Sunday gratefuls: Leo. Lying here beside me. Luke out having fun. Books. Oh, did I mention books? Korean history. Seoah. Murdoch. My son. Working hard. Korean schools. American schools. Having a dog in the house. Korea. The Korean civil war. The armistice. Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un. Presidents in South Korea. Chaebol. Zaibatsu. Samsung. LCD. Hyundai. Different ways of organizing economies. And nations. Trump’s legal trouble. The House G.O.P. The Extremes. Showing us a path to nowhere.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Knowledge
One brief shining: Leo lies here on the green rug with Cypress Trees, I write this blog letting my fingertips move over my split keyboard, all while a bright blue Colorado Sky backdrops Black Mountain its Lodgepoles and Aspens, there is no sound except the slight click of the keys.
More reading in Cuming’s history of Korea. Two chapters on the Korean civil war. He believes we should have let them fight it out, burned out the divisions and reordered their culture. As we had to. As Vietnam had to. Instead we put in amber the tensions and conflicts present after the Japanese Occupation ended. If I read Cuming’s account correctly, the North would have won the civil war, probably easily without us. Even with our involvement they came close. Then Koreans themselves would have had to sort out a new political order. Instead we have my son and his colleagues still in country, maintaining a very fragile and often fraught peace.
It was a time of big power conflicts, especially the USSR and the US. The architects of the idea of containment Dean Rusk, George Kennan, and Paul Nitze influenced the U.S. role in the war. Containing the Soviets, not China.
Korea is more than you know. Much more than I knew.
Realizing I privilege reading over most other activities. If I’m on a topic, an enthusiasm, I’ll sometimes read for hours at a whack. For days on end. Cup of coffee at hand. Now with my reading glasses perched on my nose. When I get tired, as I did yesterday, I watched a TV program, a K-drama just to stay in the the mind-world and went back to Cuming’s afterward. I’m neither a fast nor slow reader, I adjust my pace to the material. If it’s difficult, I’m slower. In the middle, as history usually is, I go a bit faster. With fiction I gallop.
Right now, as you can tell, I’m on Korea. When I finish Cumings, I’ll start another, the Two Koreas. Though. I might go back and reread the earlier chapters in Cumings. His long synopsis of Korean history before the late 19th century fascinated me since it contained so much that was new. For me.
Also, I’m building a conversion library. I already have a lot of books on Judaism, but I’m going to organize the ones I need for my study and put them up here in the home office. Had to order others. Looking forward to that reading, too.
Monday gratefuls: Tal. Lid. Luke. Leo. Dick. Ellen. Rabbi Jamie. Laura. Lisa. Sagittarius Ponderosa. Roaming Gnome Theater. Aurora. Bad memories. Not blessings. Angry Chicken. Korean hot pot. Sundays. Shabbat. Seoah. Murdoch. Storms coming. The wettest June on record here. Keeping that Fire risk low. Traveler’s insurance. Allianz long term care insurance. Kristen. Travel medicine. Travel. Welcome to the journey.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shakespeare
One brief shining: Read some of the Tempest and Midsummer Night’s dream this morning reminded of the packed and punchy nature of Shakespeare his plays and his poems words all tight ricocheting off each other building meanings until like a Han Shan poem one line changes the meanings of all that came before a genius so luminous I feel like kneeling down before him to say, Master!
Ooh boy. I keep learning and relearning the same lesson. Which I suppose means I’m not learning at all. Anyhow. Drove into Denver yesterday, then into Aurora near Jon’s old house. Left here about 11:45. My plan. Go to Stanley Market, eat at Rosenberg’s deli, then make the short trip from there to Roaming Gnome theater for the matinee performance of Sagittarius Ponderosa.
About half way down the hill on 285 I saw all the cars streaming west, latecomers to the usual Friday boat and camper show headed to South Park and the interior of the Rocky Mountains. What’s this? Oh. July 4th traffic. Folks taking the week, leaving late to avoid the Friday afternoon traffic jams so common here. Wait. July 4th weekend.
