Lift Up Your Hearts!

Many years ago, when Inspector Morse first aired on PBS, we watched several episodes, and have since enjoyed the whole series, plus the spin-offs Lewis (aka Inspector Lewis) and Endeavour. The stories, especially the more recent ones, often reflect objectionably "Hollywood" values, and there's a tinge of darkness that might not make them good fare for one who is already depressed. But it's hard to have police shows and murder mysteries without darkness, and the series are so very well crafted and acted that even the depressing parts are more like the spices that add depth and flavor to a stew.

And I love the music by composer Barrington Pheloung.

Here's the Morse theme:

The theme for Lewis (aka Inspector Lewis) I didn't find as moving as that for Morse and Endeavour, but it fits the show, which might be my favorite of the three due to Lewis' sidekick James Hathaway (played by Laurence Fox) and their interactions.

Endeavour brings back a variation on the original theme. I love those horns!

I'm inclined to believe that any comfort angels have to offer comes after the terror part. And that's probably a good thing.

As I near the end of Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson's 1344-page final book in the first half of his epic Stormlight Archive fantasy series, I am reminded of the following quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien. It is part of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, a play based on a fragment of a poem about a historical battle between the English and Viking invaders.

This is not pessimism, but a call for strength and courage during dark times, which come to all.

Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose,
More proud the spirit as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter nor mood waver,
Though doom shall come and dark conquer.

Mike Wimmer is 16 years old, loves cars and video games, recently earned his PhD, started doing contract work for the United States Special Operations Command at age 10, and has a viable technology, with a working prototype, that could help save our endangered coral reefs.

“I always had an innovative mindset and the idea to want to solve challenges with new technologies,” he said, adding that he pushed himself “to go even farther, even faster, even better.” He wants his work to “have a positive impact on the world.”

I'd love to see him collaborate with Elon Musk. Although, given Wimmer's own predilection for entrepreneurship, he probably has it in him to become Musk's nearest competitor.

Wimmer’s latest underwater gambit is one in a series of robotics and AI startups under his belt. He’s been building companies since age 10, including Next Era Innovations.

Here's the Epoch Times article on Mike Wimmer; there's more available online, but if you search for him don't get confused by the artist of the same name.

This is my dream garden. It's not an achievable dream at this point in my life, and even if I were much younger, there's a lot more to creating a system like this than he discusses. It's not so much a garden as a very small farm (albeit this one is in suburban Long Island), and requires farm-level work. For one thing, you can't decide to go out of town without arranging for someone to care for your plants and animals. It's like being a pet owner, only a lot more intense—you can't pack up your chickens and take them to a kennel, and neighbors who will happily feed your cat might draw the line at milking goats.

If this is ever going to be your dream, it's probably easiest to start dreaming early in life, when you're making decisions about family, employment, and home location.

Nonetheless, there's a lot of inspiration to be gained from Mike G.'s experience, especially in seeing how much he accomplished in under five years of consistently pursuring his goal, taking one step at a time, and learning along the way.

I don't follow Matt Walsh's podcasts, but that's for lack of time, not lack of respect. I find him intelligent and well-spoken, and sometimes quote him here. Not that I always agree with him—he nearly lost me when I found out that he thinks raw milk is disgusting. I was almost one of the 14,000+ people who called him out on that, but decided instead that each of us has a right to be wrong, and let him alone.   

Why have I included him in my Heroes category? Because we need heroes at every level. Maybe Matt Walsh didn't run into a burning building to save a child, but he just took an important stand against the undefined but powerful mob that will use any excuse and any tactic to bring down those who dare disagree with whatever narrative they are currently imposing. I have no problem with calling someone out for saying or doing something that troubles me, but the demand for an apology and public groveling, which is almost always a part of the process, is not only wrong, but a dangerous abuse of power.

I consider it a heroic act to stand up to that kind of pressure. It's not easy. I remember, with shame, the times in my life when I've apologized for things I still believe were not only not wrong, but actively the right thing to do. And yet, shameful though I think my groveling was, I'm not apologizing for apologizing under duress, because the threats were not to me but to my children. The memory, however, makes me all the more inclined to respect people who, as Walsh put it, decline to take part.

