This photograph showed up on Substack on Sunday. Of an exhausted Ukrainian soldier sleeping in a trench with his companion. Harshness and tenderness in one heartbreaking frame. He is so young, so bruised and muddy. The cat holding on to his shirt with that single paw. There are tears to be shed for this pair of soldier-friends. They should be home, not out where people are trying to kill them. May God please damn all to hell the men who make wars.
******
I have been so glad that our troubadours are raising their voices against Cluck’s depredations. In the Twin Cities on No Kings 3 there were musicians Tom Morello, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, and Maggie Rogers. Music has such power. It slices right past any defenses or cynicism we might be holding up to shield ourselves and hits us where it sticks. Baez and Rogers singing The Times They Are A-Changing was a linear connection, a passing of torches.
There are many American men and women who have been on the right side of change and history, but none more consistently than Joan Baez. Her life and her music are well embedded in my DNA … CRISPR-ed in by time and circumstance.
Colours, by Joan Baez
******
How fragile we all really are Like straws of glass In a windy field We feel so strong So confident When standing on our own Admiring of ourselves Our beauty and the distance we have come When suddenly a wayward wind Breaks off a piece of us And sends it tumbling to the earth
It’s when we soften, when we flex And bend before the gale That we survive And when the wind dies down We spring up Wiser, stronger, taller than before Ready now to leap another hurdle in the row That circumstance has left there in our way
We can’t complain that life is not the way we wish It’s not a promise Of a road, a list of happy guarantees Life is life No more, no less Perhaps it could be looked at As a set of chances To attain a goal, a happiness And if we reach one, why, let out that joy Crack open that champagne that you’ve saved And celebrate your little victory Before the day is done.
To me there are few pleasures in this world better than sitting down to a steaming bowl of soup. Not just any old slop, mind you, but something warm and liquid and composed mostly of umami. And if one lives long enough a list of favorites begins to arise. One of my own faves I first encountered at the chain of restaurants called Olive Garden. Its name? Zuppa Toscana. It knocked me off my chair.
Such flavor, such delicacy … even a bouquet! I gobbled it up and immediately ordered a refill, which I have been doing ever since when offered the opportunity. Like last evening at a local restaurant. Last night’s version was good, but not quite up to the original.
But here comes the good part. At least a couple of decades ago I ran across a bootleg recipe that promised exactly the same flavors as those of the Olive Garden version. It lived up to that promise and has done so every time I make it. So anyone with the recipe in their hand has a power that can only be granted by the gods – and now, standing in for them, me. Click on the link and be empowered, but don’t stint. Use a good grade of sausage and you can’t go wrong. Zuppa Toscana. You got it.
Well, Dipstick Donald got his butt handed to him in Iran. He seems to have been caught off guard when the Iranians quite unfairly started blowing up the entire Middle East and blocking off of 20% of the world’s oil shipping. Every day there has been a new justification coming out of the White House for starting the whole mess, the latest being that Cluck was coming down with a cold and was out of sorts. If Melania would have been kind enough to rub his chest with a mixture of beef tallow and Vicks Vaporub we might have been spared the whole bloody mess and the deaths already accumulated.
How pleasant it will be when he is finally stamped with the letter “P” (for pedophile) on his forehead and can be placed on a sexual offenders list. That way we can keep track of him once he’s been booted out of office.
My own preference would be to haul him to Mar-El-Lago, lock him in there and never let him out. Only adult family members would be allowed to visit, that is, if any of them want to do so. He would be assigned the duties of PLO (permanent latrine officer), with regular and rigorous inspections by that loony Kennedy over at Health and Human Services, who could thus resume his old habit of sniffing cocaine off toilet seats to his heart’s content.
******
Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, by MJ Lenderman
******
Screenshot
******
Thursday we received a new refrigerator. When we moved into this house the departing owners left us a nearly-new fridge, but that new one became 13 years old and about two weeks ago turned itself off. Then on. Then off. Then on. We read up on the matter and learned that the average lifespan of such an appliance is around seven years, so ours is ancient by those standards. After much pondering we decided to replace it, rather than beginning a cycle of expensive repairs that were strongly suggested were coming our way.
To me these things are still a marvel, with their automatic defrosting, in-door ice dispensers, deli drawers, and mostly awesome reliability. As a very young child I knew only the word “icebox.” This was essentially a large and very well insulated cooler. It was not electrified and thus had to be fed ice periodically to do its job.
Such ice was available from two sources, one of them being a building three blocks from our home where you put in some money and blocks of ice came sliding down from somewhere that you could put in your wagon to transport home. The other source was a medium-sized truck that made deliveries of ice to the homes, and in the summertime there was a steady dripping of melt-water behind it as it slowly made its rounds, since the truck was not independently refrigerated. On a hot July day we kids learned that if we looked pathetic enough and held out our hands the driver of the truck would give each of us a large chip of ice to suck on. For FREE!
Then came the refrigerator. Magic. Bye-bye to the ice houses and the ice trucks of the world. You now had something you could plug into the wall socket and forget about all that mess … until it frosted up. The freezer compartment would build up a thick layer of ice that ultimately brought the machine to its knees and then there was nothing for it but to take everything out and open the doors to thaw things.
Anyway, Thursday we get delivery of a new fridge, and all we had to do is come up with a couple of grand to make it happen.
******
My having some surgery a few days ago means that I’m missing No Kings 3! Damn. COVID already kept Robin and I out of No Kings 2. How in the world will the revolution go forward without me there to carry my spear, raise my dudgeon, spew my vituperations? It will be a pale thing indeed if this pattern keeps up.
I’ve been gathering Old English curse words and phrases, since the sturdy old f-bombs are so over used these days. I think that some of those in the following list show real promise, but now I will have to wait until another time to use them fully. Too bad, because we have way more than our share of jobbernol goosecaps here in Paradise, and they deserve to be pointed out.
Wærloga: Meaning “oathbreaker,” which evolved into “warlock”.
Bædling: An insulting term for an effeminate man or hermaphrodite.
An item touching on the recent death of our cat friend, Poco. A few days after his final office visit, we received this card from the veterinarian’s office. I thought it was a lovely gesture, and perfectly suited our present mood. Forever, of course, would have worked only if he could have still been young and strong and not living in pain and confusion. Loved the card, though.
***
Awright … one more gallery. These images of Poco were photos taken by Robin and I that were then manipulated with ChatGPT to have a particular appearance, which they call the “Norman Rockwell”” effect. Cheating, right? But isn’t any alteration of a photo, whether by Photoshop or other editing programs, much the same? I know that this is carrying it quite a bit further, but it’s all along the same line, I think. What it means is that a rather inept guy like myself can produce interesting photo effects by clicking away without knowledge or understanding.
I am posting them because somehow these imitations of life are no longer specific to a time or place. They mean something particular to me, of course, but in a way they have become representative of the life of a tabby cat in general, and it could be one you have met, a cat who was looking out of a window or walking in fall leaves in a yard.
******
Here are the originals, for comparison.
******
I first heard the song Ashokan Farewell as the main theme for the Ken Burns series: The Civil War. I always assumed it was a period piece, perhaps dating back to the 1860s. But no … it was composed in 1982, by Jay Ungar. Such a lovely and wistful and evocative piece it is. One of those tunes that you’d have sworn was present, playing in the back ground, during your entire life.
Until I ran across this cover by Priscilla Herdman, though, I had not heard the lyrics. Of course they are sad. It’s a farewell, for God’s sake.
The somber tone of the last couple of postings is because I am a bit more somber these days. I recently lost an animal friend who was very dear to me, and anyone who says that cats can’t be warm and attentive and affectionate … well, they lack knowledge and experience, because in a way cats are like mirrors. If we come at them with kindness and interest it is reflected back manyfold in our direction.
It’s like the Buddhist tale of the monk sitting at the side of the road with his begging bowl. A traveler came by and asked “What sort of people live in that village up ahead?”
The monk answered “What sort of people live in the village you have come from?”
“Well, they were spiteful and empty-headed and living with them was a struggle from dawn to dusk. I couldn’t bear their company any longer.”
“I think you’ll find the people in this village are much the same.” And that traveler continued on.
Later, another pilgrim came to where the monk was sitting along the road and asked the same question .
“What sort of people live in that village up ahead?”
“What sort of people live in the village you came from,” was the reply once again.
“They were the nicest folks you could ever want to meet. Always friendly and sociable, and if you needed help all you had to do was ask and several of them would step forward.”
“I think you’ll find the people in this village are much the same,” the monk said.
******
The Grateful Dead song Ripple is an all-time favorite for me, ever since I first heard it on the soundtrack of the movie Mask. There are many cover versions out there, but I doubt there’s a better one than this. Two women respecting the music and making it their own. I was completely charmed.
******
No Kings 3 is just three days away. There will be massive displays of peaceful protest and solidarity in the great cities around the US, and we will have our own smaller version here in Paradise. Each day Cluck does something ugly that gives more people the motivation they need to get up and out on the street.
There will come a day when the only people who will stand with him will be a handful of the MAGA cult members. They are a nasty bunch, and it is ultimately not possible to keep a group like MAGA together that is completely based on spitefulness, fear, and hate.
******
ScreenshotScreenshot
******
The snake cartoon above says it all for me. Whatever the Republican Party once was it has ceased to be anything but a gaggle of Cluck enablers and lickspittles. Here in Paradise the politicians from that party are far too often of the dunderhead variety. Last summer a brand-new Republican county commissioner was successfully recalled for rampant stupidity and boorishness of the first order.
When this inept national regime falls, I could care less what happens to the present-day GOP. I would, however, very much like a respectable and honorable conservative political party to arise. Although the Democrats seem to finally be realizing that they are standing waist-deep in a manure lagoon that they helped fill because of fecklessness in their role as an opposition party, they seem to require a worthy opponent to keep them on their toes.
******
The daily news is so rife with horrible that it is easy to get off to a bad start in the morning, when you are being served with what seems an endless procession of humans behaving badly. But if I walk out the door and talk to people about their lives, I find a different principle at work. One that is so very powerful and enduring. Love, actually.
There are parents sacrificing for their children and children sacrificing for their parents. There are people working selflessly for peace, the environment, and in the struggles against disease and ignorance. There are friends helping their comrades across streets when their strength is failing. People who leave anonymous gifts at the doors of the less fortunate. The courage, compassion, and determination of the people of Minneapolis who refused to yield their freezing streets to the thugs of ICE.
I can remember too few things from my early childhood, but some of the clearest memories involve feelings. I remember when a puppy who I had bonded with was killed by a passing car on an elm-shadowed Minneapolis street. The implacability and irreversibility of the loss were things I could not process. How monstrously unfair it all was. For a time I made a mental fetish out of the puppy’s short life, and each day for weeks my thoughts swung back and forth from the crushing sense of loss to brief episodes when I forgot for a moment or two about grieving and simply enjoyed something. Anything. Then when I realized that I was actually living a “normal” life I would feel a terrible sense of being unfaithful to the absent pet. Slowly time took over and life began to ease as those feelings took their proper place, a place one could live in.
The oscillations between nonacceptance to guilt to nonacceptance to guilt ad infinitum in a landscape of misery and self-pity … I recall them very well. So this week when I found myself doing the exact same thing eighty years later I was not completely surprised. My skills of compartmentalization are much better now and I recognized that when the episodes of chest pains and flooding silent tears come suddenly I know that they are not permanent states but are of grief that will ease with time. And the guilt of surviving and being happy once again will also alchemically change into a deep respect and appreciation for the life which had been shared.
But the grieving is still an awesome force. It is the price to be paid for loving something or someone if that precious bit of life is taken away. It’s not a case of me over here and my late friend Poco over there. Our lives had become intertwined, grown imperceptibly together over nearly two decades so that his death has been a ripping away of a part of myself. An amputation. A violent lessening.
And just as when I was six years old and that puppy was killed, today I find myself crying out “This is not fair!” It seems that I don’t have to look far for my inner child at all. He is right here typing away at a Macintosh.
******
Ashokan Farewell, by Priscilla Herdman
******
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
******
We’re having 80 degree days this week, the forsythia are blooming hard and fast, and the fruit trees are following their lead. The stores that sell seeds and plants are already filling their shelves.
It is late at night and I couldn’t sleep so I took a cup of herbal tea out onto the backyard deck where it was a lovely 60 degrees. The slimmest sliver of a moon is nearly settled below the western horizon. The Big Dipper hangs right above my head. The heavens seem to be properly arranged. Kudos to whomever is in charge.
In the distance someone revs a car loud enough to possibly interest the local police, I don’t know. Maybe this sort of disturbance of the peace is one they let slide. Across the way from our house someone’s dog barks. Our cat Willow hasn’t come in from her evening rounds yet, nights like this one are just too interesting to her. So much night stuff going on.
During this afternoon I noticed a bunch of yellowjackets buzzing around looking for homesites. Time to get out the wasp traps. It is best if you can get them out early and catch the queens to shut down nests before they get started. Spring has sprung in full.
******
Apple Tree, by Why Bonnie
******
******
Our lives are like sweaters Which are never finished For as we add a row or two Of length, to fit where we are now A cuff or collar may unravel just a bit And need repair
I think that sorrow is a time When many rows are dropped at once And slow replaced The wind blows through the holes That have appeared for others To appreciate
We stop, pull back Repair enough to make it wearable Then go on as before All knitting And unraveling Together
Poco and Robin sitting outside our front door in South Dakota, the morning after he first came to us.
Poco came to live with us nineteen years ago. It was a cool autumn evening when we heard a squalling sound coming out from under our pickup. Peeking under the truck we discovered a tiny kitten making a very hoarse and un-catlike sound. He wouldn’t come out from under, so we rounded up some food, put it in a dish, and placed it on the ground nearby.
