Overdose Awareness Day

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Our recovery meeting coffeemaker had some news today: He’d consumed a fifth of vodka this weekend. My friend and I provided the needed ears, and we spoke the words that maybe we needed to hear more than he is ready to hear: “You can do it, if you want it.” I added my own insistence on being positive in the face of just about anything; because he showed up and in fact kept his word and made the coffee, I said, “Obviously you’re hearing something you feel like you need in the meetings. You keep showing up, and that’s great.”

“I love being here,” he replied, and then departed before the meeting began.
Read More

Forever Snug

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

My current crush and I are grabbing some sun today at the same local pond I wrote about last week in “Forever Snug“:

Yesterday was one of those days in which the lifeguards outnumbered the swimmers. We were at a local park that features a small lake and beach; busy late August life kept the crowds away even on a sunny Saturday afternoon, so we were one couple out of maybe ten groups. Two families, each with three water-loving toddlers, splashed about, and none of the children were yet old enough to test their limits against the flimsy, algae-covered nylon rope demarcating the “deep end” on three sides. The lifeguards chatted with the families, flirted with each other, bought each other ice cream, and burned off the calories breaking each others’ speed records chasing after the ice cream truck.
Read More

A Farce in Egypt

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The judge “bellowed” the verdict against the three journalists today, according to reports. He announced that the three were found guilty and sentenced them to three years in jail. Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed, and Peter Greste already spent more than 400 days in prison in Egypt after being arrested for “spreading false news” while working for al-Jazeera English.

The three have already been convicted, retried, acquitted, retried again. Greste, an Australian, was deported last year.

Judge Hassan Farid declared today that the court had determined that the defendants are not journalists as they are not members of Egypt’s “Journalists Syndicate,” nor had they registered with a national agency that grants foreign reporters permits to work in the country. Thus, since they are not officially journalists, they were working against the government. They had been convicted in a first trial in 2014, sentenced to seven years in prison each, retried, acquitted, retried again, and convicted again today. Another retrial is being worked on but the earliest it can start is 2016.
Read More