. It was a better mystery as a State Secret.
 
Which brings me around to why people have such a compulsion to tell everything they know.
 
Maybe that includes old Vic, too. Damn.

I was thinking about that, driving back from the farm yesterday, watching great bids of prey soaring on the thermals above Route 29. Periodically one would stoop, and I could only imagine the clash of claws against tiny rodents on the ground.
I had to check the mail and feed Heckle the mystery feral cat. It was a great day for a drive in the country. I had just arrived and was surveying the property when the phone went off.
 
The caller ID read “Raven and Magpie,” and my heart thudded. Magpie doesn’t call me often, and I answered with some anxiety.
 
It was not my Mother, and things were not good in the little village by the bay.
 
It was the Residential Assistant. She said Raven had fallen sometime before lunch, and was crying, seated in his chair.
 
She asked if it was OK to send him to the Emergency Room, and I said of course, locked the door to the farmhouse and headed back up the road I had just come down. I think I locked the door.
 
I don’t know now.
 
Dozens of calls followed, probably unsafe at the speed I was driving, but you gotta do what you gottta do. I talked to Anook and Spike, my siblings, and to the ER and Potemkin Village management.
 
There were calls from the ER staff as I weaved past the State Patrol checkpoint out by the Dulles exit on I-66.
 
Raven’s fall had snapped his left scapula. The broken collarbone was a problem and causing him pain. Magpie had disappeared, and I was surprised she was not with him. The hospital was concerned that Raven had no way to get back to the Village, which prompted a call to Alaska to ask Anook to find someone in Michigan to pick him up.
 
Raven was said to be disoriented and unhappy.
 
I called the apartment, Magpie answered and was mildly interested…thought she did not remember our conversation when a friend returned Dad to the apartment…weird, bizarre, funny, sad and intensely painful all at once.
 
My brother gets there in three days. We are going to try to get Dad into the industrial nursing home pending admittance to the nicer facility in the next town around the Bay.
 
Beginning of the end for Raven, I fear, and blush at some of the thoughts I had during that long drive.
 
For today, I intend to honor Dr. King by dragging my sorry butt to the office, and making some more calls.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
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