Category Archives: US History

Politics, US History

Working Knowledge

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Finished “Shop Craft as SoulCraft” last night. An interesting book on a topic that has long puzzled me: why don’t trades people, people who work with their hands get more respect?

The author, Matthew Crawford, has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago. Crawford directed a think tank for five months before quitting to become a motorcycle mechanic.

The key idea in Shop Craft lies in practical knowledge gained through labor with one’s hands. Fixing a motorcycle or a leaky faucet requires constant attention to recalcitrant bolts and poorly plumbed kitchen sinks. Yet the end result, a vroom as a repaired motorcycle leaves the shop or a faucet restored to its function, guides the work from diagnosis to completion.

I like Crawford’s insistence on knowledge earned in direct contact with the soil, a block of wood, or an electric panel. I also take his point that knowledge workers (he doesn’t like this phrase) are as vulnerable as assembly line workers in Henry Ford’s auto plants. AI makes it so.

I don’t take his point that hand work has superior knowledge because it comes from direct encounters with the material world. I don’t think he does either since the book dotes on Heidegger, references Plato and Aristotle.

When I ate lunch last week at Elk Run, Miguel set me at a table. Marsha, a 90-year old former elementary teacher, talked about her husband, an industrial arts teacher. To give his students an education in the building trades he had them build houses. There are several in Evergreen. When I asked her if this project still existed, she shook her head, “Not anymore.”

The general decline in shop classes, vocational training serves no one, while it underlines the gap between manual labor and knowledge work in the eyes of our culture. I believe it should not be so.

Commentary on the news, Family, Politics, US History, World History

Disruptions

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Resonance. Vibrations. JFK in Dallas. Martin Luther King in Memphis. 9/11.

I was sick, resting at home, and reading Le Morte d’Arthur. I know. There it was, the open Lincoln convertible with Jackie holding a slumped over JFK. Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. The Texas Book Depository. I watched until my eyeballs went dry.

Later, LBJ. Model Cities. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Then, sadly, Vietnam.

King on the Lorraine Motel balcony with Abernathy. James Earl Ray. A bullet severing King’s spinal column. Abernathy cradling his head. MLK had come to support striking sanitation workers. I loved this, seeing King make a turn toward economic justice issues.  He had also recently come out against the war in Vietnam.

In King’s place Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, and John Lewis carried on his work, but MLK’s gravitas and personal power died with him.

Then. Look at this! What? I saw, along with millions, the hard to grasp scene of a passenger jet plowing into the World Trade Center. At first my brain had trouble accepting that scene as real. Later on fire, smoke, people plummeting to the ground. Flight 93. The Pentagon.

Bush’s declaration of a war on terror. Forever wars. Afghanistan. Iraq and Kuwait. Shock and awe. Twenty-five years later: Iran, Lebanon, Gaza all roiled up in the aftermath of 9/11.

Personal: Joseph. A freshman at the University of Minnesota. Pre-med after two trips to Guatemala with his step-mother/second mother, Kate.

A complicated emotion surged through him mixing pride in his adoptive nation and anger, yes, but more, surfacing a warrior  spirit perhaps prefigured in his skiing, his running. He felt the powerful call of a patriot determined to protect his country.

Soon he had visited a recruiter, switched his major to Astro-physics/Physics, and turned himself toward the military. Twenty-five years later he’s in command of Cobra Squadron on Osan AFB in South Korea.

Family, Health, Politics, US History

MMA

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Low 40’s last night. I slept well. Sunny and cool this am when BJ, who came last night, set out to look at 6 more houses.

Mary has had an allergy flare-up. No fun. A cough, too.

I’m feeling incrementally better. I’m told I look better which makes me wonder how I looked before. PSA still high. Guess the petscan two weeks from now will tell the tale.

Still very weak, but a bit of improvement from more moving around.

On June 14th, 1777 the second Continental Congress passed a resolution defining a national flag. The design has lasted.

I can’t even. I mean, come on. Where’s Jackie and her rose garden? Or, Lady Bird Johnson beautifying America? In their place: boorish thuggery. MMA=Miss My America.

