• Living, not dying

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Israel. Iran. The Middle East. War and peace. My son. Father’s Day. Korea. Commander. Seoah. Murdoch. The Jangs. Shadow. Our relationship. Dogs. Kate, always Kate. Evergreen Rodeo. Tourists. Maxwell Creek.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: CBE Men’s Group

    Week Kavannah: Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.  “A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.”

    One brief shining: Touched the framing of the greenhouse, sturdy, and began to imagine the Garden beds filled with Lettuce, Radishes, Beets, Peppers, Tomatoes, Marigolds, a favorite salad ingredient, Nasturtiums, and standing inside a heated greenhouse in the Winter, Snow piled up outside and tending to the raised bed with Lettuce, Peppers, Radishes, Beets, Flowers growing in pots.

     

    Life, tactile and warm, Shadow and the greenhouse, living, not dying. Nurturing life other than my own, right here at home. As I’ve been used to doing for the last 40 plus years.

    This is walking upright in the world. For me.

    Yesterday I attended the CBE men’s group. Rabbi Jamie said, “I’m seeing you in person.” I finished a ten session zoom class with him on Wednesday, and I haven’t been to the synagogue in several weeks though I’ve attended Thursday mussar on zoom many of them.

    Driving has become such a literal pain that even a trip to Evergreen makes me uncomfortable. Working on it. SPRINT device in July sometime. A visit to an orthopedist on Wednesday for the tear in my right hip’s labrum.

    Glad I have Halle and her spirited work, her sage advice. One hour then up. A walking meditation. Dog training. Making breakfast, lunch. Getting the trash ready. Yes. Agency.

     

    Father’s Day: Talked to my son yesterday. His Sunday morning. Father’s Day. Being a father in my particular way began with my commitment to feminism. Doing my part for birth control. I had a vasectomy at age twenty-six. The Rice Street Clinic in St. Paul.

    As a result, when the need, and that’s what it was, the need to become a father hit me, quite unexpectedly, at age thirty, I had to have a reversal. Which never woke my little guys back up. Low motility.

    Which left adoption. Raeone and I worked with an adoption agency in Minnesota to find a baby who would die if they were not adopted. At the time, the late seventies, that meant India.

    Women in rural Bengal would find themselves pregnant in their eighth month due to malnutrition. The would go into Kolkata to give birth, then the babies were discarded.

    Unless. International Mission of Hope had arrangements with several of the “hospitals” that took in these women. In those instances the babies were taken to an IMH orphanage and made available for adoption.

    Our first referral, a girl, died due to a salmonella infection that rampaged through the orphanage. It took another year for a new referral, little Jang Deep, four pounds and four ounces, delivered in a wicker basket by blue and white garbed nuns at the International Arrivals section of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

     


  • Embarrassed to Admit

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: CBE. Men’s group. Carol. Paul. The Greenhouse. Door and windows framed in. Seed order from Seed Saver’s Exchange has arrived. Ordered garden tools. Shabbat. Shadow, the tender. Israel. Iran. Lebanon. Palestinians. Saudi Arabia. Mark in Al Kharj. Jordan. Syria. Egypt. Iraq. Kuwait. The Emirates. War. Peace. Morning darkness. Waning gibbous Greenhouse Moon.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cool Mountain Breeze

    Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.  “A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.”

    One brief shining: In a world scarred by war and diminished by autocrats daily life goes on, trips to the grocery store, conversations with friends, feeding the dog, until of course it does not. Or, cannot.

     

    My Seeds arrived. Heirloom varieties all. A nod to the Seed Saver’s among us, purchased from the Seed Saver’s Exchange near Decorah, Iowa. The Greenhouse will finish up next week. With the addition of soil to the three raised beds I will get started planting.

    With Shadow by my side I’ll return to the Andover/Kate years of Dogs and Gardens. At least in part. No Bees this time. No Orchard. No Kate. Still. Co-creation. Tending the soil. Weeding, nurturing seedlings. Harvesting. Eating. The true transubstantiation.

    Once again direct engagement with the Great Wheel’s blessings of Rain and Sun, Night and Day, growing season and fallow time.

    When Nathan finishes, I’m going to have Rabbi Jamie and maybe some friends over to hang a mezuzah on its door, bless it. Artemis.

