Taking the Scenic Route

Webcam goofyness

Here is somebody I admire.  wow.  Talk about standing up for what you believe in!

Beheaded man’s father: Revenge breeds revenge
Michael Berg talks about the death of his son and al-Zarqawi

Thursday, June 8, 2006; Posted: 11:19 p.m. EDT (03:19 GMT)

A terror-linked Web site showed Nicholas Berg being beheaded, likely by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Image: 

(CNN) — The U.S.-led coalition’s No. 1 wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — who conducted a campaign of insurgency bombings, beheadings and killings of Americans and Iraqi civilians — was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

A gruesome video was posted on Islamic Web sites in May, 2004, depicting a man believed to be al-Zarqawi beheading Nicholas Berg, an American businessman who was working in Iraq.

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien talks to Nicholas Berg’s father, Michael Berg, by phone from Wilmington, Delaware, for his reaction to the news.

O’BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It’s nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I’m curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I’m sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. (Watch Berg compare Zarqawi to President Bush — 1:44)

I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can’t end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

O’BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I’m surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn’t be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O’BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I’m well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, ‘I’m glad he’s dead, the man who killed my son’?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O’BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who’ve said that they don’t think he’s a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell …

You know, you talked about the fact that he’s become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I’m a pacifist, so I wasn’t going out murdering people. But I am — was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I’ve done things that have endangered me tremendously.

I’ve been shot at. I’ve been showed horrible pictures. I’ve been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That’s what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn’t work?

O’BRIEN: There’s an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK — that they’ll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that’s actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we’ve spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you’re pointing to. (Watch how Iraqi leaders cheered after learning about al-Zarqawi’s death — 4:31)

BERG: Yes, well, I don’t believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join — what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

O’BRIEN: There’s a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know…

BERG: Democracy? Come on, you can’t really believe that that’s a democracy there when the people who are running the elections are holding guns. That’s not democracy.

O’BRIEN: There’s a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it’s going to be brutal, it’s going to be bloody, there’s going to be loss, and that’s the history of many countries — and that’s just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I’m not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he’s no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn’t pull the trigger, didn’t commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror. (Watch

I don’t buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don’t get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

O’BRIEN: Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, the young man, the young businessman who was beheaded so brutally in Iraq back in May of 2004.

A bunch of reports from a conference about autism:  Autism One

Zane update

This week he started swim lessons and tumble tots at the Y.  Both are parent participation.  He has done pretty well.  He also handled being in “Kid Zone”, the drop off nursery at the Y.  I went to pick up Zora after the tumble tots class and he wanted to play.  Since he was still pretty wound up, I decided to save my back and arms from a struggle out to the car and just let him play a bit longer.  In the swimming lesson, you might not have known he had issues if you weren’t looking closely…he did that well.  Yeah!

Later this week he has “Romper Stompers” which involves more singing and is a bit more directed than “Tumble Tots” (which only has teacher directed things for short bits, then organized chaos as they run through the equipment.  The teacher is the one he had for tap/ballet, and she remembered him and seemed happy to see him again.  It was nice.

The ST did an inventory of how he makes letter sounds and such this week.  I took that as a good sign, because she is starting to work on how he says sounds now instead of just trying to get him to say words.  She has noticed a big improvement in his ability to communicate and do social things like taking turns.  I am guessing that she didn’t expect to move to how he produces sound quite this soon, but his progress has been fairly rapid.  Since both dh and my brother were in speech therapy for how they produced sounds, it isn’t much of a surprise to me that he might struggle a bit with that.

On a frustrating front, he thinks it is pretty funny to try and leave when mama leaves the living/dining/kitchen area.  I have to be really vigilant about putting the chain lock on the door.  I can’t tell you how many times I hear the chain snapping open as he tries to leave when I go to the bathroom.  At least it means he is aware of where I am instead of so focused on what he is doing that he isn’t aware of his surroundings.  He has also figured out that if he puts the water in the bathroom sink really low I can’t hear it as well from the living room and thereby thwarting his fun.  He has overflowed the sink twice in the last two days.  I locked the door for a while last night after the first disaster, but forgot to lock it again this morning.  I am now glad I picked up some extra towels for swimming because they are being put to use cleaning up after Zane.   (SIL was thinning out her massive towel collection she got from their wedding, including two great beach towels that I am loving)

Today at Tumble tots, he got across the balance beam, twice, without any assistance.  Yesterday, he pulled socks on after I got them over his toes for him.  He wasn’t able to do the socks earlier today, but I will try again today when we need to go take out the trash and get the mail this afternoon. 

