Tag: politics

Let It Snow, Baby

jono55

Last weekend Robin and I drove up to Steamboat Springs to spend a couple of days with Ally and Kyle. It had been years.

For a midwinter trip, the traveling was amazingly easy, without any wintertime difficulties at all. From the character of the snow cover on the ground as we neared their home it was obvious that nothing new had fallen for at least a week or two. The snow was tired-looking, gray, in need of refreshment.

But it was still enough for starting the 112th running of the Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival. Late Friday we trooped over to a park in town and watched local ski jumpers and something that was new to us and often hilarious – downhill bicycle racing in snow.

We broke away for supper, and when we left the building it was raining, which turned to snow before we got out of town. The snowfall was huge flakes that reflected the headlight beams back at us and made visibility poor and the driving treacherous. Four inches of fluff fell that night, and it transformed the town and the surrounding countryside, which went from a gray background to pure white.

Saturday was an all-day snowshow finishing with spectacular fireworks. (I’ve included a gallery, but none of the pix are mine. The crowds were not oppressive, but they did prevent my getting access to good photo-talking locations.)

Lovely time, in all.

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Cactus Country, by Scott Law

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Remember the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words?”

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I confess that I don’t know quite what to make of Musk. While he has a certain amount of technical knowledge and skills, he is otherwise lacking in a host of other areas. One has only to read the sad history of what used to be Twitter to see that. I’m not a huge fan of social media, but Musk took Twitter from a service that was at least trying to keep itself clean to “X,” which is now little more than a megaphone for hate speech.

And he seems to be challenging us to ignore (or accept) his Third Reich-style speeches and gestures. Don’t know about how you see it, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck …

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From The New Yorker

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BTW, if anyone is having trouble making sense of what is happening in Washington DC, I can recommend a book. It’s The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer.

It is compelling reading, as it lays out in detail the steps that are the playbook for the rise of authoritarian regimes wherever they may occur. (Think of it as Project 1934). It is neither a dull nor stodgy history, and totally apropos in our moment.

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Learning the Game, by Leo Kottke

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Normally I am the soul of tolerance. A poster boy for acceptance. Forbearing to the point of being a saint. But something happens to me at the gym when I am using the weight-training devices and another client breaks etiquette by doing one of these things:

  • Dives in front of me and grabs the machine I have been obviously waiting for
  • Puts their water bottle on one machine to hold it while using another one, thus tying two of them up
  • Sits on a device while chatting with some other thoughtless bozo
  • Talks over their headphones while doing a set, turning 10 reps into a 10 minute-long workout
  • Makes no attempt to wipe their grime, sweat, and microflora from the device they have just used

If any of these behaviors occurs and I witness it, the sequence runs something like this: visual data to optic nerve to visual cortex to lizard brain to murderous impulse.

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So far I have been able to stop at this point and not do something which requires that I be incarcerated, but if some Christian teachings are correct and the thought is equal to the deed, I am a serial killer. And an unrepentant one to boot.

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From The New Yorker

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Cry Havoc!

jono55

Let’s face it, folks. Elon and his junior partner Donald are no friends of America. What they are doing is what an invading army does when it takes over a country. Dismantling the government, then installing their toadies and sycophants into the spaces left behind after firing the people who knew what they were doing.

It’s hard to tell which one of these evil twins is the poorest example of a leader. They treat a great nation as a corporate raider would treat a chain of hardware stores they were taking over, blowing it up and then pretending they know how to put it back together.

Hubris describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. The term arrogance comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning “to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people”. To arrogate means “to claim or seize without justification… To make undue claims to having”, or “to claim or seize without right… to ascribe or attribute without reason”.

Wikipedia

They couldn’t pull this off without the help of the Republicans in Congress. That batch of quislings must share the blame for every part of the ugly mess being created daily.

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Robin and I have slipped into a new pattern, at least for us. When we got together 33 years ago, both of us were coming off of unpleasant divorces (are there pleasant ones?).

One of the great attractions of a new relationship is that you have no mutual baggage. Every conversation is brand new, a fresh and exciting exploration of the other person. Our recent pasts were still so heavily filled with events involving our former marriages that neither one of us wanted to spend much time in those neighborhoods. So we didn’t.

Time flew and there were new memories being created almost faster than we could catalog them. But time eventually slows down, and now we are exploring parts of our histories before we met, one tidbit at a time. This son or daughter did this, when I was ten I did that … some of you may know how that drill goes.

But it has been really interesting to learn so many new/old things about someone I’ve been living with for quite a while now. Today we talked about lean times in our families of origin when bread and butter with sugar on it was supper.

A small thing. Not remembered as a hardship. Just two a decade and hundreds of miles apart who eventually would have a conversation at a supper table and realize yet one more thing they had in common.

Perhaps a photo of these nutritional victims would be in order here.

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In a recent post I spoke lightly about mounting the barricades if the need for revolution ever came. I may have been boasting. It’s a common practice of mine, as you may have noticed if you’ve been regular readers. Perhaps better to think of it as a metaphor.

These days if one puts up a barricade they will soon have a bulldozer in front of them and a drone behind, neither machine caring much about a man’s cause or well-being.

But there was a time when pure valor went a long way … this song from Les Miserables is of that time and is my favorite from the film.

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Today’s header photograph is labeled simply “Boundary Waters.” It’s been a while since I explained what that meant, so indulge me for a moment.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BW) is in northern Minnesota, and for many decades has for me been a place of beauty, mystery, and almost mythological significance. It is a million acres of forest, water, and rock. The only watercraft allowed within its boundaries are those that one paddles, primarily canoes with a few kayaks thrown in.

The BWCAW extends nearly 150 miles along the International Boundary, adjacent to Canada’s Quetico and La Verendrye Provincial Parks, is bordered on the west by Voyageurs National Park, and by Grand Portage National Monument to the east. The BWCAW contains over 1,200 miles of canoe routes, 12 hiking trails and 2,000 designated campsites. 

U.S. Forest Service

I have visited the “BW” more than fifty times. Some of those trips only involved driving to the town of Ely MN for a touristy visit, some to rent a lake cabin on its periphery for a few days, but most of them were to take a canoe along with a bit of camping gear and push off from an entry point to enter one of the few places left in the US where industrial life is shut out.

What to find there? Well, solitude, natural beauty, aching muscles, loons and their library of calls, occasional bears and wolves, rocks under your camping pad, blisters, and spiritual renewal. That’s just to start with. I used to go twice a year, but the Rockies are a long way from the BW, and the last time now was six years ago, when Robin and I took grandson Aiden for his first trip in. The header photo was taken when Robin and I visited in 2011, and was marked by very warm days, grand scenery, and occasional attacks by hordes of particularly bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

It’s a piece of America that requires something of the visitor, but is worth the effort ten times over.

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Genghis Noem

jono55

Things to feel positive about when each day seems chockablock with disheartening news.

  1. We are learning so much about our own country’s constitution through the efforts of those who are attempting to subvert it. Knowledge is power so that’s a good thing, right?
  2. While eggs at City Market now average above a daunting $9.00 a dozen, it means that chickens all over the country are now earning enough that they no longer need to work two jobs and can spend more time with their families.
  3. February is hump month vis-a-vis the weather. Get past it and we are coasting downhill into Spring, which is a swell time. Very swell.
  4. If you are reading this you probably don’t have the bird flu.

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Kristi Noem has been confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security. While that is not great news for the U.S. as a whole (she has an unfortunate tendency to shoot creatures who displease her), within seconds of that confirmation we received a phone call from a lifelong South Dakotan who was so ecstatic to be rid of her as governor that her joy could not be contained.

Before she gained renown for blasting away at her pets and livestock she was already famous for mostly ignoring COVID in South Dakota and for getting herself barred from all Native American reservations in her own state.