Oh. Stanley Marketplace. Will be packed. I might not get served in time. I had given myself an hour to eat after arriving. Began to run through alternatives. The Bagel Deli just past I-25. That could work. Pulled into their parking lot. Nope. Folks waiting outside. Confirmed my hunch about Stanley Marketplace. Well. New York Deli not far from that spot. Will be too busy, too. A holiday weekend.
I had wanted to eat lunch at Rosenberg’s, then pick up some dinner at the Angry Chicken after the play. I love their Korean fried chicken, but it’s way too far to go unless I’m close by. Turned north as 285/Hampden became Havana. An Asian inflected part of the Denver metro. H-Mart nearby. Lots of pho shops. A Korean hot pot and barbecue restaurant. Hmm. May not be as invested in the holiday weekend. Could be easier to get in and get out.
It was. I had never had hot pot before though it’s similar in nature to Khan’s Mongolian barbecue in the Twin Cities. Tables with induction coil wells over which a pot of broth sits. You pick up soup ingredients on your own, take them back to the table, and put them in the heating broth. Waitress delivers the meat in thinly sliced rolls on long platters. Spent more than I wanted to but I learned how to do it. Will be useful when I hit Osan. Could have been tasty but I was in a hurry and didn’t really realize the potential of the hot pot.
Got to the theater a bit late. They had waited for me. But not long. Sag was already underway. In the small darkened space I fumbled my way toward a seat. Dick and Ellen Arnold were seating in the same four chair row.
The play itself. Can’t tell whether my hearing made it difficult to follow or whether it was the script. Or, the direction. Anyhow it had funny moments, tender moments, and commentary on the difficulty of communicating our selves as we know them to others, especially family members. Perhaps my expectations were too high?
Anyhow I left quickly after the play was over at 3:30. Not before greeting Luke, Leo, Tal, Dick and Ellen, Jamie and Laura. Realized I leave things early because the hubbub afterward makes it impossible for me to hear.
Drove to the Angry Chicken on Havana. Blessedly on the way home. Put in my to go order. Ten wings and some corn salad. Waited twenty minutes. Plastic bag in hand I left.
Then drove back across the south Denver Metro in 90 degree heat, AC blasting. This is the lesson. I left the Angry Chicken at about 4:30. With the hard part of the drive ahead of me. I’d already been gone from home for almost five hours. Exhausted. Still in the city. The drive wasn’t torture. Not exactly. But it was uncomfortable, unpleasant. I was worn out, wanted nothing more than to be home. In my chair. At 8,800 feet. Cooler. Quieter. Way less busy.
I can’t drive that far anymore for that long and not get exhausted. Just can’t. I know it. But not well enough. Not sure what to do about it either. Stay home? Nope. Need human connection, some out of the house moments. Go with others? Maybe.
Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists
One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?
Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.
CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.
The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.
My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.
During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.
But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.
I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.
There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.
Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.
Monday gratefuls: Kep. His life and mine together. Diane’s sweet e-mail. Tom’s call. Ruth and Gabe and Mia. The days after. Learning to be alone. Max Verstappen. The Australian Grandprix. My son and his wife. Reading Undertow. Dark Sky by CJ Box. Furball Cleaning. Marina Harris. Ana. Cook’s Venture. Regenerative agriculture. Wild Alaska. Safeway. Stinker’s.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being alone, yet accompanied
The Ancient Brothers on myths that shaped our lives. Aboriginal song lines. Dream time. Animal archetypes and totems.* Jesus. The American myth. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Celtic Faery Faith. Ragnarok. We each had a myth that had shaped our lives. Of course more than one, but these worked on and in our lives. In deep ways.