     

    Living with pain: Embarrassed to admit it. Halle suggested setting my alarm for an hour. Then, get up and spend five minutes moving around. Embarrassed for three reasons: 1. Halle can’t be more than twenty-five. 2. I’ve read, know about this life hack. 3. It reveals how much I sit these days.

    Even so. When the student is ready, the teacher arrives. Halle, in spite of her youth, is my teacher. I’ve been doing this hack for the last two days and it really helps. Keeps the hips and legs lubricated plus I get something done.

    Just now I went outside and played the stop, drop, turn and move on game with Shadow. Called her a few times. Five minutes well spent.

    Next five minutes I’ll make breakfast. Will take longer than five minutes but that’s fine. Perhaps after breakfast, I’ll read for an hour, then at the five minute break head up to the loft to continue my painting that I started a week ago.

    All easy enough. Yet habit and mood have kept me in my chair for too long for too long.

     

    Just a moment: We’ve passed out of the world hegemon era to one of regional conflicts. Russia trying to assert itself in the old Soviet Bloc. Israel attacking all of its Shia enemies. China advancing its navy into the South China Sea, claiming once and always Taiwan. The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

    A world of regional powers rather than a global one (or, two) is unstable. Many flashpoints. Iran. Ukraine. Island chains near Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan.

     


  • It’s Survivable

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Halle. P.T. Rain. Thunder. Overhead. Shadow. Her protection of her territory. The Greenhouse: door and windows framed in, rafters up. Nathan. Vince. The Jangs. Fatherhood. My son. Seoah. Israel. Iran. Red tie guy. Jim Butcher. Fully leafed Aspens. Lodgepole Pollen. Yellow, yellow, yellow.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fawns, calves, kits, cubs

    Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

    One brief shining: Alert, front paws on the head of the bed, the danger detector Shadow looked out over the backyard, her lean muscled body ready, there: bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. 1:15 am

     

    Dog journal: Shadow came inside. Her outside work done. The Doe had left the yard. She seemed happy to see me, to be back inside. Last night, as she has for previous nights, she crawled up on the bed, only to look out the window.

    And what to her wandering eyes should appear. Lots of Trees and, another Mule Deer? Whatever it was, it needed warning. Get out of my yard. Right now. At least she was inside the tent barking out, rather than outside barking in.

    Shadow.

     

    Israel/Iran: Netanyahu survived a close vote in parliament. Next step? Bomb Iran. I understand the attack on Iran and its nuclear program. One nuclear weapon could take out Jerusalem.

    I also understand that for the first time in several decades Hezbollah no longer threatens northern Israel as it once did. Hamas has suffered degradation in the forever war in Gaza. The Houthis have taken strikes from both the U.S. and Israel. This means that the Iranian proxy armies no longer have the punchback power they did a year ago.

    Yes, I get all that. But what about a year from now? Two years? Ten? Israel has become an aggressor state, no longer acting only in its own defense. The Arab states will remember. Will plan. Will fight back. Perhaps not now, but later? It’s a certainty.

    Better to have brokered peace deals with the Emirates, the Sauds, Jordan, the new regime in Syria, maybe even Egypt.

    Now the way forward lies littered with bomb craters, terror attacks, regional tensions remaining high. This is not a victory. It’s a powerful statement, yes, but only one statement in a centuries long dispute. The only way out is peace.

     

    Just a moment: I asked Halle, my p.t. therapist, if she would miss the Mountains. She leaves for Dallas in August.

    Her smile lit up, “I sure will. But if I want to preserve my tax status I have to leave for four or five months. I’ll be back in January for snowboarding!” Something about choosing a tax home and the rules for traveling nurses, physical therapists.

    Halle’s parents were up here last weekend. That’s when she found out about her grandfather’s prostate cancer. He’s in his mid-eighties. Most likely they won’t treat him.

    I told her to tell him two things: it’s survivable and he has lots of company.