Fourth Phase, Friends, Greenhouse, Memories, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Decoration Day

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Shabbat. Melissa came, drove Ruby to Mangy Moose Trail, and picked up my six heirloom tomato plants. Healthy and strong, straight out of the Heirloom Tomato Farm greenhouse.

Not sure if they’re gonna live. My heater didn’t keep them warm enough last night. 47 degrees. Way too cold for tomatoes. I’ll have to check on them today. A long walk in my current weakened condition. I do have the Inogen charged so I can carry my O2 concentrator.

If they’re ok, I’ll give them a drink. Artemis drawing me into movement. A good thing.

Janice planted the tomatoes. Coming back in occasionally with pictures. Sweet of her to do that.

Ginny, her partner, helped with thin skin wound treatment. She’s a nurse. And an opera singer. And a theater director. And a student of Torah and mussar.

Monday entry

Tanks wrinkling hot asphalt. Last year’s homecoming queen riding on the back of the realtor’s Cadillac convertible. The color guard wearing uniforms that fit them long ago, now bulging, showing a bit of white skin.

The Decoration Day parade in Alexandria. We waved tiny flags and cheered the baton twirlers. The whole town lined Harrison street, baby boomers like me still in elementary school.

The official start of summer. The pool in Beulah Park opened. I still remember the small pool of chlorine laced water we all had to step in before we could enter the swimming pool itself.

I skipped the long speeches and decorating of veterans graves. Pretty boring for an eight year old.

Long after I left Alexandria, Decoration Day became Memorial Day and shifted in time from May 30th to the last Monday in May. In my mind Memoria Day remains on May 30th as does the annual running of the Indianapolis 500. I still occasionally miss the Indy 500 for this reason.

School ended the week before Memorial Day and began again the day after Labor Day. It shocked me to learn that schools in Colorado routinely begin in mid-August. Seems cruel and unusual.

 

Dopy struggles his way toward a deal with the Iranians. Number one? Opening the Straits of Hormuz. Which weren’t an issue until we invaded. So Dopy brokers deal to solve a problem he created, one which was never listed as a war aim. Go, Team America!

 

Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

UFC Freedom 250

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May winter. 35 degrees this am. Rain. A chilly, somewhat wet week ahead. A delight with cool nights. As if May knew what we’d missed and decided to make up for winter’s puny showing.

My good friend Tom’s visit is over today. Back to Minnesota. When he comes, we talk of matters both profound and humorous. Tom and I have been Woollies for the same amount of time, ritually welcomed together at Valhelga. Old friends.

He remarked yesterday on the strong bonds Kate and I formed with others at Congregation Beth Evergreen. Moving the fridge. Alan’s cinnamon rolls. Tara’s visits with Eleanor. Ginny and Janice including me in their family. Rich. Jamie. Part Judaism. Part the folks we got close to.

Thinking over my fall. Believe I might have briefly passed out from the hypotension. Probably triggered the fall. I’ve made modifications including sitting on the edge of the bed before I get up. Helps.

I’m at another hinge point. I need some p.t., some other help or I’m on a downward slope. The actinium trial is my last stand. If it doesn’t produce good results, I don’t imagine I’ll sign up for any more treatments. Too tired. Too weary of the fuss and bother. I suppose hospice would make sense then.

This trial is far from over. I’ve had one treatment out of eight. No telling results till number 4 or so. It may yet yield lowering of my PSA and my tumor burden. We’ll see.

This is, for me at least, not bad news. I accept where I am, what the situation is. No life goes on forever.

An NYT journalist went to four Chinese cities during the recent Trump visit and asked residents what they thought of Dopy Don. “Brutal” and “Unfriendly” lead their answers. I read this article, then turned on my TV to a Paramount ad for a major UFC event. Clips featured MMA fighters kicking each other in the head, punching and grappling. UFC Freedom 250. Location? The Whitehouse! June 14th.

Brutal. Unfriendly. Not to mention embarrassing.