A few minutes passed before he came out to devour what was in the bowl, and did it so rapidly that we knew he wasn’t chewing his food properly, so we made a note to ourselves to work with him later on this issue. When he was done eating he began purring like a tiny champ and allowed us to pet him and pick him up. Now nineteen years later this small warrior has taken his leave of us.
There was a lot of life that happened in these intervening years, and from Poco’s standpoint I hope that we were a decent pair of humans to hang out with. To us he was always affectionate and a warm and steady presence in our day. His curling up beside you on a couch could be a great comfort at moments when your spirits were low. A small act that said somehow “I am here and this will pass and I will still be here.”
Of course this is me attributing human feelings and thought processes to a very different creature. Anthropomorphism is more than a little hazardous, so I freely admit that in spite of paying good attention for all these years, I don’t have many clues as to what was in Poco’s mind at any given time. I sometimes had the mildly uncomfortable feeling that his thoughts were on a much higher plane than my own.
As far as I know, the young Poco never let another cat’s challenge go unanswered. He had the notched ears and the scars, and we had the veterinary bills to prove it. But time and infirmities finally caught up with him this Spring, and we had to say goodbye.
Vale, Poco. Vale, brave friend and defender of the back yard. We are missing you greatly. Our hearts are on the ground.
Well, we watched all 3.5 hours of the Oscar ceremonies on Sunday night. I was yawning by 2 hours, even though there were some entertaining moments scattered here and there. But hearing for the umpteenth time in my life about how important sound engineering is to movies has not made it interesting to me. Call me apathetic about the whole technical side of the business.
If someone has to explain to the audience why what someone else in the industry does is a big deal … well, maybe it isn’t … at least in terms of entertainment value. Of course the movie industry cares about those people and how well they perform but to most of the millions watching they are an interruption in the glittering fantasy we tuned in to see.
Why not break out the shiny beautiful people for an hour and a half, create a flashy program aimed directly at the mindless and drooling hoi-polloi (of which I am a charter member) and let those terribly important and worthy folks have their own separate, beautifully organized shindig. (BTW, I know that there already exists another such ceremony, I only suggest that it be expanded.)
Perhaps I am completely out to lunch here, but I shamefully admit that in the 70+ Oscar ceremonies that I have witnessed I can not remember the name of a single Best Cinematographer, including the person who won last night. Maybe, just maybe, there many other clots like myself out there in the audience who are the ones dropping out as the years go by.
******
Travelin’ Riverside Blues, by Robert Johnson
******
I went looking for why the ceremonies are called “Oscar,” and came away with the realization that no one knows, there are only attractive guesses.
This is a sardine, and this is a story about them. They are a small, oily fish that lives in the ocean, which is a long way from where I live in Paradise. So basically the only sardines that I encounter on a daily basis are found in cans, headless and stacked in neat rows.
When I was a boy and spending time on my grandfather’s small farm in southern Minnesota, sardines and pickled herring were nearly always available. Because Grandpa Jacobson liked them, and he was one of my major heroes, I liked them, too. But when I became an adult, and tried to introduce others to the beauties of sardine-ness, I nearly always failed.
Tinned sardines available to Midwestern and Mountain landlubbers are basically headless, but otherwise they are presented as Nature made them. You take a fish out of the can and you eat it. On a cracker or a slice of bread, perhaps, or all by itself. It has a smoky flavor and very small soft bones and goes down quite easily. It also tastes like a fish. For some reason, a fish that tastes like a fish is disturbing to many Americans, and if you add that to the fact that the creature is being eaten whole, well … I long ago gave up my missionary work among the heathens in this regard.
Somehow over the last thirty years I have become a moderately overweight man, a state that I am now attempting to reverse for reasons of health and appearance. The turning point in my going from svelte youth to pudgy senior citizen was during a three-month stint at St. Paul Children’s Hospital where pediatric residents were given free and unlimited access to one of the finest hospital cuisines I have ever experienced. But that is another story.
Today a lunch of sardines on Wasa crackers is relatively low in calories and very high in calcium, protein, and those desirable Omega 3 fatty acids that nutritionists push at us at every opportunity. So I’ve added a few cans to my pantry. Robin doesn’t share my feelings bout these little finny things, but isn’t revulsed if I eat them where she can see me doing it, so our peaceful coexistence isn’t disturbed when I open a can.
I’ve added a photo of a can of King Oscar sardines for your education. These are the creme de la creme in the world of sardines. you can see that when you open the can everything is neat and tidy. They are uniform and uniformly delicious.
If you choose a budget brand, do not expect that they will look like this, but rather they will appear as diminutive victims of gang violence, irregular and thrown into the cans with little ceremony. They taste just as good, however, and are as good for you as the loftier-appearing variety. Usually at half the price.
******
Travelin’ Riverside Blues, by Led Zeppelin
******
Leonard Pitts Jr. writes so well … I’ve been a fan for decades. So when I found this piece on Substack this morning that was even better than his usual level of excellence I had to share it.
From the ridiculous to the sublime. The production number shown at the Oscar ceremonies. Ay ay ay, what beautiful things imaginative people can bring into existence. There is a great line early on in this video, and that is: “You keep dancin’ with the Devil … one day … he’s gonna follow you home.” I will only say Amen to that, Brother.
I just did something that I try to avoid, and that’s look at a long-term weather prediction. Long-term meaning anything beyond 48 hours. But the weather apps are fearless, and they will routinely take a shot at the next two weeks or even longer periods. Which is how I discovered that the high temperature this coming Friday is predicted to be 87 degrees here in Paradise.
Zounds … I say … zounds! There is still much of March to come! A handful of the trees in town are beginning to leaf out. Any minute now the forsythia will be blooming. The beaches will soon fill with tourists.
Merde! Wait a minute! There are no beaches here in Paradise! I speaketh gibberish!
******
Every Day Is A Winding Road
***
I recently had to admit to myself that I’ve never given Sheryl Crow proper respect as an artist. Which is odd, since I’ve liked almost everything she has recorded. Fortunately for Ms. Crow, there are millions of people who are smarter about that than I. My favorite album of hers so far is entitled Sheryl Crow and Friends, which was recorded live in Central Park in NYCity in 1999, and I’ve provided three cuts from it.
She is one tough lady, having survived breast cancer, a brain tumor, and Lance Armstrong.
When Crow wanted a family and a reliable man could not be located, she adopted two boys who are now young men. A strong move for a single woman in the entertainment industry. Reminds me of this feminist poster from way back then.
Leaving Las Vegas
******
Cartoons to warm the heart of just about anyone with an intact soul. Love the George Washington quote.
Screenshot
******
It’s less than two weeks now until No Kings 3. If you are anywhere near our corner of the world and wish to poke your metaphoric thumb into the figurative eye of the MAGA cultists, come and join us on March 28. We’re going to have a band, a good long honk and wave session along Highway 550, and some appropriate (but brief) speechifying. It’s shoestring grassroots resistance at its best.
There will also be a contest based on the theme: Where the hell is Congress? The winner will be anyone who can tell us the location of this important and woefully impotent body of representatives.
******
If It Makes You Happy
******
Saturday one more of my letters to the editor was published in the Montrose Press. I was a little surprised because it is the crankiest one yet, and there have been less fiery missives which have not seen the light of day in that newspaper. Here it is.
As we enter yet another phase of our national Trumpian nightmare and invade yet another country, the consequences of which could be very bad indeed, I find myself wondering again how anybody could support such a man. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, should we?
Maybe they don’t know what a pedophile is
Maybe they don’t know what human trafficking is
Maybe they don’t know what a felony is
Maybe they don’t understand what a traitor is
Maybe they can’t see grift and corruption as the enemies of democracy that they are … maybe they don’t care
Maybe they don’t have the imagination necessary to see the importance of living in a country based on economic and social justice and the rule of law
Maybe they haven’t looked up the meaning of the word degeneracy yet
So many questions come to mind. But one thing is clear. If anyone supports this man and his cronies, they share the blame for the harm that is being done to our country and the rest of the world, and it is legitimate to make judgements as to their wisdom, their morality, and their fitness as American citizens.
We are looking forward to watching the repopulation of the plants in the Black Canyon National Park. Readers will recall that last year there was a significant fire that torched much of the park, and has left us with fewer options on our visits. For instance, the campgrounds are closed, having suffered much damage to structures and campsites. The road down to the canyon floor at East Portal remains closed with no re-opening date set as yet. Concerns about rockslides and mudslides on this steep stretch of highway have kept visitors from having access to the Gunnison River.
But it is the plant life that I am interested in. The Gambel oaks and the serviceberries and the grasses and the lupines and the piñons … what are they going to do this coming Spring? Will they all come back? It’s a hard life for a plant up there, with rocky soil and scant water, even in good times. A story is about to unfold and I am ready to learn from it.
******
One for My Baby, by Josh White
******
The South Rim of the Black Canyon Nation Park has a single road of about seven miles in length that runs the length of the park. During the cold weather months the road is blocked off from the Visitor Center onward and becomes a cross-country ski trail. Each Spring there is a short period between when the narrow two-lane road is completely free of snow and when it is opened to automobile traffic. If you are lucky and can make it up there during that time, it is a wonderful and dramatic bicycle ride, completely un-bothered by cars. You have the road to yourselves.
You can ride your bikes the rest of the year, of course, but there is little in the way of a shoulder for much of the road, and there are few areas where cars can safely pass you, so they tend to pile up behind your bike and make you nervous. This makes for a lot of getting on and off the highway whenever possible just to let those frustrated drivers get on with their trip.
But that golden window is just about upon us when we have the trifecta of good weather, a dry road, and no cars. Can’t wait.
******
Jelly, Jelly, by Josh White
******
Robin and I have been using electric bicycles for the past four years, and really enjoy them. I don’t want to overplay the geezer card, but these machines really flatten the hills and enable us to take longer rides than we ordinarily would on non-motorized cycles. They only have two major drawbacks. One is that unless you are able to fork over more than about three grand for a luxo model you will be riding a heavier bike that weighs about 60 pounds or more. The second is that if you really want to cover a lot of ground on your ride you are limited to how far your particular bike will go on the battery’s charge. For the machines that Robin and I are using, the range is around 40 miles, depending on terrain.
The Optibike R22 Everest is presently the e-bike with the longest range, boasting a 300-mile capacity (482 km) via a 3,260Wh dual-battery system. To acquire this technological marvel all you have to do is give the dealer something over $18,900.
I did give it just the briefest consideration but eventually decided against buying one, deciding that it was better for Robin and I to be able to eat.
******
Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin’ Bed, by Josh White
******
Josh White has been a favorite of mine since I was sixteen and first heard him sing One For The Road while I was sitting in my car and gnawing on a bag lunch on the University of Minnesota farm campus. At the time I knew nothing about him and his life, just being entranced by the voice and the guitar. Turns out that he had a fascinating life and played several important roles along the way.
White was in many senses a trailblazer: popular country bluesman in the early 1930s, responsible for introducing a mass white audience to folk-blues in the 1940s, and the first black singer-guitarist to star in Hollywood films and on Broadway. On one hand he was famous for his civil rights songs, which made him a favorite of the Roosevelts, and on the other he was known for his sexy stage persona (a first for a black male artist).
He was the first black singer to give a White House command performance (1941), to perform in previously segregated hotels (1942), to get a million-selling record (“One Meatball”, 1944), and the first to make a solo concert tour of America (1945). He was also the first folk and blues artist to perform in a nightclub, the first to tour internationally, and (along with LeadBelly and Woody Guthrie) the first to be honored with a US postage stamp.
There is a struggle going on right now between humans trying to do their best and humans doing their worst. The good in us will triumph, I am certain of that, but there will be hardships enough along the way to satisfy the most masochistic. And when those standing for compassion and justice and tolerance once again take the reins those virtues will have their moment for as long as we are willing to fight for them. For as long as we can remember that they are maintained only by constant struggle.
I recall when I first read The Lord of the Rings that at the end there were still bad guys out there, and definite suggestions that they would come out of their hidey-holes one day down the road and mess things up once again. It was part of Tolkien’s genius to see that comfort could be the enemy of vigilance, which always gave evil renewed opportunities.
He didn’t give me the unmitigated hopeful ending that I wanted. It pissed me off. Never mind that this good/evil cycle had already been repeated during my own time on the planet, I wanted the happy ever after. Eventually … but grudgingly … I forgave him for telling me the truth.
Scientists have wondered for the longest time how we vertebrates got our complex eyes. And the short answer is … we still don’t know for sure. But they are working hard at tracing the path from a single patch of light-sensitive cells in a very primitive, cyclopean, and brainless organism to where we are today.
Not only are the above orbs more intriguing than those of a planaria (at right), but they have all sorts of differentiation of proteins so that some cells bend light rays, some absorb light, some transfer images, etc.
If you haven’t already read the article, here’s a link. So much to learn … .
******
Here’s an image of a primitive and brainless cyclopean species. Believe it or not, this one was recently elected president of a large country.
******
Thursday: Yesterday I watched cranes flying overhead, but this time they were moving northward. I keep looking for the changes in neighborhood birds that declare it to be Spring, but they have been slower in coming. Birds aren’t stupid. They know that weather has its ups and downs and snowstorms are bad news for hummingbirds and waxwings and other migrating species. Come back too soon and it can be curtains for you and yours.
BTW, one of the absolute signs of Spring that I used to rely upon is no longer trustworthy here in Paradise. When the snow has hung about for months and finally prolonged warmth melts it down to the level of the lawns and ditches and the ground is everywhere damp one is assailed by the aroma of thawing dog feces for about a week. But when the rains and snows don’t come and the winter is in effect a mini-drought, those reminders of the thoughtlessness of canine owners stay largely dry and odorless.
But I am snug and warm and looking forward to something on the balmy side this afternoon. Tonight a couple of inches of snow may fall, but by Saturday we’ll be back in the sixties once again.
******
Silver Rider, by Low
******
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
******
Robin and I are knee-deep in rewatching the series The Gilmore Girls, as I think I previously mentioned. The show first ran from 2000 to 2007. I must have slept through that first viewing because there is so much that I notice this time that is completely new to me.