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[Some people have an antipathy toward poetry. Perhaps it might help to think of a poem as sometimes serving as a hone, sharpening their senses and appreciation for what was already there in front of them. Here is one by a pediatrician/poet, written in 1921. ]

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Winter Trees

by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details 
of the attiring and 
the disattiring are completed! 
A liquid moon 
moves gently among 
the long branches. 
Thus having prepared their buds 
against a sure winter 
the wise trees 
stand sleeping in the cold.

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From The New Yorker

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On the subject of pediatricians (you didn’t know we were discussing them?), long ago I had a mentor named Henry Staub M.D. who I met only after my formal pediatric training was completed. Henry was a children’s physician, an ardent community activist, and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. As a young man with Jewish parentage he, he had left Nazi Germany just in time to avoid being drafted into the army and thus discovered.

There is much of what I became in my own professional life that I took on from Henry by osmosis, but there were two sayings of his that I still think of frequently.

“The best doctor is the one that hurts the most.” On the surface this might seem paradoxical, but what he had observed was that there was a strong tendency to be “kind” to sick children, and for that “kindness” to delay discovery of sometimes serious illness.

For example, suppose that a child presented with symptoms that might be early signs of something really damaging. If the patient had been an adult, there would have been no question about doing the required but often uncomfortable testing, but in this case the physician decides to wait and watch for a while, to be certain that investigation is required since the patient is so young. However, in not wanting to cause pain to the small one the doctor instead sometimes hurts it far more by delaying diagnosis and proper treatment.

The second was a brief description of his own hypothetical professional journey, and was always told with a smile at the end. “I went into pediatrics because I didn’t like adults. After a few years, I didn’t like children, either.”

But Henry did love children, and was their constant advocate. Not for just those in his practice, but the larger community as well. A wise guy.

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“I heard a very good joke yesterday, someone said: ‘Musk is not a Nazi, Nazis made really good cars.’”

Stephen Fry

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Hypnotic. Beautiful. Don’t worry that you can’t understand the lyrics. No one can.

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I believe myself to be living in a revolutionary time, where many of my long-held standards and beliefs about my country are being dissected and discarded, their fragility revealed, the spider’s web of a platform on which they rested found to be riddled with gaps … easy pickings for the unscrupulous.

One one hand there is the thuggery and brutishness of MAGA, a collection of the benighted if there ever was one. On another hand there is the aging creakiness of the Democratic Party leadership, which seems unable find the laces on its Louboutins in order to tie them properly and so to get on with the people’s business. Yet another hand says a pox on both those houses. There are other “hands” as well. We may only have two official political parties but there exist oh so many constituencies.

One of those constituencies is the most influential of all, and that is that of the extremely wealthy. This one is actually more powerful than any of the parties.

In the old days (anything more than one election cycle ago) those people ran the country and the world but much preferred being invisible. These days the one percenters have not been not just taking blatantly more than their fair share of everything, they have used their fortunes to stack every deck they can get their hands on to perpetuate and increase their privilege.

Our history shows how easy it has been to pit us one against the other so that we would ignore their machinations. For instance, in our Civil War there were 620,000 deaths. While slavery may have been the spark that started the whole bloody mess, only a very tiny fraction of the men who died in either army had ever owned a slave. So why would a threadbare farmer from Minnesota travel a thousand miles to shoot at threadbare farmers in Virginia? What was their quarrel?

Who told them that taking up arms was the proper thing to do?

Guess.

So if there is a revolution coming, count me in. I may not mount the barricades as nimbly as a couple of days ago, but if nothing else I am more dangerous because I have good eyesight and less to lose.

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No Banker Left Behind, by Ry Cooder

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Music Hath Charms …

jono55

Students … STUDENTS! Take your seats, please. I am about to expostulate right in front of everyone (an act that is a misdemeanor in at least four of the red states , and a felony in two).

My statement for the morning is this. There are rock songs that are as worth studying as some pieces of classical music are, for they are every bit as intricate and complex.

Now I can already see a few haughty noses being raised in the back row there, those of you of privileged breeding who regard such suggestions as being quite preposterous. Must I remind you of the quotation from the philosopher Herbert Spencer:

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.

There. I’ve had my say. And now a musical example is provided by Jason Isbell and his band The 400 Unit. To begin with it’s an interesting ballad, but listen carefully to the long break after the second verse. Themes rise and fall, guitars move in and out, percussion waxes and wanes. What is this if not the rock and roll equivalent of chamber music?

Dreamsicle, by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

There will be a quiz on Friday next. Bring your Air-Pods.

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From The New Yorker

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If you accept ovo-lacto-vegetarianism as a thing, I have slowly moved to where I am about 95% vegetarian. Reasons? Health concerns, curiosity, economy … all of these have played their part. But the final straw (or straws) has been the cumulative addition of one horror story after another about how that piece of beef or pork or chicken made its way to my plate. The awfulness of that industry … if you would ask me why it took me so long to get to this point, my answer would probably be twofold, sloth and unwillingness to change.

I have no excuse. I read The Jungle as a teenager. During the ensuing decades since that eye-opener I’ve seen one documentary after another on the meat industry and felt shame each time when I was done viewing.

All of my life I have been picking up bits of knowledge about what it means to be a sentient being, and what our duties and responsibilities toward the rest of the animal kingdom might be. But my eating patterns remained largely unchanged.

So about that remaining 5%? Well, that’s my personal hypocrisy score, I guess. It’s a better number than it was a decade ago, and I confess there are many other areas of my existence where that score would be higher. Slow learner, moi.

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From The New Yorker

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I’ll Fly Away, by Ian Siegal

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Less than two weeks now until we celebrate the national holiday in support of obesity. The only one of the bunch where eating large quantities of food is the whole point. Oh, there are brief mentions here and there about being grateful and giving thanks and all that, but otherwise the articles dealing with Thanksgiving are mostly about recipes.

If I were to decide that each day for the rest of my life I would eat nothing but turkey stuffing, I am almost certain that I would not run out of instructions for preparing variations of these dishes until I was over the age of 125.

And by that time my bloodstream would be 50% creamery butter, I would likely weigh over 600 pounds and when I died I would have to be cremated with a flamethrower. If you Google overeating on turkey day, you will be inundated with suggestions as to how to avoid things like food coma, GI reflux emergencies, and trips to the emergency room for tryptophan overdose.

So you can see how far we’ve come from the first Thanksgiving where the Pilgrims sat down to platefuls of succotash and were grateful for not being dead of starvation, exposure, and disease.

I have my own gratitude list that I compiled some time ago, and keep amending from time to time. It is much like the Pilgrim’s might have been. Grateful for the roof over my head, clothing enough to keep me warm this winter, and food enough for the day. Grateful for the friends that I have now and have had over a considerable lifetime.

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Observations on what has transpired since the recent election. I have my own conspiracy theory which is no more crackpot than many others that are circulating. I think that it is possible that the leaders of North Korea, China, and Russia got together and decided that instead of continuing to amass nuclear arsenals and build up armies against the USA they would do what they could to get Donald Cluck elected to office. It was a far cheaper and more effective approach, knowing that he would appoint one incompetent after another, deliberately sow chaos and disunion in his own government, and undermine agencies, institutions, and programs that had been effective in promoting safety and stability for generations.

It was a genius idea, and we are seeing it play out daily in the media. Half of the country is still gloating in his re-election even as he is busily sawing a leg from the very stool they are standing on.

I would find it hard to feel sorry for them if they ever realize their error and the great national harm of which they have been a part. In fact, I will probably haul out my trusty “I TOLD YOU SO!” and use it as a club to lay about me at will.

I am nothing if not petty.

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Here is where I would like to spend eternity. At the World Cheese Awards. This year there were 4786 entries from 47 countries at the event. It was held in Portugal and the winner was a Portuguese cheese described thusly:

Made with vegetarian rennet created from thistles, the winner is described as a gooey, glossy, buttery cheese with a herby bitterness that’s typically served by slicing off the top and spooning out the center.

CNN Online, November 16

“Slicing off the top and spooning out the center” … have you ever read a more beautiful line in your life?

