El gato al agua

Here’s a short travel essay that was published in The Star Democrat on Sunday, October 2, 2011.

SEVILLE–Tonight on Calle Tetuan, an old man leans against a planter overflowing with tiny purple flowers, playing a melodica. A barely-there breeze urges me to roll my sleeves back down. Finally, cool weather has descended upon Seville. The past three weeks, now just a blur of sweat and tears, have been replaced by a more comfortable clime. If not for the hundreds of Spanish shoppers carrying their bags and conversations all around me, I would think I was somewhere else.

But much more than the weather has changed since I landed in Spain, considering, for a while, I didn’t want to be here.

The judicial system is alive and well

I have to start this post with a confession–no pun intended. I haven’t been following the Casey Anthony case on television. The whole ordeal has been dragging on for far too long, and I’ve not been home during the day to catch any of the action. After the verdict was read today, I wished that I had been paying attention all along. Social media was ablaze with comments saying that justice wasn’t served with this verdict and that Anthony got away with murder. The Casey Anthony trial seemed to be another O.J. Simpson debacle.

I was saddened to discover that the case is not so contentious.

I started reading news articles from the Post and the Times, rather than listening to people yelling about the case on TV and Twitter. It seemed that every reporter from every major outlet has mentioned that no actual evidence of a crime was actually presented to the jury. Everything presented in court was circumstantial, simply a possible theory to explain the death of Caylee Anthony. There wasn’t even a determined cause of death.

The death of the bogeyman

Here’s an op-ed piece that I wrote in May. I was fortunate to have this published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Mother’s Day. It was republished in my hometown paper, The Star-Democrat, a few days later.

LEXINGTON–The news of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s death came to me the other night when I leaned out of a classroom window to make sense of the patriotic songs I heard echoing across theWashington and Lee campus. Students were celebrating by waving flags and, later, with fireworks.

The next morning, I sang “America the Beautiful” in the shower. I dressed in red, white and blue, and walked happily to class.

And then, for a second, I felt guilty. I was enjoying the death of another human being — albeit a terrible one — and I had to ask myself why.

The Good Memoir: Jasmin Darznik’s New Book

A year and half ago, I was privileged to read an excerpt from Jasmin Darznik’s first published book, The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life. I was a student in her class on fabricated memoir, relieved to find out that Darznik’s story is one of truth.

I wrote this about the chapter she gave us to read:

She harvests a history that lived in the mind of her mother and beautifully garnishes it with the history of a culture that flows freely through her. This mix of memory and research is as close to truth as a memoir may be.

Dan Rather on the Crisis in Journalism and Why We Should Care

When former CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather walked into Washington and Lee University’s Wilson Concert Hall, about 300 people fell silent.

Dan Rather anchors CBS Evening News (John P. Filo/CBS)

Rather, 79, now the host of Dan Rather Reports, drew the crowd as the keynote speaker for W&L’s 50^th Journalism Ethics Institute. He told listeners why journalism—what he called the “red beating heart of democracy”—is failing and what that means for every American.

To Rather, the crisis is not a financial one, nor is it about evolving technology. It’s that “we journalists have lost our guts,” he said.

Juan Williams fired, NPR loses

Juan Williams, family photo

Juan Williams was fired from NPR on Wednesday. A long-time news analyst for NPR, Williams was also a paid commentator for networks like FOX News, often balancing a conservative pundit on The O’Reilly Factor.

During an O’Reilly segment a few days ago, the show’s host, Bill O’Reilly, talked with Williams and another analyst about the political correctness surrounding the 9/11 attacks. 

O’Reilly asked if he was wrong about the public fear of discussing Muslim involvement in the terrorist attacks and whether he was wrong in noting the attackers’ religious background. But Williams, somewhat surprisingly, said that O’Reilly was right.

A new way home…

Coming home on Wednesday night, I used a new route. After dropping off a friend in Charlottesville, Va., I went through Louisa County, completely inspired by what I saw in the glow of sunset. I started writing this down along the way:

I’m somewhere past Orange,

six miles to Wilderness,

as the sun slips finally behind the hills.

In the glow of late evening, grass takes a new color,

and the sky breathes a new shade each minute.

Trees are afire with autumn and the falling sun.

I’ve followed white fences for miles,

abandoning faulty directions for the pull of home.

Lost becomes exciting, and why not?

The Lemon: Sunlight of the Kitchen

I use lemon for almost everything. It’s a great ingredient for freshening seafood and transforming otherwise bland vegetables. The lemon helps fruit to keep their incredible colors even after you subject them to a 400 degree oven. It can even be used to clear skin.

There is nothing fresher than a lemon. Absolutely nothing. That’s why all of our cleaners are scented like them and why nothing attracts me more than a glass of cold, fresh-squeezed lemonade on a hot summer’s day. I love to make lemonade in big batches, but I often find myself needing just one glass. Here are two recipes, one for each occasion.

America is beautiful, for “We the People” make it so…

Last night, I was struck with a fondness for a day I’ve never seen, a nostalgia for a time before my own. I don’t find it strange. Good music and great movies have the power take us to places we’ve never been before and feel things that we don’t know we can. Watching the farewell address from the 40th President of the United States, I was “taken back” and longed desperately to have had the chance to live in the time when “The Great Communicator” addressed, from the White House, families all across this great nation.

His speech was phenomenal. Though I wasn’t born until 1991, I missed Reagan’s presidency much like I did when I read his collection of speeches, Speaking My Mind. In recent years, I cannot recall seeing a politician so sincere and hearing a speech that filled me with so much pride.

It made me think: What will our current president have to say during his farewell address? Like Reagan’s, Obama’s first few years have been plagued by an economic downturn. Like Reagan, Obama runs a country on the verge of great social change and new ideas. We are Americans, after all.

Promises, Promises

Readers: Rest assured. I, Michael McGuire, do hereby promise that I shall be submitting more to this online outlet.

Summer back home has been much different than anticipated at the end of my school year. My work is different–new most days and exciting on few– and “home” continues to take on new definition. More will come. I’ll even update my Korea Journal. (It has only been three months…)

All the best,

Michael