Buddy doesn't need wings to go to heaven

Buddy doesn't need wings to go to heaven
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 07.10.2007

Last Tuesday was Buddy’s time to go, even if our 5-year-old didn’t think so.
The gray-and-white Heinz 57-variety mutt didn’t eat much dog food in his final days. He couldn’t hardly walk either. He’d had a good 15 years of life, even if the last few weeks of it were painful.
Good luck explaining that to a 5-year-old girl. Really, good luck explaining death and grief to anyone, regardless of age.
At first, our 5-year-old, Lissie, showed classic symptoms of denial. She believed Buddy would be lying on the floor next to the couch, where he loved to lounge. She expected he’d want to eat.
Then her grief turned into taunting. She started making fun of my wife and me for how we tried to explain death to her.
At first, we told her he went far away forever. In her mind, that meant we sent him 1,000 miles south. The next day, as we looked at a map on a restaurant placemat, she pointed directly at Texas and told us that was Buddy’s new home.
Then we tried telling her Buddy went to heaven. She seemed baffled by that. As she rode past our church, she asked my wife if Buddy was living there now.
Finally we tried telling her he lived in the sky, above the clouds. She informed us he didn’t have wings, so he couldn’t fly.
My wife and I commiserated at how difficult it was to explain death. We’d had enough trouble explaining life, as she anxiously awaits the birth of a little sister next month.
This “death” thing was too much for her to grasp. For nearly a week, she seemed unwilling to accept that her beloved pet was gone.
She wasn’t the only one.
I had the sad task of bringing this member of our family to the veterinarian’s office that one last time, and I had trouble accepting his fate. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find his food dish the next morning. I got confused at night when it was time to put the dogs away; I couldn’t find the one who typically slept right behind the couch.
Our second dog, Amigo, was probably the most distraught of us all. He and Buddy didn’t get along. Buddy may have realized we bought Amigo a year ago to help ease the pain whenever Buddy passed. Whatever the reason, Amigo always liked Buddy more than Buddy liked Amigo.
Without his nemesis/best friend around, Amigo wandered around the house aimlessly. This usually rambunctious golden retriever settled down with a downtrodden look in his eyes.
We’ve all settled in for a post-Buddy life. Lissie accepts that Buddy is one of God’s dogs now, running around a big grassy field without that limp that plagued him the last year of his life. Amigo realizes he won’t hear the snarl of another dog when it’s time to go outside. And I know the dog that always curled up at my feet won’t trip me up anymore.
We learn to accept death, but I don’t know that we ever learn how to deal with it. There is no easy route for mourning. With a little time, though, we all heal.
Our recent loss reminds me how hard it can be to let go of people who mean so much to you.
While these people and pets may mean nothing to anyone else, memories of them live in our hearts and minds. We never forget.
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The value of friendship

My best friend from high school, John, called yesterday. It'd been ages since we'd talked, and I felt pretty guilty about the time apart after we chatted.
There's a tendency to say not much changed since the last time we talked. That's what I said at first. Then, as we tried to hammer out exactly how long it'd been, it became pretty clear that quite a bit had happened.
It appears October must've been the last time we talked. He didn't know my wife was pregnant. He didn't know we'd moved to a nearby town. He wasn't aware I was about halfway through the adoptions proceedings with Lissie. He really wasn't even aware I had my current job, although we'd obviously chatted several times since then. (Heck, he was in my wedding since I got this job.)
This isn't intended to slam John, by any means. Quite the contrary. It's to slam me. I've become quite the slacker about keeping in touch with people who mean something to me.
I've taken the "my wife is pregnant" excuse to put on about 15 pounds, which is probably just repressed conversations. I don't e-mail. I don't call. And when I do see people, I tend to be a bit withdrawn.
When we went to my parents' house for Father's Day, I realized we hadn't visited their home in at least three months, given the carbon-dating method of knowing when my dad installed a new fish tank.
What've I been doing in all that time? Pulling back into myself, really. I'm worried about the future of the newspaper industry and whether my ideas are enough to keep my little corner of the universe afloat. I'm concerned about the world we'll be bringing our child into. And I'm a little bit terrified if I'm ready to parent a newborn.
I'll work it all out, in due time. I usually do. I just hope once I do I can be the type of friend I've had to help pull me through my doubts and worries.

