There is a continuing puzzlement in the world of birds and their admirers. When it was discovered that John James Audubon was not only a slave owner himself but a dealer in slaves the National Audubon Society had to do some soul-searching vis-a vis the name of their organization. Two years ago the national group decided they would maintain the name as is.
But they set up a problem for themselves, because many of the individual smaller groups under their big umbrella have been repulsed by the knowledge of Audubon’s misdeeds and renamed themselves.
John James Audubon.
Dealer in slaves and painter of birds.
It seems a shortsighted move on the part of the National Audubon Society to keep a name that honors a man who we now know to have trafficked in human beings. I think it inevitable that they will make the change one day, but by then they may have lost connection with these smaller organizations who have been more progressive in this regard. All of those will have new names of which they may have grown fond.
******
From The New Yorker
******
******
Most of those who are reading this paragraph thought they were Republicans or Democrats or Independents or Greens when they got up this morning. But in reality, there are really only two political parties in this country at present. There is the party of Trump and there is everybody else.
I am only one voice. One person has very little power, but two people have twice as much, four people four times as much … you get the picture. For the longest time I sat on my posterior expecting the Democratic Party to fight my battles and to look out for my interests as a citizen. That was a mistake. I am looking for new banners to march under now, new allies in the struggles for a better world.
Why do anything? Why not let it all play out on its own? Well … I have a short list for thee:
- We are now cohabiting with Communists rather than consulting with long-time friends in our international relationships.
- We have dropped connections with the World Health Organization when we are the epicenter of avian flu. The CDC is being reduced to a shadow of its former self, and is run by people using hearsay rather than science, people who suggest vitamins rather than vaccinations in the worst measles epidemic in generations.
- Offices that we depend on such as Social Security, Veteran’s Affairs, the Department of Education and many others have become a total mess because of intrusion by people given license by Cluck to do whatever damage they can.
- The DOGE workers are not really as interested in to achieve economies as they are trying to produce chaos, because small men like Trump and Musk profit in times of chaos.
- The hard working men and women in our government need a sane atmosphere in which to do their work, but sanity is in very short supply.
- When the people in charge of our nuclear arsenal and stockpiles are fired and then have to be sought out and hired back something is seriously wrong.
- When the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is already underpowered, has its staff diminished by thousands of members and cannot keep our promises to our veterans, something is seriously wrong.
- When the guardians of our national parks are reduced in numbers by the thousands at a time when they already are too few, something is seriously wrong.
- When all of this is being done to be able to offer more money to a very small group of people who already have more wealth than they know what to do with, something is seriously wrong.
Remember when I said “the party of everybody else?” Well, this amorphous party dwarfs the Trumpian grotesquerie in numbers, and if it can be awakened and shown the way to use its power I believe that much of the harm that has been done could be repaired. We could even go so far as to strengthen our institutions against intrusions by future crops of lowlifes.
******
******
From The New Yorker
******
How about a few quotes to get the old brain focussed on a Sunday morning?
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
Ahhhh, that felt good. There is more than enough knowledge out there that could be used to build a society where we could live in mutual respect and develop just relationships, while largely saying goodbye to fear and want.
If you dig through the accumulated wisdom of humankind you come up with a conundrum. If we know what to do, and have been offered clear instructions for thousands of years as to how to do it, why do humans find themselves in one pickle after another? Why do we keep making such eminently bad choices? Why is it so easy to exploit us and pit us against one another?
(Please note the absence of anything coming from me that approaches being an answer to these questions.)
**
I do have one positive suggestion to offer. Remember the story of the old woman at her 100th birthday party? She had been married to her husband for seventy years until his passing a few years back. An interviewer asked her how she had maintained a happy marriage to one man for that long. Without a pause she answered: “Low expectations”.
That might sound like a rueful or negative answer, but isn’t it really a re-statement of Mr. Voltaire’s aphorism: “Don’t Let The Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Good.” The phrase reveals the pitfalls of perfectionism. The pursuit of perfection can lead to inaction or the abandonment of valuable, but imperfect, solutions.
The lady in the story recognized this and took her man for what he was rather than exhaust herself in making him into someone he might never be. Perhaps she kept the small hope that he wouldn’t chew his food with his mouth open or wear stripes with plaids, but she was willing to wait it out while enjoying his company.
A society could do the same thing. Pick the good stuff out of the mess in front of it, and accept that as a beginning. Then move forward in a process of continuous and methodical improvement rather than have some pre-formed idea of a perfect final product and fight over how to get there.
***
At present we have a set of socio-political problems that don’t lend themselves as well to the gradual approach outlined above. May I offer a poor example of a parable?
A farmer looks out his window and sees that his fields need some serious tending or the crops will wither and die, but there is a grizzly bear in the yard between him and the fields. He knows what he needs to do to save his grain, but first … he needs to deal with the bear.
******
******
Each year large flights of Sandhill Cranes pass near Paradise on their migration north, and spend an evening on a small reservoir near a very small town an hour away from our home. The local Audubon Society sets up spotting scopes in several places near the water and invites the public to come for a viewing. Friend Rod and I drove out Saturday morning and did just that.
We only saw nine cranes, which apparently were the vanguard of a much larger flock coming tomorrow and Monday. No matter. The ones we saw were big and beautiful.
The host birders also found a golden eagle sitting on some irrigation equipment and a nesting pair of bald eagles for us to look at.
At noon a livestock association served up a free meal for the public. Free. Food. Took a few photos.
******
Little Home In The Valley 