In this video, Walsh addresses the firestorm that erupted when he refused to take down an image that someone else posted in a critical response to one of his X posts. Walsh, the mob insists, knowingly and approvingly posted a swastika, because he didn't censor his critic's image.

Now that I know where it is, I find it impossible not to see the swastika in question. But until it was pointed out, I didn't see it at all. I have no problem believing that Walsh didn't either. But once noted, why not take it down? The better question is, why should it be taken down? Even if it had been in plain sight, a normal swastika, while it would have been fine for Walsh to delete an image that someone else had imposed on his X feed, it is wrong for anyone to pressure him to do so. The swastika has been around for millennia and originally meant well-being. This mob would have had us burn our antique Oriental rug because it included these ancient symbols in its design.

Just because someone has reused a historic symbol for other purposes, that doesn't mean it's right to cave in to the misappropriation. Even if I'm the last person in the world to do so, I will still use "gay" to mean "lighthearted," use masculine pronouns as neutral when appropriate, and continue to cringe every time I hear "they" and "them" used as if they were singular. (This means I am cringing frequently while listening to the lastest New International Version of the Bible—not a salubrious situation.) I also insist on singing the old words to familiar hymns rather than the abominations featured in modern hymnals. Take that, "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!"

This attack on Walsh makes me want to post an image of a swastika loud and clear on my blog, maybe in the company of my nasty-looking image of the COVID-19 virus. However, even if it may sometimes be necessary to fight a bear, it's stupid to poke one unnecessarily, so my more rational side beat down my gut reaction in this case.

The really interesting part of all this is the image itself—which I reserve for a subsequent post. I'll try enabling comments, just in case someone else notices the issue with the picture before I write about it. Please be respectful and refrain from using the comment section for arguments.

What you do matters. Answer the note. Respond to the email. Return the call.

I have no idea why these words from my friend Eric Schultz showed up recently in my feed reader, as their context is from 2020—but they're as important today as they were then. They're from his Occasional CEO article, "Answer the Note: Lessons from Ben & Jerry's and Warren Buffett," in which he demonstrates the power of simple acts to change lives. I would be remiss in not adding that Eric lives his own advice.

The simplest act of kindness can be transformational. And, if you are especially lucky, you will never even know the good you have done.

As a genealogist, I've read a lot of obituaries, and written a couple myself. I don't think I've ever published one for someone I wasn't related to, but Tucker Carlson's obituary for his father, which I copy here from his X post, deserves special mention.

I very much enjoy listening to Tucker's interviews, and if I hear only a small fraction of his output, that's the fault not of his work but of higher priorities calling on my time. He's a controversial figure, but whatever you think of him, the man can write. And speak. And interview the most interesting people.

This obituary is remarkable as much for what it doesn't say as for what it does. Not knowing any of the people involved, I can't attest to the accuracy of Tucker's depiction of his father, but his spare brush strokes paint a vivid picture of a man who accepted the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and yet lived his life in duty and delight.

Obituary for my father.

Richard Warner Carlson died at 84 on March 24, 2025 at home in Boca Grande, Florida after six weeks of illness. He refused all painkillers to the end and left this world with dignity and clarity, holding the hands of his children with his dogs at his feet.

He was born February 10, 1941 at Massachusetts General Hospital to a 15-year-old Swedish-speaking girl and placed in the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, where he developed rickets from malnutrition. His legs were bent for the rest of his life. After years in foster homes, he was placed with the Carlson family in Norwood, Mass. His adoptive father, a tannery manager, died when he was 12 and he stopped attending school regularly. At 17, he was jailed for car theft, thrown out of high school for the second time, and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

In 1962, in search of adventure, he drove to California. He spent a year as a merchant seaman on the SS Washington Bear, transporting cargo to ports in the Orient, and then became a reporter. Over the next decade, he was a copy boy at the LA Times, a wire service reporter for UPI and an investigative reporter and anchor for ABC News, covering the upheaval of the period. He knew virtually every compelling figure of the time, including Jim Jones, Patty Hearst, Eric Hoffer, Jerry Garcia, as well as Mafia leaders and members of the Manson Family. In 1965, he was badly injured reporting from the Watts riots in Los Angeles.