What is new, you ask? Well, the absolute repulsiveness of the parents of the main character, Lorelei Gilmore. They are rich, vain, soulless, and perfectly shallow, gloating in their privilege and not pausing for a moment in their judgment of ‘lesser’ humans. By this time I have reached the point where I no longer want them to be relegated to being written out of further episodes. No, that’s not enough. I want them to be kidnapped by Barbary Pirates and slave-chained to the oars of galleys that operate in some sweltering part of the world.
What else, you ask? Well, there is Rory, the hyper-smart daughter of Lorelei. She’s been told so often that she is more intelligent than the rest of the world that she believes it and is desperate when she comes up against the occasional reality of failure. Also, from the first day of puberty onward she spends most of her waking and non-studying hours attaching herself to one male after another. Once she is attached, she begins to manipulate said male into her idea of what a young man should be, which is essentially a replica of herself. Doomed projects all.
The men who wander into the lives of the Gilmore Girls are mostly congenial people who can’t understand why just when everything seems to be going so well they find themselves standing alone under a street lamp in a cold rain. One day they were the lover or BFF of a smart and beautiful woman and the next it is whoa, baby, I’ll call you, okay?
It is not only the men in the series who are seduced by these talented women, it is the viewers as well. We watch the series for the witty dialogue, the sharp humor, and the truths about people and relationships that are revealed. It is a sitcom with scattered tragic episodes.
Kinda like life.
******
Blue, by Lucinda Williams
******
Oh Joy! Oh rapturous news! DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has been fired from a job she never knew how to do and sent to a new one that was invented just for her. The murderer of protestors and puppies has had ICE, the biggest and nastiest toy in the country, yanked from her hapless grasp and given to someone I never heard of from Oklahoma.
Since her new job has no duties or office as yet, perhaps Ms. Noem may return to her home state of South Dakota, or at least to the part of the state that will have her. The 12% that is occupied by Native American reservations has been closed to her for quite a while now. She is that popular.
Yes, folks, you heard that right. When she was governor of South Dakota she did such a lousy job for the Native Americans in that state that she was barred from entry into all of their reservations, which are sovereign, self-governing territories held in trust by the U.S. federal government.
******
Barroom Girls, by Gillian Welch
******
One last little thing. In today’s NYTimes, there was a small piece entitled The Badlands Hold Me As I Grieve. I thought it was one of the loveliest little essays I’ve read in a long time. Part of its attraction was that I lived in South Dakota for nearly 40 years and there were parts of its landscapes that absolutely matched something in me like nowhere else I’ve lived has. That windswept loneliness, for instance, and the Badlands. Especially the Badlands.
It won’t take long to read … you might give it a minute.
The human beings of this planet are presently behaving at their most awful in so many places at once it is hard to keep one’s focus. I never aimed at having this be an anti-war, anti-fascist blog, and I try to put as much purely silly and inconsequential in each entry. But I am weak, and my anger is strong, and so it goes. I apologize for my inconstancy.
I also apologize for my country, which at present is governed by madmen and thieves. We have slipped at least six spaces back toward barbarism, and there are too many Americans who are cheering that slippage. Try as I might, I am unable to adopt the attitude expressed by Jesus while on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Part of my failure is, of course, that I am not Jesus. The other part is that I think that they do know what they do, and deserve a huge karmic slap upside the head.
And now …
******
Shark Smile, by Big Thief
******
Now this next one might come across as a bummer, but is it not meant that way at all. Think of it as rather a note of explanation. I am a man of eighty-six years, which means I am a potential target for a variety of problems. This week I found that one of those possibilities has taken a step forward when a very plain-spoken physician informed me that I have a cancer. It could have been a heart attack, or another stroke, but nope, it was something completely different. The extent of the problem and the treatment possibilities have yet to be determined, and are not the point of this posting.
I thought about it for a while before deciding to mention this development, because … well … I have no interest in writing a cancer journal. There are many who have done so, and have done it well. Their chronicles have given meaning and hope to a great many people. However, looking ahead I can see that there may be times that having this problem will color my attitudes and opinions in ways I can’t predict today, and I thought you readers deserved to be in on the game.
******
******
Those of us in the resistance movements here in the good ol’ US of A are beginning to gear up for No Kings 3, which is coming on the 28th of this month. Our local Indivisible group is gathering its signboards and poster paint and costumes and is making plans to SHOW UP in as grand a style as we can muster. Do we think that a national event like this one will bring down the walls of tyranny and injustice and extremely bad taste? Of course not. So … what, exactly, are we doing?
Think of an event like this one as a county fair attended entirely by the appalled and the furious. In this bit of acting as one we give strength to one another, the sort that comes from knowing you are not alone. And we also give strength and encouragement to those who are not ready yet to stand in the street with their placard and say HELL NO to the powers that be. We want them to also see that they have millions of brothers and sisters who feel just as dismayed as they do.
It also doesn’t hurt that it seems to really piss off that clot at the top whenever we do one of these.
******
******
Change, by Big Thief
******
The crowd at the rec center is undergoing the sort of thinning that mild weather brings. Pickleballers take to the outoor courts, walkers return to the hills and paths around Montrose. The number of bicyclists on the streets has quadrupled. Motorcycles all over the place. New calves are showing up in the pastures surrounding the town. Dare I say Spring is here?
In the Midwest, where I came from, saying something like that was almost certain to bring on a killer April blizzard and send some poor souls to their eternal rest. So while thinking the words was impossible to prevent, saying them was taboo. The last one of those April calamities that I personally experienced was nearly forty years ago, in Yankton SD.
It arrived on a weekend and hit us out of bright blue skies and balmy weather. Suddenly drivers couldn’t see where they were going and were sent scuttling for home and hearth. The children were gathered in, stores were closed, streets were empty.
One gentleman pushed his luck a bit, and was the last one to leave a local bar to take the short walk to his car. He got into the vehicle, but didn’t start the engine. Perhaps all he wanted to do was rest a bit, maybe sleep off a whiskey or two. But when the wind and snow subsided the next day, he was still sitting there at the wheel, parked on that major thoroughfare, frozen to death.
The day after that I was scheduled to hold a pediatric clinic on the Santee Lakota Reservation, about an hour from Yankton. As I drove in on the narrow two-lane road, I noticed many men walking on top of the drifts along the highway, poking long bamboo poles down into the snow. When I reached the clinic I was told that there was a young couple who had been working in town, and when the bad weather came they decided to try to get home, out in the rural. That was yesterday. They never arrived.
We later received the news that the searchers’ bamboo poles hit something solid just about fifteen feet off the road I had come in on. Digging down they found the missing couple, still in their car. With the poor visibility that a blizzard affords, they had gone into a deep ditch, and there they perished, quietly waiting for the weather to clear up.
So I am not saying a durned word. It’s only March 4, and of course Spring is not here. Don’t even think about it.
******
I’m reading a book on pictographs and petroglyphs written by the admirable Craig Childs. It is a captivating book, dealing primarily with the drawings left behind by natives on the Colorado Plateau more than a thousand years ago. As my interest grew, I looked around for a map and found this gem, which I now share with you. Tis a beauty. Robin and I have explored only the tiniest fraction of the riches within the 150,000 square miles that constitute the Plateau.
One of the really great things about the author is that he doesn’t tell you precisely where to find the drawings. He has no interest in sending legions of boobs out to vandalize these sites, which too often happens. If we want to bust our butts and go walking in the desert among the rattlesnakes and scorpions and across waterless cactus-scapes, we are welcome to search them out for ourselves.
(FYI: when asked once where he lived, Child gave not an address you could look up, but this statement instead: “between Telluride and Utah.”)
Been thinking quite a bit about Robert Duvall, who passed away last week. How many of his films have been rafters holding up my personal cinematic roof. Of course there were the big deals like Apocalypse Now and Lonesome Dove, but so many others like The Apostle, Tender Mercies, The GreatSantini, M*A*S*H, and Colors. All memorable.
I’ll take just one to talk about, and that is Colors, from 1988. You could say that it’s just another movie about cops and gangs in Los Angeles. But that would sell it so very short.
It’s a movie about people and relationships, with some of those people being policemen and some gang members. All are flesh and blood rather than caricatures. It’s been awhile since I first saw it, and … think I’ll go looking for it again. A good movie is always worth at least one revisit.
******
Speaking of caricatures, the Cluckicans had their night with the State of the Union this week. I didn’t watch it, but then I never watch State of the Union addressses, even when I like the guy. Sounds like I saved a little part of my sanity by skipping the broadcast. Political theater is one of my least favorite entertainments. They are empty words for the most part, without usefulness or importance. A time for lies and fantasies.
My own one-word assessment of the State of the Union = fragile. Like Leonard Cohen said in that music video, Democracy is comin’ to the USA and the only question is how soon it will get here. There are many who are working very hard in making plans for when that happy day arrives, and we can be done with the vile man who is President and his lickspittle party. I believe that the resistance is succeeding, and my own problem now is impatience.
******
All I Have To Do Is Dream, by the Everly Brothers
******
Screenshot
******
Clattering branches Their leafy cushions absent Click like beetles’ wings
******
Robin and I are watching the TV series The Closer, which is a cop procedural show that originally ran from 2005-2012. It tells the stories of a special detective squad within the Homicide Division in Los Angeles that handles “sensitive” cases. It’s pretty entertaining, actually, and LA always has stories to tell.
There is something unusual about the squad. It is almost perfectly diverse, with men, women, whites, blacks, an Asian, a Hispanic, a grumpy older cop, a toothpick-chewing younger cop, etc. But that’s it. There is no hint of intrasquad tensions or signs of racism, intolerance, or condescension as a result of this diversity. Mutual respect, professionalism, and intelligence are qualities each member embodies. It is therefore very pleasant to watch. To peek into a world where those differences are not drawbacks but strengths that further the work of the group.
******
Robin and I have been in Steamboat Springs this weekend, catching up with Ally and Kyle, and with Ethan and Xian, who we haven’t seen in years. Good weather, good times. Steamboat is a total tourist town, but an attractive one. The only reason to buy anything here is if you really like being held up and robbed. So your mother’s admonition of “You can look but don’t touch” still holds as true as it ever did, here in Steamboat.
******
Blister in the Sun, by the Violent Femmes
******
I’m just going to toss in one little item at the very end about Cluck and his latest misadventures. He has now invaded another country, this time along with his co-criminal Netanyahu, and we have no idea what the consequences of this extremely rash act are going to be, nor is he.
There is something of course, missing in all of this, and that is the Congress of the United States. If anyone has any idea where this once august body could be, could you contact your representative and ask them if they wouldn’t please show up and do their freaking job.
We are in need of an impeachment and removal from office of a madman. Any time this week would be fine.
This video came up on Substack today and it was such a spirit-lifter that I couldn’t wait to pass it on. Leonard Cohen recorded it in 1993, and it is called “Democracy.”
Wonderful! A perfect fit for today! Not only a summary of where we were but a blueprint for what needs to happen when Golden Baba and The Forty Thieves are finally brought to whatever justice we can extract from them. This is that different drummer that we could happily march to.
Put it on and crank it up, companyeros! Democracy is coming like a wave, like retribution, like a promise.
Lyrics to Democracy
It′s coming through a hole in the air, From those nights in Tiananmen Square. It’s coming from the feel That this ain′t exactly real Or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there From the wars against disorder From the sirens night and day From the fires of the homeless From the ashes of the gay Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It′s coming through a crack in the wall On a visionary flood of alcohol From the staggering account Of the Sermon on the Mount Which I don′t pretend to understand at all It’s coming from the silence On the dock of the bay From the brave, the bold, the battered Heart of Chevrolet Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It′s coming from the sorrow in the street The holy places where the races meet From the homicidal bitchin’ That goes down in every kitchen To determine who will serve and who will eat From the wells of disappointment Where the women kneel to pray For the grace of God in the desert here And the desert far away Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
chorus
Sail on, sail on O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
It′s coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst. It’s here they got the range And the machinery for change And it′s here they got the spiritual thirst It’s here the family’s broken And it′s here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It′s coming from the women and the men O baby, we’ll be making love again We′ll be going down so deep The river’s going to weep And the mountain′s going to shout Amen! It’s coming like the tidal flood Beneath the lunar sway Imperial, mysterious In amorous array Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
chorus
Sail on, sail on O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
verse
I′m sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can’t stand the scene And I’m neither left or right I′m just staying home tonight Getting lost in that hopeless little screen But I′m stubborn as those garbage bags That Time cannot decay I’m junk but I′m still holding up This little wild bouquet Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Brothers and Sisters, let’s have a moment together in a place where music and words of the Spirit and art and technology come together. Brought to you by those whose ancestors were very definitely here first.
******
My journey into the history of the Native American peoples began with this book. It was in the library of the father of a high school friend of mine, and it was my first exposure to the knowledge of the cruelty and treachery involved in the early dealings with Europeans.
It was to be the first time, but far from the last, that I felt shame for crimes in which I had no direct part.
******
Screenshot
******
Well, I won’t be watching Cluck’s State of the Union Tuesday night. Why not? Let us count the ways. To watch a pedophilic dotard malignant narcissist rapist idiot read from the teleprompter to a fawning audience of weak-minded sleazeballs … I know that this sounds too attractive to pass up, but I just don’t have two hours that I am willing to completely toss away.
Instead I will watch the People’s State of the Union, which sounds like a lot more fun. It’s being put on by the Meidas Touch Network and Move On.
******
I have my own candidates for a new term I’ve discovered, but if you ever have need of it, be my guest.
One of the names for a group of weasels is a sneak. How perfect! Any ideas where the phrase a sneak of weasels might come in handy?
I have several.
