• Category Archives US History

  • Thanksgiving

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Thanksgiving gratefuls: Ruth and her Thanksgiving meal. Gabe, as, well, Gabe. Mia, my granddaughter from another mother. Jen. The shema. The mezuzahs. Darkness. An early morning/nighttime conversation across the Pacific with my son and Seoah. My son in Hawai’i next week. Murdoch. Gratitude. Thanksgiving. Alan. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Rich. Jamie. Ron. Holimonth. Thanksgiving itself. Native American Heritage day. Native/First Nation Americans. The West. Shadow Mountain. Snow on the way.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Thanksgiving

    One brief shining: The kitchen island had sprouted small oasis’s of food the Mushroom Wild Rice stuffing, the Persimmon and Pomegranate salad, cut Vegetables, Turkey breast, Corn bread stuffing, a spiral cut ham, so we grabbed our plates from the table and moved like folks in a cake walk making sure our plates got the good stuff.

     

    Columbus Day. Native American genocide. America’s embrace of slavery. The too casual churning of history to invest a wonderful holiday with faux roots. Yes. All true and all bad. Sins for which we will and must atone. Not yesterday, but right now. The United States did not invent coloring its history and holidays with imperial swagger and false memories. But we have done it, too. Here is a New Yorker article that details this effect for Thanksgiving.

    Yet. I choose this morning to return to Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving for the entire nation. Its last paragraph is below.* Here is a link to the whole which is worth reading. This man knew how to write, but had his Secretary of Defense, William Seward, pen this one.

    Sarah Hale

    This came before the linkage with Plymouth Rock and the Wampanoag visitation to the Pilgrims, apparently as part of a mutual defense pact. See the New Yorker article.

    It came after a long campaign by Sara Josepha Hale, a woman of many talents, including being among the first female American novelists and the forty year editor of the most widely circulated magazine prior to the Civil War, Godey’s Lady’s Book.

    In her spirit. This holiday, a secular one celebrated throughout the country and in other places where the American diaspora resides, unites us in gratitude. It does this in spite of the mess made of our history and later added to its celebration. Gratitude, taken in acknowledgement of our need for “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience”, has the effect of dissolving bad feelings, opening hearts, and reminding us of what is good in our life. No matter the life.

    I see it as a holiday that has two great impulses. The first, echoed by the what are we thankful for question heard at many Thanksgiving tables, turns our attention to gratitude. My first spiritual director, a Jesuit nun, had me keep a gratitude journal, saying that all of spirituality can be found in gratitude. I believe that to this day. The second impulse, to bring friends and family around a common table, is a necessary counter to the atomized meal times of our current lives and reinforces the truth of family, together whether MAGA or not. As it did for me yesterday when I celebrated with Ruth, Gabe, Mia, and Jen.

    One last note. If you have ever been puzzled by my gratefuls, let me explain. In the Jewish tradition a unitary metaphysic was once denominated through the notion of monotheism. God is God of all and all is of God. Though many Jews, like me, have passed into a secular reality, the notion of a unitary metaphysic remains. And it has troublesome implications.

    That is. We must be grateful for the yetzer hara, the selfish inclination, as well as the yetzer hatov or the good inclination, for example. We must be grateful for Hamas as well as Israel, Palestinians as well as Israelis. For the spectrum of human hues in our nation and for the life they all lead. For the criminal as well as the law abiding citizen. This does not go down well or obviously from a usual perspective, yet a unitary metaphysic demands it. And I happen to think it makes sense. Jarring as it may be. More on this at a later point.

