All posts by Charles

Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Blowin’ In the Wind

Leave a comment

Samain and the waning crescent of Shadow’s Moon

Thursday gratefuls: High winds. Mini-splits out. Generator on. Kylie, pain doc today. Shadow on her leash. Making progress at boarding school. Rachel, my Alabama gal palliative care social worker. Her Cat and her Christmas Tree. Trash containers stayed stable until pickup. 80433, my zip code, 98% effected by power outage.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Generator

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Becoming a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Winds have howled like lonely Wolves since yesterday morning, rattling windows, threatening to up turn trash containers and share our leftover stuff with our neighbors, predicted to last now until tomorrow, Friday, morning; the Wind wants to come inside, find a crack, a slightly open window, an unsecured door, a real force of nature.

On one sweaty Andover, Minnesota afternoon Kate and I sat at our long kitchen table, talking about how good the air-conditioning felt. Kate got serious. We need a generator. I knew what she meant. If the heat went out in a frigid Minnesota winter, Kate could cope. If the air-conditioning failed us because of our common summer Thunderstorms, she could not. A hot-blooded Norwegian gal, my Kate.

We gritted our financial teeth and bought a Kohl whole-house generator. These generators connect to gas lines and have automatic transfer switches that sense a power outage. The transfer switch turns on the generator and switches its output to the house’s electrical panel. Happy Kate. Happy me.

We got satisfaction out of being “on generator.” Its two cylinder engine’s thrum proof that we had made a wise decision. When we moved, I decided we’d take the generator along. Not easy, it had to be strapped to a pallet and lifted into the moving van by four very strong guys.

It got off-loaded to the garage and there it sat for over a year as I learned how to deal with a paucity of trades people in the mountains. Finally found Altitude Electric who agreed to install it. The generator sits today on the western side of the house, beside all the electrical panels and the transfer switch. Yes, up here all of the electrical panels live on the outside of the house. Surprised the hell outta me.

Yesterday around one p.m. I read on Next Door Shadow Mountain that one guy’s weather station had recorded a Wind gust of 116 mph. I found it  hard to believe until I looked this morning at reports of wind speeds across the Front Range. Several in the 100, 102 range. So. Could be.

Around that time my lights flickered, my zoom call with Paul crashed and we had to switch to our phones to finish our conversation. Not long after I got off the phone, I heard that thrum again.

Hey, Kate. We’re on generator.

Politics

Richardsonism

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Mark, the mailman. Gifts assemble! For Hanukkah. Ruth and Gabe. Winter, wherefore art thou Winter? Climate changes. Stronger Hurricanes. Sea Level Rise. Ocean temperature rise. Coral bleaching. Polar and Glacial Ice melting. And so much more. The Great Work. Mother Earth and her strength. Humanity and its fragility.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Long Nights

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Seared the thick pork loin chops on high in a large cast iron skillet, put the skillet in the oven while I gathered sauerkraut, cherry Tomatoes, a plate, some aluminum foil to cover the two chops, letting them rest, continue cooking a bit, juices gathering. Ah.

 

 

 

I subscribe to Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin. He included this image in his commentary above the reposting of his tweet:

Silver leans left, even acknowledges his affection for the world Richardsonism wants as suggested in the chatgpt image he produced above. And, yet.

He’s also the consummate political realist, steeped in the world of polls, analytics, and hard-nosed how do you really win strategy. So. While he may admire Richardsonism as a political ideal, he sees it as a naive approach electoral politics.

Silver admits that Richardson did not set out to create what he considers the third of three major divisions in the Democratic Party. But he thinks she has. Here in his  own words are the three factions:

“First, there’s the Capital-L Left: populist, deservedly feeling recharged by the success of Zohran Mamdani and a backlash to the increasingly politically assertive billionaire class.

Next, there’s what you might think of as the Abundance Libs: technocratic, more willing to find common ground with Republicans, and more sympathetic to market-based solutions.