******
Johns Hopkins is doing a great deal of research in psychedelics, and part of that studying is keeping tabs on people while they are taking full transformative doses. It seems to be important that a nice quiet place without disturbing activity is necessary for a trip to go smoothly. To this end, they have developed the “Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Research Playlist.” It is nearly all classical pieces, and the tunes are grouped like this:
Opening/Settling
Deepening/Emotional Peak
Resolution/Integration
It’s all slow-moving, a little mournful at times, but listening to it does induce a pleasant ‘I believe I’ll just become part of this chair’ sort of feeling. One suspects that the researchers might have taken such care in the selection of the music for their own benefit, for use on their personal psychopharmacologic journeys. This playlist is just under five hours long, so you know that somebody did a bit of work.
******
I have an upside-down schedule as far as sleep is concerned, primarily because our old friend Poco keeps really odd hours, and can summon a caterwaul capable of waking the dead if he chooses. Last night, for instance, he was walking around just doing his normal vocalizations and although it woke me up I had hopes of not having to leave the bed. Suddenly he went full throat and there was no avoiding getting up and finding out what was needed to make him happy. Or, if not happy, at least quiet.
But once I am up I have the privilege of watching the night stories being told outside my home. Sometimes it is the red fox padding up the street. Sometimes it is a young neighbor getting home at a scandalous hour. Sometimes it is a surprise wind strong enough to move the big trash containers out on the street waiting for the morning pickup.
Sometimes, although very rarely this winter, it is a snowfall with those big flakes drifting through the beam of the yard light out back. Much of what you find in this blog is written at those hours. I love the night, at least when safe in the house. There are enough mountain lions out here in Colorado to make one cautious, and if you check out the menu at Cafe Puma you will find that humans are on it.
******
We started out today with a work by Indigenous people, we’ll close with one as well. I have never seen anything quite like the performance of this woman, Snow Raven. I found it boundary-moving for me, to realize that there is so much more that is possible than I knew.
Just study this photo for a moment. Everything you need to know about why the fascists are going to be eliminated is right there in the frame. In frigid Minneapolis a young woman comes out of her house in bathrobe and slippers with her phone in hand to film the goons of ICE. Now look at the number of other people who are also filming this scene.
ICE is an army composed of the sort of humans you find when you turn over rocks, led by cruel people whose grasp on power is slipping away daily. This casually dressed woman knows that she is only one of many but, by God, if her pictures can be of any help she is out there shivering and taking them.
A message for the criminals of ICE and their handlers. Once America regains its sanity, we will find you. We are writing everything down.
******
I had another letter to the editor published Wednesday. Not anything earthshaking, just enough to annoy some of the hard-right citizens of Montrose County, which is my principal goal. I’m getting better at the process, and more of these letters are getting through. If the paper doesn’t like one, you never hear back from them, it simply vanishes and is never seen again.
So … I have found a few things that are important if you seek success in having your letters printed. Here’s my personal list.
Never drop an f-bomb in your opening sentence
Keep the word count well under 9000
Do not suggest assassinations as a way of improving society
Avoid topics that are ultra-passé. For instance, forget the Barry Manilow stories …
Cannibalism, diarrhea, and large pustules have limited audience appeal
******
White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane
******
(Ahhhhhh, that one about the psychiatrist’s couch. Coarse language, I know, but I cannot stop laughing at it.)
******
A dusting of snow has fallen over the past 24 hours. Not enough to require anything of me. I can safely ignore it without having to worry about the elderly slipping and falling on my part of the sidewalk. Friday evening was the first fish fry of the year at the local Catholic Church. Each year, during Lent, the church serves up a dinner for $15.00 per person that includes either deep fried or baked fish, fries, coleslaw, Mac n’ cheese, and a delightful selection of desserts made by ladies of the congregation. It is dispensed from a buffet line in a large, barn-like room.
The quality of what is offered varies from year to year, so the first one is the tell. Here’s my breakdown on the offerings.
Cole slaw was excellent, with good flavors, bright colors, and someone actually paid attention to proper seasonings
French fries: made sometime this week, limp, gaunt, pale in color
Mac n’ cheese: baked in a very large pan to the point where the pieces of pasta were beginning to lose their boundaries and were turning into one great twenty pound pasta rectangle
Fish: it would seem that the person responsible for the deep fried variety must also operate the local crematorium. My pieces were fried until whatever fish there was had shriveled to a nubbin inside the armor of the breading. The breading was also not penetrable with a fork, but required attack with a knife as well. Some pieces had to be picked up in one’s hands and eaten like fish-on-the-cob.
Desserts: superb examples of the best of church basement food
So, the verdict overall for this year is: not bad, better than average. We went with friends and will no doubt attend at least one more session before Easter rolls around to end all the fun. Sometimes it’s about the company, and not the food at all.
******
Robin and I will sometimes fill the odd moment playing games on our phones. Each game comes with a free version and a paid version. Take the free one and you get commercials, just like on television. The ads come in waves, and the wave this week is making the assumption that I am a large-breasted woman over 60 years of age. I am offered brand after brand that will make my life a joy, and in each ad there is at least one lady who jumps up and down wearing the bra being offered to show me how little ‘jiggling’ there is with this undergarment.
As a male senior citizen I find all of this interesting, and while at present I have no need for such masterpieces of support, I now know that if things go south and I do need one, I will absolutely go for the model that snaps in front. It just makes such sense.
The last time I really thought about brassieres I was an adolescent, and my concerns at that time were to develop the dexterity needed for the one-handed-behind-the-back-unsnapping from the en face position. The secret, I learned way back in those uncertain years, was practice.
******
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, by Kris Kristofferson
******
Lastly. I think that I mentioned once or twice before that I have learned how to grow mushrooms in my home. The sort that contain psilocybin. The reason? To see if some thorny chronic pain issues could be improved upon, as has been reported in the literature. I am microdosing with the dried mushrooms, and the jury is still out on whether there is improvement. It can take a while.
But I have about a pound of powdered magic mushrooms in my freezer, which is enough for at least a hundred full-blown trips, according to my informants. In Colorado it it legal to grow them, use them however you want, and to dole them out to family or friends. What one cannot do is sell them. Colorado is one of those few states with a relaxed attitude toward psychedelics, but they are very serious about money exchanging hands.
It has occurred to me that I might be able to use my supply to brew up a batch of cream of mushroom soup that would be legendary and be talked about in Lutheran Church basement kitchens forever. Imagine, if you will, one hundred Scandinavian-Americans who have slipped the surly bonds of earth, put out their hands, and touched the face of God … all at one time.**
Of course I wouldn’t do such a thing. Perish the thought. But it would be something to see …
** (Lines borrowed from the poem High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee Jr.)
I have a cold. A common cold. Once I realized that my dripping nose and sneezing wasn’t going to heal itself overnight like a mild bout of allergies would, I switched immediately into full whine.
When it comes to personal illnesses my psychological reaction meter only has two numbers on it, one and ten. Robin knows this, and was desperately trying to set up a weekend away with friends when I caught her at it and called in my markers. If I was going to have a fatal upper respiratory infection, by God, she was going to sit with me as I perished. I asked her to recall her wedding vows, especially the “in sickness and in health”part. She feigned forgetfulness.
Maybe this isn’t the BIG ONE, but just another minor URI which will run its course in a few days. Maybe. But why, I ask myself, should I take that chance when I can unfurl the big Pity Me flag that I keep in my clothes closet and get all that lovely attention?
******
Quite a performance by Pam Bondi at the recent congressional hearing. In several hours she failed to answer a single question, but instead behaved much like a cat caught in a gopher trap. Snarling and spitting and hurling invectives at all within earshot … I made a promise to myself to stay out of courtrooms altogether until she is safely in Hell.
******
This is just the best. Old George Will, who I used to think was just a stuffy old conservative writer (and that was sixty years ago) has come up with this video statement that I agree with completely. One of the best summaries of where we are and what is needed to finish the job. The job? Ridding our country of the fascists and then going coffin by coffin and driving a stake through the heart of racism everywhere we can find it. It is still, 250 years later on, the American cancer, and we will be the healthier for its extirpation, however painful that surgery might be.
But don’t take my word for it, pull up a chair and listen to George himself.
******
Update on the “cold” I mentioned above … when the illness reached full flower it became croup, with the barking cough, hoarse voice, mild stridor and all. Robin asked if I should go to the doctor and I had to remind her that I used to be a doctor, and if there is any illness that pediatricians know something about it is croup. So I treated myself, ignoring the old adage that “a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient.” Because the treatment is to accept the will of the universe and wait until it goes away. And so it shall.
******
I was going through some poems I had written decades ago. Basically I only write them when some strong emotion has hold of me, so there are great gaps in the folder marked “Poems,” marking years when life was easy, comfortable. But I ran across this one that thought I’d share with you. Perhaps a bit of background would be in order.
My son Jon had just graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1993 and was coming to Yankton SD for a visit before going off to Greece to teach English. En route he lost control of the motorcycle he was riding and drove into a ditch about twenty miles from where I was sitting up late, waiting for him to arrive. In that accident he was paralyzed from just above the waist.
There followed a very difficult year for him as he tried to accommodate to his new limitations, and in addition had to deal with so many of the medical complications of his paralysis. He became depressed and sought psychiatric help, but on the eve of his 24th birthday ended his own life.
The night before his funeral, I sat down and wrote this, which I read the next day at the service.
When an old man dies The river enters the sea The sun sets The leaves drop from the treein Autumn It is an ending Comforting us even as we weep together with a sense of rightness and of flow
When a young man dies The bird falls from the nest The thunder and the lightning roam the earth Shadows pass across the sun It is an interruption And we are jarred by the reminder Of how fragile is a future that we take for granted And that this day Is the only one we really have
******
How long does it take to ‘get over’ something like this? I can only speak from my own experience. Never. You learn some way to live with it, and then you go on. I will be forever indebted to Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder for this song, which was a perfect match for the emotions I was working with back then, and is a perfect match today for my memories.
******
Vale, Robert Duvall. So many roles to think about during that long career, from Boo Radley onward. But my favorite will always be than of Augustus McCrae, in Lonesome Dove. I had loved the book, and was dreading the butchery I expected when I learned than a miniseries was on its way. But Duvall inhabited that role, and helped make television history in the process.
Poco is not as happy these days as he once was. He’s nearly 20 years old, has arthritis, cataracts, and some variety of kitty neurologic decline. He is very slender and less steady on his feet. At times he seems to take fright from things I can’t see.
But he sleeps well, still goes outdoors when the weather is clement, takes care of his litter box needs without requiring any help from Robin and I, and l.o.v.e.s to be brushed. His appetite suits his activity level, and he is not fussy about what we serve up.
It is not hard to imagine that his fragile situation could change fairly quickly. An injury, a stroke, a serious illness … any of these could put the thumb on the scale for an old guy like him, and I have wondered … when does the subject of euthanasia become part of the conversation?
If you search the internet for help with these sorts of questions, you aren’t much smarter at the end of your queries that when you started. And don’t even bother to ask “Is there some way I could help my old friend along if I ever decide that it is the kind thing to do?” Because you will only be apprised of the dogma that you should let your veterinarian decide such matters and manage whatever medications and treatments are needed.
I bristle at this a bit. If I were to follow that advice here in Paradise I would have to bundle Poco into a carrier (which frightens him), load the box into the car and drive for ten minutes to the vet (which terrifies him even more), and then hand him over to relative strangers ( very alarming) for an IV line to be placed. Then a barbiturate would be pushed in and that’s all she wrote.
All of this unpleasantness reeks as far as I am concerned. If the need arises, and I hope that it does not, why should a pet’s last hour be so distressing? Surely there are less traumatic ways to take one’s leave.
******
Mas Y Mas, by Los Lobos
******
I am letting the political cartoons tell most of the story for a while. Our present government is a monstrosity, contaminating everything it touches, and I’ll get back to railing at it again one day. But some of these drawings, my my my, don’t they go straight to the heart of things?
ScreenshotScreenshot
******
One of my favorite posters of the anti-Viet Nam War years was this one. I thought it struck just the right balance – the heart and the head at the same time. For me, much more effective than any tirade. I was able to identify without too much trouble that the original was created by a woman named Lorraine Schneider.
Two by two inches — that was the space allotted to artist Lorraine Schneider when making work for a miniature art show at New York’s Pratt Institute in 1965. In that small space, the artist, printmaker and peace and civil rights activist found a message that filled whole worlds.
That artwork, titled “Primer,” features the sentence “war is not healthy for children and other living things” in childlike script, juxtaposed with a black and white sunflower. It was made in response to the Vietnam War, but like other great works of art, has found a life well beyond that moment in history …
Substitute “ICE” for “war” and you have something perfectly applicable to today’s news headlines. In fact, I have done just that for, what else, a button.
******
On a wander along the Uncompahgre River last week I was reminded of how little fishing I’ve done over the past year, and how easy it would be to get out there and annoy some fish to no end. I don’t catch very many, but it must be very distracting to the fish to have me bouncing artificial lures of various sizes and colors off their heads. The heads of perfectly serene trout who want nothing more than to eat an occasional insect drifting by and who clearly know the difference between a real bug and a fake one.
But I love the rituals, the casting into tree branches and onto power lines, the regular insertion of sharp hooks into soft fingers while attempting to tie on a new fly. My angling experience has advanced to a whole new level since there is now a tiny hole in my waders, and I am too cheap to buy a new pair. An hour in the stream produces one cup of ice water in that right boot, and from then on it is a race between how much of a cold wet foot I will tolerate and how many fish I am catching. Usually the discomfort wins out.
No matter. Most waders will eventually leak, whether they are the bargain basement variety or a primo set made by Simms or Patagonia. Sun and storage and time are enemies of whatever is used to keep the water out. Part of the game.
BTW, I’m still using the Tenkara style of fishing, rather than a traditional rod and reel combination, and I enjoy it very much. The rod breaks down to fit into a 20 inch case, and with that and a line or two and a handful of flies you are good to go. The whole rig is so easy to throw into a car or a backpack as it is small and almost weightless.