By 1975, he was married with two small boys, when his wife departed for Europe and didn’t return. He threw himself into raising his boys, whom he often brought with him on reporting trips. At home, he educated them during three-hour dinners on topics that ranged from the French Revolution to Bolshevik Russia, PG Wodehouse, the history of the American Indian and, always, the eternal and unchanging nature of people. He was a free thinker and a compulsive book reader, including at red lights. He left a library of thousands of books, most dog-eared and filled with marginalia. His reading and life experiences convinced him that God is real. He had an outlaw spirit tempered by decency.

In 1979, he married the love of his life, Patricia Swanson. They were together for 44 years, all of them happy. She died sixteen months before he did and he mourned her every day.

In 1985, he moved to Washington to work for the Reagan Administration. He spent five years as the director of the Voice of America, and then moved to the Seychelles as the US ambassador. In 1992, he became the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and later ran a division of King World television.

The last 25 years of his life were spent in work whose details were never completely clear to his family, but that was clearly interesting. He worked in dozens of countries and breakaway republics around the world, and was involved in countless intrigues. He knew a number of colorful national leaders, including Rafic Hariri of Lebanon, Aslan Abashidze of Adjara, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and whomever runs Somaliland. He was a fundamentally nonjudgmental person who was impossible to shock, and he described them all with amused affection.

He spoke to his sons every day and had lunch with them once a week for thirty years at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, always prefaced by a dice game. Throughout his life he fervently loved dogs.

Richard W. Carlson is survived by his sons, Tucker and Buckley, his beloved daughter-in-law Susie, and five grandchildren. He was the toughest human being anyone in his family ever knew, and also the kindest and most loyal. RIP.

Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!

Happy Easter, one and all!

The following post is from April 2017. I still like it, so you get it again (with a few modifications).

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. — Hebrews 12:2

This is the time of year when Christians make special recognition of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. I love the Holy Week services, from Palm Sunday to Easter and everything in between. Having spent much of my life in more determinedly Protestant churches, I missed walking with Jesus through the momentous events between those two happy celebrations. It's a great way to prepare one's heart for Easter.

I have to ask myself: What does Jesus think of the events leading up to Easter? Not our church services, but the actual events, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, through his agonizing in the Garden of Gesthemene, his last Passover with his disciples, his betrayal, trial, and crucifixion, and that mysterious time between death and resurrection. What does he think of it all? I don't mean then, while he was going through it, but now. Looking back, if that has any meaning in his case.

I asked myself this question back in 2017 because I was thinking about childbirth. It seems ridiculous to compare the pains of childbirth to those of crucifixion, let alone the mental, emotional, and spiritual agony of all the sins and sorrows of the world, but bear with me here.

Setting aside the difference in scale, I think there are important parallels. In each case, there is pain, anguish, fear, physical and mental exhaustion, and reaching the point where you just know you can't go on any longer, followed by the unimaginable, unsurpassable thrill of victory, of success, of achievement—and the birth of something new, wondrous, and beautiful.

Most mothers I know like to exchange birth stories, in all their glorious and grisly detail. Those are "then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars" moments. But the toil and pain are remembered, not relived. We tell these "war stories" because we are justifiably taking credit for our part in the miracle. The pain has been crowned and glorified by its accomplishment.

Nor do we regale our children with the horrors of what it cost us for them to exist, at least not if we're psychologically healthy ourselves. If our child were to start to focus on the pain of childbirth, we would quickly tell him, "You're missing the whole point. Sure, it was a difficult process, but it was worth it. What matters is not the suffering, not the effort. What matters is that you were born! The pain is in the past, and our family is immeasurably greater because of it. The whole world is greater because you are here. That is the point. Be thankful for what I did for you, but don't dwell on it. Focus on using your uniqueness to be the best person you can be, to bless the family—and the world—you were born into. That, not your grief at my sufferings, nor even your gratitude for them, is what makes me happy and overwhelmingly glad to have endured them. Go—live with joy the life I have given you!"

So I wonder. Is it possible that Jesus has similar thoughts?

It's good to be reminded of the events that birthed our post-Easter world, and not to take lightly the suffering that made it possible. However, some people, many preachers, and even a few filmmakers appear to take delight in portraying Christ's agony in the most excruciating (consider the etymology of that word!) detail possible, even, like the medieval flagellants, attempting to participate in it. Even less extreme evangelists and theologians spend more ink and energy on Jesus' death than on his resurrection.