     

     

    *”…And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, (my emphasis) commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”


    Holidays Judaism Politics US History

  • All Green

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: All green on my protein panel. Cardiology Now! Next week. Also, labs for Eigner. The great wheel of medicine keeps turning. Never an unmedicated moment. 28 this morning. Good sleeping. Moving on. Tinned Fish. Kimchi. Brown Rice. Working on that diet. Dazzle with Ruth next week. Winter weather advisory. Democratic wins.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: All that green

    One brief shining: A slight rise in my anxiety titer (Kate’s phrase) as I clicked through the sign in gateways for Quest Diagnostics, opened the results page knowing that finally my protein panel findings were there, scrolling down to get them, fist pump, all green, all findings in the normal range, all of them, even the gammaglobulin which was low last time, and my anxiety quieted, relief.

     

    Still not sure what took the Quest folks until yesterday to complete those tests. My doc’s nurse called them and they said oh that test can take 7-10 days. Then the results were available later in the afternoon. Only five days after they got my blood. ? Anyhow all’s well that ends. And this did. At least for now. Still doesn’t explain my anemia so I imagine we’ll have to track that down. Echocardiogram on Tuesday will look at my aorta, apparently enlarged, and the thickened walls of my heart muscle. Who knows what that will show? That same week I draw labs for my last visit to Dr. Eigner, my oncologist, who retires this January. This will be my first PSA since stopping chemo in August.

    I’m grateful to have a team that looks after me, sees to these matters. Yes, I’ll grouse about the tests and the appointments but that’s just noise. I’m an old man but not a dead man. They help me stay that way. What’s not to like? I mean, really.

     

    Politics. Good news on the Democratic front. Looks like abortion has women and their allies fired up. Three elections in a row now look good for the Democratic party. And look good for 2024. With the exception of Joe Biden. Whom I think is getting a raw deal from the electorate. His economic policies and his foreign policy have been masterful. I admire his finesse and nuance. Sure, he’s a center right guy and not at all representative of my deepest political values, but as a President he has far outperformed expectations. Far.

    Yet as a politician he’s responsible for seeing that his political wins, and they have been many, translate into electability. He’s failed there. Not sure why. Trump to some extent, yes. His age. Probably.

    I hate to say it, but I’d like to see him replaced. We need a candidate who can stiff arm Trump, gather up the working class wins of the Biden administration and turn them into a renewal of a working class constituency. Not to mention fence mending with the Black community.

     

    I would still have been in Israel today. Flying back on the 11th of November. Odd to contemplate it now.

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Health Politics US History

  • Consider Oneness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Fat Bear Week. See this link. Rebecca in India. Mary in K.L. Mark in Hafir, Saudi Arabia. Me on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah and Murdoch in Songtan. Israel. Gaza. West Bank. Korea. Divided nations. Night Sky. Stars above and around the Lodgepoles. The coming darkness. A Mountain Morning. Aspen Torches, Trees of Ohr. The Tree of Life. Malkut to Keter. The Wildwood Tarot. Luke. Ginny. Jimmy. Murdoch, the silly. My son, the silly. Kate, who was also silly. Jon, who was not. Ruth. Gabe.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fat Bear Week

    One brief shining: A bear stands on a rock facing downstream, salmon climb the ladder of flowing water headed to their clan home to spawn, one tight powerful snap and the journey ends.

     

    War. A son whose life lies in preparation and readiness for war. A nation, Korea, divided and still at war. Israel, my coreligionists fighting a war of their own creation. Oppression has a heavy price, paid too often, most often, in blood. Consider the violence of a nation that still relegates its native peoples to lands not wanted, depriving them of the lands that once sustained them. Consider the violence of a nation that systematically denies the vote, a decent education, good housing, well-paying jobs to persons descended from the enslaved. Consider a nation that denies an entire people, the Uighurs, even the crumbs of citizenship. Consider a nation, any nation, that allows its majority to wreck havoc on its minorities without conscience or care. Most nations.