******
Emily, by Los Lobos
******
Valentine’s Day came arrived and departed. We actually have a pair of chocolatiers here in Paradise, whose services are heavily utilized on this holiday every year. These artistes love their work and will fill your ears with information about every single piece you buy. I made my purchase on Friday and hid the box in a safe place overnight in the garage.
These are not the sort of concoctions you jam into a pocket and munch without thinking as you walk along. They are tenderly taken from the box one at a time and slowly savored. It is not only women who are vulnerable to the mysteries and charms of the cacao bean.
******
We have a new restaurant in town, named La Michoacána. It is an ice cream shop, with a few twists Robin and I sampled the ice creams last Friday, and they were very good. While we were eating out treats, we notice a couple of things. One of the menu items was nachos, and here’s how that goes. You take a bag of Doritos or Tostitos, slice open along one side, top to bottom and then pour the queso and extras right into the bag. Then you take your prize and a fork and sit down to stuff yourself.
The other interesting thing was that all of the posted menus were in Spanish. Totally. No English whatsoever. It was Bad Bunny deja vu. We loved it! Takes some cojones to do that in a red town in a red county where ICE might have more supporters than they did in Minneapolis. But for me, one sweet day I’m heading back for one of those nacho bags, and I will report to you all about it complete with any medical complications that might develop. With photos.
Yesterday … a February picnic! Amy and Neil had been here for a lovely overnight visit, and we decided on Sunday morning that we’d all drive south to Pa-Co-Chu-Puk State Park, have a walk and some sandwiches, and then they would continue on back to Durango while we returned to Paradise. Since the temperature was brushing sixty degrees and the sun was everywhere, it turned out to be a very good plan.
A handful of magpies hung around our table waiting for handouts, which we eventually provided. They are strikingly beautiful birds, and they’ve been shown to be scary smart as well.
The common magpie is one of the most intelligent birds—and one of the most intelligent animals to exist. Their brain-to-body-mass ratio is outmatched only by that of humans and equals that of aquatic mammals and great apes. Magpies have shown the ability to make and use tools, imitate human speech, grieve, play games, and work in teams. When one of their own kind dies, a grouping will form around the body for a “funeral” of squawks and cries. To portion food to their young, magpies will use self-made utensils to cut meals into proper sizes.
Magpies are also capable of passing a cognitive experiment called the “mirror test,” which proves an organism’s ability to recognize itself in a reflection. To perform this test, a colored dot is placed on animals, or humans, in a place that they will be able to see only by looking into a mirror. Subjects pass if they can look at their reflection and recognize that the mark is on themselves and not another, often by attempting to reach and remove it. Passing the mirror test is a feat of intelligence that only four other animal species can accomplish.
After a bit the birds tired of being offered a few meager breadcrusts, and moved on to more promising-looking visitors in the park. There are people who dislike these creatures because they will raid nests of other birds. But really, if we are going to judge what other animals do to survive, how many species carry more baggage than our own?
******
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
******
What was the worst time in my life? What was the best time?
There is a lot of competition for the best time, and I can’t honestly come up with just one. I’ve been a pretty lucky guy. Truly spoiled by the abundance of unearned gifts that have come my way.
But there is one clear worst time. That’s an easy one. And that was the whole process of becoming divorced from my first wife. A good measure of why it was so bad is that I was so completely unprepared for a failure of that magnitude. When I was married that first time I was … how to say it … unformed. My confidence in myself, in my decisions, in my various roles were all paper thin. And to be set aside in that way pretty much broke everything. I was dissassembled, and for the longest time did not know the way back to being whole again.
My nights and days were turbulent, regular sleep hours ignored. Drinking myself to sleep but then waking up at three AM in a hyper-alert state. I read, I listened to music, I wrote poem after poem after poem. The writing turned out to be an important way to ground myself, and yet there were mornings when I read what I had written the night before and I didn’t recognize the author.
Eventually the pieces were put back together, but not in the same way they had been before. Some of the old scraps were left on the floor and swept out with the trash, and the result was someone leaner, less encumbered and more resilient. I was still a basket case in many ways, but I at least now I knew what kind of basket I was, and that was an improvement.
Why this confessional? Perhaps there will be someone out there who is going through a similar trial, and who will read it on a day when they were feeling their lowest, maybe at the point where they are looking up gunshops and bridge abutments. They will go through this mess of literary pottage and say to themselves “Well, I’m not that loony! Perhaps there is hope after all.“
***
I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, by Beth Orton and the Chemical Brothers
******
(I will share one poem from those troubled years, one written in 1989 that came from a time when I knew that I would survive and could see that there were good things I had learned while coming through the fire. I ask your indulgence of the primitive poesic skills.)
Hides
I have been tanned I am an animal skinned out Hanging on a cabin wall Still recognizable But tougher now I’ll wear much Longer as I am Than what I was
I am a leaf on the breeze Lighter than the air itself Rising on a thermal Settling Sailing Fluttering from the tallest tree of all Towards the ground all miles and miles below
I am baking bread, rising Pushing against the confines of the pan Promises still unfulfilled A bit more heat and I’ll be done Then you can take a bite My friends
I am an empty suitcase open, waiting Put inside the clothes we need And we will take that trip The one that only now Is possible
I have come to the conclusion that Robert Reich is not human. That he must be an AI creation to be capable of writing more than one column per day, every day, all of which are interesting and appropriate to our perilous times. No human being I’ve ever known could do that. I believe that he is some sort of an ambulatory software consortium on two legs.
One of yesterday’s columns really hit the mark. This week the focus in Washington DC has been about what to do with ICE. They should wear body cameras, they should obey the Constitution and its application to law enforcement, they shouldn’t shoot people for jaywalking. You know, basic stuff. But this Reichian column discussed the novel idea that they should also obey all court orders. You know, like everyone else.
Under the prominent puppycidalist Kristi Noem, ICE has ignored such orders almost at will. Orders, shmorders, they say. Those apply to lesser beings.Nothing should be allowed to get in the way of our door and window-breaking, pepper- spraying, and gun-brandishing wherever and whenever we want.
But Reich says NO, THIS IS NOT OKAY. He points out that ICE and its leadership have shown themselves to be little more than a band of bloody vigilantes, a modern version of the notorious slave-catchers of pre-Civil War days. (Or a Gestapo, or a bunch of Nazi-style brownshirts … many descriptors have been applied to them, all of them unsavory and all of them having merit)
He makes this statement: Failure to obey any court order will immediately terminate all funding for ICE or the Border Patrol. Startling in its simplicity. Easy to understand. Fair to all. A good start. But it is something that probably won’t happen as long as the present dismal crop of Cluck-based toadies are in charge. That party does not exemplify clarity in its judgements or respect for our Constitution. Whatever the opposite of intelligence is, they have it in ample supply.
But that Reich … he’s a caution, ain’t he?
******
What Are Their Names, by David Crosby
******
Young goose remembers Ancient paths whose endings It has never seen
******
I lost a good friend this past week, a cousin who was a very important part of the first half of my life. We lost touch after that, for complicated reasons that were not of his making. He was honest, funny, goofy, and courageous. An unfailingly good man, and can there ever be too many of those? He died of a cancer, which is rarely a pleasant way to leave this world. But when you get on in years and spend a bit of time thinking about the end of life, you realize that there aren’t that many comfortable ways to take that leave.
Shortly after Robin and I moved to Paradise, there was an item in the local newspaper about the disappearance of an elderly woman. One late autumn evening she got into her car and drove off from a friend’s house and then she was gone. There were concerns that she might have lost her way because she had been experiencing some neurological problems. When no trace of her could be found, her name eventually disappeared from the headlines as well.
Until the next Spring, that is, when her car was found by hunters up on the Uncompahgre Plateau, back in a wild area accessible only by a primitive dirt road. Searchers fanned out and found her body sitting on the ground and leaning up against a tree, where she had died alone, probably of hypothermia. It was concluded by investigators that this had been her choice, and was not due to some accident or foul play.
I was reminded as I read this last chapter of her story of a piece of writing that I have started and stopped many times over several decades. In this story an old man did much the same thing as this woman had done. The difference was that he had climbed into a canoe and paddled out into the Boundary Waters Wilderness, where he counted on the coming winter to help himself to end things quietly and without struggles in a beautiful place that held meaning for him.
OMG! I have such a new hero. Her name is Elissa Slotkin and I would follow her anywhere. She was one of the six people who were in that famed video a few weeks back. The one where we were reminded that members of the military have an obligation to not follow illegal orders. The one where the entire DOJ the FBI and that executive … what’s his name … Flump? … Clump? … I forget … where all of these people got their knickers in a serious twist simultaneously. A mass knicker-twisting that would surely earn them a Guinness Book of Records prize if they bothered to apply for it.
And they are all still chewing on that bone. But my hero Elissa, an actual person in government who reads and writes, has pored over the Constitution and seems to like it a lot. Here she is responding to a request for an interview. See if she doesn’t win you over as well. I’m sending her a valentine for sure.
******
There may be some who never saw the original video, and here it is. BTW, I am sending ALL these people a valentine!
******
I read this morning that Cluck has promised to release a large chunk of funds to New York if they will name another couple of places after him. Hasn’t anyone told him that as soon as his feet hit Pennsylvania Avenue on the way out of the White House we’re going to change everything back to what it was? My further suggestions, which I admit haven’t been asked for, is that his name be redacted from as many places and documents as possible and that his official portrait be used as floor covering for a chicken coop in Minnesota.
The name Cluck will take its place right up there with others of infamy. Like Vidkun Quisling the Norwegian traitor, who sold out his countrymen to the Nazis. Or Attila the Hun, famous for slaughtering without mercy. Or Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for all of the vampire foofaraw. I have learned from confidential sources that son Eric is quietly going about changing his last name to be ready the moment this regime falls. My sources say that the new name that he has chosen is Merde. He doesn’t know what it means, but knows that it is French and he very much likes the way it sits on the tongue.
******
Let’s finish on a high note, okay? Here is Lucinda Williams providing her answer to the neanderthals of Project 2025 who would move women back to the class of chattels. Lovely song from her latest album. We might well memorize the words.
The 30-day Paradise weather forecast is for mild temperatures through to March. No one is guessing as to snowfall. Robin and I took a long walk Sunday in 48 degree sunshine. Winter has been no trial at all, although we did have to cancel a weekend getaway at the end of January due to harsh conditions at Monarch Pass. We had wanted to spend time in Buena Vista and Salida, but at the pass were cold temperatures, blowing snow, and twenty miles of the roadway described as snow-covered and icy.
Now for an acrophobe like myself, tell me that there are icy roads for 10 miles before and 10 miles after a pass above 9000 feet and you have talked me right back onto the sofa, from which I cannot be budged without my making an awful scene. If there were lives to be saved by my attempting that drive perhaps I would have taken the chance. But when fun was the only goal, fageddaboudit.
******
If I Had A Heart, by Fever Ray
******
We have received the official notice that there will be the third national No Kings Day on March 28. So we have two months to plan what our Indivisible chapter is going to do. So much is going on nationally right now, that who knows what will be the burning issues two months hence. Our focus is, as always, getting the tyrant government out of power and replacing it with the regular batch of crooks, posers, and tosspots that we are more comfortable with.
I was dismayed to read today that gun purchases and firearm safety classes have become hot items for liberals to sign up for. In some locations one has to take a number to get a class and a permit. On the one hand, it is easy to understand how the murderous excesses of ICE can make people fearful, make us look around for some way to try to cut the risks of daily life when these rats come to your town by the thousands. On the other hand, yet one more armed segment of the population … . I don’t trust a liberal’s aim or judgment when it comes to handguns any more than I do one of the MAGA morons. Taking friendly fire on Main Street?
I doubt that my buying a pistol would accomplish much for me. ICE has armor, sophisticated weaponry, gases of several sorts, and specialized communication devices. They may be an army of thugs, but they are an army. I think my best defense is to look as pathetic as I possibly can, and to practice loud whimpering as my weapon of choice. If I can assume the posture of someone not worth shooting at and get these barbarians to believe it … then I’ve achieved my tactical goal.
******
ScreenshotScreenshot
******
I did own a handgun once in my life. In the late 1950s television broadcasting was full of western series with names like Gunsmoke, Wanted Dead or Alive, Paladin, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Lawman, and on and on. Impressionable young men everywhere were taking up the art of the fast draw, and there were competitions around the country, often associated with saloons and bars.
Being nothing if not an impressionable young man I bought a Colt .22 caliber pistol and a fast draw holster. I would take it to the country and shoot any tin can that moved or threatened me in any way. Then I would come home feeling like a reincarnation of Wyatt Earp and lovingly clean the weapon. Ahhhhhh, the smell of gun oil. More manly than Old Spice aftershave.
One day I was lying in my upstairs bedroom, caught up in my role as a bored and irritable adolescent. The clothes closet door was ajar, and I could see one of the sturdy ceiling beams that supported the house. The longer I stared at it the more it seemed to me that I should shoot it, and so I took that Colt Frontier Scout and plugged the beam dead center.
It turned out that even a small pistol makes quite a bit of noise when discharged indoors, and that thunderclap caught my mother’s attention. There were several discussions about the propriety of shooting at the house from inside (or outside, for that matter). Shooting the house was therefore strictly forbidden from then on, on pain of permanent confiscation of the offending weapon. There were also other conversations about the soundness of my mind, my moral character, and my overall judgment. Many of these tete-a-tetes began with the words: “What in the world.”
But what finally led to my pride and joy being taken away for good was entirely the fault of my younger brother. One afternoon he asked to borrow the gun to go the a local dump and shoot at bottles, and I let him take it. While he was at the landfill accompanied by a cousin of ours, he decided that just shooting bottles was not good enough. He was going to challenge a bottle to a gunfight.
