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Al Pfister & John Alvis:
A Mullings Plea

Saturday, February 22, 2003

• TITLE: "A Mullings Plea" Here is a link to the Subscription Drive Page.
  From the December 10, 2000 Mullings:

• A sad note. John Alvis, 35, was found dead in his apartment in Baku, Azerbaijan, a victim of a stabbing.

• John was a former student of mine, a gentle, optimistic guy whose passion for politics was great, but not as great as his passion for democracy.

• John was one of hundreds of Americans - Republicans and Democrats - who live in and among the indigenous populations trying to export our most precious product; democracy.

• These people - lots of them young, but not all - live, under difficult conditions, in places like Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia, and Indonesia, and Cambodia, and Eastern Europe and South and Central America and Africa trying to bring the lessons of freedom and democracy.

• They don't get to fly around on chartered aircraft. They don't get to live in excellent hotels.

• They don't get to organize events with lots of TV cameras and piped-in music.

• For many of these folks a really, really good week is getting a box of paper delivered so they can make copies. John's apartment was, literally, upstairs from his office.

• As we watch the fight for the Presidency unfolding on our TV screens, on our radios, and on our desktops, we know with absolute certainty that we will transfer power peacefully because the roots of our democracy run so deep here.

• John Alvis and his hundreds of colleagues spend every day trying to graft the smallest cuttings of our democracy onto nascent political organizations around the world.

• John had just about completed his tour of duty and was preparing to come home when he was killed.

• He will come home. He will be buried in his home country, in his home state of Texas, in the soil containing those same roots of democracy he died trying to carry overseas. --- END ---
  
  From the April 10, 1998 Mullings:

• Mullings will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I don't want to get maudlin about this, but I will be having coronary by-pass surgery as you read this on Friday morning.

• My cardiologist, Dr. Roy Leiboff, called to tell me Wednesday that he had shown my records to the surgeon and they decided it should be done ASAP. "How many vessels will you by-pass," I asked. "Five," Dr. Leiboff said. "How many I got?" I asked. "Five."

• As I am getting all new arteries I had a reuben sandwich for lunch on Thursday. What did the old arteries ever do for me?

• If you are moved to write, or call, or visit, or send flowers, consider this: Call or write or visit a friend or a relative you haven't contacted in a few years. Or, donate something to a charity or a cause or a person you've been meaning to get to. It may not do anything for me, but it may do wonders for YOUR heart.

• See ya. --- END ---

  Mullings resumed on May 4, 1998. ____________________________________________________________________________________