As a young boy, Ode said, his Jesus walked on water. Rose from the dead. Fed the five thousand. A mythic life reaching deep into a boy’s heart and imagination. Tom talked about Animals as bearers of archetypal power. Which reminds me of the Breston quote below. Bill retold the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. Love makes us real. Aussie Paul, raised in Texas but on stories of Aboriginal life, made the song lines and Dream Time real. Before this creation and after it passes away there will be the Dream Time. I talked about how the Celtic Faery Faith reshaped my spirituality and led me away from Christianity. Going down and in, rather than up and out. A rich morning, one filled with wonder and awe. Our church.
Afterward I watched a thirty minute recap of the Australian Grandprix. Listened to the post race analysis. A crazy race with 3 restarts. Verstappen won again in the Red Bull car. Sergio Perez, his teammate, worked his way up to 5th from 20th. Lewis Hamilton, 7 time world champion, finished second, and Fernando Alonso, 2 time world champion, finished third for the third race in a row. There was speculation that Red Bull could run the table this year, win all the Grandprixs. Whether it happens or not, that speculation tells you about the dominance of the Red Bull cars so far this 2023 season.
Cut up boxes for the trash. Finished sorting all of our dog stuff. Donation and throw away. Rearranged furniture in the common room. Did a Safeway pickup. Talked with my son and his wife. Weekend things.
Radiation approved. Finally. Start tomorrow. Not daily. Continues through the third week of April. That lymph node by my left hip and the T3 vertebrae metastases.
Tomorrow Ruth turns 17! A dancing queen. So happy to see her stable and present. She has been such an important part of my life for all of those years. Even more so of course since we moved to Colorado in 2014. Gabe, too. 15 on Earth Day, the 22nd of this month.
We celebrate life even in the midst of death. Like Max’s birth so soon after Kate died. A bit of her soul to him. Ruth and Gabe have seen a lot of death over the last two years. Their Grandma, their Dad. Rigel. Sollie. Kepler. We have sustained each other. As family. And this month we celebrate their young lives. In this moment. The only one we ever have.
* “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” ― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Saturday gratefuls: F1 Jeddah. Qualifying. Dr. Doverspike. Kep, pain managed. Walking taller. Cold night. Good sleeping. The light of a new day. A light yellow between the white flocked Lodgepoles. A robin egg’s blue sky above. 5 degrees. Another Shadow Mountain morning. Each day is a new life. A resurrection. A rebirth. Jon’s house on the market next weekend. My son the golfer. His wife, too. Furman. Farleigh Dickinson. No more Arizona. No more Purdue.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Mountain morning
So. No radiation this week. Got a call from Dr. Simpson yesterday. Radiation oncologist. Am I experiencing any difficulty in tasks of daily living as a result of my cancer? No. That’s what they wanted to know. They being the just say no team at United Health Care. Might know next week. I feel good about participating in holding health care costs down. Don’t I?
Dr. Doverspike came yesterday. We agreed Kep has made steady, but slower than expected progress. Probably because of the long low dose steroids. Stopped those. Now he needs to get outside, wander around. Climb stairs. Rebuild muscles. He’s still 13 of course so he’s not going back to bounding around. He’s calmer. Sleeps through the night. Eats well. A good life.
Cooked Salmon last night. Still finding the right temps using the induction cooktop. Found it for Fish last night. No more burning. Setting 7 out of 10. Made cacio e pepe in the morning. Cheese and black pepper spaghetti. Put a couple of Eggs on top of a modest serving. Fancy breakfast. Adding the leftover chorizo from the soup I made last week. Tasted good. Had Salmon, cacio e pepe, and mixed vegetables for supper. I enjoy cooking when I feel up for it. I always make breakfast. Usually, these days, overnight oats. Plus something else. Blueberries. Eggs. Yogurt. If I eat a big lunch, I’ll probably skip cooking an evening meal.