    Consider all these things. We are human after all, all too human. Jealous of what we already have, greedy for what we might get. Israel did not invent oppression. Nor did China. Neither did the U.S.A., even when slavery was legal. No. We humans find love, justice, and compassion often beyond our grasp even if in our individual hearts we might feel it. Collectively we protect our families, our clans, our regions, our skin color fellows, our nations. And in protecting, a noble and worthy action, deny others what they need, a base and evil result. This is the original sin of our species. To love those we prefer and exclude those who fall outside of our love’s sphere. A sad, pitiful narrowness to our vision.

    Then consider the human body. Consider what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The often unfortunate result of a reductionist science that separates the heart as a consideration of medical care from the liver, from the gut, from grief and joy and stress and despair. That separates the teeth from the pancreas. The blood from the lungs. The thyroid from the feet. Treats each one as a thing sui generis when no. Cortisol bathes each organ, blood moves through and into and out of the lungs, the gut, the feet, the brain and into the kidneys. We are one.

    Of course we can learn and know about the heart when we dissect it, image it, palpitate it, treat its actions with chemicals of our own devising. Of course. But how did the heart come to have that blocked vessel? That flapping valve? That enlarged chamber? How does the heart function as part of the oneness that is homeostasis? How is that homeostasis affected by the smile of a child? The sound of a jackhammer? The death of a loved one? The denial at every turn of opportunity?

    More. Yes. My body is one. Yes, it is. But. It is one within a community, within an atmosphere. My body so individual and precious to me can last no more than a few breaths without the oxygen exhaled by plants nearby and faraway. My body so individual and precious to me cannot live more than a few days without food grown by farmers, caught by fisherman, sustained by healthy soil and oceans and skies. My body so individual and precious to me cannot last without the touch, the warmth, the smile, the greeting of others.

    Our original sin. To misplace the apparent concreteness of our skin color, our tribe, our class, our nation as worthy of dominance over others. No. We are one. The Eternal One only knows unity. Only sees togetherness. Insists in its nature on love, justice, and compassion. It has ever been so, and has ever been denied. Our fault, our most grievous fault.


    Great Wheel Health Judaism Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Science US History Wild Neighbors World History

  • Day 2 Korea

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: That disappeared Thursday. A good shower. Electronics charged up and ready. Mastered the Korea two pin outlets. Got a new sim card. $49 for a month. Unlimited data. Verizon’s plan? $10 a day. Korean barbecue with my son and Seoah after. Learning building codes, apartment code. Necessary numbers. Murdoch the tail wagger. Slowly entering Asia culture.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Credit Cards

    One brief shining: A shiny tin pipe about the width of a large coffee cup drew smoke away from the barbecue set in the middle of the table, Seoah had the tongs and the scissors, her show, placing plates of beef one slice at a time on the metal sheet over the fire below while the waitress brought rice, pickled cucumber, kimchi, glass noodles, tofu, then boiling miso soup.

     

    All this in a restaurant a block or two away from the imposing gate of the Osan AFB. My son got me to a sim card shop and the owner recommended the place to eat. This is in cluster of streets and businesses all lined up to catch money flowing from the pockets of Uncle Sam via the military personnel working and living across the street. One more robust American stood outside a souvenir shop flapping his shirt bottom and staring vacantly at the goods on display. Where Korean commerce and US customers meet.

    Seoah and I got there from their apartment building via taxi. Joe had just gotten off work and we found him sitting on a couch at the realtors who helped them find a place to live. Joe makes friends easily and had done so with the realtor.

    The sim card shop was shallow, maybe 8 feet in depth and twenty wide. A display case with faux phones advertising real ones to purchase. The owner behind the counter and a small area for customers between the display case and the window wall to the street.

    Seoah talked with him and Joe pulled out 5000 won notes to pay. No credit cards. I bought dinner. About the same.

     

    Today we head to Gwangju and Seoah’s parent’s village. It’s her mom’s 70th and we’re staying all night at their new house. Built courtesy of her brother. My son and Seoah bought the appliances.

    My understanding at the moment is that her birthday party will be at a fancy Gwangju steak place, the Outback. Yep. An American chain with an Australian theme in one of the most radical cities of all Korea. Go figure.

