It is with profound sadness that I write to you today. Most of you already know, but for those who don’t, David, my brother and writer of this blog, lost his battle with cancer at the end of May. As he feared in his last post, the alternative treatments we tried were too little too late. He died at his home with our parents by his side. I echo his super praise that even in his last days on Earth, he was hardly in any pain.

Even now, five months later, it is hard to articulate the pain our parents and I feel at losing him. It doesn’t make sense to lose someone just two weeks after his thirty-fourth birthday. This is not fair. This is not right. This is not the way it should be.

But we can take comfort in the fact that, even in his too brief time with us, he was able to make a profound impact on those he came in contact with. If you haven’t read it, or just want to read it again, I recommend reading the tribute his work wrote for him. Everyone who read it loved it and it was quoted heavily at the services we had for him. Also check out the one at the website ITA, where he was a frequent contributor for several years. They have links to many posts he wrote which show the humor, grace, and intelligence that characterized not only his writing, but his whole life as well.

The only thing these two tributes don’t capture about my brother is his strong faith. It was a testament to how central it was to David’s life, that combining the viewing, funeral in New Jersey, and memorial service in Virginia, there were five Lutheran ministers who paid their respects. A verse used at both services comes from 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18:

“¹³Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. ¹⁴We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

And these are words we can take as encouragement. David believed, as all Christians do, that we will all, at the same time, be drawn to heaven and soar in the clouds. We will be lighter than the birds and much more beautiful than the sun.

Thank you to everyone who provided David with meals, visits, cards, late night NBA Jam sessions, friendship, and support throughout his treatment. I’ll close with the line that ends the American Historical Association’s tribute to him. “[T]here is only one David Darlington, inimitable in his modesty, exemplary in his conduct, and he cannot be replaced.”

Requiscat in pace.

-Stephen

Bacevich, Andrew J. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Stunning indictment of the national security state from Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international studies at Boston University and former Army colonel. As America’s appetite for foreign goods and foreign oil increases, it tries to maintain an increasingly expensive global empire that makes us less free and no more secure. After diagnosing failures in American culture, the political class, and the military, Bacevich calls for a foreign policy of “enlightened Realism” based on national self-interest, containment and police action against the Islamist threat rather than global war, ending the Bush Doctrine of preventive war and a return to Just War theory, and an inclination to non-interventionism due to the unpredictability of war. Based heavily on the works of 20th-century Christian thinker Reinhold Neibuhr.

Ferris, Joshua. The Unnamed. Tim is a high-powered New York City lawyer with a puzzling disease (the “unnamed” of the title) that compels him to walk off from whatever he’s doing to the point of exhaustion. Tim’s convinced it’s a physical ailment, while others think he’s gone crazy. But the novel isn’t so much a medical mystery so much as it is a novel about a marriage, the fight between body and mind, coping with illness, and being truly alive and fully aware of your surroundings. A somewhat inconsistent book—not all the plot lines are resolved (what did happen to the mysterious stranger who might exonerate his client? was he a figure of imagination?). The first act is a pretty straightforward medical/legal drama, the middle act gets trippy with events that appear to only happen in Tim’s head and some timeline jumping, while the last act gets overly philosophical on the nature of death, the mind/body divide, and human connections.

Giertz, Bo. Hammer of God. Three novellas in the same book. Three generations of Lutheran pastors in a sleepy Swedish town (roughly 1810s, 1870s, and 1930s) deal with rationalized, intellectualized faiths, evangelical revivalist nuttiness, and the dying of an old berg on the eve of World War II in their own times. All the while trying to maintain confessional Lutheranism, usually with help from an older, wiser mentor. They’re actually enjoyably books without getting too didactic.

The clinical trial ended in February. After that, we got to two rounds with the Oxi chemo before the allergic reaction kicked in. So we had to stop that. Then, after a couple rounds of irenitican, my blood platelet count crashed and I spent a week in the hospital. It has been a slow recovery from that, and frankly, I don’t think I’ve been the same since.

My latest CT scan (mid-May) showed the disease is slowly taking over my liver. I had to stop my most recent infusion because my bilirubin–a liver enzyme–levels were high. And that’s where’s our story picks up. I haven’t had a treatment in like 3 weeks, and I don’t know what’s going on at this point. Very scary and depressing to think that after and year and a half of treatments, I might be out of options.

I’ve been praying for approval for a liver surgery because chemo wasn’t doing it’s job anymore. Well, so far that surgery has been denied because of my liver condition, but the docs don’t have any other options for me at this point. Back to the waiting game. The surgery is called SIR SPHERES. It works by injecting radioactive beads right into the liver so it hits the tumors directly. But it’s rough on the liver, so with elevated bilirubin, my doc is afraid it might make me worse.