Economic censorship hurts truly free speech

Economic censorship hurts truly free speech
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 06.25.2007
Free speech may exist in our country, but money still talks here.
What exactly it says remains up in the air, but we’re heading into an era of economic censorship.
Take the example of the radio hosts for “The Opie and Anthony Show,” Gregg “Opie” Hughes, Anthony Cumia and Jim Norton. Their recent history shows the pros and cons of censorship via the flow of money.
On May 15, XM Satellite Radio yanked the comedy show off the air for 30 days. A week prior, a guest on the show, “Homeless Charlie,” described his desire to do vicious things of a sexual nature with Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth. The company suggested the hosts weren’t sincere enough in an apology they offered for the homeless guest’s rant or during conversations on the air afterwards.
The Federal Communications Commission doesn’t govern satellite radio. It’s based on satellite usage and not public airways. The company hired Opie and Anthony, boasting of satellite radio’s uncensored nature. The satellite radio show allows graphic and crude behavior and language alike, pushing the envelope of taste sometimes.
To be quite clear, this wasn’t a matter of the First Amendment coming into play. It had nothing to do with FCC regulations. It’s about a company trying to protect its assets, if you know what I mean.
It appeared the company simply bent to economic pressures. It’s in the midst of trying to merge with its main competitor, Sirius. And certainly a number of people were offended by the talk of a homeless man taking certain liberties with powerful women in our world.
Opie and Anthony are probably most notorious for a radio contest in August 2002. A pair of listeners claimed to have sex in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. In the fallout, the radio team’s employer forced them to sit out of radio until their contracts expired without an audience. Certainly XM knew what it was getting when it hired the team, who focus on juvenile jokes, occasional randy conversations and sporadically thought-provoking conversations about politics and life.
As a subscriber to XM, I listen to the show on my way to work, and I enjoy the show. I don’t necessarily enjoy every second of the show, as sometimes the topics get too graphic for my tastes. The chat with the homeless man fell in that category. But I appreciated there was a place for people to listen to this, if they chose.
And there certainly is an audience for it. This is the part of economic censorship that leaves some hope.
In a Washington Times article, XM officials said the company lost nearly 5,000 subscribers after suspending the program. That’s out of 7.9 million subscribers nationwide. Still, the company must have felt some impact from that. It reached out to Opie and Anthony fans with an offer to waive a regular $14.99 reactivation fee until the end of the month.
During the radio team’s return to satellite radio June 15, Opie spoke up in favor of the fans. He said he believed they would’ve lost their jobs if it weren’t for the support of their fans and the economic pressures fans placed on the company.
This incident reminds us we live in strange times. A vocal group with the financial threat of a boycott can protest to the point speech protected by the First Amendment can get a radio host thrown off the air. That was the case with Don Imus, who referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team with some rather derogatory terms.
It also shows the customer is still always right, as was the case with Opie and Anthony’s fans. They showed there was a demand for that brand of comedy, and the show is back now.
We’re fortunate at this newspaper, as there’s an ideological wall between our moneymaking side and our newsgathering side. Our news decisions aren’t influenced by what an advertiser wants. Advertising and the newsroom are literally on opposite sides of our building.
Still, the mass media considers the impact of what it prints or broadcasts before hitting the button. Maybe it’s an awareness of political correctness. Maybe it’s fear of economic repercussions. Whatever the reason, we think before we speak.
Ultimately, though, it falls back on the reader, listener or viewer. They must decide if they’ll be insulted, angered or wound up over anything. I worry too many people jump right to censoring when the language or ideas make them uncomfortable.
That’s where a quote widely attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire comes into play. It’s arguable whether the author, born François Marie Arouet, ever really said it or wrote it. Some attribute it to author Evelyn Beatrice Hall in a 1906 as an epitome of his attitude.
Whatever the source, the idea’s worth considering: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Perhaps it’s time for a revision to that. We can just add a few more words to the end, in much smaller type… “unless I lose too much money defending it.”
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