     


  • A World of Difference

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, barking. At night. Outside. The Mule Deer Doe. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Framed up. Seed order. Great Sol. Another blue Sky Colorado morning. Altitude. Maxwell Creek full. Kate’s Creek full. Lodgepole Pollen making driveways and car windshields yellow.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Harry Dresden

    Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

    One brief shining: A Mule Deer Doe, human habituated, entered the yard yesterday which excited the herding Dog, Shadow; she approached barking, the Doe did not flinch, had me worried since Mule Deer and Elk can kill a Dog with a swift kick, Shadow persisted, but kept a reasonable distance.

     

    Dog journal: This proved a longer story. Both Nathan and I tried to convince the Doe to leave. Harassing Wild Neighbors comes with living up here. Feeding Deer, Elk, Bears creates situations where animals may need to be euthanized. Somebody has fed this Doe. She would not be harassed out of the yard.

    Shadow took her role in all this with such seriousness that she would not come in last night, preferring to remain outside in case the Doe tried something funny over night. Apparently she did because Shadow barked, loud and long, at three separate times during the night.

    Oh, god. That was my Dog disturbing the peace of a Mountain night. She would not come in, nor be silenced. She was at work.

    Not my best sleep as a result. Hope the Doe goes on to literally greener pastures. And, I also hope the Bull Elk who have come for the Dandelions don’t return this year.

     

    The Greenhouse: The framing is done. Nathan says it goes faster from this point. Since he learned that I’m a Japanophile, especially when it comes to design, he’s going to toss in a few Japanese flourishes to the door and other spots.

    Nathan is a good man. Strong work ethic. Loves Dogs and the Mountains. A serial entrepreneur he’s owned a trucking company, a handyman business, and now Colorado Coop and Garden. His partner runs a pet-sitting business.

    They live in Conifer to the south and west of Shadow Mountain.

    My seed order is in the mail. Better get myself a new houri knife. Soil under my fingernails again. Looking forward to it.

     

    Cancer: No, not mine. Generation C. Millennials. Read a heart-rending story of a 25 year old man in Utah with stage 4 colon cancer. He held on until his daughter was born. Article did not say whether he died. 25!

    The same article shows the rate of cancer for young people rising while, paradoxically, it’s falling for those over fifty. I don’t know what to make of this. Neither do the medical folks. Something is happen’, but we just don’t know what it is.

    At 78 I’d prefer not to have cancer. Of course. Yet at my age life has been mostly lived. A son out in the world on his own. A career or two finished. Loves and Dogs and Travels.

    Worlds apart. Stage 4 cancer at 25, stage 4 cancer at 78.

     


  • “I’m Getting Fat!”

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Radical Roots of Religion. Shadow. Her voice. Her presence. Natalie. Her injured Dogs. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Halle. Her grandfather. Judith. All Jews. Anti-Semites. Cousin Donald. Back and leg pain. Cancer results. Beltane. Summer. Lughnasa. The Shema. Being comfortable with who I am and what I have.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Halle

    Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

    One brief shining: Nathan constructs the Greenhouse with care, offering to design a Japanese style door, working with only a few tools and a small stepladder, headphones on listening to podcasts about science, his focus intense.

     

    An example

    The Greenhouse: The frame of the Greenhouse went up yesterday. A skeleton in four by fours and two by fours, all wood burned in the way of shou sugi ban. When construction finishes Nathan will coat all of the shou sugi ban wood with clear lacquer.

    Made a seed order on Sunday with Seed Saver’s Exchange, my first in a decade. Fun to go through the online catalogue, looking for the varieties chatgpt recommended for 8800 feet. I didn’t have an AI companion the last time I gardened.

    Nathan says he will do all the labor with the soil for free to make up for the delay in construction. He will also give me some Tomato transplants. He’s a good guy, wanting to do right by me. Even though it was FedEx that delayed the shipping on the plastic foundation pavers. Sound business on his part.

    Found Zuni Signs on Monday. Evergreen. Will have them make my Artemis sign once the Greenhouse is complete. A link between Andover and Kate.

    While talking to Nathan yesterday, I heard, “Charlie!” My neighbor, Jude. Recently retired from his welding business. “I’m getting fat.” Oh, yes indeed. His white t-shirt ballooned out with a substantial gut. “I have a bicycle. I look at it every once a while.” He laughs.

    He asked me if I was building something. I said no he is, pointing to Nathan. “Are you paying for it, Charlie.” Yes. “Well, then you’re building it.”

     

    Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment.

