I was born in 1961, 10 years after his doctor told him he shouldn't have any more kids because he wouldn't live to see 40. His health was pretty good until around 1970 (actually I take that back, he actually broke his back in the early 1950's from seizures during an insulin reaction; he was an extremely brittle diabetic) ; he had eye problems and peripheral neuropathy. In 1976, while a guest of the Soviet Academy of Sciences  in Russia, he sustained a foot injury which he did not feel and did not notice until he saw a hole his his heel; the injury which was in bad shape when he returned to Seattle. Several months later he had his first leg amputated. His last two years, when I was 15 and 16, he was in increasingly bad condition, and extremely depressed---his marriage with my mother was always strange and rocky, and she had no bedside manner at all.
When he died, I was 17, and had only begun to find out what things I could accomplish.
He was so ill and depressed that he wasn't even interested in my successes, which bothered me enormously then.
He died in Oct. 1978.

I can't remember celebrating a father's day in his later years, although I suppose we did.
He was always a tremendous fighter, which served him well when he was maintaining his health; he was totally unable to come to terms with his failing health.

I try sometimes to imagine what he would be like if he were alive today, and what our relationship would be like. I can't do it. Our relationship was poor when I was in my teens and needed him, and he needed me too.
He was a difficult man, who I'm told now was highly manic depressive (I'm sure that's true, as my brother is severely bipolar). He could be extremely cruel, as is often the case with bipolar people (so I'm told), but he was also very kind at times. His interests ranged from science and music to foreign languages and history---a high point in his life was a visit to  the main historical museum in Leningrad.

I think if he had lived, he would have changed, because although he struggled with many problems, he strived like a titan to overcome them.
I wish he had been around to see me complete my education. I was the first person to get a Ph.D---at least in recent generations.
There are many fond memories from when I was a younger child, but it's hard for me to come up with a pleasant memory of him after I was about 10. I know now that I was just too different for him to relate to me as he did with my older brother. Neither my brother or I look terribly like him; fortunely (IMO) we have the rounder, fuller faces and less pointed noses of my mother's side of the family. I'd say his family's look was very patrician.

Most americans are not so big on conservation when it results in having to change their lifestyle regarding energy use.

IOW voters get defensive when their gas consumption and gas guzzling car lust gets messed with. The GOP is banking that voters will see the Democrats as trying to take their freedoms away.

It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills.  They are technologically very advanced.

"A meeting will be held soon, and we hope that a binding decision will be taken then," the prime minister's office said, explaining that the reason for the delay is "the need for continued contact with allies within the international community in order to gain support for the liberalization plan."

This despite the fact that most of the international community has already voiced support for the plan, following a campaign launched by Blair, who drafted the plan with Netanyahu.

The international community has welcomed Israel's announcement, stating Israel's intention to ease its land blockade of the Gaza Strip, with the White House saying the announcement was a "step in the right direction."

(CNN) -- South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.
"She looked at me and said, 'If only had teeth down there,'" recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. "I promised her I'd do something to help people like her one day."

Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.

Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.
The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man's pen!s during penetration, Ehlers said.
Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it -- a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.

"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on," she said. "If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter... however, it doesn't break the skin, and there's no danger of fluid exposure."

CNN