The photograph below was taken of the judging floor, and ( I am choking up just thinking about it ) those tables are filled with the best cheeses in the entire (bleeping) world. I mean, really, what wouldn’t I have done to get there? To get a chance to wear one of those tan coveralls I might not have killed, but I would certainly have bruised.

The Director of the Guild of Fine Food, which puts on the show, described the atmosphere:

Gathering thousands of cheeses at room temperature under one roof inevitably produces an intense aroma. “It’s very punchy,” is how John Farrand, managing director of The Guild of Fine Food, the contest’s UK-based organizer, described the atmosphere at the event.

CNN Online

So probably not for everyone. I have known people who swooned from the aroma of a single well-aged chunk of Roquefort unveiled at a party.

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That Smell, by Lynyrd Skynyrd

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Good Mourning, America

jono55

Wednesday morning we woke to find that two very different things had happened during the night. One of them was ugly, and the other beautiful.

Let’s do the ugly first. A man convicted of multiple felonies including sexual assault, and who is a racist, fascist, and bottomless liar was elected president of our unfortunate country yesterday. Those of us who are not Cluck-cult members are walking around humming dirges to ourselves.

Now for the beautiful. Several inches of snow fell, warm wet stuff that covers everything, including the plants on the berm in the front yard. Around breakfast time dozens of tiny birds appeared and were busying themselves in the dried foliage, eating seeds or bugs or whatever it is that they were seeking. They were all the same species, with olive coloration on their backs, white bars on their wings, and they were between a hummingbird and a chickadee in size. Because they were flitting about so much it was impossible to do an accurate count. But there were dozens.

I took a photo of the area, and there are five birds included in the photograph above. I identified them as ruby-crowned kinglets. Not rare sightings, but not everyday occurrences, either. They were sooo busy.

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Snow, by Gustavo Santaolalla

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Wednesday evening we had friend Rod over for dinner and a movie. Dinner was two new recipes, an instant pot chili and a cornbread (from scratch) cooked in cast iron.The film chosen was The Fisher King, which is an oddly satisfying movie. It’s a gritty fantasy and not every viewer becomes a fan. The cast is excellent, with Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Jeff Bridges, and Amanda Plummer all doing good work.

Ruehl won an Oscar for her role, and Jeff Bridges does the truest portrayal of a shit-faced drunk that I’ve seen on film. He is by turns pathetic and disgusting, which, if you’ve ever seen such a person, is accurate.

The director is Terry Gilliam, who was once a member of the Monty Python troupe, and that sensibility is layered everywhere in the movie. It is one of Robin’s lifetime favorite films.

[BTW. The food was awfully tasty on a cold and snowy evening. Two winning recipes. Comfort food for the end of an uncomfortable day.]

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City of New Orleans, by Steve Goodman

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Thursday morning, after a seven inch snowfall and the coldest night of the year so far, hundreds of Sandhill cranes got up and took off for the south land. They flew over our home, making that croaking call that would be quite at home in the soundtrack of Jurassic Park X.

Beautiful in flight. Dramatic in voice.

I have to smile when our local media calls Thursday’s precipitation a “snowstorm.” As tough and resourceful as the mountain people are, they obviously do not know a snowstorm from a soft taco. What we had was a snowfall. At no time was driving visibility impaired, commerce interrupted, or lives threatened.

No, a snowstorm is when you grip the steering wheel of your automobile so tightly you leave a mark. When you try to remember where you put your will, and hope that the kids will find it. When you navigate by following the white lines in the middle of the road because looking forward is pretty much useless. No, we didn’t have a snowstorm. Not even close.

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From The New Yorker

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I’ve been corresponding with various scholars, scientists, and other potentates over the past couple of years. I am trying to find the original blueprints for the human body.

Having come this far in life, I have dozens of ideas for improvements, but have failed to achieve an introduction to whoever is in charge to begin to re-work this troublesome and flawed corpus. I can only assume that it was an early prototype that was somehow released to the world before it could be properly finished.

For instance, and I realize that this is a trivial example, but there is the problem of hair on the human body. For nearly fifty years our body hair remains in roughly the same locations. And then the gloves come off and each hair regards itself as an independent agent free to wander about wherever it wishes.

Women get mustaches, men go bald at the same time forests grow from their ears, and there are four of those rebellious hairs who have settled on the tip of my nose perhaps hoping to one day rival the rhino’s horn.

Well, I’m not having it, and I know that with a modicum of genetic engineering we could do away with the entire circus. I just need to get to the right people.

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[The beautiful header photograph is not one that I took, but is from this site.]

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Special Edition

jono55

[I have taken a great liberty here, but Robert Reich’s piece in The Guardian today speaks to perhaps millions of Americans who are standing around wondering what our next move should be. Here is the piece, along with a link to it in its original location.]

A Peaceful But Determined Resistance to Trump Must Start Now

by Robert Reich, from The Guardian

I won’t try to hide it. I’m heartbroken.  Heartbroken and scared, to tell you the truth. I’m sure many of you are, too. Donald Trump has decisively won the presidency, the Senate, and possibly the House of Representatives and the popular vote, too.

I still have faith in America. But right now, that’s little comfort to the people who are most at risk.

Millions of people must now live in fear of being swept up by Trump’s cruel mass deportation plan – documented immigrants, as he has threatened before, as well as undocumented, and millions of American citizens with undocumented parents or spouses.

Women and girls must now fear that they’ll be forced to give birth or be denied life-saving care during an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage.

America has become less safe for trans people – including trans kids – who were already at risk of violence and discrimination.

Anyone who has already faced prejudice and marginalization is now in greater danger than before.

Also in danger are people who have stood up to Trump, who has promised to seek revenge against his political opponents.

Countless people are now endangered on a scale and intensity almost unheard of in modern America.

Our first responsibility is to protect all those who are in harm’s way.

We will do that by resisting Trump’s attempts to suppress women’s freedoms. We will fight for the rights of women and girls to determine when and whether they have children. No one will force a woman to give birth.

We will block Trump’s cruel efforts at mass deportation. We will fight to give sanctuary to productive, law-abiding members of our communities, including young people who arrived here as babies or children.

We will not allow mass arrests and mass detention of anyone in America. We will not permit families to be separated. We will not allow the military to be used to intimidate and subjugate anyone in this country.

We will protect trans people and everyone else who is scapegoated because of how they look or what they believe. No one should have to be ashamed of who they are.

We will stop Trump’s efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies. A free nation protects political dissent. A democracy needs people willing to stand up to tyranny.

How will we conduct this resistance?

By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media.

We will ask other Americans to join us – left and right, progressive and conservative, white people and people of color. It will be the largest and most powerful resistance since the American revolution.

But it will be peaceful. We will not succumb to violence, which would only give Trump and his regime an excuse to use organized violence against us.

We will keep alive the flames of freedom and the common good, and we will preserve our democracy. We will fight for the same things Americans have fought for since the founding of our nation – rights enshrined in the constitution and Bill of Rights.

The preamble to the constitution of the United States opens with the phrase “We the people”, conveying a sense of shared interest and a desire “to promote the general welfare”, as the preamble goes on to say.

We the people will fight for the general welfare.

We the people will resist tyranny. We will preserve the common good. We will protect our democracy.

This will not be easy, but if the American experiment in self-government is to continue, it is essential.

I know you’re scared and stressed. So am I.

If you are grieving or frightened, you are not alone. Tens of millions of Americans feel the way you do.

All I can say to reassure you is that time and again, Americans have opted for the common good. Time and again, we have come to each other’s aid. We have resisted cruelty.

We supported one another during the Great Depression. We were victorious over Hitler’s fascism and Soviet communism. We survived Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunts, Richard Nixon’s crimes, Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war, the horrors of 9/11, and George W Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will resist Donald Trump’s tyranny.

Although peaceful and non-violent, the resistance will nonetheless be committed and determined.

It will encompass every community in America. It will endure as long as necessary.

We will never give up on America.