    Wild Neighbors: Had several Elk come by  yesterday in the utility easement. Though they didn’t come in the yard, a large Mule Deer Doe did later in the day. My Dandelion crop attracts ungulates. They come for the Dandelions and stay for the Grass.

    In 2019, on June 6th, I started my thirty-five sessions of ineffective radiation. On that day, before I left for Lone Tree, three Elk Bucks jumped the fence and dined for a day and a half on Dandelions and Grass. They came back every year until last year. The Does I saw earlier were the first Elk I’d seen up here for a couple of years. I see them often in Evergreen.

    (BTW: Just now Shadow tried to herd the Mule Deer Doe. The Doe looked at her, did not move. I called Shadow and she came. Mule Deer and especially Elk can kill a Dog.)

    In the Garden Andover

    Kate: I stopped by Kate’s Valley to see if her Creek had Water. Very pleased to see it running full. Early last fall it had gone dry. Made me sad.

     


  • A Splendid Beltane So Far

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Alan. Diane. Tom. Paul. Jamie. Luke and Leo. Tara. Halle. Natalie. Shadow, my Shadow. Kate, always Kate. Morning darkness. Great Sol and the Dawn. Mother Earth. Beltane, the growing season underway. My uprooted Lodgepole. Still leaning. Morrison Inn. Bear Creek Canyon. Kittredge. Evergreen. Conifer.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

    Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

    One brief shining: Parking becoming expensive in  our little Mountain towns like Morrison and Evergreen, even street parking now five dollars an hour in Evergreen, two fifty in Morrison, fine for the Denver touristas, I suppose, but pricey for those of us for whom these quaint places are where we shop and dine during the week.

     

    Dog journal: Once again I woke up and Shadow had curled up next to me sometime in the night. We’re moving at a quicker pace now, Shadow and me. Still matters to resolve, but so much more positive. Thanks, Natalie

     

    Oh: My back and leg pain seems to have calmed down to some extent. Could have been, in part, stress about the cancer/pain nexus. Not sure. Driving still exacerbates my left side sciatica. So much so that even short drives now wear me out.

    Hope the SPRINT device can knock that one out. As with Shadow, better, but not there yet.

     

    Cancer: Feeling as light about this as I have in a year. Last year, when Kristie transferred my care to Dr. Bupathi, she also set me up with a radiology oncologist, Dr. Lincoln. When seeing him, he said I was hormone resistant. That’s the downhill slope of Stage 4 prostate cancer.

    I left that visit shaken, since he said any radiation he would do would have no real purpose.

    Then, Kristie told me that she didn’t diagnose hormone resistance unless the PSA went up on two drugs, not just one. The visit in which I would learn my PSA while on both Erleada and Orgovyx, Bupathi’s lab screwed up and didn’t have a result. Sent me down a rabbit hole of uncertainty. Took a while to get back to level.

    Then, Bupathi wanted the MRI of my hip and the new PET scan. Put me right back down the rabbit hole.

    Now though, with those imaging tests behind me and with positive results I feel like I’m in as good a place as I can be. A long bout of uncertainty which coincided with the Shadow experience, also stressful for me.

    Add in back and leg pain. First six months of 2025 not joyful. The SPRINT device, if it works, will relieve the primary focus of my days: chronic pain.

    Shadow has begun to soften, to let go of her trauma induced fears. Soon, maybe as soon as today, we’ll have her on a leash.

    Cancer. Back and leg pain. Shadow. All in or moving toward marked improvement. All in the same week. Odd. But appreciated. I’m recognizing the good here.

    Nathan laid in the greenhouse foundation yesterday and starts construction of the frame today. June’s shaping up to be a good month all round.

    Oh, and my two classes. New story class finished last week. Radical Roots of Religion finishes tomorrow.

    What will l do with the new energy? Paint. Write. Hike a bit. Read more. Reconsider travel to Korea if the SPRINT device works.


  • radical roots II

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Rough Draft for my Radical Roots of Religion class project.

     

    Inflection points. Distrust of previously treasured institutions. Colleges and Universities. Religion. The U.S. Government. Labor unions. Science and scientists. A sense that the game of life has a cheat code known only to certain races and genders. An at the most basic level knowing that the game no longer needs new players.

