Seeking Much, Finding Very Little

It was that time of morning when what you mainly hear are the perky songbirds singing and a dove's call.

Walking.

Into the post office to get stamps.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" asks the clerk in a friendly manner.

Into the office supply store for envelopes.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" asks the clerk as I pay.

Into the grocery store for two packets of soup, one with crab and one with chicken.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" asks the clerk at checkout.

Someone has discarded several large, broken chunks of marble from a building being renovated. They rest against two trees several feet apart, in the shade.

I wait at the corner so a woman in a dark SUV had proceed on her way. My pace has slowed lately; I used to be a fast walker, then average, now I am very slow.

The air is fresh and cool, the breeze from the west lessens what would otherwise be more of the heat that has visited us all this week. The sky is Northern California blue, the girls wear light sundresses, and so wrap their arms around themselves from the breeze.

The flowers open toward the sun. I stare at a form asking me for a sequence of numbers I've entered ten thousand times before but suddenly now, I've forgotten them. I wait, hoping they will come back.

Everybody has so many questions, or more accurately, the same questions, but nobody ever asks, "What is it that you are looking for, exactly?"

Because for that one there can be no answer.

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In the Heat; In the Night

As the heat has settled in over this city last night, today, and tonight, my windows are open and the redolence of jasmine and other plants drifts casually in on a soft western breeze.

People's voices also slip through the bars that guard my apartment from the threats of a previous era. This neighborhood feels safe nowadays. Despite the prolonged recession, we know how to cope.

My youngest knows so little about my past. Last night, she discovered (in her words) that I am "famous." She had only been vaguely aware of my journalistic past -- the articles, awards, books, screenplays, speeches, and the rest -- all of which, apparently, equates to "fame," whereas to me it equates only to "work."

If you work you accomplish things. It's as simple as that. If your work happens to be in the field of journalism, from time to time something you do draws widespread attention. I suppose that equates to "fame."

But if the reason you did that work was to seek fame, you are a fraud. So the concept of fame carries a decidedly mixed message to journalists. Of course, some of the most famous people in present day America are positioned as journalists, but frankly if you know their name, they probably aren't.

More likely they have a pretty face, are good at reading teleprompters, and over-estimating their role as witnesses (not participants!) in the great events of our time.

Alas, the great evil (television) has propelled many exhibitionists (as opposed to journalists) into the public eye.

So, you can perhaps appreciate that according to my code, the last thing I want my precious daughter to conclude is that I am "famous."

Yet she is 12, and she has to interpret the world as she can, and I know in her eyes, whether I am "famous" or a bum in the gutter, either way, I'm her Dad, and that is all that really matters.

We have no confusion over things like that.

She wants a new pair of boots, and here I have been struggling as a father. I don't know where they sell women's boots, exactly. We went to Ross. No luck. Then to Nordstrom Rack. Again, no luck.

Now where? This is when it is frustrating to not have a woman around. I'm a fairly clueless shopper, only going where women have taught me to go, as in the above examples.

But no woman lives here. Nor will one ever again. It's just me, so my daughter is stuck with our collective ignorance. But I'm sure we will find out where they sell boots one of these days. Maybe, as I suggested to her today, this is the wrong season for boots.

At that, she raised an eyebrow at me. As a native San Franciscan, she well knows we are headed into our coldest season -- summer. What boot vendor around here wouldn't know that, too, Dad?

In other words, being famous doesn't mean you can't still say something pretty obviously stupid from time to time. :) I'm glad we got that straight, so that I can go back to just being me.

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The Risk-Taker

Whatever you think of President Barack Obama, you'd be hard-pressed to say that he is the kind of politician who puts his own best interests first all the time. Or that he backs away from a difficult decision.

As the details continue to emerge from Sunday's killing of Osama bin-Laden, it's striking to contemplate what a huge risk he took by personally authorizing a military strike that could easily have failed in any number of ways.

You can just imagine how disastrous this raid might have turned out had bin-Laden been surrounded by a larger group of alert, well-armed colleagues, as opposed to (apparently) just three men and a large number of women and children.

Or if the Pakistani military had intervened.

Or if large civilian casualties had occurred.

Or if the helicopters had crashed.

Or if the intelligence that suggested bin-Laden might be there had turned out to wrong, and innocent people had been killed in what by any standard of international law was an illegal operation.

Even though none of those things happened, any of them could have, which is why Obama actually put his entire career at risk by taking this decision.

Meanwhile, the decision from the White House today to release the information that bin-Laden was unarmed when he was fatally shot is somewhat puzzling, frankly. This entire operation was classified, at the highest level of national security classification, and from my perspective as a journalist, I'm not aware of any previous example of an administration declassifying sensitive information so quickly.

Since everyone with access to the details of what happened holds the highest security clearance, none of them would be considered a likely candidate to leak a detail of this sort.

Yet the White House today chose to admit that bin-Laden had no weapon when he was shot twice and killed, apparently in his bedroom.