And my symptoms aren’t helping. Difficulty sleeping. Enlarged liver with tumors on my last scan. Mild edema in my legs. Shortness of breath. Green eyes from jaundice. Big belly from enlarged liver and probably fluid retention. It’s hard not to give up. My parents God bless them are looking at 2nd opinions and holistic approaches. But to me it just feels like too little too late sometimes. We’re going to try to treat the jaundice naturally but it might just be an indicator of where my liver is right now.

Please pray for wisdom for my docs as they come up with other options.

Please pray for me to make it through emotionally and physically.

Please pray for my parents who’ve come down here as semi-permanent caregivers. They have been wonderful and I am more appreciative of them every day.

SUPER PRAISE that I am in little pain right now. Truly a blessing. I could write commercials for Alleve for my next job.

You’d think the Playstation Network hack doesn’t effect those of us who mostly game offline. And, indeed, most games are still playable (some with draconian DRM requiring an online connection are unplayable right now). But online gamers, people who purchase games or movies over the network, stream tv and movies over the network, or have done so at least once in the past (guilty), are potentially at risk. I’m not sure what upsets me more: that an obvious target had such lax security that a hacker could gain access to such an incredible amount of data; Sony’s delayed admission that something was wrong; or that it’s been nearly a fortnight of darkness from the Playstation Network and no word of a return. Are they rebuilding from scratch? That inspires confidence. Everybody had better get a free copy of Uncharted 3 as compensation or something.

UPDATE (4/30, afternoon): Homeland Security getting involved. Also, Sony sets a target return date of 5/4.

*n.b. I’m not much of an online gamer anymore, except with people I know. As an early 30-something I no longer have the chops to go head-to-head with 16-year-olds who game 12 hours a day and have all the cheats turned on.

Lord knows when I was there, the official ELCA chapel didn’t do much to preserve or grow a Lutheran identity. They had their groups and activities, but if you wanted serious religious fellowship you had to hang with Hillel or the evangelical Christians as I did.

I also noted Muhlenberg is now up to $47,000 a year tuition, which is ridiculous for a liberal arts degree. My proverbial children are going to Virginia state schools.

The evidence gathered over centuries of disasters, natural and man-made, is overwhelming. The vast majority of people, when a disaster hits, behave in the aftermath as altruists. They organize spontaneously to save their fellow human beings, to share what they have, and to show kindness. They reveal themselves to be better people than they ever expected. When the social scientist Enrico Quarantelli tried to write a thesis how people descend into chaos and panic after disasters, he concluded: “My God! I can’t find any instances of it.” On the contrary, he wrote, in disasters “the social order does not break down… Co-operative rather than selfish behavior predominates.” The Blitz Spirit wasn’t unique to London: it is universal.

Pot shots at Ayn Rand’s philosophy aside, fascinating article. Score one for human kindness.

• Is VCU’s Final Four run the least likely of all time? Let’s ask Nate Silver. Meanwhile, my bracket has actually survived assuming Kentucky doesn’t take the title.
• Interesting review of the book Scorecasting by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim. Seems like it tries to apply the Freakonomics approach to sports subjects. If you’re a sabermetric nerd, some of it might be old hat. But what I found interesting is that, according to the research, “home field advantage” really is nothing but refs unintentionally making more calls for the home team in an psychological attempt to be liked. Food for thought.
• In the wake of the Congressman Gabby Giffords shooting, Richard Florida checked out the gun rights conventional wisdom that “an armed society is a polite society.” In terms of gun deaths, most certainly not. In the states with the most restrictive gun laws, he saw much fewer violent and accidental gun fatalities. In Hawaii, 2.6 per 100,000 for example; in New York 5.0 per 100,000; and in New Jersey 5.2 per 100,000. On the other hand Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alaska with their liberal gun laws saw many more deaths. Not sure what to make of D.C. in there on the high end; their gun laws were draconian until the recent Supreme Court decision.
• The Economist defends the teaching of…. history? Wow, finally props for the liberal arts in public discourse. Someone tell Obama that it takes more than science and math nerds to Win the Future.
• Murder in the Time of Cholera. This is really cool, and kind of creepy. From Philadelphia Magazine, a story that combines historians, anthropologists, earth scientists, a 178-year old railroad murder mystery, and… ghosts?
• A Man’s Guide to Boots and Shoes. The first place many women look, my friends.

Thank you Virginia, for being there.