I’ve only got a few more books to go in the Joe Pickett series by CJ Box. Then I’m going to shift my fiction reading to the Arabian Nights. A return journey. Still working my way through Vibrant Matter. It’s a short, but dense book. Nearing the end of How to Change Your Mind. Got James Pogue’s book, Chosen Country, on the Malheur Occupation. Still following that far right thread. The newspapers and magazines help me, too. The Proud Boys and their lawyers antics during their sedition trials. An Atlantic article on political violence talking about Portland as a battleground between far leftists, anarchists, and the far right. The abortion pill debacle. Trump and DeSantis. This is gonna get worse.
If Rich is right, it may never get better. Who knows. I may own property in the sovereign nation of Colorado if I lived on another hundred years. What fun.
Gotta get some breakfast. Watch qualifying in Jeddah. Read the articles about Purdue and Farleigh Dickinson.
Oh. And the day has fully dawned with bright clear light falling on the Snow covered Lodgepoles. Till tomorrow.
Saturday gratefuls: Tal. Bread Lounge. F1. Red Bull. Scuderia Ferrari. Mercedes. Charles LeClerc. Max Verstappen. Carlos Sainz. A hobby. I think. Warming. Snow melting. Dr. Doverspike. Coming today. Kep, the early. His rear legs. Love for and from him. Tal’s dream. His own theater company. Like the Group of the early 1920’s. Young men’s dreams. Old men’s dreams.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dreams
Had lunch with Tal. He got let go at Evergreen Players where I had taken two acting classes from him. Budget. He landed on his dream. He’s doing two acting classes right now, holding them at CBE. American Jewish Playwrights and Improv.
His plan. Build a theater company based on the Group, a late 1920’s creation of Lee Strasberg and others. An ensemble, The Group often performed plays written for them, using the same pool of actors, the Group, to cast each play. Tal wants to develop an ensemble which will choose plays and perform them, directed by himself. The plays will fit the ensemble rather than assembling a cast to fit the play. He had the first board meeting for his company last week.
Luke, too. Wanting to work with the things he loves: Tarot and Astrology and Art. A young man with a dream. He had an interview two days ago with Judaism Yourway for a tech position with them. If he gets it, it could fund his developing a practice with Tarot and Astrology. Give him more time to develop his art.
The late twenties, early thirties. A time for exploration. Testing the self. Trying this, then that. Who will I be? Who can I be? When will it happen for me? Dreaming with them both. An old man’s dream, may these young men realize theirs.
This old man has dreams, too. He wants to write a book, another book. That one about the pagan life. About finding and developing a love for Mother Earth and Father Sun. But. He’s stuck. Maybe depressed?
I have plenty of time. Plenty of material, both original and researched. I know how to stick with a project until I have completed manuscripts. Yet. I’m not writing. Not even picking up a keyboard.
Maybe the deep sadness over cancer has combined with suppressed feelings over Kate’s long illness and death, over Jon’s life, his divorce, his death, and Ruth’s mental health to cast a darker pall over me than I’ve known. Recognized.
When I worked with Alan and Cheri last weekend, I discovered I had stamina. Yet when I come home, I fall into routines. Some helpful. Like Ancientrails. Like caring for Kep. Though I’ve not been as good a dad as he’s needed of late. Zooming with friends and family. Zoomies. Exercise. Cooking for myself.
But my reading has tailed off into finishing CJ Box’s long Joe Pickett series. I watch too much tv. I don’t feel energetic at home. One or two events outside of the house and I’m done with my day. Yes, there’s the trifecta: low testosterone, altitude, and my funky diaphragm. And, yes, they affect me. But I’m beginning to think my low energy may have deeper and other roots.
Not sure where to go with this. Not sure I’m right. Paying attention in a different way now.
Saturday gratefuls: Kate and our IRA. Enough money to keep me alive. Another new knee. Warren. Ode. Now Stefan. Age and its attendant insults. Medicine and its remedies for them. Rich’s new class. Looks fun. The Muddy Buck. Old Evergreen. The Evergreen Hotel, long gone. Evergreen. A mighty fine Mountain town. Living in the Mountains. The silence of a Shadow Mountain Night. Sleeping. Kep, the dogged. Solving problems. Accepting reality.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Silent Night, Holy Night. Every Night
All that. Money stuff. Doctor and pharmaceutical stuff. Put to bed for now. Moving on. Occupied me for two days straight. Gotta have stuff to do when you old.
