"When I realized that, I thought, Oh Man! It's not enough that the Haitians get destroyed by everything else, but they also have an exquisite openness to being injured by words."
He was a fine and ferociously competive athlete, known as Elbows to people who played basketball with him. In later years his younger daughters would rechristen him the Warden, on account of his strictness--no maeup, no boyfriends, no staying out late.
Meager incomes don't guarantee abysmal health statistics, but the two usually go together.
Jim said, "And let me conclude this, my brief remarks here at this TB All-Star Weekend, by paraphrasing someone of our tribe, of Paul's tribe and my tribe of anthropologists. Margaret Mead once said, Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world." He paused. "Indeed, they are the only ones who ever have."
As we entered the city proper, that great dove-colored epicurean city, he murmured something about how much could be done in Haiti if only he could get his hands on the money that the first world spent on pet grooming.
"An H of G" was short for "a hermeneutic of generosity," which he had defined once for me in an e-mail: "I have a hermeneutic of generosity for you because I know you're a good guy. Therefore I will interpret what you say and do in a favorable light."