The resistance starts now.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Did I Ever Tell You … ?

jono55

The problem with being a garrulous old gent like myself is getting your victim to stand still long enough to unload your priceless cargo of stories on them. At first they get that cornered look in their rapidly shifting eyes and when they decide that more desperate measures are called for:

  • They take out their phones and pretend to receive important calls.
  • They develop abdominal pain that they are sure is appendicitis.
  • They remember a doctor’s appointment for that brain tumor they just learned they have.
  • They hear their mother calling.

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The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism.

Henry Wallace (1888-1965)

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There is an informative article in the local paper on the birthing pains of our Black Canyon National Park, which was established 25 years ago. It was that famous philanderer Bill Clinton who signed the bill creating the park, at a moment between dalliances.

One thing I didn’t know before reading the article is that while a national monument can be created by the president alone, it takes Congress to make a national park. Good article. Short. Non-taxing.

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Moonlight In Vermont, by the Ahmad Jamal Trio

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Fascism is capitalism plus murder.

Upton Sinclair

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I am presently reading a book by Craig Childs which is about animal encounters in the wild. In the first couple of tales I had been put off by what I thought was a too-frequent use of metaphors. But then I came to the story about a meetup with a mountain lion, one he had been observing for awhile from afar, and which had then wandered off out of sight.

A bit later he realized that it had circled around until it was behind him, and was very close indeed. It is a really gripping short tale, well enough written to make me sense the nakedness of standing by a desert waterhole thirty feet from a lion who is walking toward you, and you with nothing in your hand but a folding knife.

No metaphors here. Straight up, no ice.

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Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.

Aneurin Bevan

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Ai Ga Bani, by Ali Farka Touré

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Saturday I attended a birthday party for Archer, who lives next door. We barely know each other and have almost nothing in common. His tastes in music are deplorable and at least half the time he smells more than a little off. But he and Robin have become friends, so when she attended I went with her.

Anyway, Archer had his one-year old party on a lovely Fall day and he seemed to enjoy the whole thing. But he completely ignored the fact that it was also my birthday and monopolized the group’s attention. Rude child. Spiteful.

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After one of the most beautiful autumns I’ve ever experienced, it looks like our weather is finally going into the crapper. Ah well, October 31 is nearly here and what’s Halloween without hypothermic children out gathering things to eat that are not good for them?

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Brontosaurus medicus

jono55

We have two veterinary clinics in Paradise. We’ve used them both in our time here. In the past two years each of them has sent notices that they would not be available for after hours or weekend emergencies, but recommended that we take our ailing friends to a veterinary emergency room in Grand Junction, which is a 75 minute drive. And that is in the summertime. There will be times in winter when it will be impossible.

My reaction to both announcements has been the same. I was steamed. WTF! That is absolutely not okay! What sort of dismal dedication is this? They are assuming little more professional responsibility than a clerk in a C-store.

If I had tried such a move when I was working as a pediatrician, this morning I would still be scraping off some of the tar and feathers that the parents in my practice would rightfully have applied to me decades ago.

I realize that my way of looking at how a doctor should provide care, whether that is for animals or humans, makes me a relic, a dinosaur. Other members of my generation of doctors feel much the same way as I do, but we are steadily becoming extinct.

Soon there will be no one who remembers that at one time in our history if you became ill after hours, there was a good chance your own physician would answer the call. Or at the very least, someone you knew.

Got a sick pet here in Paradise after 5:00 PM? Get in the car and don’t forget to fill up the tank on your way out of town.

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I Don’t Need No Doctor, by Ray Charles

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From The New Yorker

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Robin and I are signing up to do phone banks for Harris/Walz. We are also attending a meetup online to educate us on Project 2025. We are also contacting our precinct chair regarding “How can we help?”

Doing what we can to avoid waking up on November 6 feeling pole-axed and guilt-ridden with four more years of you-know-who in front of us.

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Rereading Lonesome Dove for the … I don’t know … fourth time. Never gets old. Renews my connection with a fascinating part of western history, with Larry McMurtry’s extraordinary portraits of ordinary people doing what today would be considered heroic deeds, but in their time were just life. I am reading it at a measured pace, savoring the writing and the story.

It’s the book that has caused me to annoy many, many people because I can’t keep myself from urging them to read it. Most of those I have thus leaned on have totally ignored me, sniffing that “it’s a cowboy book.” (Well, yeah, like the Old Testament is only a Hebrew travelogue.) It’s all in how the tale is told, and this is McMurtry’s masterpiece.

As a bonus, when you finish it you can watch the television series made from the book, which was one of the best miniseries ever. Nominated for eighteen Emmys and won seven.

No less an actor than Robert Duvall considers Augustus McCrae his favorite of all the roles he’s played. But I’m not going to beg you to read the book. That would be annoying.

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From The New Yorker

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Daily I try to find sane and thoughtful voices in the clamor that is today’s world. If I take CNN’s headlines at face value we are facing several Armageddons at once, it’s only a matter of chance which of them inevitably crushes us under its hammerblows. The New York Times tries to be more restrained, but is always a day behind, when a news cycle lasts 20 minutes.

It is dizzying. I really don’t want to go back, even in my imagination, to the days when news traveled slowly enough that you might miss Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train going by if you weren’t paying attention. But something between that and this morning’s clamor would be nice.

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Here’s a tune for the elephants of the Middle East, the Israeli and Arab leadership, who are trampling on the lives of their peoples. Who are using their ingenuity and power to kill and maim in both ancient and novel ways.

Masters of War, by The Staple Singers

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This post is too heavy by far, so far. How about a bit of Swedish vs Norwegian humor?

Sweden and Norway were playing a soccer match.
About 20 minutes into the game a train rolled by and blew its whistle.
The Swedes thought it was half time and left the field.
The Norwegians scored 5 minutes later.

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“Out of the minds of babes oft times come gems.”

An old saw with much truth tucked inside. I thought of this when listening yesterday to a Neil Young song from 1974 entitled On The Beach. One perfect line went “Though my problems are meaningless, that don’t make them go away.”

My situation exactly.

On The Beach, by Neil Young

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Floaters

jono55

The barbarity and perversity of the human enterprise known as war was again displayed openly on Saturday last when there were two news items published on CNN online. The first was a video purportedly of three Ukrainian soldiers being executed after they had surrendered. The second was an announcement that the Ukrainians are using drones to rain thermite, which is molten metal, on Russian positions as shown in this photograph.

I’ve never quite understood how they came up with some of the accepted practices of war. One moment ago you and your opponents are doing your level best to kill one another. But once a group of enemy combatants surrenders, you are directed to feed and house those people without using violence toward them of any kind. But let them try to escape and you are once again encouraged to shoot at them. The whole business is horrible. Having rules governing how we can legally slaughter one another is insane. Raining molten metal on other humans is evil.

We’ve already agreed not to use chemical weapons in war, why not go through the entire arsenal and keep on banning one item after another? There have been nuclear treaties to reduce the likelihood of one particular type of calamity. Much progress has been made in ridding the world of antipersonnel land mines, a project which most countries in the world are signed onto. Let’s not stop there, but keep shrinking the tools and means to make war until we get to war itself.

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Masters of War, by Odetta

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I’m not a fan of the Cheney family of Wyoming, especially Darth Dick, but I absolutely agree with Liz this one time, when she produced a quote worth remembering. Cheney made a statement on July 21, 2022, during her closing remarks at a public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. As the vice chair of the committee, Cheney addressed those Republicans who continued to defend former President Donald Trump despite evidence presented regarding his role in the events leading up to and during the attack.

Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

Liz Cheney

Amen, Sister!

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I saw this cartoon in the New Yorker, and an old memory popped into my head immediately. You will soon learn why.

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When I was about eight years old, I organized an urban fishing adventure and led a trio of boys of the same age into misbehavior. Yes, I admit it, I was the kid that your parents told you not to hang around with. Instead of going to the Saturday movie matinee as we did nearly every week, we planned instead to take a side trip to a nearby lake in Minneapolis. Of course we would not tell our parents of the change in plans, since we knew that they would not approve. Deception and mendacity were skills we had obviously learned early in life.