Reading two new books. Stunners. The first South To America by Imani Perry. A professor of African Studies at Princeton. A delicate, hard fisted, beautiful intelligent travelogue of her journey to her home state of Alabama. She begins at Harpers Ferry with thoughts on John Brown, Confederate reenactors, an unexpected conversation with one who volunteers at a store that’s part of the historic Harpers Ferry.
She writes about race and racism in a way that enfolds and unfolds its complexity. An example. Her feelings of tenderness toward the exploited coal miners of Appalachia. All of them. Then an observation about how even in the mines Blacks had the filthiest most dangerous jobs. Lived on the fringes of white poverty.
I’m still early in the book. Virginia. Trenchant and profound observations about Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Both owned slaves. Both believed it was wrong. But lust overcame Jefferson and ambition overcame Patrick Henry. They kept their slaves.
The second. The Good Life. By Robert Waldinger and Marc Shultz. Director and Assistant Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Longest running longitudinal study of human development in the world. Its message. Develop and keep good relationships. Intimate ones. Friendship. Family. Even strangers. Well written, clear. Helpful. Reinforcing.
In that spirit I have breakfast with Alan this morning at the Parkside Cafe in Evergreen. The newer part of Evergreen. For locals. Tourists sneak in on occasion, too. Near the Bread Lounge. Often has folks I know.
Rebecca Martin should be back from India and we can resume our breakfasts. Luke and I have our lunches. Diane and Tom. The Ancient Brothers. MVP. Mussar on Thursday. Staying connected. Rich again in two weeks. Knowing and being known. Seeing and being seen. The human, the primate, way. Love in its many forms.
How about those classified files at the Bidens? Ooops. There goes a second term. So. Damned. Stupid. And right now? He’s overperformed. Rich and I agreed. Then stepped right on his well you know. And hard. Without necessity. Come on, man!
Takes the stage away from that lying George Santos. The Long Island prevaricator.
How bout those Bolsanorans? I mean. Guys. He fled the country. To Florida. On an A-1 visa reserved for heads of state. He left Brazil before he left office. Trump went to Florida, too. Lots of parallels, eh? Trump and his like are cancers in the body politic of many countries. As 1st graders used to say, He’s copying!
Saturday gratefuls: Tal. Georgeta. Nitya. The Importance of Being Earnest. Stagedoor Theater. A late Night. Gabe. This afternoon. Blue. Green. Gold. On Black Mountain. Solar panels soaking in the Sun. Boiler Medic. Geowater. Vince. Snowplowing set. Hawai’i. Minnesota. Adventure. Home. The housing market.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nitya’s performance
On the subject of liberal arts. If you pay any attention at all to the world of higher education, you know that the liberal arts have been and are under heavy fire from pragmatists of all sorts. Lists of majors that “pay off” are common with Philosophy degrees and Anthropology degrees easily targeted as low earning degrees and not worth the investment. Usually here investment means amount of money for the degree. Guess who has a Philosophy and an Anthropology degree? Yep.
Or, the fabled English major. God help the education major, the arts major. Doomed to a lifetime of depressed financial potential. God better help them because no one in the STEM or Health fields will.
My own conjecture about the roots of this issue lies in the long ago days of decent vocational education, days when blue collar workers could learn welding, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, auto body and mechanics, cosmetology, secretarial skills and expect to earn a decent living from those skills. By decent living I mean the ability to do three things: buy a house and a car, afford good medical care and food, and a good education for your children.