The third faction Richardsonism or a term I’ll treat as synonymous with it: #Resistance Libs. They’re older, with extremely high educational attainment, predominantly female, and very highly politically engaged. This is the audience for a cluster of political activism encompassing things such as the No Kings protests and some highly popular anti-Trump Substacks along with certain prominent podcasts and much of Bluesky.”  Silver Bulletin, Dec. 16, 2025

Though I love Richardson’s substacks and usually agree with her analysis, you’ll find me firmly in the Capital L-Left Camp. That is, when forced to choose, as electoral politics forces us to do, I’m an economic justice guy tinged with more than a little retail political realism.

That happens to be Silver’s main point about Richardsonism and the Tea Party. The politics of purity collides with realpolitik. It does so by using its pure ideas, its dreams as a basis for choosing policies, candidates, and strategy. In other words it gets out over its skis by privileging ideas over the actual sentiments of the electorate. Result: Trump in office.

Final note: Though Silver and I both want a Richardsonian America, we recognize true political change as incremental. Yes, in spite of Trump’s appearance to the contrary. Take the Affordable Care act as a for instance. It got as close to universal health care as the realpolitik would allow. Yet it is now firmly lodged in the craw of even the most diehard MAGA congressman and only awaits a shift in the political winds to go deeper and more broadly towards its goal.

As Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

 

 

 

Cancer, Far Right, Health, Politics, White Supremacy, Writing

Reading Right

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul and Christopher. Findlay and Sarah. Kate and Clare. High Winds. Shadow away. Arrival Day yesterday. Joe. Working out again. Cancer. Dr. Bupathi. Kristie. Dr. Carter. Jenna and Alise. Andouille. Kielbasa. Shrimp. Pork. Sheetpan recipes. New York Times. Ground News. Washington Post. LA Times. Vox. ProPublica. Ezra Klein. No despair.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Protein

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Oh, these cancer days and cancer nights, long have they stayed, often indolent no worries, ordinary sleep, ordinary waking, once in a while, at least every three months, a bit fraught, will the numbers be good or bad, sometimes, like as of late, ordinary sleep, but some edgy days with moving numbers, m.r.i.s, pet scans, radiation.

 

Health: Got my new PSA numbers over the weekend. A big jump. Uh-oh. Couldn’t ask the question until Monday a.m. Sent a note and Hannah said she’d make sure Dr. Bupathi had seen those results. Thanks, Hannah.

Not long after, again from Hannah, “The team thinks this could be the result of inflammation after radiation. Recheck in six weeks.” That’s also the time frame for my next pet scan. So, ok. Part of the process.

What matters here is whether I have transitioned from hormone treatment sensitive cancer to hormone resistant which requires the next step in protocols, new drugs, stronger ones. If my psa goes down, that is below 0.3, I continue on androgen deprivation therapy-hormone treatment-as I have since 2019.

This has my attention. Not worried yet not placid. Things not definitive. Six weeks of this. I appreciated Hannah understanding my concern, following it down. There are no small roles in this personal life and death drama.

 

Just a moment: A continuing commitment. I will read and comment on the news, especially news originating from non-traditional sources like the conservative Bulwark, the liberal Vox and Propublica, Groundnews, the Atlantic, and the Guardian. For my own original reporting I will continue to take you inside texts like Yasem Hazony’s Conservativism Redefined and the Violent Take It By Force, Matthew Taylor on the New Apostolic Reformation.

This week I’ve purchased two that will occupy much of my time for a while. Abundance by Ezra Klein, a progressive political agenda for our time, and Furious Minds by Princeton scholar of the New Right, Laura K. Field, which analyzes the Making of the MAGA New Right.

This is a project I began a while ago when reading Patrick Deneen’s, Why Liberalism Failed, followed by a book on the John Birch Society, another on Christian Nationalism, and yet  another on thinkers who have impacted the New Right.  Renaud Camus, for example, the French political philosopher who developed Replacement Theory. That was 2023. Well before the return of red tie guy.

Replacement theory shows up in the recent Trumpian National Security Strategy as that document’s warning to Europe about “civilizational erasure.” It also shows up among America white nationalists associated with MAGA.