Politics, US History

Where is our Jazmin

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation (1% waning crescent)

Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Breakfast burritos. Shadow and Eleanor, buddies. Blood draws. Down the hill. Snow. Costa Rica.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Rich

 

Kavannah: Simcha. Joy.  I have such joy with my friends at CBE.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining:  In the phlebotomist’s chair. Again. Five vials. A slight push. Jazmin had found my vein. Whoa. She’s good. Efficient, too. Swap in one vial. My body fills it. Out. Another. Less than five minutes.

A working woman with delicate hands. She performs a frequent task with no fuss.

Jazmin.

Compare Jazmin’s careful, accurate insertion of the needle with, say, Trump’s depiction of himself as Jesus. Ham-fisted. Coarse. At the very least, rude. At worst, outright blasphemy.

Facing down, in a cowardly-lion way, the Pope. Who is the Pope? How many legions does he have? He cannot lecture me about war and violence. I have a Nobel Peace Prize. See? Right there.

JD Vance, he of the pliable values, instructs the Pope to be more careful when speaking about theology—to a man who has risen to the highest office in the Roman Catholic Church, who leads a nation of theologians.

Where are the Jazmins of the political world? Is there no one who will relieve us of these troublesome men? Who can identify the tasks before us, address them with care and confidence, and deliver policies that make our nation better—stronger?

They have yet to emerge. It may be that the route to the presidency weeds out politics’ Jazmins, ensuring that the thoughtful, the compassionate, and the competent fall away while the venal, the corrupt, and the cruel survive.

And yet history offers exceptions.

Obama, I believe, was one such man. His values were clear, his compassion evident, though his skills proved insufficient to overcome the forces arrayed against him. That is the nub of it.

A combination of humane vision and the political mastery of Lyndon Johnson is vanishingly rare.

When I consider history, I know such leaders have existed: the martyr Lincoln, the stalwart Washington, the canny Roosevelt. Perhaps the times make the person. Only in moments of rupture do we find those with the courage to heal a broken nation.

My sense, though, is that such people always exist, unnoticed by history. When peace and plenty prevail, effective leadership remains within reach. Many can—and do—lead. The demand for extraordinary vision lies dormant.

But then come the crucibles: the American Revolution. The Civil War. World War II. Nation-shaking events. Even our survival as a republic at risk.

It is, right now, such a time.

Our President, enabled by sycophants and toadies, lurches from boasting of a Nobel Peace Prize to extinguishing a civilization—glad-handing enemies while stiff-arming allies.

I do not know where they are or who they are, but it is past time for the Jazmins to show up—to ply their trade with skill and aplomb.

Eyes closed.

Hands in lap.

Wait.

.

 

 

Commentary on the news, Science, US History

To the Moon and Back

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Shabbat andThursday and Friday gratefuls: 25th amendment. All the wars. All the diplomats. All those who desire peace. Dr. Josy. Audrey. Tom and Jessie. Mary and Mark. Joe and Gabe

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: zoom

 

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Artemis II has reawakened my interest in space flight. Black and white image, rabbit antenna, gathered around the electronic hearth. The Apollo program began in 1961, the year I entered high school and ran until 1972. Three years after I graduated from college.

 

Artemis II, an hour ago, sped through space 150,000 miles from home. Don’t know about you but visions of Neil Armstrong dance in my head. The peril of Apollo 13. The first and last men on the moon. We stopped for 53 years. Politics.

As a boy of maybe twelve, or thirteen, my best friend Mike Hines and I stared. Three silver objects moved toward the moon. And went behind it. Wow, we both said, waiting to see if they emerged.

They did.

When we told my Dad, he took notes. Well, he said. An interesting afternoon boys. We all looked at the moon. The Apollo program started the next year. Taking around 24 astronauts behind the moon and back home.

This was the time of UFO’s. Sightings made the newspapers. On the next day after talking to dad: Two Alex Boys Claim UFO’s went behind the moon. Mike and I puffed up. Our names in print!

I name the moons, The Moon of Liberation celebrates Passover. The Moon of Tides came before it. Celebrating Paul and his home on the Atlantic in downeast Maine.

I like the traditional names, too. April can be the full flower moon. The New Spring Moon.