At some point, probably very soon, the administration will be forced to release the photos of his dead body, since many in Pakistan seem to doubt that this news is true.

That problem -- the credibility problem -- will probably go away with time, and from the realization by the doubters once they see the photos. But a new controversy may build, about shooting an unarmed man in his bedroom after midnight, no matter what a human monster he may have been.

Remember that in the eyes of the world, the U.S. is not so much the victim of 9/11 but a dangerous, powerful, aggressive power that imposes its military might on people whenever and however it chooses to do so.

President Obama has just successfully carried out perhaps the most daring and most satisfying (from an American perspective) unilateral act of justice in our country's history.

But there will be repercussions. One of which, however, will not be damage to Obama's political career. He would appear as of this moment to be unbeatable next year. In politics as in many realms of life, taking great risks reaps great rewards.

He will, therefore, in all likelihood, win re-election next year, and many would argue, this act of leadership justifies that very result.

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Pattern Dreaming

A news junkie's dream day -- details of the military action that took out Osama bin-Laden yesterday emerge hour by hour. I realize that for non-journalists, this level of detail is not advisable. News addictions are not for everybody.

But going back to my work as a private investigator on behalf of the families who lost relatives in the 9/11 attacks, I've always retained a high degree of interest in the intelligence operations both before and since those attacks.

Finding a person is the most basic task any young investigative reporter has to master. We, of course, do not have the powerful tools of the CIA, DIA, or NSA, but finding most people is not that hard to do.

In the case of someone who doesn't want to be found, however, other means need to be employed. Everything starts with scraps of data that you piece together over time to try and discern patterns.

Every person lives according to his own pattern. Daily routines, habits, preferences are the best predictor of what that person will do the next time circumstances repeat themselves.

The tracking of bin-Laden started well before 9/11; he was trapped but allowed to escape at Tora Bora in late 2001, and then he vanished. But not really. He was there all the while, and it took systematic surveillance of others until the CIA felt they had one guy -- a courier -- who was in touch with bin-Laden.

It was eight months ago that the intelligence operatives started to zoom in on the compound where yesterday's raid took place. Not until the past few days did they develop enough confidence that this was a credible hideout for the al-Qaeda chief to justify an attack.

The President made the decision. The team went in and killed Osama bin-Laden. As the entire story emerges at some future point, this indeed will be a book worth reading.

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Americans One and All

My seven-year-old son quietly stepped into my basement apartment on the morning of September 11, 2001. His mom had already told me from upstairs that she had heard over NPR that an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. As I turned on the TV, I watched (and he, unknown to me did too) as a second plane tore into the other tower.

As I turned around and realized he was with me, I immediately became the protective parent, trying to shield him from horror, in this case inexpressible horror.

My son drew a picture that said "It makes me sad when you attack my country."

The baseball season was suspended. When it did resume, my son and I were in the crowd, and when we had the chance to share our emotions, we all cried and sang "God Bless America."

We were all able to be patriots on that night.

I think that tonight we all owe a debt of gratitude not only to Barack Obama but to George W. Bush, both of whom pursued bin Laden to his grave. May this bastard NOT rest in peace. And as our President said, "God bless America."

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Osama bin-Laden is Dead

The President of the United States is about to announce that the terrorist leader has been killed, and the U.S. has his body. Ever since the attacks of 9/11/01, this has been one of the American people's main objective. This guy had to be paid back.

Now he has been. Hooray!

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Boys, Girls, and Special Friends

My daughter's school has long had an annual special day called Grandparents' Day. But this being a coastal city on the far edge of a continent, many of the kids are lucky to see their grandparents once a year, usually on a trip back east, at best.

So a few years back, the school added "Special Friends" to those who could visit on this day.

Thus "Auntie JuJu" got to host one of her nephews, her infant niece and one of her sisters and her father today. We were her special friends.

Later, her 16-year-old brother coached her soccer team's final practice before their playoff games begin tomorrow. First he led them through the stretches and the sprints and the light passing exercises.

After a few somewhat more demanding drills, he broke them into two squads for a 45-minute scrimmage. As I watched him roam the sideline, stroking his chin, I suddenly had a vision from the future, perhaps a decade or more from now, when he begins what I suspect will be a successful coaching career working with kids.

After practice was over, it was time to drive him over to a field near Japantown, where he had a game of his own to play in. We talked on the way over and also on the way back, after he his team had played to a 1-1 tie in a match shortened by the City's maddening mess-up in not turning on the lights as the sun went down.

"It's really hard to coach girls," he told me, "Because I don't really understand what is going on with them."

Amen, son, I'm with you on that one. I don't understand them either. I used to think I did, but that was just a mirage. In the long run, it's probably best to coach boys instead, frankly. At least then, you know that everyone is trying to learn how to play the game as we understand it, as opposed to whatever it is the females of our species may have in mind.

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