I’m beginning to trust my sense of what drives the new far right, now I want to understand how its rise will effect our future.

Aging, Ancient Brothers, Fourth Phase

Living the Good Life

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon

Monday gratefuls: Broncos v Packers. Whadda game. Happy Camper. Holiday gifts for Ana, housecleaner, and Mark, mailman. Later, Shirley Septic workers. The Ancient Brothers on gifts, gift giving, what do we really want for the holidays. Hawai’i. Hanukkah. The shamash. Nathan. Subway.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hanukkah

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Took a Washington Post quiz and found myself in the meaningful life bucket for living a good life; the other two, a happy life and a psychologically rich life, also seemed ok, but meaningful did capture my life overall, its summary sentence: “I’ve made a difference!”

 

I mention this Washington Post quiz because Ode’s theme for the Ancient Brothers included the question, what do you really want for the holidays? He specifically pointed us away from things like world peace and toward our own lives, right now.

As you might imagine, the first thought for me was: no more cancer. That’s not gonna happen, I know. Press deeper. Taking that quiz, I realized I had my answer. I want my life to continue to be meaningful. Not productive. Not successful. Not achievement oriented, but meaningful.

What’s meaningful for me at 78, slowed down by fatigue and cancer, will not be, is not the same as me at 40, or 50, even 70. Now meaningful living lies in nurturing relationships of long standing. Nurturing and backstopping family. Developing in the moment kind and loving connections with everyone I meet. Continuing to write Ancientrails. Continuing to deepen my Jewish journey, my pagan journey, my life journey.

Realizing this is what I wanted, really wanted, not only for the holidays, but throughout the year gave me a gathered calm; my life has had this trajectory for a long time, my task now is to live it in my fourth phase, life with a terminal disease.

It means sticking with Shadow, making the necessary adaptations to have her as a permanent part of my life. It means planting Artemis, harvesting food for my table. It means going to mussar, bagel table, CBE men’s group. It means keeping up to date on our changing country, our changing world and commenting on those changes.

Live until l die. A meaningful life.

 

Just a moment: Living my meaningful life has, I realized, important implications for how I live in this fraught time, a time when the actions and struggles that have long made my life meaningful find hostile pushback. Trump and his ilk do not have the power to ruin my life. Only I have that power.

What can I do in this worst of times? Live as full, as rich, as collaborative a life as I can. Which is what I’ve been doing.

How about you?  Happy life? Meaningful life? Psychologically rich? The good life beckons. Yes, even now.

Cancer, Dogs, Far Right, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, US History, White Supremacy, World History

Link Arms Against This Sea of Troubles

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Rising PSA. Shadow, seen. Natalie and Dr. Josy. Winter is coming. (next week) Hanukah. Ruth and Gabe. Joe. Seoah. Murdoch. What I want. Death. Other life punctuation points. Hawai’i. Nathan and the Dog run. Venezuela. Latin America. Central America. North America. The Gulf of Mexico.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joe

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Shadow cast her presence toward me, casually, too absorbed in other nearby dogs and her trazadone pall to greet her Dad when others of her kind, so many of them, were nearby, crossing behind Natalie’s FJ Cruiser with its DOGS4LIFE license plate, in the Flying J parking lot human companions holding leashes, some pulling toward Shadow to say hi, I’m here, too.

 

Dog journal: First I’d seen Shadow since a week ago Friday. She greeted me, but with little enthusiasm. A little bit of my heart broke. My hope for an enthusiastic smile, a jump, kisses set aside. I noticed, in a bit, that she moved a little slowly, that spark in her personality tamped down.

I’d forgotten the trazadone/gabapentin she was on while the prozac reaches therapeutic levels. Didn’t like it, but I understood the rationale. Reduce her reactivity and help her learn new behaviors. Like letting a leash on. Like easily crossing thresholds. Temporary. Similar to chemical constraints for humans in an agitated state. Shadow exists in an agitated state most of the time.

Natalie said Shadow acted the same at her place as she does at mine, vis a vis thresholds. Made me feel good. Not me. Some psychic gremlin gripping Ms. Shadow when faced with crossing from the outside to the inside.