“A Trip to the Moon” by Georges Méllè. I’ve seen it twice. Colorful, quirky I found it captivating. Short.

Joseph wrote a paper, his capstone for his astrophysics degree, on the origin of the moon. He advocated for the giant-impact model. According to him, a Mars sized  proto-planet called Theia hit a still forming earth.  Injecting a massive amount of the young Earth into the sky. Creating our moon.

This a shortie that I wrote on Thursday and Friday.

One more today

 

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Science, US History

Ad astra per aspera

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Artemis launch. The Moon. Passover. Exodus. Jews. Israel. Palestinians. Iran. U.S.  War. Peace.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Maddie

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut.  Shadow

Tarot: Ten of Stones, Home. Teshuvah. Return to the home of my soul.

One brief shining: Space: The Final Frontier. Captain Pike of the USS Enterprise. Over the last year I started watching Star Trek series and movies. Trying to gain a more complete experience.

I remember that hot July Indiana day. 1969.  Our small black and white television crackled.  Judy and I lay on the bed almost naked. The gravelly voice of Walter Cronkite said, “Oh, boy.” One small step.

Today, perhaps at 6:24 PM EDT, Artemis II will slowly rise, then accelerate, carrying four astronauts on 10 days of wonder. I followed all the lunar landings, up to and including the last one in 1972. I was 26.

Ever since Sputnik. NASA. Doing the thing, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. The Space Race. I was so proud. To be an American. NASA had fulfilled every science intoxicated kid’s dream. Humans break free of Earth. To dance among the stars.

James Webb. Hubble. ISS. Starlink. We did not abandon space when Apollo shut down.

It gives me great joy to see us once again escorting astronauts across the high bridge to their crew cabin. More than three hundred feet above the ground. A tiny human habitat sitting on top of so much power. The courage to sit while controlled explosives push you deeper and deeper into the zero-gravity chair.

The Orion crew cabin came to life at Lockheed Martin’s Littleton, Colorado offices. At Beth Evergreen we have rocket scientists. Helen, a vibration engineer. Her ex. My friend Veronica who worked on the GOES satellites. Space is big business in Colorado.

Florida’s Space Coast. The orange first stage of Artemis already at the launch pad. Except for the fact that I dislike crowds, I’d love to be there. Feel and hear the rumble. Watch Artemis push beyond our sight, into the cold vastness.

On my way to a morning at RMCC I was a passenger. Ruth drove. Just beyond a familiar exit on 470, I looked up and saw Blue Origin. A several story glass façade.

A human launch. NASA in the news. Great billows of fire and smoke. Call up a primary fascination of my childhood. Buck Rogers. Commander Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe. Primed. Then. Real humans. John Glenn. Neil Armstrong.

When a young boy’s fantasies begin to inhabit real life. Could it get any better? Mercury. Then Apollo. Even my son Joe spent several years dreaming of becoming an astronaut. Part of why he joined the Air Force.

Space flight returned me to a truer definition of home. Do you remember the blue marble photograph? Taken from the 1972 Apollo 17 crew capsule. Earth is my home. Our home. No matter how successful we become in space exploration. That blue marble? Home.

Not the U.S. Not Indiana. Not North America. The whole boundaryless earth. Our home.

Artemis rises.
Leaves the blue marble.
Flies far from home.

 

Family, Korea, Memories, Politics, US History

Love it or Leave it.

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Sunday gratefuls: Torah. Luke. Jamie. Galen. Nate. Ruth and David. Tara. Snow, a bit. Colder. Mary and Mark. Joe and Seoah.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Snow

 

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: Six of Stones, Exploitation. The Great Work–creating a sustainable presence for humans on Mother Earth.

One brief shining: Ruth plans to come up tomorrow evening with David, her very new boyfriend. She asked if we could have a fire in the fireplace. When I said, “Yes,” she replied, “Great! I’m bringing fixings for s’mores.”

 

Ruth does not want to stay in the U.S. Medical school abroad. Ruth’s middle school friend, Wilson, went to Glasgow for college straight out of high school. He does not intend to return.