Zora update

Not a lot of changes, but seems to handle “kid zone” ok at the Y when I drop her off to do Zane’s lessons.  It only took 2 days for the people there to remember her.  I thought it was sort of interesting that when I went to pick her up today there was another child in a swing, but she was being held.  I liked that.

Mom came up for a few hours this afternoon.  She came with us to Zane’s speech therapy.  It was really neat to share that with her.  I was hoping she could do that sometime because it is nice to watch somebody like that interact with Zane because it teaches us new tools on how to interact with Zane that will elicit responses.  She said afterward she felt like she learned something too, so that was great!  It would be nice if love was enough, but it really does take some skill to interact with him.  I think she felt better after seeing it, sort of like how we felt.

Afterwards, we all shared one Chinese dinner at the “China Go”.  There were still leftovers.  lol.  Then I dropped her and Zane off at the apartmemt playground and they played a while, then wandered back to the apartment.

It was a nice day.  I had planned on taking him swimming this morning, but he overslept.  We really wore him out yesterday.  This evening I was so tired and just didn’t have the energy to take him to the pool, especially not with the wave pool open (more chaotic than the am time period I had initially planned).  The playground is what replaced that idea.  Hopefully he will be tired enough to go to bed on time tonight. I guess I will find out here pretty soon since it is almost bedtime.

She said she noticed he has improved on his social smile and eye contact.  I agree, but it was nice to have somebody else notice it.

A few shots my mom took out at the farm (there were more taken of Zane, but he wasn’t always dressed, so they aren’t appropriate to share)

Autism article:  (from England, hence the term “jab” instead of “shot”)

US scientists back autism link to MMR

On the webcam tonight…

Zane seems to finally be reacting better to Daddy being on a webcam.  Tonight they ate bananas together, Zach read him “Harold and the Purple Crayon”, Zach made his screen picture turn upside down and then righted it over and over again (with Zane laughing heartily and instructing “up” and “down” for him to change it.  They also just made funny faces at each other and were generally goofy.  It was really sweet.

Took the kids to Exploration place today to meet up with a couple of other moms/kids.  It went pretty well.  I even exchanged phone numbers with another mom.  Why does this feel like dating?  lol  We both felt like we had met before, but neither of us could pinpoint when.  She really seems neat though, and her ds is a doll.  He is about 16 months old with longish curly hair.  She does “play therapy” with kids, so she wasn’t freaked out by Zane.  It is weird how I seem to be gathering new friends who either have a special needs kid or work with them.  One funny thing, I kept forgetting her name…Jenny.  How boneheaded is that?!?

It was nice going with Dori, who knows both of my kids really well.  (and works as a tutor for dyslexic and LD kids)  It wasn’t nearly as overwhelming.  We kept “trading kids” as one or the other of our older boys would wander off, which meant a lesser work load for both of us.  We also took turns nursing our girls, without having to chase down the boys, which was nice.

I am really going to have to get a membership to that place again.  I went enough with the last membership to at least make the membership worth it, but I think I would use it a lot more now.  Zane doesn’t run from thing to thing quite as badly, so it isn’t as exhausting as it was then.  Since he became interested in ‘playing kitchen’ from his speech therapist (never mind how many times I tried to play kitchen with him before, he finally seemed interested in it when she did it.  kids! ), he had a point of common interest in pretend play.  He interacted with the other moms (Dori and Jenny) and really watched the other girls playing, and I really think he is ready to start playing more socially.   

He also wore a little wizard costume around for a while, and then changed into a crown and a red shirt thingy that he wore for a while.  I have never seen him purposefully trying on costumes, so that was fun.  He put a crown on my head and handed me a skirt to put on too.  (I wore the crown for a bit, but the skirt *might* fit around my right thigh, so I didn’t do that)  It is odd and exciting to see him trying out playing like that instead of just playing with functional toys (blocks, puzzles) or things with wheels.  He did play with some of the things he usually does, but there was more diversity, and it was really exciting for me.

Zane and I stayed there 3 1/2 hours, if that is an indication of how well it was going.  I probably could have stayed longer, but Zane was getting hungry and starting to show signs that he would be overwhelmed if I stayed too much longer  (the crowd got a lot noisier and more rambunctious during the last 1/2 hour we were there).

I did get one picture, which was probably blurry because I forgot to put on the flash, before the camera batteries died.  I still haven’t charged them, so the picture is stuck on the memory card right now.  I think a part of why I want to go back is to get pictures of him in costumes and playing like that just to remind myself that he actually did it when he is having a bad day.  I know, lame. 

You know you aren’t in Kansas any more when this is on your way to work.

At his desk

How NASA scientists spend their afternoons.  (Zach drew the pictures in 2nd photo)