• Category Archives Politics

  • International Dialogue

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Stien. Koontz. Ootz. The Netherlands. Arjean. Tara. Susan. Irv. Marilyn. Cade. Vincent. Eleanor. Kilimanjaro. Zugspitz. Jungfrau. Olympus. Conifer. Evergreen. Labcorp. Great Sol. Data. Mussar. Neshama. Nefesh. Rabbi Jamie. Luke. Leo. Paulaner N.A. Kate, always Kate. Ruth and the Inspire Concert Sunday. RTD. Uber.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

    One brief shining: Could I have a short spade, please; Tara handed me a gardening trowel and I knelt down in her curved bed of Carrots and Beets, plunging the trowel in beside the missing Beet plant and felt the Earth give way, yes, there was a tunnel there, something, maybe a Vole, had burrowed in and eaten it from below.

     

    Interesting lunch at Tara’s. Met Arjean’s family: Stein, Ootz, and Koontz. And, his mother whose name I didn’t get. They’re visiting from the Netherlands. BTW: Don’t rely on those spellings. They’re phonetic, which means based on my hearing. Always a risky basis for sounds.

    Asked Koontz, Arjean’s brother, about how American politics looked from Europe. Next question, he quipped. He went on to say what I’ve heard in many other places including Korea and Singapore. In essence, it really matters to us, but we can’t do anything about it. As an example, he mentioned NATO. Well, yeah.

    Koontz also said there was some talk in Europe about deserving a vote in American elections since they impact Europe in such critical ways. Made me think of the Chinese taxi driver I talked to in Singapore in 2004, the day before election day. He shook his head and said, “When America sneezes, we get pneumonia.”

    Stein, Arjean’s nephew, is in his third year of university pursuing a business degree. He’s also starting a clothing business as a middleman between Chinese garment manufacturers and a European customer base. When I asked him about the stresses of doing both at the same time, he looked over at his dad, Koontz. A bit sheepishly. Oops, I said. I withdraw the question.

    After the meal Tara and I went downstairs to look at her garden. She’s had vegetable eating animals taking out Beets, Lettuce, Raspberries, and Tomato plants. She wanted to get my opinion about what was going on. That was when I asked for the trowel. I found the tunnel right away. Some critter has dug their way to a meal, perhaps several meals. She also has rabbits, I think. Her fence keeps the Deer out. They’re the animal that can really devastate a Mountain garden. They’ll eat everything down to the ground. Well, Elk, too.

    Had no solution for her save putting in raised beds for next year’s garden. Would help her back, too.

     

    Just a moment: A lighter heart. Some hope. Kamala wouldn’t have been my first choice, but she’s sooooo much better than Biden. Since I’ve long thought this election would hinge on turn out, I feel good since she will be able to energize the Democratic base.

    Diane and I talked politics this morning. She feels lighter, too. That feeling alone may be enough to swing the election our way.

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Garden Politics Travel US History

  • Buy me some peanuts…

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Friends. Family. Coors Field. RTD. The W Line. Walking. Lidocaine patch and two nsaids. Cool weather. The Rockies. The Giants. Homeruns and broken bats. Hot dogs and pretzels. Shaded seats. The umpire pulling his arm in fast. A strike! Gabe. Who likes baseball. My son, who does, too. A long sleep afterwards. Life of July 21st, 2024. Play.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grandsons

    One brief shining: Seats 12 and 13 in section 135, shaded throughout the whole game, hard wooden seats, narrow aisles, cupholders and a baseball diamond lit by Great Sol spread out below with the umpire squatting using his whisk broom on home plate, the catcher in his armor down on one leg waiting, while designated hitter Charlie Blackmon, he of the luxuriant black beard, swings his bat, then, Batter up!

     

    The Rockies are in competition for the least capable team in the major leagues. They played the Giants, one rank above them in the National League West. Only the also hapless Marlins are further out of a division race. 28 games to the Rockies 22. Still. It was baseball, major league baseball. And it was sun hat day! I gave mine to Gabe to give to Ruth.