Three things happened to first confuse then demolish this route to the American dream. First, American manufacturers lost the will to compete with the cheaper labor and goods available in countries like Japan and China. Jobs, blue collar jobs, left the country. Second, foreign goods began to appear in the United States that were not only comparable to US made goods, but cheaper in price, and sometimes, especially in the unfortunate instance of vehicles, better. Third, the combination of one and two lead to the Rust Belt effect where factories closed and well-paying jobs available to persons with a high school degree or even less vanished. Almost overnight.
This is the story, writ large, of my hometown, Alexandria, Indiana. In postwar times, say 1950 to 1970 or so, Alexandria had a thriving main street, Harrison Avenue. On it were two movie theaters: The Town and The Alex. Two grocery stores, Kroger’s and Coxes. Two dime stores, Murphy’s and Danner’s. Broyles’ Furniture. Fermen’s Womens Wear and Baumgartner’s Mens Wear. Mahony’s Shoes. Guilkey’s shoe shop and newsstand. Rexall’s Drugs and Bailey Drugs. The Bakery. The Yankee Bar. Conway’s barbershop.
On Friday and Saturday nights kids from neighboring smaller towns would come to Alexandria to drag main, go to the Kid Canteen, bowl. Parades, big parades, happened on Decoration Day and at Homecoming. Sidewalk Sale days drew customers downtown like weekend food stalls in Bangkok’s Chinatown.
When the crash came, it came fast. By 1974 most of those businesses had altered or closed. In later years plywood fronts would replace plate glass windows. Whole families would leave town in the dead of night, closing the curtains before they left because they could no longer pay their mortgages. Detroit had lost the battle with Volkswagen and Toyota.
I know. You’re thinking, he’s lost the plot. What does this have to do with the liberal arts? Vocational education lead nowhere. Who needed welders? Electricians. Unions began to decline in influence, too, and as they did so did blue collar wages across the board.
It was in this time that the lie of college for everyone began its insidious infiltration into the American zeitgeist. Get a BA and you’ll be safe. College graduates out earn high school graduates. And, this is true. Read this: Do college grads really earn more than high school grads.
And this is the where the story takes its twist. With vocational education or factory union jobs no longer a safe bet for that house and car, good medical care and food, what was left for the blue collar worker? College for all. We’re a small d democratic country. We’re all equal. So it seemed to make sense.
Except it doesn’t. College education takes a certain set of skills and gifts not widely distributed in any population. First, a basic level of intellect. Then, reading and writing skills. A taste for the sort of work required to sit through lectures, study, and write papers or lab reports. This is not about the idea of equality before the law which Americans often confuse with a leveling equality of skills and talents.
Such a leveling does not exist in the US population or any other. I could post links to several articles about the benefits of a college education. You could search them for an admission of the basic requirements to thrive in college. And find nothing.
With the dollar value of blue collar work on the decline along with it went the pride that came with hard work and a decent income. Many blue collar workers used to earn as much liberal arts majors do now. Not anymore. Now the blue collar worker scans and palletizes objects in Amazon or UPS warehouses, sweeps the floors of elementary schools, works in the volatile construction industry. Barely earning a long ago out of date minimum wage.
It was in this transition to an economy with few well-paying lifetime jobs for high school grads that saw white supremacy once again more obvious in US culture. It never left, of course, but it now purported to explain the poor white males declining, even vanishing, prospects. See this recent article by Thomas Edsall, Two Americas.
When the notion of a college education for all began to gain traction in the US mindset, it triggered a concomitant expectation that a college education would deliver a financial reward for those who stuck it out. College education began to replace the old vocational education model where a specific career with specific financial expectations were the norm for students.
And finally we come to the point: In this climate focused on the dollar value of a college education, college education as vocational education, the liberal arts begin to look like a bad bet. Cue the lists of majors and their earning power.
1. The top-paying college majors earn $3.4 million more than the lowest-paying majors over a lifetime.
2. Two of the top highest paying majors, STEM and business are also the most popular majors, accounting for 46 percent of college graduates.
3. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), health, and business majors are the highest paying, leading to average annual wages of $37,000 or more at the entry level and an average of $65,000 or more annually over the course of a recipient’s career.