The victim was selected, the paces counted off, and in a flash he drew the pistol. Well, actually, he didn’t … not quite. He only got the gun halfway out of the holster before he pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the leg in the process. The wound was fairly superficial, but was going to need some stitching, so our cousin drove said brother to the nearest hospital emergency room. In Minnesota all gunshot wounds must be reported to the police, no matter how trivial or how stupid the story. This meant a call to the police > who then called our mother > who then confiscated the pistol > and I never saw it again.
Of course I was indignant about the punishment since as far as I was concerned I was a complete innocent. But my parents were now beyond the range of entreaties, and simply didn’t want to hear about that particular item ever again. I can’t tell you what they did with it, they went completely silent whenever the subject came up and took this secret to the grave with them.
******
If There’s A God, by Ry Cooder
******
So far there has been only one seed catalog in our mailbox this year. This does not bother me at all. Since we moved to Colorado our gardening has been less rewarding than I had hoped. My limited skillset goes like this:
dig small trench in ground
sprinkles seeds in trench
cover seeds with dirt
water liberally
stand back and be ready at all times to reap bountiful harvests
Any variations from this untroubled scenario are met with ignorance and chagrin. For instance, when one lives in a semi-arid environment, watering properly is a real art. Too little and the plant dies. Too much and the plant dies. Then if you happen to get the watering just right, the plants are now food for an alarming variety of insects big and little. The little ones are the worst, because in many instances once you see their effects the game is already over, and the plant dies.
For the unskilled individual like myself, gardening is a series of disappointments that lasts for months. That kale that looks so good and costs $1.99 a bunch in the market will cost me $3.99 to grow in my own garden. That is, if I get any at all.
We have friends that live only a couple of blocks from us. They have a lush garden each year that could easily feed several families. I try not to visit them during the growing season because if I do I must take the mandatory tour of their many raised beds and somehow come up with compliments while herbicidal (and sometimes homicidal) thoughts are competing for my attention. They are nice people with gardening skills while I am a ill-tempered person with a black thumb. The contrast can be almost too great to bear.
Robin and I attended a Zoom conference this week on taking risks and staying safe. These might seem contradictory goals, but … not really. When authoritarianism descends on a society, there are two basic choices. One is to accept the darkness, and the other is to promote light wherever one can. There is no 100% safety in either choice.
If a person chooses the latter path, they will stand out like candles burning in a darkened church. This would be taking risks, but doing nothing brings its own set of penalties. One of the speakers tossed out a phrase that stuck with me, and still is echoing around my brainpan three days later. The phrase? Joy is coming. That’s it. So simple.
But it helps me focus on the why of resistance. It’s not hard to get disoriented when the insults and assaults come at you as rapidly as they have this past year. Like dried morsels of cowflop fired from a Gatling gun. It’s also easy to become disheartened, until you hear someone start talking about joy. About finding some of that precious substance in every day. Small bites. The hand of a friend or a song that cuts right through the noxious fog emanating from Washington DC. “Joy is coming” resonates because those in the resistance believe that we will eventually succeed, and what a day that will be!
The only questions are when that will happen and how many more tragedies like the murders of Renee Flood and Alex Pretti will take place before it does. The deaths of these two people are drawing much attention because of the their brazenness and the so-easily disproven lies of the administration. But last year there were 32 deaths of men and women held in custody by ICE. Thirty-two! If these ICE goons act so brutally when out in the open, one wonders what horrors are happening inside their walled-off detention centers.
However … joy is coming. Do not wonder if it is. Do not forget what needs doing.
******
I recently learned that there is a frontline warrior in our own family. I have a granddaughter who lives in south Minneapolis. Yesterday her mom emailed me this update on that young woman’s daily reality:
“I thought you all would like to know that ***** (and *****) are on the front lines of the Mpls protests. They are trained in safety/medical and carry rapid response gear. ***** has witnessed two abductions and a car ramming by ICE. They have organized grocery delivery for 8 families. They set up a Go Fund Me for their neighbors too afraid to work. At her job, ***** works directly with low/no income brown and black staff and interns under deep stress. She is struggling with keeping a hopeful and helpful attitude. But doing ok. There are more heroes than demons in Minneapolis!”
Warms my heart and gives me so much hope. I am sending every good wish, every scrap of metta that I possess to her and all those who are doing such good work for the rest of the country out there in Minneapolis.
******
******
Ahhhhh, once again, Bruce Springsteen takes his art to the streets, this time those of Minneapolis. His heart has always been with the people, rather than the princes of the world.
And one more thing, my friends. On Friday Bruce went to Minneapolis and played this song on the stage of the First Avenue, a landmark bar and music venue. The First Avenue was where Prince played whenever … .
******
******
A story. I was living and working in Hancock MI, which was at that time a town of 4600 souls located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. One evening a woman delivered a healthy baby boy in the local hospitl, but I was called immediately because the child and mother had a problem with Rh factor incompatibility in their red blood cells, and the child was affected. I won’t go into detail on the mechanics of this disease but what happens is that the child can become severely jaundiced, to the point where its brain can be permanently damaged if the jaundice level gets too high. Lab tests done on the infant shortly after birth revealed that an exchange transfusion was indicated, the earlier the better.
Pediatricians of that era were nearly all experienced in doing this procedure, and I went to talk to the parents of the baby about what needed to be done. The problem was, and I knew this before I entered their room, was that they were members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses church, which forbids transfusions of blood of any size at any age. I told the parents that my duty was to safeguard the health of the child, and in this case there were no medical alternatives to what amounted to exchanging the child’s blood with that of a donor.
The parents refused to allow me to do the procedure, I told them that I would then contact legal authorities to attempt to override their wishes. By now it was getting pretty close to midnight, so when I called the judge on duty to procure such permission, he was a bit put out at me at having wakened him, and proceeded to instruct me in why it was not a good idea to wake judges from a sound sleep. None of this improved my already low opinion of the legal profession, but I listened with all the humility I could muster to his tirade because I needed something from him that could not wait until morning, and I finally got it. Now all I had to do was to round up the blood and equipment and personnel to do the transfusion and get it done as soon as I could.
But while I was receiving advice on dealing with judges, there was another drama in play. The OB/Nursery area was immediately adjacent to the passenger elevators. The child’s mother, dressed in a nightgown, asked to be given her baby for a feeding. She then walked to the elevator which was being held open by her husband.
The door closed and the trio was whisked down to ground level and from there they walked quickly to the hospital exit, where a warmed car was waiting, being driven by a member of their church.
And off they went into the winter night. In effect, since the courts had just taken custody of the infant, she had kidnapped her own baby.
Down the hall I came still smarting from the judge’s lecture, and when the nurse told me that my patient had now disappeared, I … well … maybe the best characterization would be that I lost my composure. Pretty completely. My normal cool and professional demeanor was nowhere to be found. I ranted, I raved, I asked to be given the papers needed to file a child neglect report. And then I was informed of something I found even more unbelievable. The baby’s father had remained at the hospital after his wife had been driven away, and would like to talk to me.
He and I had an uncomfortable conversation where he repeated his belief that the transfusion would have caused irreparable spiritual harm to his son, and that was why they had acted as they did. He apologized to me for not following medical advice, but was firm in believing that he had done the right thing. I had calmed down quite a bit by the time he was finished, but I told him that I would be reporting him and his wife to social services for exposing the infant to possible great harm, and we went our separate ways.
Six weeks later I was working in my office when my nurse informed me that the family was now in Room 3 with their baby, for a routine well child visit. The child was still slightly jaundiced, but otherwise seemed healthy. One caveat was that if there had been neurological injury caused by a high jaundice level, it might not be detectable at such an early age, so I can’t say that I know the true end of the story, because that was the last time I saw the family or heard anything further about the baby.
And my new BFF the judge? Well, I always hoped that some evening when I was on emergency room call, he would be brought in with some painful malady or another (perhaps having been shot in the ass by Dick Cheney), and that I could have moved oh so slowly, and delayed over the longest time possible, to provide him with the comfort he needed. That opportunity never presented itself.
Petty? More than a little, I’ll grant, but can you recall any time that I claimed I was perfect?
******
Another song inspired by the heroic uprising in Minneapolis, this time written by someone less famous but no less skillful, Marc Skjervem.
When the news is merde piled upon merde what’s left to do but dance shaking off those flooding tears and dancing
Angel Dance, by Los Lobos
take your bad knees and your trick hips and put them through their paces dancing, forgetting nothing while body blows are dealt to flooring and rhythmic shoes and boots pound yesterday’s unvacuumed mirk into resolve
Mary Jane’s Last Dance, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
dance like fools, like motes in sunlight like lovers parting dance for those whose time is up their names pressed into ice and asphalt dance for the Renees that were and the Alex-es that are yet to come
Cosmic Dancer, by T. Rex
dance for kindness dance for hope dance for when you were a child at a party unbound, unaware, unafraid
When You Dance (I Can Really Love), by Neil Young
dance that good old Brownian motion that you do when no one’s looking dance for those who would but can’t
Dance Me To The End Of Love, by The Civil Wars
in the firelight in the moonlight in the floodlights
Dance the Night Away, by Van Halen
in the middle of a berserk world why, look at us, with tremors, rage and fear we’re dancing
On Monday we attended all of the several activities available here in Paradise that were celebrating Martin Luther King day. The free community breakfast, the hour of heartfelt speeches by men and women from a wide spectrum of the citizenry, the awards for organizations that help our town be a kinder one, the ten minute march to Centennial Square and then later watching an HBO documentary of the last couple of years of MLK’s life. All in all … six hours of talking about heroes and heroism. There are worse ways to spend one’s time.
******
On Tuesday we were part of a political demonstration against fascism that took place on the old courthouse steps.
(Just in case the DOJ might be wondering, we are the couple with the yellow arrows pointing at us.)
After each of these activities we found ourselves wanting to do more, to resist in other ways the insanity of Cluck and the Gang. If you have an appetite for more reading, Rick Wilson has put together an excellent paper entitled A Declaration of Independence from the Mad King.
Read it and then tell me that what we now see every day are the acts of someone who is compos mentis.
******
Sons and Daughters, by the Neville Brothers
******
Still too little snow to speak of here in Paradise. Mutterings among the citizenry about fears of water shortages are becoming more and more frequent. Most of Colorado is dependent on snow piling up in those beautiful mountains each winter to feed our streams and rivers as it melts in spring and summer. We are way behind this year, locally and statewide. There’s just not enough of that wonderful stuff.
Friday mid-day it started to snow the tiniest of flakes, falling straight down on an absolutely windless day. At first they melted away instantly, but by evening there was a coating of white in the valley. Perhaps only an inch, but a precious inch indeed. The climate niche Paradise occupies is entitled “semi-arid,” which translates into almost a desert but not quite.
******
We’re halfway through the winter now, moving about town in what must seem unbelievable comfort to our compatriots in Minnesota, those brave souls who are carrying the fight against the autocracy in below-zero conditions. They are up against the weather, tear gas, pepper spray, and thugs with guns yet still they come out to demonstrate and sow discord in the hearts of the enemy … the enemy being other Americans who were sent to control and intimidate them.
I am inspired beyond words. And we are all learning as we watch. Learning how to confront and confound this modern version of the Nazi brownshirts.
******
Sons and Daughters (reprise) by the Neville Brothers
******
Alex Pretti
Murdered by ICE agents in broad daylight in Minneapolis
Something I’ve noticed recently out here in Paradise. The nearly complete absence of MAGA caps. For years they were one of the core items of Montrosian male dress. Why, on any trip to the grocery store I would see at least five men wearing them, and interestingly, they were mostly cross-looking senior citizens.
The same thing has happened with the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia , the stars and bars. I would guess that a decade ago at least five percent of pickups in town were daily flying these emblems of slavery and treason. While this might seem a small number, keep in mind that pickup trucks are the signature vehicle of our community. Five percent of a bunch is a bunch.
I don’t know the reasons for the decline, I just make observations. Those crabby-looking older dudes might just have died off of advanced constipation. The flag-waving yahoos might have actually taken a closer look at those banners and decided to be offensive in some less complicated manner. Either way, it is getting that much harder to easily identify the dim bulb segment of our community.
******
Lord, this is good. Until today I thought no one would ever touch Emmylou Harris’ rendition of her beautiful song Boulder to Birmingham. Dead wrong is what I was. Here’s Jessie Buckley.
******
The pickings were sooo good this past few days. Here’s a prescient prose poem from 2011. Honestly, how could we not see this coming? Terry Ehret did and put it down clear as spring water.
******
Wade In The Water, by The Rigs
******
ICE in 1933 (reverse metaphor)
******
Heather Cox Richardson’s postings Letters From An American have been like flashlights, something to find your way with on darker days. On Martin Luther King Jr. day, Monday, she posted this beauty:
You hear sometimes, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, that America has no heroes left.
When I was writing a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, where heroism was pretty thin on the ground, I gave that a lot of thought. And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them.
It means sitting down the night before D-Day and writing a letter praising the troops and taking all the blame for the next day’s failure upon yourself in case things went wrong, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower did.
It means writing in your diary that you “still believe that people are really good at heart,” even while you are hiding in an attic from the men who are soon going to kill you, as Anne Frank did.
It means signing your name to the bottom of the Declaration of Independence in bold script, even though you know you are signing your own death warrant should the British capture you, as John Hancock did.
It means defending your people’s right to practice a religion you don’t share, even though you know you are becoming a dangerously visible target, as Sitting Bull did.
Sometimes it just means sitting down, even when you are told to stand up, as Rosa Parks did.
None of those people woke up one morning and said to themselves that they were about to do something heroic. It’s just that when they had to, they did what was right.
On April 3, 1968, the night before the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white supremacist, he gave a speech in support of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 1966, King had tried to broaden the civil rights movement for racial equality into a larger movement for economic justice. He joined the sanitation workers in Memphis, who were on strike after years of bad pay and such dangerous conditions that two men had been crushed to death in garbage compactors.