    View from section 135

    The new rules have sped the game up. I found I liked it better. No more drift into the setting sun as pitchers chawed, spit, pondered, and us fans waited. Might go a bit more often. With a lidocaine patch and a couple of nsaids my back was not impossible though it was a 23 minute walk from the train to Coors Field. Glad to have a seat at the end of the walk.

    First time taking the light rail in for a game. Did it because Coors Field is not too far from the end of the W line near Union Station. No driving in downtown. Cheaper than parking and much less hassle. Will do it again next Sunday when Ruth and I go to the Jewish music concert at Cheri and Alan’s. $5.50 round trip. Uber then to their home on the 38th floor of the Spire Condominiums.

    Gabe and the straw hats. He’s a kind kid. Enjoyed spending the time with him.

    Warming up

    Had a hot dog, sang take me out to the ball game, stood for the Anthem and, again, for God Bless America played by a trumpeter from the Air Force Academy band. Reflected on the years when I wouldn’t stand for the Anthem. I do now, but for a very different reason than before Vietnam. It’s important for those who, as I saw on a hat of a Never Trumper, want to make red hats wearable again.

     

    Just a moment: And, he’s outta there! Another curve ball for election 2024. Though not an unexpected one. What is unexpected. How all this will effect the campaign. Who will be the candidate? Probably Kamala, but not necessarily. And can any one put the orange jinn back in the lamp? If they can, I personally volunteer to carry the lamp to the Marianna’s Trench and drop it over the side of the boat.

     

     


    Denver Family Fourth Phase Politics Sport

  • We’re All Just Walking Each Other Home.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Life. Living. Death. Dying. Leo. Luke. Tara, a good friend. Sleep. Exercise. Red Beans and Rice. Chicken wings. Apples and mandarin Oranges. This July 20th wakin’ up mornin’. A new life, a new day. Great Sol. Blue Sky. Uncle Joe Biden at a crossroads. Recovering from Covid, but not from his debate performance. Our United States.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: 2024.

    One brief shining: Two Tanakhs open on Rabbi Jamie’s round office table we roamed back and forth through the book of Numbers, from the spies and their devastating report on the promised land to Moses striking the rock at Meribah and Balaam’s donkey explaining there was an angel in the road that would have done Balaam harm.

     

    Restored inner calm. Had breakfast with Alan and Joanne, then lunch with Tara. Just being in relationship with them, talking about usual matters like oh my god the election 45 Joe turnout and a positive story from Alan. Alan read that Joe has been waiting until the Republican Convention is over to step down. Maximum impact. Joanne talked about the conflicts and troubles of early CBE history after Rich’s sunny recollections last Wednesday night. Joanne and I traded stories about Japan and Korea. Ate. Saw each other.

    Alan has the role of innkeeper in Ovation West’s upcoming Man of La Mancha. He even has a solo. He’s also getting into directing, taking up a work of the Executive Director of the Evergreen Players who is a playwright as well. Joanne’s new book on extreme mental states, written with two Buddhist therapists and edited by Marilyn Saltzman, is done. The Bread Lounge.

    Lunch with Tara at Brook’s Tavern. An emotional one. We talked about my cancer news. Tara is so empathetic. And honest. She got me to commit to a visit to Taipei on my next journey to Korea. No excuses. She also invited me over to their house on Wednesday afternoon to meet Arjean’s brothers visiting from the Netherlands. Marilyn and Irv, Susan and her daughter will be there.

    Talking to Tom at 8 this morning. Diane at 3 this afternoon. I am not alone, now, or in the future. This journey has companions, as I am a companion on the journey of others. Ram Dass: We’re all just walking each other home.

     

    Just a moment: So. How bout the folks wandering around the Republican Convention with bandages over their ear? Eh? Like the orange one, their hero. Their avatar of Yahweh Sabbaoth, Lord of Hosts. Only the orange one’s hosts are the Proud Boys, the 3 percenters, and the KKK. 45 is, for sure, satan, the Hebrew word for adversary. He’s a thug with a gold plated toilet.