Natalie, an empathetic and kind person, said she’d come pick up Shadow if I had appointments, keep her for the day and return her. How blessed am I. So many loving folks in my orbit.

We parted after about twenty minutes, Shadow with Natalie.

Good-bye.

 

Health: Yes. My labs showed my PSA jumped, in spite of the radiation, from 0.3 to 2.7. At first I saw the 2.7 and thought, yes! Only later wondering, opening the lab report again. Oh. Not 0.27.

Probably means new drugs. New side effects. Still many options between me and ordinary chemotherapy. Erleada is technically chemotherapy, says so on the pill container, but its side effects have been slight.

There again, blessed. A cancer with many treatments, slow progression. And, for me so far, no symptoms. Happy Holiseason to me!

 

Just a moment: Make Western civilization white again. A sad dream, a dream of the desperate, of the frightened and deluded.

Even the Asian civilizations with which I have some familiarity exhibit strong evidence of liberal ideals. Look at the young women of Korea on a virtual Lysistratan sex strike, wanting their autonomy. Or, young women and men in China. Many of the women rejecting traditional Chinese female roles, many men disillusioned by them and the job market, pushing back against their heritage of centralized control. Taiwan, too.

And here’s the paradox, the irony. Those of us strong with the force of liberal/enlightenment/renaissance ideas of no kings, individualism, small d democracy, individual freedoms and rights as human beings are the ones that recognize most the need to link arms against this tide of civilizational troubles and by opposing end them.

Yes, the liberal journey is not toward a fractious libertarianism, but toward a democratic socialism where the commonweal balances as best as possible with liberty and freedom for all. Not an easy project as our imperfect America has shown since its birth, but an inevitable one pushed forward by the creative tension between individuals and the collective. That’s what I see, what I have lived for.

 

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Far Right, New Apostolic Reformation, Politics, White Supremacy

Our Ruby Slippers

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon (radiation complete)

Shabbat gratefuls: The peace of Shabbat. Seeing Shadow at noon today. Dr. Bupathi. Ending radiation. Fatigue. MVP. Those who care. Knowing what I want. Lame duck red tie guy. MAGA cracking. Intellectuals. The thought is the father of the act, often quoted by Curt Ellis. The act leads to a changed lev (heart-mind), mussar. Rabbi Rami Shapiro.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing Shadow at Flying J

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Like a first date, what will she think of me, what will we do, yet not, another punctuation in my ten month relationship with Shadow-my wu wei mistress in boarding school-I’ll see her today for the first time in a week in the main parking lot of Flying J Ranch, down Shadow Mountain Drive. I’m a little nervous, should I take bones? Treats? Toys?

 

Dog journal: Natalie will take Shadow to Flying J; I’ll drive down five minutes to see them. I wonder what she’ll do? Will she greet me like one of those camouflaged returnees from deployment? Tentative at first, then all waggy and kissy. Or, will she leap into my arms? Or, will she shy away, give in to her embedded flee first instinct? No idea.

Will be very interested to get Natalie’s take on Shadow after her first week at school. Along with the prozac and the dog run, this is a full on press to keep Shadow and me together, each with its own purpose. Prozac to tamp down her reactivity from whatever trauma she experienced in Trinidad. The dog run plus heated dog house to assure she can stay outside even if the training and prozac aren’t enough. With the dog house she can survive cold nights and I can sleep.

A long journey, far from over, I hope. Netzach

 

Just a moment:  The paragraph below from Thomas Friedman’s Dec. 11 column* sets out an interesting hypothesis. Trumpism does not care about foreign or domestic policy in the usual sense. Rather he and his intense cult feel as if a civilizational rug has been or is rapidly being pulled out from beneath them, leaving them in a world they no longer recognize, that may have no room for them. No room of their own to invoke Virginia Woolf. No home. I’m empathetic with the psychic disjunction this must create. Like how I’ve felt during Trump the Ascendant.