I rounded up the following materials that I thought we would need on the journey.

  • about ten feet of stout braided fishing line (we would not have a fishing rod because there was no way we could see to conceal it)
  • two lead sinkers
  • one bobber
  • several hooks of suitable size
  • a pocket knife
  • some matches
  • several earthworms
  • an empty butternut coffee can

Off we went, first taking the direction we would ordinarily use to go to the theater, but then doubling back and heading out to Lake Harriet, which was a mile or two away.

After some time we reached the lake, and after rigging our single line and tossing it into the water, we waited for the action to begin. When a half an hour had passed and nothing was happening, our spirits began to flag somewhat. After an hour we were becoming desperate. To have planned all this, to have taken the risks involved, and now to be denied the fruits of our disobedience seemed unfair.

And then we saw it. A small yellow perch, floating dead in the water. To us it still looked a pretty shade of bright green, not faded as fish will do when dead in the water for a long time. So after some discussion and by mutual agreement, we scooped up the fish, scaled and cleaned it with our knife. A small fire was built of available twigs, and when it seemed hot enough, we began to fry the deceased creature in the coffee can.

Turns out that we were about as proficient as cooks as we had been as fishermen. We learned that frying a perch in a coffee can without a lubricant of any kind can only lead to disappointments. The fish stuck to the hot metal, everywhere. Trying to turn it using more sticks was a minor disaster.

But the lesson here is never to underestimate the grit and determination of eight year-old boys who have already lied to their parents, walked a couple of miles, failed to catch a legitimate fish, and needed to leave in ten minutes to get home on time and avoid discovery. At some point we declared that our meal was cooked, distributed the set of fish fragments that had resulted from the cooking process, and ate them.

After stuffing ourselves on our diminutive “catch,” we returned home at what was our planned ETA. Looking back if I was to score our adventure honestly I would do it this way: Fishing = F, Cooking = F, being conniving little delinquents = A+.

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Fishing, by Widespread Panic

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Last night’s presidential debate was a balm to my psyche. As sweet as the wine of the gods. VP Harris was in charge the entire evening, as she prodded what’s his name into one furious falsehood after another. She looked confident and comfortable up there, smiling or laughing a good deal of the time. He squinted, fumed, ranted, lied profusely and continuously, and looked ancient.

I admit to being highly prejudiced but I would score it this way: Harris = presidential material, Cluck = malignant fool. I grant that the MAGA universe has the right to vote as they wish, but I do not respect anyone who will vote to turn this country over to the “leadership” of such a man.

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Think Small

jono55

There was an article in the Times recently about how the original Volkswagen Beetles are alive and thriving in Mexico, even though they have nearly disappeared from the rest of the world. The article warmed my heart.

My first new car was a 1964 VW sedan and it was red. I loved that car. It cost me a dollar a pound ($1600) and was worth every cent.

It had its foibles, the major one being an inability to keep the cabin temperature warm enough to support life on anything approaching a cold winter day.

In snow it would plow straight ahead and was nearly unstoppable. But if the engine being over the rear wheels gave it great traction it left the front end a bit light. Translated: you could always GO but you couldn’t always TURN.

I did have one time where I was alone and stuck in a bit of snow, so I put it into low, got out of the car to push it from behind while the wheels turned slowly in low gear, then ran alongside to hop back into the driver’s seat once I had it out of the drift. (Try that maneuver with your Land Rover!)

For a long time I was a fan of the brand, owning two beetles, one squareback sedan, two regular minivans, and one camper at various times. Then the cars’ engineering and quality control began to falter, the dealers disappeared one by one, and eventually I quit Volkswagen altogether.

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In the ‘60s and ‘70s VW had the very best ad campaign. A sampling follows.

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Former president Bonespurs has stepped in it again. File this under “Rules, Schmules! Those are for suckers.” I’m talking about the recent incident at Arlington National Cemetery.

All that was asked of him and his entourage was that they respect the part of the cemetery that they were visiting and not take photos or videos to be used politically. They couldn’t manage this simple request. It was not possible for them to be thoughtful and respectful for even a few moments.

No surprises here. Gang of Thugs, n’est-ce pas?.

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I found this beautiful image in a YouTube video slideshow about the battle at Little Big Horn. Nothing about where it came from or who produced it was identified. I couldn’t let it go. I thought it deserved to be shared.

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Our recreation center (the “gym”) has been closed for nine days now for its annual cleaning and doing repairs. The managers seem to be doing a first rate job, and during the rest of the year if something breaks it is fixed within a day or two. It is also a very clean space and somehow … in some magical way .. it doesn’t smell of sweat. It’s like there are several hundred hidden bottles of Febreeze firing off on a regular basis.

Of course, the building being closed means that all of my conditioning has gone to hell and my body is returning to its default appearance, which is much like that of this famous character from Star Wars.

One of the truths of aging is that once you reach your body’s own tipping point the numbers become sort of awkward. On a hard workout day you might improve 0.5% in strength and/or aerobic capacity. Take a day off and you drop 75%. I know, depressing, isn’t it? It’s Sisyphus and his rock all over again.

(The statistics quoted here are my own, made up by my very own imagination and although they may actually be true, that would be unlikely)

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BREAKING NEWS THIS VERY LABOR DAY ABOUT THE VERY THING I ALREADY TALKED ABOUT

Because of a tougher market for their vehicles, especially EVs, it is possible that Volkswagen may need to close some of its plants in … not the UK … not France … not the USA … but Germany! This has never occurred before, not in all of VWs 87 year history.

I have a message for the company: Bring back the 1964 Beetle at $1600 and I will be the first in line at the showroom. I don’t care if my feet freeze in the winter and electric tricycles are passing me on the highway. I want to go retro in my auto choices.

Give me a car:

  • Where I can’t see the hood at all when I’m driving.
  • Where there is little or no room for luggage.
  • Where A/C doesn’t exist and never has
  • Where I sit so low I can peer under semi-trailers from the driver’s seat

And, dammit, I want a car that floats!

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There was a period of time, from 1969-1971, when I did all that I could to win the war in Viet Nam. I was largely unsuccessful, and at least part of the difficulty was being stationed in Omaha, Nebraska, which was 8557 miles from Saigon. Some of my frustrations led me into bad habits, like listening over and over to this Creedence Clearwater Revival tune with the volume knob turned toward what the room and my inner ears should not have been asked to bear.

Fortunate Son, by Creedence Clearwater Revival

A righteous tune for sure, and at the time it seemed written for me. I took some comfort there.

The Boxer, by Simon and Garfunkel

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Tougher Than The Rest

jono55

Let’s think of the present political season as opera, shall we? It makes some sense that way. The participants are given to warbling daily arias that mostly involve loud vocalizations with small content. Every word of one person’s utterances is attacked by the opposite side who respond with their own attacks on everything from grammar to logic to underlying sinister meanings.

While we don’t have the “fat lady”singing as in the old jest, we do have the overweight and orange-tinted man, who is never given anything to sing that has an extended set of lyrics, because of his short attention-span. His companion is a man of darkness and twisted sense of humor who thinks nothing of resurrecting an old video that once nearly cost a young woman her life, as a joke.

On the other side we have our heroine, who is saying just as little as she can, having found that a picture (or a video) is truly worth a thousand words. Her sidekick is a wise and amiable dispenser of homespun truths who has already coined two words or phrases that have resonated with the electorate – “weird,” and “mind your own damn business.” Not bad for a Minnesotan, but then, no one knows what to expect from these denizens of a land where winter lasts eleven months and residents wear peat moss.

We’re still in the first act of this musical drama, and who knows what is to come? One of the problems with finding music for the Dark Side is that no first-rate musician wants to lend their tunes to them, leaving only Kid Rock to help with the score.