     

    Downy Woodpeckers have attacked my house. Again. A problem with a cedar sided house. When I have it stained, I also have the painters patch up the holes the little buggers leave in their search for a meal. I’m mentioning this because someone’s going at the house right now in the back. It’s loud.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Politics Shadow Mountain

  • The Finished Line

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: This July 28th, 2024 life. Castration resistant prostate cancer. Me. Dr. Leonard, a poetry major at Vanderbilt. Kristie. Lucille’s Littleton. That independent, bright three year old. Those up after the Baby Boomers. Great Sol. That tiny living layer of each Tree, the Cambium. Sell by dates. Joanne. Wallace Stevens. Ovid. New translation.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: This moment

    One brief shining: A radiation oncologist, Dr. Leonard loves T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Auden and once spent a year reading only those three, he said to me as we were parting; he had just told me I had castration resistant cancer and have five to seven more years ahead of me, “Not a death sentence.”

     

    Hit me hard though. Not an immediate death sentence, no. Yet. Having a stop sign ahead felt, in that moment, like it was one. Not three hours ago, this news. Still echoing in my inner world. These sort of thoughts. Oh, my money’s going to last. Easy. That cute little girl. Always death, birth, growth. Always.

    When I left Rocky Mountain Cancer Care, I’d found the route to Lucille’s Cajun Cafe for breakfast. Then I thought, no I want to go home. Go to Aspen Perks. Shook my head. Drove to Lucille’s instead. Right call. An interesting place for breakfast, good food, and that little girl. Set my phone down. Looked out the window, past the group of young Latino men in a serious business conference, to a sunny blue Sky Colorado morning.

    This is the life of July 18th. Up and out to the doctor. Over for a cheesy grits, red beans, and poached eggs breakfast. To go order of red beans and rice. The drive back home. A slight daze haze. Serious gear turning. Bouncing foreground: the Hogback, Hwy 470. Background: Dying before 2030. Does it matter? Not really. Though of course it does.

    Mortality. A finished line ahead in the mist. Now the mist has lifted and the track seems shorter than I’d imagined.

    Other thoughts in no priority or order: Want my son and Seoah here. Don’t want to leave my house. Want to go on a long cruise. See somewhere new. Does this mean I don’t need to diet? Exercise? No, it does not. How much fun is this. Relief. Ready. How will it play out?

     

    Just a moment: Economic populism. The American Compass

    JD Vance loves these folks. I looked up their website and found this paragraph*. I agree with most of it. Without getting into the weeds let me say I would underline the idea that markets are a means to the end of human flourishing. That the economy should empower workers, their families, and communities. And that public policy plays a vital role in advancing those goals.

    We would not, I’m confident, agree on our definition of family, of empowered workers, what strengthening the social fabric means in practice. I’m not an economic nationalist either.

    I’m an economic agnostic. Whatever economy encourages justice, fairness, healthy families and communities I’m for. That makes me feel hopeful when I read this because there are grounds here for common direction and policy.

     

    *”Conservatives rightly value free markets, but we also recognize that markets require rules and institutions to work well, that they are a means to the end of human flourishing and exist to serve us (not the other way around), and that larger televisions and fancier cars are not what people value most. Rather than evaluate the economy by how much stuff it allows everyone to consume, conservative economics asks whether the economy empowers workers to support their families and communities, whether it strengthens the social fabric, and whether it fosters domestic industry and innovation. Public policy plays a vital role in advancing those goals.”

     

     

     


    Health Politics

  • American Renaissance II

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Phnom Penh Park Hornbills

    Tuesday gratefuls: The steady string of twists and other plot surprises. Poor Milwaukee. Joanne and I. All these years we’ve worked. Both shake head. Sushi. Evergreen. Yesterday’s afternoon rain. United Healthcare. A James Bond villain in American corporate clothing. Life with cancer. Flonase. An allergy season from heaven. So far. The Hornbills of Phnom Penh. Thanks, Mark.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wild neighbors everywhere

    One brief shining: Went into Nana Sushi in Evergreen right across from the main fire station in the same spot where Thai 101 was a few years back; saw Joanne and she asked would I rather go back to the booths, yes I would because I could put my hearing aid to the wall well when we got back there she told me she’d been sitting in the front because it was easier for her to get up. Dueling infirmities.