I have a new understanding of Trump’s project and that of his followers.  Even more the project of his followers than himself. Consider these: J.D. Vance, The Heritage Foundation, The New Apostolic Reformation, the Christian Nationalists lead ironically by orthodox Jew, Yasem Hazony, and the displaced white working class. The project summed up? Make Western Civilization white again.

In his National Security Strategy Trump declares our old allies in Europe and NATO as seeding their own destruction through allowing uncontrolled immigration. They face, as this document puts it, civilizational erasure. Read, control by non-whites from Turkey and Africa. That’s their fate, he says, unless they stop suppressing the speech and political action of their far-right citizens. Dog whistle for right-wing white nationalists.

When understood this way, the global movement toward authoritarianism, toward right wing populism, toward homogenous national identities, wants to stiff arm the advance of Renaissance and Enlightenment and liberal (small l) ideas, and return the globe to pre-European colonial times.

They will not succeed. Perhaps in the short term, perhaps in certain places, but even the most revanchist of MAGA, of Orban’s Hungary, of Putin’s Russia, already think of themselves as individuals, individuals who have choice and agency in how they live their lives. That’s what powers their actions inside these wanna be totalitarian states. The very essence of liberal political thought.

We will find our way out of this Oz created by weak and insecure wizards. All we need to do is clack together our ruby slippers. Our red shoes.

*”Humans have an enduring, structural need for home, not only as a physical shelter, but as a psychological anchor and moral compass, too. That is why Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” (my favorite movie) got it exactly right: “There’s no place like home.” And when people lose that sense of home — whether by war, rapid economic change, cultural change, demographic change, climate change or technological change — they tend to lose their center of gravity. They may feel as though they are being hurtled around in a tornado, grabbing desperately for anything stable enough to hold onto — and that can include any leader who seems strong enough to reattach them to that place called home, however fraudulent that leader is or unrealistic the prospect.” Trump isn’t interested in fighting a new cold war; he wants a new civilizational war. NYT, Dec. 11, 2025. Thomas Friedman 

Health, Politics

Relief All Round

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon

Friday gratefuls: Done with Radiation. Ablation. Injection. Bracing. No procedures or diagnostics on the immediate horizon. Shadow at boarding school. Support over the last six weeks. NYT editorials on the military. Grief. Again. Still. The price we pay for love. Faraway and nearby friends and family. Shadow Mountain home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Finishing radiation

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut   Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Alise and Jenna seemed genuinely sad to see me leave their radioactive workplace; made me feel good about the relationship we established over the ten sessions spread out over three weeks; easy really, I smiled, said thank you and remembered their names, asked questions, and showed up early.

 

A palpable sense of relief. This long, medical march which began with a P.E.T. scan in May, saw three MRI’s, a CT scan, a new radiation oncologist, lots of needles and appointments all over the south metro has come, mostly, to an end. I have a follow up with Bupathi today and Kylie (pain doc) next week, but that’s it for now.

Even the process of getting resolution to back pain, head drop, and an outlier large metastases brings its own stress, its own Thank God that’s over. Not to mention the brace, the injection, the ablation, and radiation themselves. Organizing, scheduling, securing drivers when necessary, or just driving myself. A lot.

And, of course, the varying results. Brace, a C-. Ablation, an A+. Injection, C. Radiation, hard to know at this point, but given previous experience, most likely an A. Which means that the head drop and the labrum tear will require more work.

But not right now. I’m taking a rest, enjoying the surcease of pain from the ablation, and, I hope, the preservation of my hormone sensitive status thanks to the radiation.

I get to celebrate Hanukah, the Winter Solstice, Yule, and New Years without further efforts to keep myself mobile and alive. Yay!

This is the plastic mesh that they put on my bare chest for each radiation session, oriented by small black tattoos, and clamped tight with magnets. It served as the primary positioning tool for the extreme precision required by this extraordinary therapy. My chin rested in the smaller, cupped portion of the mesh.