Tara and Arjean will be living in Costa Rica this time next year. Marilyn and Irv checked out Costa Rica.

Love it or leave it. The bumper sticker aimed at the long-haired, draft-dodging, pot-smoking, acid-tripping college kids. Like me. Many of us, including Mike Hines, a next neighbor and good friend, did just that.

Emigration to Canada appealed. No draft. English spoken. Nearby. Friendly. Even so, I never wanted to leave. Stay and fight. My country, not right or wrong. Hardly. Home though. Worth trying to change.

So many of my former friends in the anti-war movement slid out of their draft exemptions into the job market. White privilege keeping us safe for at least four years.

I tried. Wasn’t any good at it. An apprentice manager for W.T. Grant. What was I thinking? After a move to Wisconsin, Judy and I bought a house. Settled into blue collar work.

I moved eight-hundred pound bales of Munsingerwear scraps, left over from cutting out underwear and t-shirts. Put them on a conveyor belt and ran them through a cutting machine. Preliminary to making rag-bond paper for the U.S. Treasury. Much better than W.T. Grant. Even so. Canada looked as good then as it ever did for me.

What does it take to dislodge a person from their home country? Economic collapse.  The Irish potato famine. War. Call these push factors.

What can pull young, bright minds away from their homeland? Foreign students, especially from China, came here for a more open and innovative education. Others for the American Dream. A house. Kids. Decent income.

What about, though, the Ruths and the Wilsons? Perhaps it is the stranglehold on money and power of the older generation. Mine. Perhaps it is a more general unease. Government in shatters. Bigotry ascendant. Climate change imminent. Or, perhaps these same factors have, over time loosed the mystic bonds we call patriotism, made them less, much less, compelling.

Ruth fell in love with Korea. Great medical schools. I hope she finds a good spot. Our kids are leaving not only home, but country.

I will miss them.

So will the rest of us left behind.

 

 

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Is it time to go?

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Tuesday and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Tara and Eleanor. Arjean. Costa Rica. Iran. U.S. Israel. Gaza. Lebanon. War and peace. Mark in Hafar.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Shleimut. My lev, calm. Clinical trial decision made. Living into the next.

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel. My spirit, strong. My decisions, made. Old, not dead.

One brief shining: While I sit in peace on Shadow Mountain, Shadow gnaws a toy, asks for breakfast. Mary roasts in summer heat. Joe and Seoah shiver in a cold Korea. Everyone seems further away.

 

A conversation U.S. Jews. Is it time to leave? Is this a Weimar moment after Adolf took power? Friends Marilyn and Irv looked at land in Costa Rica. Decided not to go. Irv said he loved the mountains. Too old to leave.

Tara and Arjean. Have hired a property manager. Are cleaning out 27 years of stuff.  Move to Costa Rica sometime in June. Stay in AirBnBs as they scout for a place to settle. A year or so experiment.

Two times when I almost left the continental U.S. 1969. Got the call for my draft physical. To Indianapolis with all of my money and all my possessions. (not much) Would have moved to Canada like my old friend Mike Hines.

Turns out psoriasis worsens when wearing wool and in hot, humid climates. Army uniforms. Wool. Vietnam.

As I left the place where I’d had my physical, a serious man told me: “You cannot enlist in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines.” I asked him, “Are you sure?” When he said yes, I said, “Thank god.”

Second time. After Kate died. Joe and Seoah. Planned then to retire after Korea and move back to Hawai’i. Cleared out the house and garage. Researched places on Oahu where Kepler and I could live. Checked out synagogues. Studied my budget.

Jon died. I couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe.

My sister and my brother, Mary and Mark. Long time expats.  Mary now in Melbourne and Mark teaching ESL to young Arab men. Joe and Seoah: Hawai’i, Singapore, and Korea. Nine years

State Department urges Americans to leave the Middle East. Mark stays. Hafar has no military targets. He lives among the Saudi citizens. Not in an Aramco US compound. An old Saudi hand at this point.

I’m the stay at home of a far flung family.

When is it time to leave?

 

For me. Not yet.