     

    Beginning to feel reality slipping away. The shots in Pennsylvania. His fist raised in the oh so ironic Fight, Fight, Fight. Him entering the convention in profile with a large bandage on his right ear. The polls. That documents case for now disappeared. Presidential immunity. Project 2025. As if a thumb has been pressed on the flow of events in my (our) United States of America, tilting them toward putting this guy and his gang of anti-law, anti-constitution, anti-immigration, anti people of color, anti gay and lesbian, anti climate change in power. That’s the reality slipping away. As if a long string of no that can’t be rights has direction and purpose.

    As the wags say though. It isn’t over until it’s over. We still don’t know what the next chapters of the political thriller we’re living in have to offer. Things could change. Couldn’t they?

     

    Let’s talk instead about Ruth’s frog. A tattoo on her right upper arm. She asked for ideas for names. I suggested Twain. You know, Calaveras County. Which BTW is an event that continues to this day. I found this cute picture on the Calaveras County Website.

    Perhaps there is a route through the potential dismal and painful years. An American literary and artistic renaissance. American Renaissance II. A celebration of American art and artists, locally and nationally. Organized readings, classes in person and on zoom, museum exhibitions. Poetry contests. Prizes for new art and artists. A way to remind ourselves of the history of our national spirit. And of our national spirit itself. An oh so important task right now.

    When the Ancient Brothers discussed what they’d do with a quarter of a billion dollar windfall, the last thing I offered involved creating a think tank for the advancement of the liberal arts outside the academy. This could be a big idea. A way to counterpunch. With Emerson and Whitman. Twain and Bierce. Dickinson and Sontag. Oates and Morrison. Copland and Gershwin. Bierstadt and Hopper. Cage and Davis. Monk and Coltrane. Piercy and Hughes.

    I like this idea. Come at them from the side rather than head on. Perhaps defuse defensiveness? This one stays in the hopper. Soft power.


    Art and Culture Commentary on the news Feelings Humanities Letters Literature Politics US History

  • Sad to say these things

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Joanne. Veronica. The Ancient Brothers. Bill at his family reunion in Door County. Avivah Zornberg, a profound commentator on the Torah. 45 and his lucky ear. Biden, elder statesman. This strange, oh so strange, year. Being alive. Hawai’i for Christmas? Murdoch on base. My sweet son and Seoah. Rich. Susan. Tom. Diane. Marilyn.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

    One brief shining: The day dawned as Mother Earth spun round to expose us to the life sustaining Light while giving others the blessings of rest and cooler temperatures, the night calming, dark, a time of sleep; Great Sol remains steadfast, always ready to share the benefits of nuclear fusion, protons joining protons, creating helium and sustaining life on Mother Earth.

     

    This cosmic dance of night and day, ready protons in the enormous heat and pressure of Great Sol’s core, our Planet’s orbit, all moving as our galaxy moves, as our local cluster moves, as the universe changes shape, motions constant and the only true state of matter and energy, change, becoming, never still or static or just there. We amuse ourselves with Zeno’s Paradox. You know the one, where the arrow cannot land because it always has half the distance to its target to travel. But this world doesn’t know the strictures of logic, it only knows the demands of novelty, of the forward pull of Whitehead’s creative advance into novelty.

    This One which encompasses this one and that one and the one here and the one all way out there in the most distant galaxy never settles into a steady state but rolls and roils with death, decay, nuclear fusion, breathing and hearts beating, births, the growth and development of life from entity to entity until the last syllable of recorded time. Here’s the Big Surprise! It will, too, last beyond that syllable to transform into what must come next.

    Ok. Enough of that.

     

    Just a moment: The drums have not been silent for years now. The paradiddle of constant political estrangement drowns out the sounds of normal political discourse. In the broader sense I agree with Biden’s call to lower the temperature of our political discourse. We need a more studied, less volatile approach to politics both local and national. Yes, we do.