After his friend Ralph Abernathy introduced him to the crowd, King had something to say about heroes: “As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.”
Dr. King told the audience that if God had let him choose any era in which to live, he would have chosen the one in which he had landed. “Now, that’s a strange statement to make,” King went on, “because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around…. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” Dr. King said that he felt blessed to live in an era when people had finally woken up and were working together for freedom and economic justice.
He knew he was in danger as he worked for a racially and economically just America. “I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter…because I’ve been to the mountaintop…. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life…. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
People are wrong to say that we have no heroes left.
Just as they have always been, they are all around us, choosing to do the right thing, no matter what.
Wishing us all a day of peace for Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2026.
******
******
Stepping back and looking closely at this post I realize that the quality of writing is definitely improved. That’s the good news. The bad news is … (sigh) … it’s because I did so little of it.
Minneapolis is, right now, the front line of the entire country’s resistance to our fascist government and its agents. Those freezing January streets filled with people and the sounds of whistles and flash-bangs … the thousands of smartphone recordings that have been made and the thousands to come that reveal ICE’s now-naked war on America. There can be no doubt about it after the events of this past week. If you don’t see it, you never will … not until it is your door that ICE is knocking down.
Minneapolis is my old home town, where I spent the first thirty years of my life. I know those streets, recognize those addresses, have walked in areas now lit by police floodlights. Renee Good was shot and killed six blocks from my childhood home. I will never not be a Minnesotan, at least in part. This morning I can’t shake the ridiculous idea that I should be there. That I belong on that line. What is ridiculous is that I would probably be a liability to the those involved in the struggle. Someone that needed tending rather than someone who was good at carrying torches or blowing whistles.
Maybe not. Maybe I could be of some help, but no matter. The line will come to Colorado one day, who knows … perhaps even politically red Montrose will see its share of conflict because the Cluck machine is neither blue nor red. It is out only for itself, serving its masters both visible and hidden. I don’t have to travel across the country to mount the barricades … that opportunity will come to me.
My grandmother would have said: “Bloom where you’re planted.” Good advice, that. I will do my blooming right here.
******
Our streets come alive Injustice quickening cold Fury in our souls
******
Screenshot
******
How about something sweet and temperate? One of the best voices of this or any other time. Eva Cassidy singing Autumn Leaves and making it hers.
Autumn Leaves, by Eva Cassidy
******
Our local recreation center has been so successful in recruiting members that it is becoming more and more frustrating to try to use its equipment. So far Robin and I have been unable to find some sweet spot in the day when the crowd is thinner and the machines we use in our respective programs are free.
Being able to move smoothly between devices is an important thing for my own training regimen, since at the slightest delay I am prone to simply leaving the building and returning home. Home being any place that doesn’t require physical effort and bulging neck veins.
The perfect venue for me, therefore, would be a large hall completely furnished with the latest and most scientifically studied equipment, with small loveseats sprinkled here and there to rest between exercises … and no one else allowed to be present when I was working out. Bank presidents, governors, and one percenters of all stripes would be shown the door as soon as I appeared.
I know, I know, there are some obvious hurdles to be overcome, but why not dream?
******
Another tune from Eva Cassidy, submitted by daughter Kari. Sublime. Cassidy died in 1996 of melanoma, at the age of 33 years. Such has been the respect for and appreciation of her gifts that there have been nine posthumous albums released. Nine.
One of those albums was with the London Symphony Orchestra. A cut from the album was this version of Time After Time.
The story of Eva Cassidy and the London Symphony Orchestra is a posthumous collaboration, bringing her acclaimed voice to a wider audience through the 2023 album I Can Only Be Me, where the LSO performed new orchestral arrangements for her classic recordings, fulfilling a dream she never lived to see due to her early death from cancer in 1996, with technology allowing her isolated vocals to blend with the full orchestra.
Google AI search
******
Every once in while I see a film that reminds me why we need filmmakers and darkened theaters to tell some stories. Tales so well told that you know you are a different person when you leave the theater than when you came in. You can feel it. Yesterday Robin and I took in such a performance, when we went to see Hamnet.
It was a tale of love and grief and their inseparability. Wrenching. Soulful. Beautiful.
Wore us right out. To the point where we needed ice cream right away.
******
There are many emotions that today’s troubles bring up for me, and I recognize grief among them. There is such a deep sense of loss when I read the headlines, see the videos, hear the spoken cruelties. No matter that this convulsion will be over one day, with the skies cleared and some sanity restored to public life.
I have lost a certain naïveté. Once I realized the sheer numbers of my countrymen who can allow and even support horrors to be visited upon their fellow citizens as long as it doesn’t touch them personally. Who believe that the killings and torturings and imprisonments and the orphans and the lost children are likely deserved punishments. No matter that my ‘innocence’ has been clearly shown to have been always a fantasy, no matter that I now work every day with people who share my convictions, a loss is still a loss.
Music, as always, can be a balm for the wounded spirit. Here’s a bit of that.
Awright, here’s my opener for today. I have no idea who this woman is, where she is, and I could care less. She is one of the truth-tellers out here on the open range, and they are all over the place if you look for them. This is a saving grace of an otherwise gruesome time, the chance to meet people you admire and band together with them spiritually if not actually.
(sorry about the enormous size of this video, I can’t find a way to make it smaller.)
The ugliest among us are running the show today, but there is some serious reckoning coming, and I hope they all have a good retirement plan … they are going to need it. The man who killed Renee Good has become famous. I saw a video where his name was painted on the side of a van, along with details of his crime. I don’t know where he lives but many do, and his life has certainly changed since he pulled that trigger a few days ago.
******
One of the pleasures of daily life here in Paradise has been the proliferation of murals on the bare sides of buildings on the Western Slope. I love it. In Montrose some enterprising artists have painted a bunch of new ones recently. No fanfare, just one day you look up and see something beautiful or interesting where there had been nothing. When it is warm again, I’m going to walk around town and photograph a few to share with you. Until then, here’s three examples.
******
My coffee perfumes The kitchen at four a.m. Without being asked
******
Our more typical and much colder weather this week has prompted some Canada geese who were thinking of setting up permanent homes here in our pleasant valley to get up and go. Large flocks were seen overhead yesterday, moving south.
I love the fact that most of the planet keeps to its ancient rhythms and movements while we humans seemingly cannot find our way. It’s not that there aren’t maps for us to follow, they are plentiful and available everywhere. What is our problem anyhow? Was it when we left the caves that things went sour?
******
Both Robin and I are a little under the weather this week, with annoying coughs and just enough malaise to make us cranky. Since I was in my sixth day of this grayness and going about the house mewling about not feeling hungry and maybe we could just skip supper and all, Robin put on her big girl pants and went to the store for … chicken soup.
Two big 22 ounce cans of Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup appeared in the kitchen. I can’t remember the last time I had this particular food. Of course I make a decent chicken noodle soup myself, with fresh herbs and the whole show, but this stuff … a connection with the earliest food memories that I have.
Into the kettle went the can’s contents, along with an equal amount of water. That’s it. Apply some heat and you’re done. Campbell’s knew their people back in 1934 when they first put it on the shelves. Make it affordable, make it easy to cook, make it tasty. All of those things were in evidence last night.
One thing. There was almost a complete absence of chicken. From the bits I came upon here and there as I gobbled down my two bowlsful I would estimate that one could make at least three hundred gallons of soup from a single bird. (I am not complaining, just observing.) But no matter, this morning I already feel slightly better, and I look forward to finishing off the leftovers today.
[BTW, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup was also introduced in 1934, without which Lutheran churches all over Minnesota may not have survived in those early post-depression days. The sheer number of church-basement casseroles using this soup as a base, along with some egg noodles and a little tuna fish … astronomic.]
******
******
There are days when I Am no more than my anger In wintry discontent
******
Robin and I rented and watched the movie Spartacus this week. Originally released in 1960, it was hugely successful at the box office, took hard shots at the right-wing witch-hunts that were in progress in our country at the time, and was a young Stanley Kubrick’s first big-budget film.
It was the only film directed by Kubrick where he did not have complete artistic control. Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted at the time as one of the Hollywood Ten. Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus, and President John F. Kennedy crossed American Legion picket lines to view the film, helping to end blacklisting.
Wikipedia
Soooo … a politically astute film filmed by some of the best technicians in Hollywood with an amazing cast, one that won four Oscars and whose creation and showing were surrounded by important off-screen dramas. Not too shabby an origin story.
The only problem for Robin and I was its running time … 197 minutes. This substantially exceeded our attention spans, which typically clock in at around 120 minutes. Therefore we watched it over two successive nights.
The film also had one of the strangest last scenes I’ve ever watched. A combination of horror and inspirational in the frame at the same time. Odd indeed. One felt two wildly disparate emotions simultaneously.
When I go to the grocery store, I like to think that I am a knowledgeable shopper. I’ve received a smattering of nutritional teaching in medical school, can read most food labels without referring more than three or four times to an encyclopedia, and I can tell a parsnip from a carrot without fail.
But once in a while, serendipity takes a hand in things. Such was the case a few years ago when I was standing in front of the freezer case where the frozen pizzas were stored. Too many choices, thought I, and while some of the old brands that I recognized had memories of lackluster eating attached to them, I was willing to try them again, thinking “maybe they’ve improved in the past twenty years.”
When suddenly a hand was placed on my shoulder, and when I spun around to see where the assault was coming from I found myself facing a young man with wilderness hair, a full beard, cutoffs, and a t-shirt that really needed either laundry attention or to be discarded in the sort of bag one uses to dispose of nuclear waste. This unlikely oracle then spoke: “Screaming Sicilian, man, it’s the only way to go.” He then waited a moment without saying anything more, till finally I caught his drift and reached into the freezer to extract a Screaming Sicilian Supreme, and placed it in my cart. At that moment, he moved away and disappeared. I’ve not seen him since.
At first I was going to put the pizza back, but then I thought “Why not try it? What’s to lose?”
And it turned out to be the best frozen pizza ever. Within a couple of centimeters of being as good as a freshly baked one from the parlor down the street.
All thanks to that stranger’s exclamation: “Screaming Sicilian, man, it’s the only way to go.”
******
Feel Your Love, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
******
We’re finally getting some snow here in the valley. It started Thursday as those tiny flakes that might as well be raindrops because they melt on contact. It fell all day, mostly melting away as fast as it came down. At 5:30 a small group of people stood out in that snow/rain and held a vigil for Renee Nicole Good, who had been murdered by an ICE agent the day before.
Most of the candles being “lit” were LEDs and were thus invulnerable to the snow, but Robin and I had traditional candles that we’d purchased ten minutes earlier on our way to the vigil. Their tiny flames were threatened by each wet flake but never went out.
Some of Good’s own poetry was read, and many heartfelt things were said about the death of one of our comrades at the hands of a government thug. She had been doing nothing but non-violently protesting the unjustified and unconstitutional ICE occupation of Minneapolis. In our hearts those of us assembled know that there will be more vigils to come, with more empty chairs at family tables, before the horror passes. We know that the possibility exists that there will be a vigil one night where they say nice things about one of us. Such is life in a Cluckian country.
The ceremony was cut a bit short because of the unpleasant weather. Nearly all of us who were there were senior citizens who really should have been at home by our fires, not out on a Montrose street corner in danger of ‘catching our death.’ But it seems to be one of those odd paradoxes where the generation whose vision is daily failing is the one that can best see what must be faced. I like to think that we are blazing a trail that younger citizens can follow when it comes time to change regimes.
(BTW, I was proud of the Minneapolis mayor, who had used some colorful language at an earlier interview and when he was later asked if he wasn’t going a bit too far with his use of profanity, he answered that if we compare shooting a woman in the face for no reason with the dropping of an f-bomb … which gave the greater public affront?)
******
Helpless, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
******
Our cats don’t seem troubled by today’s politics at all. None of their habits have changed. None of their demands can be ignored lest they decide to rip open a sofa or forget where the litterbox is located. They trade purrs and snuggles for food and shelter and are content. As are we.
This snow that has fallen makes them think deeper before they venture out through the cat door to answer nature’s calls. They stare through the opening for a moment or two, and the expression on their faces is omigod … again? Were we not done with this?
One of the least lovely features of sharing spaces with cats and being responsible for their nutrition is a certain fickleness. A food that has been accepted for months or years is suddenly treated like it was nuclear waste and they walk away from it. A year from now that same dish of ‘toxic’ shreds might be just what it takes to make them ecstatic at mealtimes.
Now, the truth zone. I look at what I just wrote and realize that it applies to me as well. When Robin and I first got together she had two teenaged daughters still living at home. These three women had decided that the only meat that was safe to eat for any person who didn’t want to turn into a walking bag of suet was chicken. As a result, chicken was served at almost every meal but breakfast. After a few months of this, I had reached a point where even the mention of that medium-sized squawking bird was enough to provoke nausea and a near-seizure involving trembling of the extremities and paralysis of speech.
Once this trio was separated by time into three households and thus the influence of chicken monomania was broken, I slowly began to appreciate it as a part of a healthy diet. I can now hold a chicken sandwich without wondering where to throw it, and even occasionally order one in a restaurant without being forced or shamed into doing it.
******
While I am on the subject of body weight, I am going to have to drop a couple of pounds. To my chagrin I have discovered that I have exactly the same BMI as the Pillsbury Doughboy.
What happened to me can be described by the following equation: mildly plump + Halloween candy + Thanksgiving poundage + Christmas poundage + less activity = all my clothes have shrunk.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more …
******
Political cartoonists have never had such riches to work with. It is impossible for them to keep up with the daily misdeeds and outrages committed by Cluck and his gang.
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
******
Ry Cooder has always been one of the good guys in music. This video is from 1973 and was originally shown on the BBC. Rings just as true this morning as it did then, and also as it did in 1940 when it was first recorded.