    Gwangju is about three hours south of Osan and her parent’s village maybe a half hour further. I’ve been to the village once before when Kate and I came for my son and Seoah’s wedding. Her father was headman of the village for many years. As I get it, sort of Mayor and clan chieftain.

    We had a wonderful neighbor produced meal with many Korean women chattering and putzing around in the kitchen while we sat at the very low table chatting. Sister Mary was along, too.


    Asia Family Feelings Korea US History

  • Nations. Divided.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Murdoch. That funny guy. Leo, gone home. Luke. Tal. 48 degrees. Clear Sky. Great Sol brightening the Lodgepoles and Black Mountain. Great Sol’s angle already beginning to visibly decline. The harvest season underway. The Midwest. Its farms and farmers. Its humidity. The arid West. Its Mountains. Dogs. All Dogs. Of all time. Angels. Love incarnate. The Sacred. Revelation.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

    One brief shining: A Dog lays her head in your lap, gazes up at you with adoration, follows you on a walk, waits for you at the door when you come home tired from work, tail wagging, eyes filled with you only you and you reach down, pat her, scratch behind her ears, then the world comes into focus.

     

    Realized only yesterday that my travels this year will take me to two divided nations, Israel and Korea. Very different in the origin of the divisions, yes, one xenophobic and the other bemoaned on both sides yet hardened and both societies with strong military presences, the threat of imminent conflict always in the air. I wonder what to look for, how to gauge the impact of the Arab/Israeli conflict on day-to-day life in both Israel and the West Bank. In Korea the division separates a nation into two parts, a  Southern and Northern, yet considered one country by all Koreans. How though does the continuing division affect the average Korean? Not my main reason for visiting either place yet a dominant reality in both.

    After my conversion in Jerusalem, I will have a strong personal stake in both countries. A Jew considering the life of Israel. And, a father-in-law with a Korean daughter-in-law, my son stationed in Korea for four years. Also, the Jang family, Seoah’s brother, two sisters, nieces and nephews, her mother and father. The deep wounds in both countries have increased significance for me.

    Makes me wonder about the soft division (compared to Israel and Korea) that has come to dominate American politics. About its impact on our body politic here. How does a nation fare when large numbers of its citizens disagree on the fundamentals of what it means to be a nation? What is, after all, a nation? Certainly it requires some minimal cohesion among its resident population.

    This Wikipedia entry, nation, has a nice precis of what the word has meant and might mean in the future. It’s important to remember that the nation state is a relatively recent invention, most scholars agreeing that the modern nation state arose in the 17th century. I found this quote from the Wiki helpful: “The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, and organizationally flexible.” My mental ears perked up at the first two terms: socially constructed and historically contingent.

    Yes. Israel came into being in 1947, a recent expression of an old homeland, one imposed on an existing territory already occupied by Jews and Arab. Socially constructed as a necessary antidote to the horrors of Hitler’s Germany, yet oh so historically contingent as an increasingly large swath of the diaspora, Palestinians, and progressive Israelis argue it must change its nature as a nation. It is refusing to be organizationally flexible.

    Korea though is an ethnic nation divided by modern politics. Both South Korea and North Korea socially constructed by the historical contingencies of big power politics, the Cold War, of the 1950’s. Because of those ties of ethnicity, most Koreans on both sides of the border yearn for unification.

    Yet here. Here. The standout phrase. Historically contingent. As in, will not necessarily always exist. The nature of our socially constructed reality? Contested. Is there an organizational structure that can contain both far right and liberal Americans? That is our big question.

