A deep and ebullient spirit

When I stumbled upon the news Monday (on social media) that Gwen Ifill had died, something clutched my heart, and my eyes filled with tears. Although I’ve withdrawn from news programs because the substance and the standards have deteriorated so much, I could still count on PBS NewsHour if I wanted intelligent coverage. And Ifill was a good chunk of that intelligence.

I’d thought it a little odd last week when her co-anchor Judy Woodruff had started one of the broadcasts by saying, “Gwen Ifill is away; we hope to have her back soon.” Usually you hear that someone’s away on assignment, or vacation. This wasn’t that, and so it transpired. Ifill died Monday, age 61, from complications arising from endometrial cancer.

She’d been working almost right up until the end, because she was both a consummate journalistic professional, and because she loved covering politics. My least favorite subject.

Since her death, various configurations of friends and colleagues have gathered on PBS to talk about what a gift Ifill was to their profession and to their lives, how she enriched the existence of everyone around her. Here are some of my key take-aways.

David Brooks, of the New York Times, wrote this appreciation of her. Ifill was a PK, the daughter of a minister. Brooks writes that she, “told me that if she didn’t go to church on Sunday she felt a little flatter for the whole week. A spirit as deep and ebullient as hers needed nourishment and care, and when it came out it came out in her smile, which was totalistic and unrestrained.”

On NewsHour on Monday, one of her former colleagues said, “You could read a book by the light of Gwen’s smile.” He was right, as you can see from this photo that I stuck on my office door:

Since I did that, two of my colleagues have stopped by to thank me—they’d worked at WETA, where Ifill’s programs were produced. They hadn’t worked with her directly, but she’d still touched their lives. I repeated the “read a book” quote, and they both agreed. In each conversation, our throats were tighter than normal.

A couple of nights ago Charlie Rose interviewed Michele Norris, a friend of Ifill’s for more than 30 years. Her throat tightened, too, as she discussed the difficult days and weeks Ifill endured; very few people—colleagues or viewers—even knew she was ill, much less dying. Norris said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“She chose joy,” she said. Even at the end, she chose joy.

I’m sorry I never got to hear her laugh. Everyone says that laugh was something amazing. I’m also sorry I never got to hear her sing. Everyone says her singing was something to behold, as well. Based on her speaking voice and the wattage of that smile, I believe both statements.

And here's something else: the very act of me taping an Internet photo of her to my door gave me a connection with two people I'd only nodded and smiled to in the kitchen or the loo for the past ten months. A human connection of recognizing the gifts of kindness and steadfastness this woman gave to everyone around her.

We are all poorer for the loss of Gwen Ifill.

Upon mulling it over...

Okay, here’s something else that seems fairly neutral for troubled times, in spirit if not in smell.

I say this as someone who at the weekend bought a couple of bottles of Glühwein, which I expect to thoroughly enjoy over the Advent period: I cannot imagine what product team ever thought this was a good idea. Even one in the UK. I mean—toilet paper with any kind of food-related scent seems pretty beyond the beyond. But…mulled spice?

Mulling is the process of heating a beverage such as wine, ale or cider and dressing it up with a bunch of (not to put too fine a point upon it) smelly spices. Cinnamon. Cloves. Allspice. Nutmeg. Things you also find in cookies. It seems…odd to think of paying extra to have those scents added to toilet paper.

Frankly, it’s not like we’re not already assaulted with these fragrances during the shopping season. I don’t think you can walk into a mall or grocery store without passing through a wave of at least cinnamon. I suspect it puts you in the buying mood.

Wiping your tush with it? I just dunno.

Okay—this has put me into a bit of a strop, so let me leave you with something else Mull-related, which also gets up my nose.

Ho, ho, ho.

Cleanup in aisle 23

While I try to come up with anything about our current situation that doesn’t make me want to commit ritual seppuku on the National Mall, I’ll be posting random stuff that may or may not be amusing.

Like this photo I shot at the Pentagon City Whole Foods last summer. They may have been in such a hurry to put up the signs that they weren’t paying attention to, well, much of anything.

Class to crass

Sometime last summer I was watching some docu on PBS about how things run at the White House. It was actually interesting, although I can’t recall the title, so I’m unable to actually recommend it to you. But I did one find one sequence fascinating.

That was a clip on some state dinner during the Kennedy administration. Because this handoff is the very definition of seamless teamwork.

I doubt we’ll see anything like it anytime soon, given the presumptive occupants as of the end of January.

Gratitude Monday: Die Vereidigung

It’s a short one today. On this Gratitude Monday, as I watch the revolting scramble by Repugnants to haul out all their plans to dismantle democracy on their way to be first in line to kiss the Chaos Monkey’s ring, I give thanks for the fact that our armed services swear an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. 

(Congressmorons do, too. But they've made it quite clear that they don't mean it.)

The Executive and Legislative branches of our government have devolved into the structure of a banana republic; I’m not sure about the Judicial, although of course the Supreme Court is now on eBay.

But I hold out hope that our military will never pledge loyalty to a single human being, named or unnamed, or to render unconditional obedience to anything except the Constitution. 

And that’s all I can muster at the moment.