    Too. That moment in history, ours, when extravagant corporate and consumer spending pushed onto, then well beyond, the boundary between sustainability and self-destruction. Sea levels. Hurricanes. Shifting garden zones. Coral bleaching. The sixth great extinction. And, in spite of clear evidence, no effective measures taken.

    Also, paradoxically, a time when individuals report feeling alone. Lonely. More people, less relating. A time when any moral or ethical sense gets shredded by those in positions of power meant to ensure them. A time when the future is not all it used to be.

    Yes. Our time. And a propitious time it is. There’s a saying in politics, never waste a good catastrophe. Why? Because when the zeitgeist sinks lower and lower, people will be open to a change. Sometimes any change.

    Look at all the MAGA voters who support the peaceful transfer of wealth from the poorest to the wealthiest. Who applaud the pulling back of American support from a world riven by factionalism and despair.

    We are at an inflection point. A political, climatological, religious inflection point. This is not the time for incremental change, tweaking old menus for social change. No. This is a time for dreamers and schemers. For people willing to reconstruct, reimagine, re-form their own most basic assumptions about life and its purpose.

    The four figures we studied in this class: Kaplan, Heschel, Reb Zalman, Art Green each had radical rethinking to do. And they accepted the task.

    As Jews in that tradition and yet liberated from it as a constriction, we find ourselves the ones alive now. Thrown, as Heidegger put it, into this inflection point, with sages as guides, but as guides only. They cannot walk this path for us.

    It is up to us to find a new way, one that encompasses Gaia consciousness, a non-supernatural God, action against injustice, and Art Green’s embrace of old forms with new meaning.

    A new way that shakes the foundations of metaphysics-as Kaplan did. One that sees the points of cleavage in the religious world and embraces them, challenges them. As Kaplan and Reb Zalman did. One that lives into Judaism as a reservoir of knowledge and ritual, yet a Judaism always adding new knowledge and reconstructing old rituals. As Art Green and Rabbi Rami Shapiro are doing.

    And, we must do it together. How? If I have time left, let’s discuss.

     

    Here’s an example of a place to start metaphysically:

    Addenda: “A new proposal by an interdisciplinary team of researchers challenges that bleak conclusion. They have proposed nothing less than a new law of nature, according to which the complexity of entities in the universe increases over time with an inexorability comparable to the second law of thermodynamics—the law that dictates an inevitable rise in entropy, a measure of disorder. If they’re right, complex and intelligent life should be widespread.

    In this new view, biological evolution appears not as a unique process that gave rise to a qualitatively distinct form of matter—living organisms. Instead, evolution is a special (and perhaps inevitable) case of a more general principle that governs the universe. According to this principle, entities are selected because they are richer in a kind of information that enables them to perform some kind of function.”

    They argue that the basic laws of physics are not “complete” in the sense of supplying all we need to comprehend natural phenomena; rather, evolution—biological or otherwise—introduces functions and novelties that could not even in principle be predicted from physics alone.

    Hazen came across Szostak’s idea while thinking about the origin of life—an issue that drew him in as a mineralogist, because chemical reactions taking place on minerals have long been suspected to have played a key role in getting life started. “I concluded that talking about life versus nonlife is a false dichotomy,” Hazen said. “I felt there had to be some kind of continuum—there has to be something that’s driving this process from simpler to more complex systems.” Functional information, he thought, promised a way to get at the “increasing complexity of all kinds of evolving systems.””

    Wired


  • A Dog. A Family.

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Less back pain. Morning darkness. A Shadow next to me when I woke up. Tara and Eleanor. Alan. Ginny and Janice. Luke. My son. Seoah. The Jangs. Colorado. The Rockies. The Shaggy Sheep. Guanella Pass. Georgetown. Georgetown Loop Rail Road. Pikes Peak Cog Railway. A world class location.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

    Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

    One brief shining: The Rocky Mountains rise in Southern Colorado, extending north well into Canada, a spinal column for the American West, filled with Mountains and Valleys, hotsprings and wild neighbors, remnants of indigenous peoples, ski towns and mining towns, rugged wilderness, high Mountain Lakes, and Glaciers all near to my home here on Shadow Mountain.