Could it be that Jesus looks back at that time with joy, knowing that he accomplished something difficult, important, and wonderful? Is it possible that he sometimes looks at us and thinks, You're missing the whole point? That it would rejoice his heart if we thought less about his death and more about how to use the new life he has given us?

Go—rejoice—live!

The following is almost entirely a reiteration of a Holy Week post from 2010. Fifteen years more of life experience has only sharpened the emotions I was feeling then.

Is there anything worse than excruciating physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual torture and death? It takes nothing from the sufferings of Christ commemorated this Holy Week to pause and consider a couple of other important persons in the drama.

I find the following hymn to be one of the most powerful and moving of the season. For obvious reasons, it is usually sung on Palm Sunday, but the verses reach all the way through to Easter.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
Thy humble beast pursues his road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The angel armies of the sky
look down with sad and wond'ring eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne
expects his own anointed Son.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, thy power, and reign.

The Father on his sapphire throne expects his own anointed Son. For millennia, good fathers have encouraged, led, or forced their children into suffering, from primitive coming-of-age rites to chemotherapy. Even when they know it is for the best, and that all will be well in the end, the terrible suffering of the fathers is imaginable only by someone who has been in that position himself.

And mothers?

The Protestant Church doesn't talk much about Mary. The ostensible reason is to avoid what they see as the idolatry of the Catholic Church, though given the adoration heaped upon male saints and church notables by many Protestants, I'm inclined to suspect a little sexism, too. In any case, Mary is generally ignored, except for a little bit around Christmas, where she is unavoidable. But in Holy Week, it's important to recognize that, whatever else Mary may have been and done, on Good Friday she was a mother who had just lost her son.

Did she recall then the prophetic word of Simeon when Jesus was but eight days old: "a sword shall pierce through your own soul also"? Did she find the image of being impaled by a sword far too mild to do justice to the searing, tearing torture of watching her firstborn son wrongly convicted, whipped, beaten, mocked, crucified, in an agony of pain and thirst, and finally abandoned to death? Did she find a tiny bit of comfort in the thought that death had at least ended the ordeal? Did she cling to the hope of what she knew in her heart about her most unusual son, that even then the story was not over? Whatever she may have believed, she could not have had the Father's knowledge, and even if she had, would that have penetrated the blinding agony of the moment?

In my head I know that the sufferings of Christ, in taking on the sins of the world, were unimaginably greater than the "mere" mental and physical pain of injustice and crucifixion. But in my heart, it's the sufferings of God his Father and Mary his Mother that hit home most strongly this Holy Week.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. — Matthew 5:43-45

The following inspirational story came to me from one of my genealogy sites, Fold3. An Act of Kindness Unites Enemies is a heartwarming story from the bloody Civil War Battle of Antietam; it especially caught my eye because one of the protagonists is Bela Burr, who happens to be Porter's third cousin three times removed. (Click on any image to enlarge it.)

In case you for some reason can't see the article, here's an introduction, followed by the story as printed in the Harrisburg Telegraph of September 5, 1895. Note that both young men were not yet out of their teens.

The dead and wounded were strewn across the battlefield. Among them was 18-year-old Bela L. Burr. Burr lay in the sun for hours, his wounded leg bleeding. He’d only been in the Union Army one month, having enlisted in the 16th Connecticut Infantry on August 7, 1862. Burr realized his life was slipping away and began resigning himself to the inevitable.

Just then, an angel arrived. But this angel came in the form of a Confederate soldier. James M. Norton, 19, a Confederate picket from Oglethorpe County, Georgia, was marching near the battlefield when he heard Burr’s cries for water. Norton took note of the sharpshooters concealed in the trees. They were aiming at anyone moving on the cornfield. Dropping to his knees, Norton inched towards Burr as shots rang out. He finally reached him and offered him his canteen.