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On a walk yesterday we saw two Cedar Waxwings high in a bare tree. Just the two. It’s a very pretty little bird, always looking very well groomed. They were chatting away up there, too far away for us to hear what they were saying.

(Admission: This pic is not mine, but was pilfered from the internet.)

Their natty appearance is striking in comparison with the crow, for instance, which often looks as if it just got out of bed and hasn’t checked out its look in a mirror yet.

Actually, the bird in the photo closely resembles me this morning, when I found my mirror image especially unkempt. My hair was so vaguely directed that the only way I could orient myself as to front vs back was to look for my eyes.

(This pic isn’t mine, either)

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When my kids were in their teens the original and only true version of MTV was on screen in our home as soon as the sun came up. I couldn’t avoid being somewhat up to date on pop musical trends because the station was always there playing in the background to educate me. Life was good, but then MTV lost its mind and never came back.

Music videos are still out there, of course, but you have to go looking for them instead of having them curated for you and served up with a golden spoon. (Sigh). Once in a while one comes along than is really moving, like this anti-war and reflective tune by the group Green Day, 21 Guns.

The title refers to the salute given by an honor guard, as at a funeral. When the group’s album American Idiot went to Broadway as a musical it didn’t do so well, and was shelved after a run of just about a year. This is that Broadway cast, doing the best song of the bunch. On a video where these beautiful people will always sound just as good and will never age.

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My ear worm this morning is not a song, but a poem. It is Invictus, written by William Ernest Henley. It was one of those short writings that I was encouraged (forced, cajoled, pressed, threatened) to learn by rote and later to regurgitate in front of the class. Which I did. Rote memory and regurgitation were specialties of mine back then.

At the time I thought the poem overblown. “Who talks like that, anyway?” But I have been tenderized by life and find that I am more susceptible to things of the spirit because I have had ample opportunity to observe their importance. Or, more to the point, what their absence can mean to the soul of a person or of a nation.

Rather than blow any further smoke, I present Invictus to you. There is no need for you to memorize it. No test looms next Friday. It’s just a handful of words that I have carried in my head for a very long time.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears.
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

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Today I think that it is a pretty awesome piece of overblown. If I am not the captain of my soul, I think that I am at least a deckhand. Let me add this song by Bruce Springsteen, who I think is basically echoing some of the sentiments of Mr. Henley. I could be wrong about that but I’ll let The Boss tell the story.

Tougher Than The Rest, by Bruce Springsteen

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Amy Tan has written a book which is a journal that she kept of the birds she saw in her backyard. At the time she was a novice birder, and she decided to learn the art of sketching those birds as she journaled.

Since I have the drawing skills of a moribund slug, I am envious. It all takes me back to second grade, where the best artist (far and a-way)among my classmates was Geraldine Hong. I never handed a paper in if it was going to immediately follow one of Geraldine’s. Dreadful were the comparisons back then, and my talents haven’t improved in 77 years. When I finish a drawing even I can’t tell what it is.

The book is a delightful read, the illustrations showing the improvement in her artistic skills over the several months that the journal covers.

Now, if you are Amy Tan, an accomplished writer and you travel in elevated creative circles, you do get help along the way from scientists, artists, and the author of the Sibley Field Guide to Birds, David Allan Sibley. Not too shabby.

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From The New Yorker. A subversive cartoon.

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Coming In From The Scold

jono55

Well … after long and ponderous pondering I have decided. IMHO Michelle Obama gave one of the best political speeches that I have heard in a long while, at the Democratic Convention. And I am not a Michelle Obama fan.

She has always reminded me of the scold who barely walks through the door of your house before she begins to criticize and nag. Your hair … too long or short. Your clothes … not clean. Sit up straight. Chew your food. Those spots on the glassware … tsk, tsk, tsk. You could hardly wait for her to go home.

On Tuesday night, though, she hit a home run. The speech was almost totally inspirational (although toward the end she couldn’t help herself but gave yet one more scold-lecture again). The lady does not suffer from self-doubt.

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Want to read a story about qualities that you will not find anywhere in the curriculum vitae of either man at the top of the Red team? The NYTimes served this up on Wednesday. It is important to keep in mind that in all of the years Cluck has been rooting and snorting around in American political life, no one has ever accused him of an unselfish act.

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Fire On The Mountain, by Jimmy Cliff, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Kreutzman

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An eon ago I decided to annoy my father during a political season. That was in 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower ran for the office of POTUS. Dad was a lifelong Democrat, a union member in both mind and body, and he believed strongly that there was nothing but antagonism for the working man to be found in the policies of the Republican Party. Kind of like today.

So to vex him I purchased and wore a button like this one, which somehow disappeared before Election Day. I suspected, but could never prove, that my mother confiscated it from the laundry when she decided that a joke was a joke and enough was enough.

There are days at this distance in time when I wonder why my parents ever fed and clothed such an ungrateful child.

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My present favorite tee shirt slogan, spotted at the gym a couple of days ago. I have to carry a mirror to re-orient myself several times a day because my brain keeps thinking I am twenty-one and might get me into some serious mischief if left on its own. The conversation goes something like this:

Q: Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the fairest one of all?

A: You’re kidding, right?

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Twenty-One, by The Eagles

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Well, they’ve gone and done it now. The Democratic Party has done something that is neither boring nor feckless. Now we get to see if they can carry it all the way through. To have the spine to “encourage” a very old white man to take early retirement and put in his place as their standard bearer … I am almost afraid to say the word … a woman. And a highly capable and credentialed woman to boot. I love it.

A very brief example of how to do what is necessary is this clip from Harris’ address:

Masterful, but wait, there’s more. Her running mate is a football-coaching, duck-hunting, Runza-chewing bald white teacher from the middle of nowhere (Minnesota) who didn’t go to any of the following colleges:

  • Harvard
  • Yale
  • Columbia
  • Princeton
  • Brown
  • Cornell
  • Dartmouth

Then where did he attend college and how did he get there? Well, he got there on the GI bill, and he used it to attend Chadron State College in western Nebraska. If you ask the very nice folks on the East or West Coasts they have no idea where it is.

Where the hell is that?

What … Chadron State College?

No … Nebraska.

When I served in the Air Force, one of my co-draftees was a surgeon from New Jersey. He related that when he found that he was not going to be sent to Viet Nam, he was greatly relieved, but when he learned that he was going to Bellevue NE he had to get out an atlas to see where indeed that Nebraska was.

Robin and I watched Night 4 of the Democratic Convention pretty much start to finish. VP Harris hit a home run of an acceptance speech, without a single false note, at least for us. We heard our own hopes for the country articulated in inspiring words. My first opportunity to vote was in 1960, for John F. Kennedy, which was an inspirational moment for me. And now I have lived long enough to get to vote for Kamala Harris … which is exciting on yet another level. My country is growing up.

It is hard to imagine that the dissolute pair that the Republican Party has put out there as their “best and brightest” could stand a chance against intelligence, compassion, humor, honor, respect and decency. But the brand of snake oil that Cluck has been selling has a powerful attraction to some people, and the outcome of this election is not a foregone conclusion.

So I cannot decide what I will wear once my Harris/Walz sign is out in the yard and my blue bumper sticker is fastened firmly onto the Subaru. I already have the camo hat, but not a single messaging tee shirt. Hmmmm, so many choices …

  • Independent for Harris/Walz
  • Veteran for Harris/Walz
  • Buddhist for Harris/Walz
  • Old White Guy for Harris/Walz
  • Highly Unsuccessful Fisherman for Harris/Walz
  • Man With Only One Marble Left for Harris/Walz

The possibilities, it seems, are endless.

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Neil Young said “Yes” to allowing the Democrats to use his song at the convention. The same song that he sued Donald Cluck to stop using a few years ago. I wonder if anyone on either side listened to the lyrics. The title sounds positive, but all in all it’s a bit of a downer.