4. The 10 majors with the lowest median earnings are: early childhood education ($39,000); human services and community organization ($41,000); studio arts, social work, teacher education, and visual and performing arts ($42,000); theology and religious vocations, and elementary education ($43,000); drama and theater arts and family and community service ($45,000).
Now we have this remarkable reality in our country. Blue collar workers have trouble, big trouble earning a decent income. Ironically, the communities of color who suffer along with the poor, white male high school grad, have developed ways of coping with economic hardships. See the Edsall article.
And, colleges and universities, stuffed into a false equivalency with vocational education, have cheapened the word value by taking up the talking point of the dollar value of a college education as a primary rationale for attendance.
The problem in other words is not with the liberal arts, but with the mindset that places money as the determiner of a good result in a post-high school education.
This is not only a travesty, it’s a tragedy. And how would you know this unless you had a liberal arts education?
Here’s a good example of what a liberal arts education can do and why it’s not only valuable (good value), but essential:
I don’t know whether the liberal arts in the college and university setting will survive the 21st century. But philosophy, theater, music, painting, sculpture, literature and the other liberal arts will survive. Why? Because we need critical thinking, effective communication, rational analysis, and ethical reasoning to understand and weigh the life or death choices facing humanity. We need them.
Wednesday gratefuls: Hamish’s wife: I couldn’t believe he wasn’t an experienced actor. (She acts, too) Bless her pea-pickin’ heart. Jon paid his phone bill. Cassy. That Cassy. More Richard Power’s novels in the mail. 4 down, two more available. Looking at Aspens for Diane Kroger’s plant one tree for six years pledge. Sundance Nursery, Evergreen. Cooking Salmon, the James Beard way. Sitka Salmon Shares. Hiking the holy Valley.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cassy.
Tarot: Three of Stones, Creativity
“It is time to create, spark old energy, and show something new.
An artist listens to a deep voice and feels the breath of all things. Courage, freedom, and skill, which allows the artist to allocate energy, must be purified and focused on meaningful and effective achievements.” tarotx.net
Oh. My. Gosh. I’m the fucking President and I want to go to the Capitol. He said as he lunged for the wheel, tie flapping all over the back seat. No. We’re going to the West Wing. Darn Secret Service. This bastard would be in jail right now if the agent hadn’t been so picky about doing his job.
Maybe Carrie Underwood can issue a new release of her heartbreaker about a desperate mother sliding on ice with her newborn in the back. This one? Trump Take the Wheel. It features a desperate President only wanting to be with his peeps (his armed peeps) as they hunt for the traitor Pence through the Capitol corridors.
There could be a stanza about Pence on the gallows, begging for mercy. But Trump Took the Wheel. Anyone who wants to take this song idea and make it real, go right ahead.
Had a day yesterday with nothing on it. Hiked the holy Valley. A few of Kate’s remains are still where I spread them. Most are gone downstream, headed for the world ocean. The Wild Roses. Columbines. New Pine Cones coming. Kate’s Creek running full. Still. It had rained not long before I got there and the scent of Pine Trees was everywhere. Rain wet my jeans as I walked through low hanging Brush. Cool, too, though the day would quickly hit 78 in Evergreen.
Drove over to Evergreen to get new brushes for my electric toothbrush. Thought I did. But, no. Wrong ones again. Geez, how hard an it be? Decided to toss out this one, which I don’t like and go back to the less complicated Oral B.
Then down to Sundance Nursery to look at Aspen’s, discuss planting some in my front. Got the info. About as much as I thought. Next spring. Aiming to plant my six trees per Diane Kroger’s idea about working toward a climate solution in which each person on the planet plants one tree a year for the next six years.
Back home I took a long nap. Performing and the attendant late night coupled with the hike wore me out.
Later I cooked a Salmon steak, tator tots, and had some of the cucumber dill salad I made on Monday. My diet has changed. Thanks, Diane, for the nudge. Salad today with the rest of the Salmon on it. I enjoy being in my kitchen.