 

Just a moment: Vultures of all sorts have begun to circle the front lawn of the Whitehouse, awaiting the bloated political corpse of red tie guy’s presidency. According to a New York Times political correspondent, Trump has achieved a rare status for a second term President. He’s a lame duck a year plus before the mid-terms. After the mid-terms normally marks this transition as the President’s party loses power in Congress and his own party begins to look beyond him a candidate for the next Presidential election.

You can read about it here:  Trump’s Coalition Cracking. What this means for the immediate future and the next three, long years is far from clear.

Commentary on the news, Politics

No One Reins Them In

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon (last session)

Thursday gratefuls: Marilyn. Rich. Ron. Jamie. Susan. Joanne. Close, loving friends. Alan and Tara, too. And, the Ancient Brothers: Mark, Tom, Paul, Bill. Dr. Josy and Natalie. Jackie and Rhonda. Grace incarnate, Godly people. Each one a malchut in my life. Shadow, the absent. Elk. Mule Deer. Wolves. Bears. Mountain Lions. The cycle of life among humans and their wild neighbors.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Marilyn

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut   Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: After a good night’s sleep, a long nap, and Marilyn offering to drive me yesterday plus my hernia moving back up and out of the way (reducing in medical lingo), I felt so much better, no pain in my left leg and hip, rested, clear headed.

 

The current disaster:  Here’s my letter to the editor of the Washington Post commenting on the Hegseth/Bradley mess.

 

“I have a son in command in the military. I asked him about this. He pointed to rules of engagement which come, according to this article, from the “target engagement authority” which is Hegseth. In spite of the fog of politicians attempting to provide cover for themselves, Hegseth’s own statement that the Admiral acted within his legal authority condemn Hegseth, not the Admiral. I agree that the Admiral tortured the rules of engagement to justify a strike on men struggling to survive. Who’s responsible here? Could it be the toxic combination of little men playing war (Trump and Hegseth) entangled with the Special Operations ethos of getting the job done no matter what?”

Arcing back for a moment to yesterday’s post about humor as a moral compass, I want to underline the lack of a moral compass on the part of this whole administration. Absence of an ethical framework results in decisions made situationally, often with the heat of passion at the helm, rather than considered weighing of good and bad consequences.

 

Think Noemi with the family dog in the gravel pit. Think Kennedy mindlessly ignoring long established science supporting vaccines. Think Trump pardoning Hernández while waging “war” on Maduro. Think Hegseth, the dry drunk wanting more lethality. And getting it.

 

This administration makes decisions in the service of more power and profit for those in office and for those closest to them. We know it’s wrong. They may not. They may see it as the spoils of victory, reinforced by a stunning “mandate” at the polls. Trump himself, the beating heartlessness at the top, believes in garbage people and shithole nations, which implies of course that he and his are not garbage and that their nation is not a shithole. I beg to differ.

 

My point is this. An unpredictable, greedy and often ignorant leader at the top empowers the more cunning, the more ideological in his government to get done what they want no matter history, tradition, right and wrong. They all operate in their spheres with vastly different priorities and focus. No one reins in Miller, Noemi, Kennedy, Bessent, Hegseth.

Aging, Cancer, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Humor, Judaism, Mussar, Politics

Humor as Moral Compass

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon  (2 sessions to go)

Wednesday gratefuls: Rich. MVP. Shadow away at boarding school. Clement weather. Polska Kielbasa. Bananas. Tangerines. Celery. Baby Potatoes. Andouille sausage. Scallions. Cherry Tomatoes. Pork loin chops. Sheetpan dinners. Nathan and the Dog run. His next summer move to Kalispell, Montana.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut   Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Made a mistake, went to MVP, my only night out during the month; even though Marilyn drove, a combination of radiation fatigue, head drop, and this damned hernia acting up made me first lie down on a couch, then ask for a ride home. Geez.

 

I knew better. I’m exhausted from driving to radiation and getting radiated. But I love these folks: Jamie, Susan, Joanne, Ron, Marilyn, Laurie, Rich. Missed last month and missed seeing them all. When Marilyn asked to meet at the usual place, I said yes. Should have said no.

Rich drove me to my car, followed me home, shoveled my deck, and saw me into the house. What a kind and loving man.