******
On Saturday Robin and I drove to Grand Junction to take part in yet another rally, this time honoring Renee Good and more than thirty others who have died at the hands of ICE. An affecting bit of cold weather theater was where each of their names was held up by a member of the local Indivisible group. There was a moment where each name was read aloud to the assembled crowd, which numbered pretty close to 1000 (by our estimation).
The anger that these senseless and lawless acts of our federal government provoke was obvious in the expressions of crowd members. We were told to take that anger and let it be part of the energy we bring to our engagement, in whatever role we are playing.
It was noon on Sunday and Robin and I were lined up along Highway 550 as it runs down into Ouray from the north, protest signs in our hands. At times the breeze demanded a firm two-handed grip on the sign’s post. All told, there were 34 of us out there to show our opinion of Cluck’s mucking about in Venezuela.
But the amazing thing about the whole afternoon was that it was 58 degrees and sunny. In January. We had made plans to suffer for our cause in a whirling snowstorm, or at least a freezing drizzle, but nooooo, we were denied the opportunity to feel heroic. Instead, we basked.
As cars pass by, there are several types of driver responses that we have observed. Among them are:
The driver stares straight ahead and refuses to make eye contact with low creatures like ourselves
The driver extends a middle finger as a sign they see what we are doing and need to express disagreement
The driver revs his engine as loudly as they can to register contempt in an adolescent way
The driver gives us a vigorous thumbs-up
The driver honks joyfully
The driver waves happily
Overall the responses are more often positive than negative. We’ve noticed that we are statistically more likely to get a warm response from occupants of a Subaru than a pickup truck. (We noticed especially yesterday that the drivers of Land Rovers, and there were many, ignored us 100% of the time. Draw whatever conclusions you wish from this. I have my own unflattering opinions)
******
We are watching the television series “Victoria,” which started out its life on PBS and is now on Netflix. It tells the story of Queen Victoria of England, beginning when she ascended to the throne at age of eighteen years. It’s a romanced version of her life, but still a great deal of fun. A very high-class soap opera, if you will.
I have only one caveat. Although Victoria is positively smitten with her husband Albert, I find his character as played is a wavy-haired pompous ass. It is irritating enough to make me want to toss pillows at the television screen when he goes on one of his broom-up-the-butt Teutonic rants.
Victoria, on the other hand, is played by Jenna Coleman, small but spirited. I never want to toss pillows when she is on screen.
There is a lovely soundtrack for the series , which I also have found captivating. (Mediaeval Baebes indeed!)
Victoria, the Suite, by Martin Phipps and the Mediaeval Baebes
******
There are times when I am embarrassed for the media, especially that part tilting ever so slightly to the left. I count those among my friends, so it is especially hurtful to me whenever one of them begins to Rumpelstiltskinize on the outrage of the moment. This is where we have an event, say, like the kidnapping of the leader of another country after having invaded such country. These chatterers begin to try to turn straw into gold, postulating and pontificating in every direction about international this and international that but all they manage to do is to create an atmosphere filled with dusty golden fibers that dance in the wind they have created.
I would give an “A” and shout out a lusty “Amen, brother!” to any online ‘columnist’ who could turn their microphone on and say “You know, I don’t know squat about that, and neither does anyone else here in the room, so instead of droning on we will play some great recorded music rather than waste your time. I’ll be back when I have something to say.”
******
You Pass Me By, by Lonnie Donnegan
******
I ran across this post on Substack the other day, written by Sober Dude. Its title was: A Dozen Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Sobriety. The writing was warm, filled with good humor, and told some truths I hadn’t thought about in years. Especially #1.
#1. You’re about to have a shocking amount of spare time. Drinking is a full-time job. Planning it. Hiding it. Recovering from it. Apologizing for it. Thinking about it. When you stop, entire hours appear out of nowhere. Whole evenings. Weekends. Empty space. At first, this feels like boredom. Or restlessness. Or existential dread. It’s not. It’s opportunity without a syllabus. Fill your schedule early. Walks. Meetings. Gym. Writing. Coffee with humans. Structure isn’t prison—it’s scaffolding. You can decorate later.
Sober Dude
A couple of decades ago when I hung up my drinking duds for good … there I was, blinking in the full light of day and wondering … now what? All of those hours I had previously spent walking around in general anesthesia were staring me in the face and it was going to be forever before I could go to bed. And, BTW, I thought, what does one drink when one doesn’t have access to _____________ ? (You may fill in any of the following: whisky, gin, vodka, beer, stout, ale, wine, sherry, cordials, Listerine, vanilla extract, et al)
While some of these choices may seem trivial or obvious or even ridiculous to the unaddicted, they are quite real, and I can tell you that from remembered experience.
So if you know someone that you care about who has recently put down their glass and seems a bit at loose ends, you could send this link to them. It’s kind of a love letter, really.
Although celebrating New Year’s Eve quietly without Señor Ethanol anywhere in view rarely gives us those colorful stories to tell, we are content.
What we did do is drive to Delta CO and take a left turn out into the rural, looking for the resident population of sandhill cranes that live there all year. And we found them, in groups ranging from a dozen to fifty individuals, all feeding in picked-over cornfields. If we added them all together I would say that we saw more than five hundred birds in all. At times they were only a few yards from the car as we pulled over for closer looks.
Marvelous birds. Stately movements, smooth plumage, with that striking prehistoric voice of theirs. When new birds were coming in to land with their wings set, the scene was one of slow-motion grace, carrying serenity to the observer.
After this satisfying period of bird-watching we dropped into a restaurant in Delta and ordered some Navajo tacos that were … just okay … but which still qualified as solid comfort food. By now it was full dark for the drive back to Montrose, where we watched a couple of television programs until the call of a warm bed could not be ignored.
See, I told you, not colorful at all. But here I am, typing away on New Year’s Day. No hangover, full memory of the preceding evening’s events, and no new amends to make. Life is good.
******
Screenshot
******
I dunno, maybe not everybody gets off on the stories behind the songs like I do, and truth be told, there aren’t a whole lot of tunes whose history even I will pursue. But beginning back in the late 60s I began singing along with For What It’s Worth. It was at a time when every day’s news was filled with tales of protest and fires and marches and shootings and responsive brutality. I listened to the lyrics and took it for an addition to the literature of that time.
Now, it turns out that it was a protest song, but not about the Viet Nam war or the national unrest dealing with civil rights, but something else. Here’s a bit of explanation from Wikipedia:
Stephen Stills was inspired to write the song because of the Sunset Strip curfew riots in Los Angeles in November 1966, a series of early counterculture-era clashes that took place between police and young people on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California, the same year Buffalo Springfield had become the house band at the Whisky A Go Go . Local residents and businesses had become annoyed by how crowds of young people going to clubs and music venues along the Strip had caused late-night traffic congestion. In response, they lobbied Los Angeles County to pass local ordinances stopping loitering, and enforced a strict curfew on the Strip after 10 p.m. The young music fans, however, felt the new laws infringed upon their civil rights.
Sooo, civil rights, perhaps, but on a narrower scale. No matter. For me, in my ignorance, its message was easily applied to those larger theaters of unrest.
In my mind I am now applying the lyrics to today’s political situation. And the fit is nearly perfect. A really good song like this doesn’t go out of style but can be recycled in new ways, new places and times. Why is that? Well, child, because we human beings keep making the same mistakes over and over would be my answer.
Here is Buffalo Springfield singing the original version, from 1966.
As you listen, think about the invasions of our cities by Cluck’s armies, about ICE’s depradations being visited upon innocents across this country. Think about a national health department made up of quacks which is promoting unscientific health practices using stuff they just plain made up, stuff that is killing people at home and across the world. Think about … we could go on and on. There’s something happening here for sure, and there is very definitely a man with a gun over there.
Here is a lovely cover version by the Del McCoury Band, from eight years ago.
BTW: just in case you didn’t know the origin f that original group’s name, here is the Buffalo Springfield steam tractor.
******
******
I’ve been doing this thing, this blog, for nearly twenty years. I’ve gone through three software changes during that time, things that I accepted only when there was no choice. That’s my uneasy truce with change … resist as long as I can, then going along with it when the feces is just about to hit the fan.
I archive an entry for a couple of years, and then delete it. This was my deal with myself, to create something that was the verbal equivalent of a Buddhist prayer flag. To hang out there in the wind and rain and freezing weather as thread by thread was teased out to drift away, leaving less and less behind. Eventually to vanish.
.
Of course, I can do this because what I write is so perishable. If there is meaning in it on a given day, that meaning is for the day alone. A man like Tolstoy writes for the ages, I write for the forenoons. And in twenty years some of what I believed so strongly at the time is in the dustbin today. My body is certainly going the way of the prayer flag, why not my thoughts as well?
At any rate, this blog is mounted on WordPress, which has been kind enough to ask me to change only once. I refused, of course, because there was an out. A back door I could use. I could maintain the legacy theme if I called it “customizing.” Perhaps one day WordPress will message me one morning and tell me that I am no longer worth their trouble and would I please choose one of the other fine themes that they offer? When that moment comes I will move on to the new with what grace I can muster. And some grumbling, spread with a veneer of profanity.
******
So now the Soprano family has taken over the territory of the Corleone family. Criminals fighting among each other, while ordinary citizens stand blinking in the searchlights and the bomb flares. Just another day in Cluck’s perverted version of America.
A couple of tunes come to mind on after yesterday’s ugly news.
Lives In The Balance, by Jackson BrowneBullet the Blue Sky, by U2
We are finally getting a taste of winter here in Paradise. Temperatures are down in the teens at night, although snow is still playing hard to get here in the Uncompahgre Valley. Last weekend we were supposed to rendezvous with daughter Allison in a small town named Rangely, northwest of us about three hours. But we dropped those plans when a snowstorm of about four inches came into the forecasts. Rangely is in a lonely part of the state, and services are thin up there for stranded motorists. Taking into consideration that my whole thrust in travel for the remainder of my life is to not become a stranded motorist in a lonely area in the winter, we cancelled and stayed right here in good ol’ Montrose.
**
It’s New Year’s Eve and we have no plans. It turns out that senior citizens often have no plans for New Year’s Eve, so we are not alone in this. The raucous and often tipsy parties of the past have evidently lost their luster, whether one is in recovery or not. Staying up until midnight to watch a mechanical ball fall in New York City seems a scant way to spend one’s time. We are aware of the change of the years, of course, it’s just that wNewhen the ceremonies are over, there you are. Take away the calendar and December 31 is just like January 1. Not one problem or opportunity had changed one jot or tittle.
There are many New Year’s Eve parties that I would like to forget but the vagaries of memory keep them on file. Those are the ones where I learned what alcohol can do to the brain, stomach, and one’s behavior. I will not go into details, in the unlikely case that children might be reading this.
But one that I do remember in a mildly fond manner is the millennial change, 1999-2000, when we stayed up to see if the world came, not to an end, but to a colossal cluster-freak as all of the computers on the planet lost their minds. Mercifully that did not happen, but there was a good lesson in the fact that those geniuses who set up all those programs that we depended on didn’t have a clue as to what was going to happen at midnight 1999 because they hadn’t coded proper time changes into them. The geniuses turned out not to be gods, after all. Strangely reassuring.
The last New Year’s Eve Party we personally threw was more than fifteen years ago. We had several couples over and it was very nice but we found that by the time that the magic hour had rolled around everyone had left for the comforts of home and their own warm beds. By midnight every single one of the seasoned wastrels at the party was fast asleep, including the hosts.
And yet, here I am feeling all well-wishy and hoping that you all have a warm and lovely new year celebration, and a 2026 with 50% less Cluck in it.
******
So Much Trouble In The World, Lucinda Williams with Mavis Staples
******
Our national Department of Justice is moving right along developing its own variety of Newspeak. As of today, the definition of domestic terrorist includes just about anyone who is doing something that President Cluck doesn’t like. To the Attorney General, this definition seems tidy and is flexible enough to suit her. She knows that eventually they will run out of immigrants to abuse and be on the lookout for new victims, so creating a sizable pool of them in advance is a necessary strategy.
It pretty much goes without saying that our friends in the Indivisible organization will be on the naughty list. Almost everything this disreputable and seedy bunch does is deemed undesirable by the Cluck regime, especially their annoying insistence that the government ought to follow the Constitution in its actions. Cluck finds this document way too confining for a creative gentleman like himself, so he has tossed it into the bin and has the Department of Minions at work on a new one which will be out in Spring. Rumor has it that in the NEW CONSTITUTION the President is to be called GOD OF ALL THINGS, and worship services are to be held continuously.
Stay tuned.
******
******
There are a thousand voices out there trying to tell the Democratic Party that business as usual isn’t working at all, and that their keepin’ on keepin’ on brings to mind the old definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.
What those thousand voices haven’t come up with yet is a clear statement of purpose for the party they hope to enliven. I couldn’t help notice that the infamous Project 2025 that the Republican white-power-faux-Christian nationalists came up with gave them a real headstart once Cluck was in office. All they had to do was hand a page to each henchperson along with a sledge hammer and tell them to go to work.
Every four years at the national conventions it has been traditional for parties to draft a platform, but nothing like Project 2025 had come along before. So … what if the Democrats came up with a Let’s Be Gettin’ Down To It 2028? A clear statement from a party that hasn’t completely lost its mind and actually has clearly stated goals which include working to benefit the people who get things done. Something you don’t need a doctorate in political science to understand.
The Democrats can’t afford to wait until 2028 actually arrives, but should be hammering out their proposal right now. Or else why should we respond to those incessant calls for donations that they send out?
Donate to what? The same old same old? No thanks, guys. I’d rather fold that money into paper airplanes* and see how far they would fly in the San Juans on a breezy day.
*N.B.: The bill in the graphic is a C-note. This graphic was taken from the web, and is somewhat more generous than a typical donation of the writer would be.
******
(My favorite cartoon du jour)
******
Magnolia, IMHO, is magnificent. My favorite of Lucinda’s.
Little Home In The Valley 