Almost finished with Plowing in the Dark. Not going to proceed to the next two, Gain and the Gold Bug Variations. Need a palate cleanser. Some non-fiction perhaps, sir?
Hamish’s wife said she couldn’t believe I wasn’t an experienced actor. Since she acts quite a bit, I took that as a sincere compliment. Especially since Hamish only relayed it to me after I texted him about his own acting. Maybe Robbie did mean what she said, “You’re a real actor!” Getting positive feedback is good for the soul.
Enough. Tomorrow. Why the left always eats itself. Remember. Power first. Then policy.
Afternoon gratefuls for Wednesday: Cold white tea. Glass. Fire. Peat briquets. Ireland. The Celts. Dry Pine split logs. A chimney. A fireplace. Overstory, the last pages. A day of resting, wondering, wandering.
You know. I sat there in my Stickley chair. Overbuilt with gothic trusses, slotting joinery, arms wide for books and tea and my blood pressure cuff.
Build a Fire. Go on. Build a Fire. But I have to get up. I know, build a Fire and put the Peat briquets on it. Sometimes I listen to this slice of Self. Sometimes not.
This time. Got an edition of the Canyon Courier from last year, crumpled it up and put the wads under the andirons. A few slick pages, clay paper I think, above them, on the metal. Twigs. Fatwood. Two thinner chunks of Pine, one fatter one across them. Four of the black briquets formed from the Peat beds of old Ireland. One match. Left the doors slightly open for the draft.
Went back to the chair, sank in, almost disappearing into its bulk. As Fires do, it was nothing special at first. A pop here. A tendril of smoke. Did it go out? No, a Flame. Soon it burned with the ancient mystery of a Campfire out on the Veldt. Like our ancestors then I watched mesmerized. This is knowledge known by the heart.
As the Flames licked up in the draft of Air, the Fire began to dance, pirouetting, pointing toward the Sky. And, as my favorite line in Beowulf goes, Heaven swallowed the Smoke. The scent of Peat, pre-Coal Lignite, leaked out. Smelling like a left over glass of single malt whisky. Aqua Vita.
Only a few pages left to go in Overstory. The denouement. Characters dying, being jailed, thinking back, imagining a brand new life ahead. Dissolution then reseeding.
The wood in the fire. Trees now dead, lighting the room, heating it. Disturbing the Air. Making Smoke. The Trees in the book, many dead, many dying. Seeds being saved. Wild plans to solve the crisis of stupidity invading our species.
That time at the Peaceable Kingdom when Psilocybin sent tendrils of neural Fire through my consciousness. Lying in the Garden I watched the Potatoes grow. Amazed. One with the Soil and the vitality. This is the way.
On the Oak arm of the chair I had a glass of white Tea. A Leaf grown on a shrub in faraway China. Made cold in the refrigerator. Water. Fire. Air. Earth. Tea. Wood. Peat. Overstory. Lodgepoles and Aspen. Willows. Ponderosa. Bristlecone Pine. Aspen’s great clonal Communities.
Sadness crept up on me. Wish Kate could share this with me. No tears. Only that tweak of impossible desire. A longing to spend the last years like this. A book. Some tea. A Fire in the fireplace. Tea-saturated Water in the Water place. Shadow Mountain beneath me. The blue Colorado Sky above me. Why strive? Wu wei. Follow the Watercourse. Listen to the Mountain. See the Trees. Be with them. Warm myself from time to time in the way of burning.
The Arapaho Forest. I live amongst Trees and the Wild Neighbors they support. Amongst the Mountains the Trees change into Soil. I am a hermit, in a hermitage. A Chinese scholar fled to his Mountain retreat after the bureaucracy got too much.
You know. I sat there in my Stickley chair. Overbuilt with gothic trusses, slotting joinery, arms wide for books and tea and my blood pressure cuff.