Cognitive Dissonance

August 1947 in Kenyon, Minnesota.

Kenyon, I learned later in life, contained only 900 people when I was a boy. A farm town in the middle of rich farmlands. It had a grain elevator, a dairy, a movie theater, two grocery stores, two restaurants, a drugstore, a farm implement dealer and a hardware store. Most of its residents back then were Scandinavian, and nearly all of them were Lutheran. As you left town taking Highway 60 west toward Faribault, you passed the only “rambler” style home in the community. That was where “the Catholic” lived, according to my grandfather.

My brother and I often spent the summer at grandpa’s farm, which to us was a never-ending source of wonder and intrigue. We ran like ferrets all day long exploring barns and sheds and creeks and valleys. We trapped pocket gophers. We fished for very small fish in the small pond that forty years later would take my cousin’s life, as he and his snowmobile crashed through the ice together. There was just enough water to cover them both.

Bud pitched or played outfield and he was our by-god hero. Just to be able to tell some other kid at the games that look there was our uncle out on the mound with his uniform and everything and did you see that he just struck that guy out! Struck him out cold! When I grow up I’m gonna play softball just like him.

He owned a black 1946 Ford two-seater coupe with a cool V-8 symbol on the hood. Inside the car there was a tiny electric fan on the dash that you could turn to blow in your face on hot days. There was also an AM radio that never played anything but polka music.

Bud didn’t take us home every night. Olaf and Harold were friends of Bud’s and on some evenings they would ferry us safely back to the farm. Apparently there were some team issues that had to be occasionally sorted out at a local tavern after the games. Grown-up stuff. Some of them involved a lady in the community who was nicknamed Moonbeam.

I never met Miss Moonbeam but I’m sure that she was a very nice person because nearly all of the men on the team spoke very highly of her.

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There was a moment when one of the non-idyllic parts of farm life was revealed in the starkest of terms. Uncle Bud was attending the birth of piglets, in the hay-fragrant twilight that was the barn’s interior.

I watched fascinated as each small glistening body was delivered. Then one piglet was born that was half the size of all the rest.Without a word, Bud picked up that tiny animal and flung it, hard, against the barn’s cinderblock wall. The creature dropped, lifeless, to the floor.

To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I could not believe what I had seen. I couldn’t put my idol’s hands and the killing of that poor creature together in my mind. When Bud then said the word “runt” it didn’t help at all. I had no frame of reference for that word. All I knew was that something completely inexplicable had happened. And I felt like I was an accomplice, somehow, because I hadn’t stepped in on the piglet’s behalf. Even though there actually hadn’t been enough time to do so.

Later someone explained to me what being the runt of the litter meant. That trying to raise one to adulthood was wasting money, something that was always in short supply on a small farm.

Known as runts, the smallest-born pigs often get the short end when it comes to feeding and attention from their mother, two factors that diminish their chance to survive. Runt pigs often weigh 1.1 kilograms — about 2 1/2 pounds — or less at birth. They may die on their own, or may be euthanized because of quality of life or welfare issues.

Kansas State University Bulletin

However logical my uncle’s actions might have been to him, the event was my first brush with cognitive dissonance, and it was a doozy.

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From The New Yorker

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Yesterday at City Market I had just put my purchases into the bike’s panniers when an elderly man came up to ask how I liked riding an e-bicycle.

A little background:

• This happens with some regularity
• I am very enthusiastic about the utility of e-bikes
• I am very enthusiastic about bicycling in general
• I am a consummate bore when it comes to expounding on my favorite topics

I don’t seem to be able to help myself. Robin knows how to deal with these episodes which is by hollering Pedant! Pedant! at me. But some poor sods like this gentleman have no clue what to do but to awkwardly stumble off.

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The summer days here in Paradise have been warmer than I would have chosen if I had been asked, but the nights … they are something else.

Take last night for instance. At 9 PM the temperature was just cool enough to be at the point where you might have put on another layer but are still okay without it. No wind. Just a few stars and the moon only half up. Bugs jamming around the lights (they seem to like LEDs just as well as incandescents).

Those insects reminded me of a camping experience we had. I don’t remember where we were, actually, but I do remember the toad.

It didn’t budge an inch as I walked by, and I wondered … how did it get so big? … but then I saw how. Several feet above its bumpy head the insects were fluttering around the light, and every once in a while one of them would fall to the ground. Where the toad waited patiently. No muss, no fuss, just putting electricity to good use. Every night that light would turn on automatically, and the feast would begin.

On the whole I don’t give toads credit for being very smart, but the one had something going for it.

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From The New Yorker

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I don’t like Mitch McConnell much. I think his partisan power-grabbing shenanigans went way past the point of okay when he refused to allow even a vote on Merrick Garland’s appointment. Basically he’s been an example of the worst sort of behavior in politics.

But I wouldn’t wish what’s in the video below on anyone. Notice how his aides are right there, showing no signs of surprise that their boss just lost it for awhile. Keep in mind that this man is one of the most powerful people in America.

There is a time, friends, when the elders of the tribe should retire to the shade of the great oak tree and spend their time chucking acorns at squirrels and telling stories to small children.

When are we going to get serious about dealing with the fact that human brains do burn out, and that it is neither surprising nor shameful when it happens, but a natural event. At present we are tiptoeing around the subject because it is an awkward one to discuss. Sooner or later those who try to bring it up are shouted down as “ageists”and discussion comes to a halt.

One cannot become U.S. President before attaining a certain age. How about one cannot do so after a certain age?

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