     

    Dog Journal: Woke up this morning to find Shadow curled up next to my head. Don’t know when she got up there, but it made my heart go pit a pat. Another bit of good news in a half year that has needed some.

    The whole Shadow experience has been an exercise in humility. There were times when I didn’t think I could handle her. That I’d made a mistake. Perhaps been unethical. Adopting a puppy at 78? With cancer and a bad back. What was I thinking?

    Yet now. Now that she played all afternoon with Tara’s Eleanor. Now that twice unbidden she has chosen to sleep in my bed. Now that she’s close to accepting the leash. Now. So sweet.

    The ethical question. Competing goods. Little Shadow needed a home where she could be loved. I needed a companion, or at least badly wanted one.

    However. Shadow will live into her teens most likely. I don’t know how much time I’ve got, but I imagine it’s less than that. Cattle dogs bond to one person. Also, her energy level far, far exceeds my own. Does she get enough stimulation here?

    It was not, all in all, a perfect decision. It may have been, may be a selfish decision. I hope our mutual journey towards and with each other will compensate. Most relationships are imperfect in some way. I do have that codicil in my will that ensures her care in a new home if that becomes necessary.

     

    The Jangs: The plane tickets have been purchased. An air BnB booked. Plans for excursions being tossed about. Between August 1st and 7th Seoah’s mom and dad, her brother, her sister and her husband, and their two kids will join my son and Seoah on a trip to the Colorado Rockies.

    The air BnB is in Evergreen. I haven’t seen it. My son and Seoah chose it. I’m looking forward to their visit especially since I haven’t seen my son since his promotion or in person since February.

    Also, I’ve been to the Jang’s home in Okgwa twice. Returning the favor is a family thing. I’m happy to help make it happen.

     


  • Recognize the Good. And, the Bad

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Shadow, eater of window cranks. My son and his first week in his new job. Seoah working on the family farm. Guess who’s coming to America: the Jangs! Aug. 1-7. The Morning Service. SPRINT.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Canes

    Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

    One brief shining: Days of needed rest after a couple of weeks in this machine, then another, seeing this doctor, then another, driving with a left hip that would rather complain than be helpful, days of leaning into positive news, good news, feeling relief, joy, satisfaction, shabbat for sure, these days of awe.

     

    Pain/Cancer coda: In the day after my news I owned a conflation I’d made. A putting together, even though conjectural, of my back and hip pain and my cancer. Natural since my oncologist wanted the MRI to see if I had new cancer in my hips.

    However. It also meant that with each twinge of pain from my back and legs a secondary specter emerged. My cancer had spread, gone to the bone, and I was in for a long, slow miserable death. I didn’t believe this. But I couldn’t not believe it either.

    I know correlation is not causation, but sometimes, when the pain comes from the same region where my cancer originated, for example, it’s hard to suspend a conclusion, to not skip right ahead to the obvious.

    Now that I know this is not the case, thanks to the imaging, I feel much lighter, as if I have life ahead of me rather than endurance and suffering. Facts, contrary to the current political zeitgeist, can set us free.

    Thank you for listening over these last few weeks.

     

    Just a moment: Crushing Latinos and allies protesting draconian immigration enforcement. Using the National Guard under a law allowing the President to deploy them to quell rebellion.

    Here’s a direct quote from an NYT article:

    “Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”” NYT

    Read that again. If a protest blocks a street, diverts traffic, or should, say, walk on both lanes of a bridge outside Selma, Alabama that can be considered an act of rebellion.

    This is not a President enforcing Civil Rights laws; no, this is a President holding the fire hose with Bull O’Connor, standing on the steps of the Alabama capital with George Wallace, holding an axe handle with Lester Maddox.

    This is the same as using faux actions against anti-Semitism to punish East Coast Universities.

    Orwell called it double-speak. It is real and may be coming to a town or an issue near you.

     

    Here’s another quote from the same pages of the NYT: “Southern Baptists plan to vote this week on acting to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage 10 years ago this month.” NYT

    Jesus Christ. WWJD. Come on. Let’s explore that great commandment: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Of course, what’s on display here really is a group of folks who cannot love themselves due to all the guilt wanting to take love from people who don’t feel guilty for who they are. Put that in your DEI pipe.