Rockin’ In The Free World, by Neil Young

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Olio

jono55

What an interesting political season we are suddenly entering. Harris and Walz make a good match, IMHO. It also happens that I know someone who knows someone who knows Walz well. Here’s part of a message that I received from daughter Sarah:

“Hey fellow Dems, our next VP Tim Walz is an amazing man and we know this because he was a history teacher at my kids’ school Mankato West while they were there and he coached the football team to a state championship. Minnesota is pretty thrilled about the guy getting nominated. He also was the faculty advisor to the gay student organization that Cheyenne and friends got started. “

So right now the positive energy is on the Blue Team’s side while the Red Team slinks along spinning its nightmare web of fabrications. Their side of the fence is a lot like a cattle feedlot after a heavy rain. Looks bad, smells awful, and no sensible person would want to walk in it.

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From The New Yorker

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My nomination for the Genius Award in political merchandising is the hat. With one stroke the other side is put on notice – you don’t own all the gun owners, hunters, and outdoorsmen in the world.

I think it is a simple but very powerful symbol. There is no East Coast elitism in a camo cap. Not one fiber.

(It also says you can be a gun owner and not be psychotic.)

I do pay attention to symbols as I watch the flag-festooned pickup trucks that make every day a misanthropic parade as they trot their banners and slogans up and down the main drag. Refusing to give them ownership of the American flag, I fly one daily in front of our home. Christian Nationalists? … my backyard Buddhist prayer flags flutter in the slightest breeze.

I am outnumbered, of course, but that makes it even more fun, because I fancy that it is irritating to the people I want to irritate most. A few months ago a middle-aged couple was walking by the house and they thanked me for putting up a banner. “Up on our end of the street … well … we don’t feel comfortable doing it.”

I smiled and let them pass unmolested.

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I was only a small child during World War II, having been first placed upon this earth in late 1939, but there is a mental state that I can’t quite understand. I have a fondness for the music of that time, each tune edged with a feeling of nostalgia. A pre-schooler nostalgic for Glenn Miller and Vera Lynn eighty years later … how did that happen?

But this morning here I am, playing songs I couldn’t possibly have cared about but do.

We’ll Meet Again, by Vera Lynn

And old English movies with the RAF going out time after time to try to do the impossible … and getting it done. Or the courage of the British citizenry in dealing with the blitz and the rationing and the uncertainty of whether all of this would ultimately do any good. Or the millions of goodbyes all over the world as soldiers, sailors, airmen leave behind all that they know and love for the horror that is war.

I learned about courage from those movies, and even at this long distance now from that period of history, it is still my idea of what that word means.

In the Mood, by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra

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I arose this morning with a quest in mind – let me find the most ironic thing I can before breakfast. Almost immediately the universe provided J.D. Vance and his attacks on the 24 year Army service record of Tim Walz. Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura put it into perspective in this interview. I especially liked the part about Vance’s running mate, ex-President Bonespurs.

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From The New Yorker

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But enough of this meandering. It is Sunday morning and it may be that the convection oven that has been this summer is finally dialing back on its heat. Robin and I could actually go outdoors yesterday afternoon without wilting, stroking out, or having to scuttle desperately from one air-conditioned space to another.

Tomorrow we will have the pleasure of riding with grandson Aiden on the 1882 steam-powered train that runs from Durango to Silverton. He happened to mention one day that he would like to do this trip with us and that was all it took to get it on the schedule. We’re looking forward to it. Someone said a while back that Colorado was geologically blessed, and everything we know about this train ride suggests that we will get an eyeful.

It takes all day to do the round trip, three hours up and three back with a nearly three-hour layover in Silverton. We’ll see. If there is anything worth looking at I may bring back a photo or two to share.

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Gosh, Who Knew?

jono55

What a morning this has been. The sun won’t be up yet for three hours and I’ve already learned:

  • that there are many species of legless amphibians that secrete something like milk for their babies. They don’t have breasts so they just sort of spew it out and the pups lick it up. I guess that way they don’t have to get up for those $@#%^*€£ night feedings
  • that there is a bird in Colombia that is male on one side of its body, and female on the other. Not an entire species of bird, just one. I get a headache just thinking about it. Don’t even get me started. My own left and right sides don’t always agree, even now.
  • that Elon Musk is a perfect example of something I’ve brought up a couple of times over the years. A person can be gifted in one area and because they are celebrated get to thinking they are expert in all areas of life. That is okay until they open their mouths, as Mr. Musk has, and reveals himself to be a scientific genius who is also a social and political nutcase.
  • that OTC birth control pills are now shipping and will soon be available in drugstores everywhere. Business is expected to be brisk. At the same time the Legion of Decency’s chain of Abstinence R’ Us stores is facing bankruptcy.* since only six people visited their establishments during the month of February, nationwide.

So who knows how much more knowledgeable I will be by the end of the day, and whether I will remember anything this evening of what I learned before breakfast.

*I totally made that part up. The Legion of Decency ceased operations in 1965, after 31 years of trying to be censors, and finally
disbanding when they realized that young Catholics were choosing to attend in droves the films that had received “morally unacceptable” ratings..

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Coming Up Close, by Til Tuesday

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From The New Yorker

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Robin and I are watching Resident Alien, on Netflix. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a series that has come down from the SyFy channel and is completely silly and not worth your while except … it is funny. Really funny. Laugh out loud stuff. The main character Alan Tudyk is a comic find, and there is a smart-aleck kid in it (Max) whose role I actually like. (Usually I am put off by such kids)

By the end of an episode you realize how many little bits of dialogue or action that the writers put in there that were hilarious but so small they were almost throwaways.

That’s all I’m going to say about it. Someone else might dislike its satire intensely, it is slightly naughty at times, and the alien has been sent to destroy all human life in earth, so there is that sober aspect. But it is likely that at supper tonight either Robin or myself will start chuckling at something we remembered from last night’s episode.

And … it takes place in Patience, Colorado.**

**This is not true. While it allegedly takes place in Patience CO, don’t bother to try to find it on a map because there is no such town. It was really shot in British Columbia.

Come Sail Away, by Styx

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Had to make a trip to Grand Junction Tuesday, and noted that daffodils and forsythia were blooming, the buds on the willow trees are ready to open, and GJ is usually about a week ahead of us. We’ve stringing several 60 degree days together this week, which will push everything along.

All I can say is that it’s a pretty hazardous thing to do, this putting out vulnerable leaves and flowers so early. If I were advising these plants I’d suggest holding back for awhile. Hotheads. I find it really odd that since I make no effort to hide my qualifications, that the Universe so seldom asks for my advice.

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From The New Yorker

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Even if they aren’t wearing their MAGA hats on a particular day, there are some clues to identifying the Cluckians among us. This is helpful to know, just in case one was thinking of starting a discussion with one of them. A total waste of breath, that is.

  • Cluckians do not own Priuses
  • If a pickup truck is flying one American flag, it is likely being driven by a Cluckian, if there are two flags it is a certainty. My further observations are that as the number of flags per vehicle goes up, the IQ of the driver goes down
  • Older Cluckian males invariably sport the facial expression of the terminally constipated
  • Younger Cluckians tend to wear t-shirts with particularly offensive slogans on them, often suggesting the sort of behaviors that their leader has popularized

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On The Trail

jono55

I’m starting to put a plan together to bike the Mickelson Trail this Fall. Robin and I did it fourteen years ago, on standard bicycles, but this year if we do it we’d go electric, just for fun.

It’s a wonderful journey of 108 miles in the Black Hills of South Dakota, on what used to be a railroad line running from Deadwood to Edgemont. A vigorous 20 year-old with an iron crotch can do it in a day, but we prefer the stop-and-smell-the-roses sort of trip, so we spend three days on the path.

Here’a video of that trip that I put together back in 2009, . One day we were sweating in shirtsleeves, next day we were pedaling in a snowstorm and dealing with hypothermia. Classic Type II fun.

At our time of life, there are many ways this plan could go south, but if fortune smiles …

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Ashokan Farewell, by Washington Guitar Quintet

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For any of you who are unaware of how to classify your activities, here’s the one I use. I forget where I first came across it, but it’s called the Fun Scale. You can google it.