    However. The reality. One party to those politics wants to drag the nation back to the 19th century when Jim Crow reigned, wants to elevate our national interest over against all others, wants to ruin our electoral process in so many ways, a real dagger at the heart of democracy. Or, should I say, a real bullet from an AR-15.

    I do not see how compromise is possible with racists, America firsters, with those who find authoritarians like Putin and Oban, even Kim Jong Un, men who should be praised and emulated. How is compromise possible with one whose flaunting of our legal system would be beaten down if he were not a candidate for President? And, if successful in his candidacy, who could distort and actively alter that same legal system?

    I am sorry to say these things. I am sad to be in a position where they are my truth. But they are.

    Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump. NYT. 7/15/2024. Only moments after I finished this post.

     


    Great Wheel Politics Science US History

  • Election 2024: the Novel. Another Twist.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: The novelist has thrown yet another Big Twist into this election year. Trump’s ear. Oh, my. Red Flag warning today. Red Flag in the day, attention must pay. Numbers. Zornberg’s Bewilderment. Reading. Mitch Rapp. Another week of 150 plus minutes exercise. Radiation consult this Thursday. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Hawai’i.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son

    One brief shining: Handed in my Powerball ticket, a big winner, over a quarter of a billion dollars, Tom’s challenge, what are those first moments like, how do I feel, what do I do, the Ancient Brothers topic for this morning, an American, so American, fantasy, yet one with a Rorschach template for our real values.

     

    Gotta admit. I didn’t see a registered Republican recent high school student using his no doubt legally obtained AR-15 assault rifle to fire eight shots at 45. That one photograph with blood around his mouth. I thought to myself, no way this can get any weirder. Wrong, so wrong. Gobsmacked. Forehead slapped. Mind scrambled.

    No thriller writer would have this much chutzpah. The irony way too obvious. The twist, after the debate and the Supreme Court ruling on immunity, and the felony convictions, and the money damages in the cover up trial and the E. Jean Carroll verdict. Too much. I mean, come on. Is that believable?

    It is a page turner though. What will happen next? Russian interference? Chinese interference? Maybe a black hole selectively absorbing only those citizens with way more red than necessary in their fashion statements? Each day a different aspect of the democratic process comes under attack from those seemingly interested in a quasi-king instead of a head of the third equal branch of our Federal Government.

    At 77 this is almost more excitement than I can handle. Normally a bit breathless here at 8,800 feet, now I’m attached to an oxygen concentrator.

    There are as well all those polls showing the orange one ahead in the swing states, the battleground states, while kind Old Joe dithers. And Kamala Harris runs without running. Democrats dither along with Joe. Somebody has to show decisiveness. Let’s turn this damned election upside down and inside out. Elect a Democrat.

     

    Just a moment: Here’s the thing. Revelation. A musty old idea. Communication from the other side, eh? Or, maybe from this or that multiverse? Could be God? Always, and I want to lean on this hard, Always, human mediated. Even miracles only become miraculous when reported and confirmed by some human who experienced them. The implication? All of our religious reveries, our sacred writings, our tales of Jesus and Moses and Zoroaster and Shiva and Lao Tze, all within the human experience. What is resurrection but a tale told by a human?

    No, this is not a definitive argument against revelation per se. All I can confidently say is that we don’t know it unless someone told us or we experienced it and are the ones doing the telling. Same thing could be said, I suppose, for science. Only the results of experiments by humans, evaluated and reported by humans.

     


    Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Science US History

  • Staying Out of the Kitchen

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Alan. Tom. RMCC. Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. Radiation Consult. July 18. CBE. Donating money. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. Ruth and Gabe. Paddleboarding and kayaking on the Lake in Evergreen. Barb. Memory Care. Heat. Altitude cooling. Mini-splits. Parkside. Breakfast. Evergreen. Shadow Mountain

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Human Experience

    One brief shining: Saw a squib about a guy with a frying pan and an egg on the sidewalk in front of the Death Valley Visitor center in Furnace Creek, California which sent me to the weather app I use, Willy Weather, to see what local forecasts were and found Denver at 102 for the next three days, sending our 13-16 cooler temps into the mid-80’s, hot for us, but that guy with the frying pan was counting on close to 130, hotter even than Palm Springs at 124.