We are now in the season of the church year called Lent.  A season of self-denial and repentance, it is paradoxically one of my favorite seasons—most likely because I love the Lenten section of our hymnal.  So many great hymns.  I also like it because I get to contribute to our church's Lenten Devotional, in which various church people write a very short meditation on an assigned Bible verse.  Since my day (March 7) has now passed, I feel free to share it here.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  (Matthew 9:12)

Thus Jesus responded when the Pharisees questioned His socializing with society’s outcasts. Quoting Hosea 6, He continued: Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” The sick and suffering will seek out a doctor, but those who are outwardly healthy and strong feel no such need. The obvious sinners knew their low estate and came to Jesus for help. The Pharisees, confident in their own righteousness, came to Jesus to criticize. Jesus gave His time to the people who were open to healing. To the Pharisees, whom He also loved, He presented a challenge: Perhaps the Hosea passage would reveal God’s greater standards, that they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and [He] would heal them (Matthew 13:15).

An excerpt from Brandon Sanderson's novel, Warbreaker (pp. 490-491 in the hardcover version). It seems fitting for my Heroes series.

Vasher shrugged in the darkness. “Priests are always easy to blame. They make convenient scapegoats—after all, anyone with a strong faith different from your own must either be a crazy zealot or a lying manipulator.”

Vivenna flushed yet again.

Vasher stopped in the street, then turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say it that way.” He cursed, turning and walking again. “I told you I’m no good at this.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m getting used to it.”

He nodded in the darkness, seeming distracted.

He is a good man, she thought. Or, at least, an earnest man trying to be good. A part of her felt foolish for making yet another judgment.

Yet she knew she couldn’t live—couldn’t interact—without making some judgments. So she judged Vasher. Not as she’d judged Denth, who had said amusing things and given her what she’d expected to see. She judged Vasher by what she had seen him do. Cry when he saw a child being held captive. Return that child to her father, his only reward an opportunity to make a rough plea for peace. Living with barely any money, dedicating himself to preventing a war.

He was rough. He was brutal. He had a terrible temper. But he was a good man. And, walking beside him, she felt safe for the first time in weeks.

What would you do if you received this e-mail from your employer?

What would you think if refusal to comply were grounds for losing your job?

There's been a lot of weeping and wailing from Federal workers who received such an e-mail recently—and from many who purport to speak up for them.

I don't understand why.

I know what I would have done, before I retired from my medical center IT job, if I had received such a request: I'd have sat down and put together five of the most important things I'd accomplished during the previous week. The boss was the boss, after all, and this would have been a whole lot less onerous than when he instituted the "no jeans at work" rule.

Much as I like to grumble about needless bureaucratic requirements, this one seems both easy to do and reasonable to request. After all, I was being paid, not for the hours spent sitting at my computer, but for what I accomplished there. My boss didn't know the nitty-gritty of the work I was doing; most managers don't. They're hired to manage the overall picture, not to know the internal details. Keeping one's work in front of their eyes on a regular basis accomplishes several good things.

• It reminds them that your job is important. If it's not, something needs to change.
• It reminds them that you're doing the work you're being paid for. If you're not, you need to be mentored for improvement, or let go to find more suitable work.
• It reminds YOU of these things as well. This is important for your job satisfaction and your self-confidence, which will lead to better work and more accomplishments—unless it demonstrates to you that you are in the wrong job; in which case, the sooner you discover that and do something positive about it, the better.
• If you are on the wrong track in your work, it will alert them while there is still time to make a course correction.
• If you are on the right track, it gives them the opportunity to confirm your direction and strengthen you in that course.

I can't see any downsides. They're not asking for detailed documentation—just five bullet points. Except in very small businesses, where everyone's contributions (or lack thereof) are obvious, what employee doesn't provide documentation of his work? Shifts worked, trash picked up, papers written, classes taught, code created, meals cooked, patients treated, products sold, houses built, cars repaired—most of us are expected to show evidence of our productivity.

It's harder for the self-employed, which includes those of us who are retired. But it's at least as important. When the worker and the supervisor are the same person, some measurement of our success is essential, for our growth, our progress, and our mental health.

So that's why I'm taking the DOGE Challenge.

Nothing fancy; the idea is simply to take a few minutes during the day to note various things that I've been doing. Then at the end of the week I'll choose the five (or so) most significant. I'll be the sole judge of what's "significant"—see the point above about the worker and the supervisor being the same person.  And I won't promise to share the results here, since they could end up being too personal.

But it's going to be an interesting experiment.