     

     

     


    Judaism Korea Politics Travel US History World History

  • A Mushroom Cloud of lies and conspiracy theories

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Memorizing The Trail to Cold Mountain. Seoah, my son, Murdoch. Korea. Brother Mark. Sister Mary. Gabe and Ruth. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. A Foggy morning. 48 degrees. Magic the Gathering. Korean competition. Sky Castle. K-dramas. Writing. A new novel idea. Getting ready for the long journeys. Israel trip meeting today. Packing gifts for Korea.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fog

    One brief shining: Fingers curve over the keyboard as I learned in high school typing almost 60 years ago a manual skill one of the few I learned well, how to fell a tree, limb it, and buck it another, suppose you have to add driving, and there you have it.

     

    I’m close on memorizing The Trail to Cold Mountain. A couple of more hours today and I’ll be even closer. On the 19th I’ll have all the poems as a prop, but not what I’ve written. My costume still lacks a cloak and hood, boots. Gotta get on those this week. Satisfying.

     

    Toobin’s book, Homegrown, details the lives of several feckless men and women folks whose lives never managed to crystallize. Failed marriages, bouts of unemployment dotted with rants, seeking a culprit and finding one in the Federal government.

    McVeigh spent much of his adult life going from one gun show to another, often driving thousands of miles in a week. Toobin illustrates how gun shows are a carrier of the far right pathogen. At the larger ones there were sessions on the Constitution, what really happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge, how to become a sovereign citizen, survivalist skills. Then there is the gunshow loophole which allows individuals to sell guns and ammunition with no checks of any kind. This still exists.

    While on the road McVeigh listened to Rush Limbaugh, often for hours at a time. At night he had a shortwave radio and listened to a similar podcast from Arizona. His friend Timothy Nichols added the plight of farmers in the 1980’s to Tim’s thinking. Nichols hated banks, floated around the Michigan militia movement. With his lone wolf, road warrior lifestyle McVeigh rarely came out from under the mushroom cloud of conspiracy theories, second amendment fanatics, and gun show radicals.

    Toobin shows, in a neat twist, how the early response to the Murrah Building bombing focused on Muslims, on foreigners who wanted to do harm to the Great Satan. But no. Instead this bomb made of fertilizer and racing fuel in 55 gallon drums all packed tight in a rental truck came from the same source as those who blamed the attack on outsiders.

    As my brother said in an e-mail, reconciling the Trumpists with the rest of our nation will be difficult. Make no mistake. Trump is only a highly visible manifestation of the same mushroom cloud of lies and hate that engulfed Timothy McVeigh over thirty years ago. And the bomb that made that cloud became real in a fantasy world already well inhabited by the heirs of the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, and the NRA.

     


    Acting Politics US History

  • Not anymore

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Leo. Luke and Tal, off camping. Magic the Gathering. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Jeffrey Toobin’s Homegrown. The Far Right. Freedom. Liberty. Regime Change by Patrick Deneen. Reading.  Celt and Sorsha. Scot and Morgana. Tira and Tully. Orion and Tor. Vega and Rigel. The Wolfhounds. Iris and Bucky. Bridget and Emma. Hilo and Kona. The Whippets. Gertie, the German Wirehair. Kep, the Akita. All of blessed memory. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

    One brief shining: Leo’s long tan body lies stretched out on my green rug his dad gone camping last night he barked, an alarm bark, three different times though he is a quiet dog jarring me awake fumbling for my tac flashlight with which I check for Bears or Mountain Lions before letting any dog outside on the Mountain.

     

    Luke called yesterday morning to ask if I could take Leo for the weekend. Tal invited him to go camping. Checked my calendar. Sure. I’ll bring him by this afternoon. OK.

    That’s why around 11 pm last night I put on my Acorns, got out of bed, and found the strong flashlight. Leo was at the basement door, alert, looking out with that eager, oh my god oh my god look dogs get when something fascinating has roused them from sleep. After sweeping the yard with my flashlight, I let him out. He went into the yard, sniffed, turned around and came back in. Gone, whatever it was. We both returned to sleep.

    Always good. Leo. Dogwatching.