  • Type I: enjoyable while you are doing it, and fun to talk about later
  • Type II: stressful when being done, but great fun to tell the stories later on
  • Type III: no fun while you’re doing it, and you’d just as soon not discuss it again … ever

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When I was in second grade, we exchanged Valentines in Miss Lawrence’s class. There were 24 kids in the class, so everybody received 23 of them, unless you sent yourself one and therefore got 24.

They were not elaborate, but simple punched-out things that weren’t even in envelopes.

Looking back that was my introduction to the rituals of Valentine’s Day. I can’t recall the finer details, but I know I didn’t like everybody in second grade, and we were years away from the “Billy likes Susie” stage. So exactly what we were doing in Miss Lawrence’s class I really don’t know. 

A few years down the road was where the Day really kicked in, when as a young man I was expected to buy flowers and/or candy and give them to the females in my vicinity.

The story gets more bizarre when we learn that St. Valentine had nothing to do with growing flowers, making candy, or encouraging lovers. He was a priest who managed to annoy the Roman officials to the point that they rubbed him out in a pretty violent manner.

Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270

History. com

So the connection between a headless cleric and a box of bonbons is not immediately apparent, at least to me. I have read some explanations but they have seemed made-up sorts of things.

It’s easier to go along with the Valentine’s Day observances than resist them. And I admit that I do enjoy helping to finish off those boxes of candy, so there is always that.

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All Mixed Up, by Red House Painters

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Speaking of headless clerics, the wild world of Christian Nationalism is receiving quite a bit of media attention these days. I mentioned a few posts back that I’d read the book “Jesus and John Wayne,” which deals with the subject, and there are many, many others out there. Rob Reiner has produced a documentary on the topic entitled God and Country, which will be released on mid-February.

Before I go further let me assure you that I’m not pointing fingers at the mainstream Christian churches. The people I am discussing here have nothing to do with Christianity. Using the name Christian is a sleight-of-hand trick employed by a variety of right-wing nationalist groups to cover up some very un-Christian ideas and behavior.

Christian nationalists want to define America as a Christian nation and they want the government to promote a specific cultural template as the official culture of the country. Some have advocated for an amendment to the Constitution to recognize America’s Christian heritage, others to reinstitute prayer in public schools. Some work to enshrine a Christian nationalist interpretation of American history in school curricula, including that America has a special relationship with God or has been “chosen” by him to carry out a special mission on earth. Others advocate for immigration restrictions specifically to prevent a change to American religious and ethnic demographics or a change to American culture. Some want to empower the government to take stronger action to circumscribe immoral behavior.

Christianity Today

Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, Oral Roberts did it, Franklin Graham does it, the Ku Klux Klan does it, many modern-day televangelists are doing it.

This is a political movement, not a religious one, and we can be grateful that it is being brought into the light where it can be seen for what it is.

Want to read more? Here are a couple of links to get you started:

What is Christian Nationalism/Christianity Today

How Christian is Christian Nationalism/The New Yorker

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Just yesterday I found out that there is another name for earworms, one which I actually much prefer. It is SSS or stuck sound syndrome.

Psychologically, earworms are a ‘cognitive itch’: the brain automatically itches back, resulting in a vicious loop. The more one tries to suppress the songs, the more their impetus increases, a mental process known as ironic process theory. Those most at risk for SSS are: females, youth, and patients with OCD.

British Journal of General Practice

Even though I do not have the first two risk factors, being neither female nor young, I definitely have had this malady on scads of occasions. Perhaps there may be just a bit of OCD wafting about between those neurons of mine.

I do have one question about this condition. In my own case, the song involved is rarely one that I enjoy hearing repeatedly. Usually it is quite the opposite. A small thing, but the sort of discomfort that could, if prolonged, lead to the wearing of straitjackets and the like.

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Anna’s Theme, by Joshua Bell (from The Red Violin)

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Lastly, the crew in the Murray’s cheese shop in City Market put up this sign on the case.

Took a second before I realized what was going on. Very clever, thought I . A play on the words to Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This, by the Eurhythmics.

I asked if customers were getting the reference, and he said that they were … even kids whose parents weren’t born when the song came out, in 1983.

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Murmur

jono55

Okay, here’s a lesson, something to ponder. The lowly European Starling is not the most gorgeous bird, walks like it’s got a stone in its shoe, and has no song worth mentioning. A few of them were brought over in the nineteenth century and now their range is nearly all of North America. Hundreds of them can take over a tree in your front yard and literally rain feces on everything and everyone below. 

Why on earth does it exist at all, some might ask? What is the point of starlings?

Well, for one reason, they can do this. Something that might be thought unbelievable if it hadn’t been recorded as often as it has. A murmuration of starlings, they call it. Visual music.

Birds, by Neil Young

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From The New Yorker

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If I really want to upset all of my personal biological systems at once, all I have to do is check to see what the Republican-led states are doing these days.

Recently one of those benighted places decided not to prosecute a woman who had a miscarriage. Imagine that! How progressive of them.

There seems to be something about being a member of that political party that drives one to run around sniffing bedsheets and shining flashlights into cars just to see if anyone might be having the wrong kind of s-e-x in there.

The Party of Family Values is also trying to remove books from libraries that mention s-e-x as well, but have recently run into problems with dictionaries and encyclopedias which persist in reminding us all that s-e-x does exist. And not only does it exist, but it can be enjoyable, does not have to result in pregnancy, and is nobody’s business but the people involved.

There has been a persistent rumor that the GOP is planning to issue social security numbers to individual spermatozoons as part of their program of removing anything resembling science, common sense and reason from family planning and reproductive medicine. So far it is only the sheer numbers involved that have held them back.

The American Dream Is Killing Me, by Green Day

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From The New Yorker

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The Ballad of the Empty Creel

How many times does a man go down to the river, put on those awkward waders and adjust those suspenders, squeeze into hobnailed wading boots and rig up a fly rod, tread clumsily up that same perilous stream, suss out the perfect places for trout to hide, flick the fly to land perfectly into the one quiet patch of water in the middle of a tumult … and then return home without so much as a passing nibble?

How many times before despair sets in?

How many times before he questions his skill and sanity?

The answer, my friends, is as many times as it takes.

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An amazement. I have often bemoaned the sorry state of the cartoons in the present-day New Yorker magazine. They have been largely unfunny, self-indulgent, arch, and bleah. It is of some importance to me because I pilfer from them regularly and must therefore turn to the New Yorker archives for the totally excellent and imaginative cartoons from issues of years ago.

Even thieves have standards.

Imagine my surprise to find not one, but three in this week’s edition that I actually liked. Three. It gives one hope. One of the panels was particularly interesting to me. Fifty years ago I proposed (but did not follow through on) two innovations that I thought would be boons to parents. One was the Velcro wallpaper shown below. The other was shoes for hyperactive children that weighed five pounds each. In this way they could not only avoid being placed on drugs, but they would develop hip flexors like you wouldn’t believe.

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From The New Yorker

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For the first time since her knee surgery Robin and I went XC skiing on Friday afternoon. Snow conditions were excellent and the temperature hung right around 40 degrees. Where we skied was a place with groomed trails a few miles outside the hamlet of Ridgway called Top of the Pines. It is 175 acres up on a ridge with spectacular views of the San Juan Mountains. We had a great time, and there was a total of only 0.5 falls per person for the outing. 

Below are pix borrowed from Top of the Pines’ website because I did not have the foresight to bring my camera and take photographs of my own.(This follows a lifelong pattern of having excellent hindsight but a significant deficiency in its opposite.)

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Catapult, by R.E.M.

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This is for people to whom cats are interesting, even thought they may not live with one. The rest of you are done for the day.

There is a short story in this week’s New Yorker magazine entitled Chance the Cat that I found moving.

The author’s insights were especially intriguing, since they were all about the humans in the story, and whenever the story pointed at the smaller animal he could only describe what he saw. Because who knows a cat?

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