Author: DJB

Welcoming Emily to the Family

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Candice and I spent this Labor Day weekend in Chicago at the wedding of our nephew David Brown Ghattas (catchy name, huh?) and Emily Ames.  David—an engineer just like his father and grandfather—is the oldest son of my youngest sister Carol and her late husband Raouf. Emily is a wonderful young lady he met while they were both in Istanbul a few years ago.  We had the chance to meet Emily at my father’s 90th birthday celebration in 2015, and have enjoyed getting to know her (and now her family) over the past couple of years. As my nephew Joseph Brown said to me somewhere along the weekend, it is great to be getting together for weddings as opposed to funerals, and I couldn’t agree more. Families are funny things.  When you have a relatively big one like ours (five siblings and lots of nieces, nephews, and in-laws), there are bound to be some differences.  The differences in ours are pretty substantial.  I’ll just leave it at that.  But love trumps all (pun intended), and …

Accepting Life as It Presents Itself…And Doing Goodness Anyway

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Anytime we face natural disasters such as we’ve seen with the landfall of Hurricane Harvey, our first thoughts—and the work of the first responders—are rightly focused on protecting those in harm’s way.  Those of us at the National Trust are thankful that our colleagues in Texas and Louisiana are safe, and we continue to keep the millions affected in those states foremost in our minds.  Knowing that many want to help, I want to share some good counsel for effective disaster giving, if you are so inclined.  No matter the amount donated, the underlying message is to diversify disaster giving. Give to more than one charity. Just like any other investment, spread your funding to more than one organization, with different goals for each. Give to recovery as well as relief: remember the long recovery phase that comes after a disaster. The urgent relief phase often gets the bulk of attention and funding, but don’t forget about recovery, which is often far longer, harder and more expensive.  Recovery done well also requires different kinds of …

Emotions Flow Through Places – Thoughts After Charlottesville

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Last week I referenced Dr. Mindy Fullilove’s book Root Shock with a story that spoke to how emotions flow through places.  I wrote before the events in Charlottesville—and the reactions to that weekend—brought place, memory, and emotion to the forefront of our national conversation. Stephanie Meek’s statement on Confederate memorials and the confronting of difficult history speaks to how emotions that arise from place are not always built upon strong, positive memories.  Of course, Dr. Fullilove understands this all too well.  Root Shock is focused on the difficult history of urban renewal, something seen in Charlottesville’s destruction of the African-American community of Vinegar Hill in the 1960s.  At the Trust, as Stephanie notes, “we believe that historic preservation requires taking our history seriously. We have an obligation to confront the complex and difficult chapters of our past, and to recognize the many ways that our understanding, and characterization, of our shared American story continues to shape our present and future.”  That is especially true of our Civil War history, and the fact that many of …

Ebbets Field

Emotions flow through places

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It will surprise no one that I read a couple of baseball books and watched several games while on vacation.  But it may surprise you to know that the best piece of writing I read which included baseball as its subject came from the opening pages of psychiatrist Mindy Fullilove’s 2004 book Root Shock:  How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It.  She begins chapter one with several powerful paragraphs.  I’m going to quote extensively from those two pages. “Every once in a while, in a particular location and at a particular time, people spin the wheel of routine, and they make magic.  One such location was Ebbets Field in the heart of Brooklyn, where, through World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the postwar struggles for equality in America, hard-working people enjoyed baseball.  That small, unpredictable, and intimate ballpark was a gallery for characters to strut their stuff, and the characters in the stands took as much advantage of the opportunity as …

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

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Virtually every reviewer of this 2016 work about the race to save some of the world’s most precious ancient manuscripts calls out the “unfortunate” or “inappropriate” title. And they are right. But then, in the comments section, reader after reader says something to the effect of “I wouldn’t have read this book (or your review) except for the title.” And they are right.   So there you have it.  Don’t let the title turn you off of this marvelous little book.  But also, don’t go into the work thinking that the librarians of Timbuktu are a modern-day version of Indiana Jones.  The tale is good enough on its own, but I suspect the author (and his publishers) thought that “The Very Persistent and Dedicated Librarians of Timbuktu” simply wasn’t going to set books flying off the shelf. Joshua Hammer, a former bureau chief for Newsweek who now serves as contributing editor to Smithsonian, is a talented writer who combines a strong journalism sense, travel writing sensibilities, a grasp of the culture and disputes of a …

A Fine Week

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Babe Ruth — when asked in 1930 why he made more money than President Herbert Hoover — replied, “But I had a better year than Hoover.” I had a fine last week in July.  Much better than Donald Trump’s week, I hasten to add. What made my week so special?  I went to two games at Nats Park, where the Nationals lost both games and looked pretty sleepy while doing so But… The weather was clear and cool, with highs around 80 degrees and a light breeze adding to the perfect atmosphere. Ryan Zimmerman — in the midst of a monster comeback year — hit a home run on Tuesday night that gave him the lead for most career home runs by anyone playing for a Washington franchise.  (He passed Frank “Hondo” Howard for the honor.) Any day at the ballpark beats a day without a game. And… …oh yeah, Andrew and Claire each joined me for a game at the old yard.  With Claire in Washington for a month before heading back to graduate …

Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible

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A poem by Kilian McDonnell for a midsummer Monday. Perfection, Perfection I have had it with perfection. / I have packed my bags, I am out of here. / Gone. As certain as rain / will make you wet, perfection will do you / in. It droppeth not as dew / upon the summer grass to give liberty and green / joy. Perfection straineth out / the quality of mercy, withers rapture at its / birth. Before the battle is half begun, cold probity thinks / it can’t be won, concedes the / war. I’ve handed in my notice, given back my keys, signed my severance check, I / quit. Hints I could have taken: Even the perfect chiseled form of / Michelangelo’s radiant David / squints, the Venus de Milo / has no arms, the Liberty Bell is / cracked. We’ve all known grumpy perfectionists “who hold that anything less than total victory is failure, a premise that makes it easy to give up at the start or to disparage the victories that are …