Tag: politics

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.

***

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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