Not the return to the group I wanted.

This just in. Marilyn texted me, offered to drive me to my radiation today. Rich must have gone back and reported to the MVP group. I feel blessed to have so many who love me, care about me.

 

Dog journal: Nathan came by from a project just up the road. We discussed the Dog run. He’s built many and has his tricks for working in the Snow on frozen ground. Relieved. Now if that doghouse I want will come back in stock…

 

Just a moment: Sleepy Donald. I can relate. I’ll be 79 in two months and I just had a night. Glad I’m not working hard to cancel the political work of the last century or so. Gotta be tiring, making up enemy lists, figuring which shithole countries to diminish and ban, which cities to occupy, deciding how you can gig the poor yet again. Not to mention acting as warmonger and peace maker in chief. The contradictions alone would level a lesser man.

Don’t know if you watch South Park. Don’t recommend it even though the real South Park lies only an hour’s drive from Shadow Mountain. A former Conifer resident is one of the pair who created it.

It’s gross. Over the top. And, yet. They’re satirizing Trump, Vance, Bondi, Stephen Miller in ways that do make me laugh. Especially Stephen Miller who is portrayed as a creepy, I may lead to your doom, sycophantic butler.

If you can stand it, the satire is spot on.

Humor has always had an uneasy, even dangerous relationship to power. I’m sure more than one court jester lost their head by taking a joke too far.

I admire the South Parks, the Colberts, the Jon Stewarts of our time. Laughing at tyrants exposes them for what they are: weak, petty, cruel leaders who seek power for power’s sake with no moral compass. Humor, oddly enough, is exactly that: a moral compass.

 

 

 

Dogs, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Memories, Politics

Again, Recess Is Over

Leave a comment

Samain and the Shadow Moon (3 sessions to go)

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, doing her work. The now working Clinac. My life, worth living. Fencing companies. Building a dog run with heated dog house for Shadow. Joe’s willingness. Early Winter. The coming of Hannukah, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year’s. Holiseason at its peak.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fences

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut  Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Joe, my son, offered to come and build the dog run for Shadow, to set aside for a few days his serious duties and help Dad and his Dog, to do that after a fifteen hour flight from his home, a son a man can be proud of, yet I won’t let him come because this wonderful place where I live often experiences sudden, mighty Snowfalls and if one happened before or when he got here, he would have come 9,000 miles out of love and I would have no dog run. Doesn’t make sense for either of us. Damn it.

 

Shook off the OMG I make bad things happen feelings like Shadow shakes off rain. Still a little wet, but dry enough to feel ok.

When negative feelings crop up, they feed on themselves, multiply like Rabbits. This one begets another one and suddenly a whole life has come under scrutiny, memories retrieved to bolster the black mood.

When I drank, I often followed this spiral: I didn’t go to graduate school. I married stupidly, twice. I’ve not taken a direction in my life, rather let life carry me along like flotsam or jetsam. No agency. Woe is me and my sad, woe begotten life. And all because my mommy died young.

Nope. I’d been making choices all along. Many of them poor: Judy and Raeone, seminary. The Peaceable Kingdom. Not my woe begotten life, a Charlie begotten life that did not synch up with my values. No wonder I felt miserable much of the time.

After sobriety. Still plenty of work to do, to grab life in my own hands, shake it until it made sense, expressed who I saw myself to be. John Desteian helped me through it.

That dream. The pivotal one. I had a sword, held it high in the air over my head, lightning crackling around it while a crowd chanted, “He has the power. He has the power.” Yes, in fact I did and had had it all along. The power to change, to redirect my life.

And so I did.

 

Just a moment: Trump pardons convicted narcotrafficker, Juan Orlando Hernádez. Then, surprise! Honduras issues an arrest warrant for him for money laundering and fraud. Too bad for him Trump is not president of Honduras.

Now let’s play Where’s That Video? Oh, the guy it might indict has control over its release? OK. Will he at least release his actual orders, then? Like Federal Law requires? Again, recess is over. Time to pretend we’re adults now.