     

    I can’t imagine living in those conditions, in hot places, any of them. Phoenix. Death Valley. Palm Springs. I like extreme weather, but I like extreme cold and lots of Snow, high heat makes my soul shrivel. Don’t imagine I’m very different from any other human in that regard.

    Of course we’re temperate creatures, evolved for seventy degrees, sea level, and shaded environments at this point, but the norm has never appealed to me. Why I live in the Mountains always hoping for colder than normal. No matter the season.

    The problem though. Climate change. Already sea level rise. Already migrating plants and animals. Already extreme heat. Already more and stronger hurricanes, typhoons. Life will look and feel different in the near term future. As it already does along coastal areas, in unshaded areas, in large cities, in the Caribbean and the western Pacific.

     

    Just a moment: Biden digs in. Biden says he’ll beat 45. Biden says he’s all good. I say, humbug. An extraordinary moment that requires an extraordinary response. Not a pull in the foxhole over my head, fingers in my ears, saying nah nah neh nah nah response. We need a transfusion of political energy and will. I don’t know if Kamala Harris is that transfusion. Don’t know if she isn’t. This is meet the devil at the crossroads time, Robert Johnson might have a clue. We’re all of us on the left singing the I don’t know what happens next blues. Imagining the thin red line of MAGA wrapping itself around our flag and squeezing like a boa constrictor. There is still time. Yet how might we use it? Throws hands in the air. Shakes head.

     

    A slow weekend approaching. Shabbat. Reading. Eating. Talking with the ancientbrothers. Just right.

     

     

     

     


    Commentary on the news Feelings Mountains Politics Weather +Climate

  • Frailty

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Mountain Summer Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Irv and Paul and me. Tom. David. Roxann. Veronica’s Bat Mitzvah party. MVP. Responsibility. Achariyut. La Tienda. Tastes of Spain. Leo back with his dad. Diane. The 4th of July. Our country, right and wrong. Joe Biden. Aging. He of the flappy suits and the too long ties. Democracy. Its frailties. Its strengths. Our flag. Which belongs to no camp of our politics.


                                                                     Sparks of Joy and Awe

    One brief shining: Picked chicken wings at the GQcue Barbecue in Lakewood, Green Beans and Barbecue Beans, went to a booth with my standing number-12-and sat waiting on Alan to get his brisket and Turkey, outside cars went by on Alaska Avenue in this suburban neighborhood of three story newer apartment buildings with exposed brick and lots of metal, the heat of another 4th of July rising from the asphalt, making the Trees welcome purveyors of shade, celebrating a holiday with a friend. Yes.

     

    Mountain nights. Cool down into the mid-fifties, often the high forties. Important reason that Kate felt she was always on vacation here. Mountain Summers.

    The Mountains suited both of us. Scenic. Neighbors spread out and views around every corner. Cool nights in the Summer and lots of Snow in the Winter. Spectacular gold and green Autumns. Wild neighbors swinging by every once in a while. Quiet. Dog friendly. No sidewalks. Little traffic.

    And, it turned out, Jews. Mountain Jews. Kate’s life complete as she lived a Jewish life at Congregation Beth Evergreen. What a blessing for her. For me.

     

    The after debate debate. Will he leave on his own? Or, will he be forced out? I read an interesting article by a geriatrician in the NYT yesterday. She talked about frailty*, about how it can slip up on us as we age, rendering us more vulnerable to illness, trauma, exhaustion. She never says Biden is frail, but she implied it by writing the article.

    At 77 I’m only three and a half years from my 81st birthday. Gives me a certain perspective. It’s important to note that frailty does not equal diminished mental capacity. It’s about resilience, about stamina. I can only imagine the strain working the long hours of a Presidency might do to me. I wonder, from time to time, if I’m still up to managing this house. A far, far cry from a nation. Especially a nation in as fraught a time as ours.