     

    Got Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, Homegrown, a couple of days ago. Though I’m liking the History of the Two Koreas and about half through it, I’ve set it aside while I read this account of Timothy McVeigh’s life and terror and his influence on the current far right. This topic has me riveted. The more I learn about it the more I see it as a slow motion train wreck, one engine burning hate and fear and distorted notions of freedom and liberty, the other consuming ordinary dreams of an ordinary democracy in an extraordinary and deeply flawed nation. Guess which engine’s moving faster.

    Going at a problem at its roots. Radicals. That’s what we’ve tried to do. Those of us drawn to the extreme edge of political thought and action. For me: capitalism, oppression by dint of skin color and economic status, nationality, religious affiliation. For them: freedom defined by gun ownership, liberty defined by that yellow Gadsen flag, and the loss of unearned privilege seen as a Fisher King wound. We both looked back to the founding documents, to the willingness of early white settlers to take up arms against their government in the name of freedom and liberty. We both found that line in the Declaration of Independence: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” We both found energy in the revolutionary spirit of those times, its apparent idealism and the sacrifices made to break away from a perceived tyrant.

    Over the years since the heady days of the 1960’s I’ve had to polish off the rough edges of my thought, take it down a notch or two as negotiators like to say, not be so certain of my righteousness, or so correct in my solutions. It just occurred to me that could be a signal as to how this all may play out if we keep our heads, insist on the rule of law, don’t demonize the far right but let them see gradually the need to polish off the rough edges of their thought.

    We might end up with a society energized by those who insist on the individual as the atomic weight of our nation, 1, and others who insist on its atomic weight as equivalent to the whole of our population. The resonance between these two inflections could protect liberty and freedom for each of us while seeing to the welfare of us all.

    As an old radical, I still yearn for a socialist America where each contributes to his/her/their ability and each receives according to their need. For an America where individuals are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (MLK) Where my religious freedom ends where yours begins. Where we follow that French gift and its famous poem declaring us willing, even eager to accept your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free as a key component of our national character. That’s still my dream. And I’m still willing to fight for it. But not at the expense of our nation. No, not anymore.


    Dogs Politics US History

  • Unforgivable

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Acting class. Abby. Joan. Rebecca. Tal. Deb. Voices. Haunting voices. Dreams. Hail. Rain. Thunder. Lightning. Acting. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Almost finished as a script. Cool mornings. Good sleeping. A drive back in a Rain soaked Night. Again.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Feelings

    One brief shining: Last night a cool breeze came off Berrigan Mountain making the synagogue’s social hall comfortable while I shuffled my pages of The Trail to Cold Mountain and raised the music stand a bit.

     

    Most scripts are collaborative, Tal said. The playwright gives them to a director and a group of actors. Everybody has their say. I like that. I enjoyed writing this script. It felt natural to me. Might try a different idea. As well as a new novel.

    I know there is a certain amount of avoidance involved in starting a new novel while I have others at important stages of revision or with a few thousand words left to complete a first draft. Well, maybe more than a certain amount.

    However, it’s the act of writing (like I’m doing right now) that excites me, turns me on, and the rush of a new idea, or a new form? Wow. And since, for some reason, I don’t care about readers, or at least not enough to become skilled at marketing my work, why not go with the journey?

     

    Going to see Oppenheimer in about 45 minutes with Gabe. I found my copy of Oppenheimer: American Prometheus yesterday and brought it downstairs. I want to read it. Probably later in the fall. This is the book underlying the movie.

    Can you imagine having Nagasaki and Hiroshima on your heart? I can’t.

    Been reading in the Korean histories about the nuclear frisson there. How South Korea wanted the bomb but the U.S. walked them back from it. And, how an unfortunate series of preventable events led North Korea to pursue it. The whole rogue state thing was unnecessary. Could have been different.