    Of course, the one who would wreck our country is 78. He also has the rambles and the teeters. What might we do with him if he dies or becomes disabled in office? Let Bannon or Miller seize the reins like Woodrow Wilson’s wife did after his stroke?

    We’re at a very unusual moment in our national history, trying to sort out on the fly what age has to do with capacity to lead. We may have to find out. I hope not.

     

     

    *”“Frailty” is not just a colloquial term; it’s a measurable clinical syndrome, first characterized by the geriatrician and public health expert Dr. Linda Fried, that describes a generalized decrease in physiological resilience to stress, injury and illness…

    Dr. Patricia Cantley has written about a useful analogy that she offers to frail patients and their loved ones to explain what’s going on: A beautiful, skillfully assembled paper boat sailing on a pond may look great and sail without difficulty as long as the water is calm and the sun is shining. But should a gust of wind or a wave come up unexpectedly, the paper boat is vulnerable to damage, may tip over easily and is unlikely to be righted and sail as well as before.”

     

     

     


    Aging Politics Shadow Mountain

  • Uncle Sam

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the 2% crescent of the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Irv, Paul, Tom. Rich. Joan. Jamie. Tara. Talking politics under the starlight with Rich. Rescheduling with Joan. Tara today. Driving in the dark. Going to bed really late. This July 4th, 2024 life. Dreams that may come. Joe Biden. The New York Times. Newspapers. Printer’s ink. Justifying the galleys. Linotype machines. Letter presses.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Journalism

    One brief shining: A dull steady drone, quiet yet woeful, persistent, challenges my hearing since I cannot locate the source which increases and decreases according to the position of my head, clamoring for all the attention I would rather devote to writing, in the background yet pushing itself into the foreground. Acchh.

     

    Wednesday. A busy day. Up sticks. Shema. Back exercises. Write Ancientrails. Over to Evergreen Medical for my Prolia shot. Back to Conifer, Aspen Perks for breakfast, pickup flannel shirts at the dry cleaners, ready for storage, back home to Leo. Get Leo’s stuff together for his Dad’s afternoon arrival. Read. Watch a little TV. Shower. Order from Beau Jo’s to pick up on the way to CBE. MVP. Then, a half-hour with Rich on the Supreme Court, Joe Biden and our hapless nation. In the parking lot, a warm Mountain summer night with a clear field of stars. Home around 10:30 pm. 2 hours past my usual bedtime. Oi. A little THC.

    Then up at 7:30. For the life that happens on July 4th, 2024.

    Happy birthday, Uncle Sam! Speech. Speech.

    Thank you. Thank you. No. Really. Thank you. (puts hands out, palms down. In response the crowd quiets.)

    I know. I know. This has not been democracy’s finest year. Anywhere. Except maybe Britain. A bit of a nod to India, too. Otherwise the forces of autocracy and prejudice, of chauvinistic religion have proved ascendant. Yes. I read the newspapers, too. Online of course.

    (crowd laughs)

    So. What to say. A time of peril for our government and its authority granted by the citizens of our nation. Raising the President above the law? That’s not an American idea. Remember King George? The divine right of Kings? No citizen, no matter what their title or station is above the law. I’ve said that over and over since the founding. A hard lesson, one that may seem too hard to some. But to me? Essential. Sine qua non.

    And on that divine right business. Who knows about divinity and what it wants or who it wants to lead? That’s why we established a government of the people, by the people, for the people so help us the non-intrusive god of the Deists who wrote our constitution. Now many of our citizens, in defiance of that bedrock principle, want to put so-called Christian values as superior, as national values. They even want me to preside over a Christian nation.

    No. I will not. I’m agnostic myself. Not to mention the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikh’s, Jains, Taoists, atheists, humanists and who knows how many others. We are a quilt, a tapestry, not a pristine white altar cloth.

    Enough of that. I’m headed to Coney Island for a hot dog and some fireworks. Enjoy the 4th.

     


    Holidays Politics US History