     

    The big one has landed. Trump’s indictment in January 6th. Here’s a line from a fascinating Atlantic piece about it: “Enough of all this; we can love our friends and our family and our neighbors without accepting their terms of debate. To support Trump is to support sedition and violence, and we must be willing to speak this truth not only to power but to our fellow citizens.”  This is it.

    All else pales before a President who commits high crimes and misdemeanors. I agree. The rest is awful and unforgivable. Classified documents. Financial and sexual abuse of one sort and another. Yes, a despicable person. Sure. But for a President to act against the nation which elected him? A firing offense. Of course. But also a disqualifying one for future office.

    Of course. Innocent until proven guilty. Yet. We all know. Even, perhaps especially his followers and sycophants know. This man wanted to upend the peaceful transfer of power after a national election. That’s as far away from ok as a defrocked pedophilic priest saying the mass.


    Acting Politics US History Writing

  • No people

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Herme Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Cold Mountain. The path to Cold Mountain. Tom’s journey. The flaming sword that guards the entrance to Eden. Myth. The myths we live by. Odysseus. Achilles. Priam. Troy. Helen. Homer. Zeus. Hermes. Hera. Apollo. Poseidon. Hercules. God. Jesus. Mohammed. Mark. John. Matthew. Luke. Moses. Joshua. King David. King Solomon. Rebecca. Jacob. At the Jabbok Ford. Baucis and Philemon. Aphrodite. Lycaon. Cadmus and the dragon teeth warriors. Paul Bunyan. Babe the Blue Ox. Johnny Inkslinger.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Myth

    One brief shining: Took a can of cold seltzer Water out of the fridge it cooled my hand while I went upstairs to my home office where my computer waits always on for me to sit in that Herman Miller chair Kate bought me for a long ago birthday clicking on the keyboard the screen comes to life and I’m ready to get started on another post for Ancientrails.

     

    Three days in a row with no in person human contact. I needed it after last week. Left me tired, wrung out. Rode hard and put away wet. I did talk with my son and Seoah on Saturday night [AM Korea time] and BJ and Sarah on Sunday late afternoon. Other than that working out, reading about Korea, working on what is now titled The Trail to Cold Mountain, that sorta thing. Thinking about revelation, about faith as a secondary characteristic of revelation. About what is sacred. Holy. Divine. A full three days but quiet, peaceful. Restorative.

    Could go another two based on no class tonight and nothing on the calendar on Wednesday. But. Nope. Going out for breakfast. See some real people. Then back home for a day with The Trail to Cold Mountain. Herme is still the main character and it’s still his story, but I’m modifying it a lot thanks to Tal and Joan’s ideas.

     

    My son wants me to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering before I get to Korea. I’m doing that. It’s a very popular strategy game played around the world in person and online. He’s excited about a new batch of Magic cards that have just come out based on the Lord of the Rings. There’s an online tutorial. My next lesson is on Creature Combat. I remember when it was Zelda and Mario Brothers on the Nintendo. Long time ago.

     

    Reading about the Far Right has taken a back seat lately to Korea. Now some ways into Two Koreas. It’s a very different read from Korea’s Place in the Sun. Written by two journalists it has a more first person you were there feel to it. Will give me a different perspective on the war and postwar years. Enjoying it so far.

     

    Feeling the outwash from the jet engines on my plane to Incheon. Figuring out adapters and transformers. Smart phone and sim cards. How I can keep myself connected and charged while in Osan. Also learning a bit about the Seoul subway system. Probably will revisit my Korean lessons starting soon. Have to get spare keys made. Reserve an Uber for the airport. Check my drugs to make sure I have enough for a month away. Stop mail. Buy gifts and send them soon to the APO address for my son. No sense carrying them. Figuring out the lightest possible packing plan. All that stuff.

     

    Considering holding off on the crossing the threshold ritual until next year. Might be more than I can handle with Korea, conversion, Israel.

     

     


    Acting Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Travel US History World History

  • Korea and Reading

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    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.

     


    Asia Dogs Fourth Phase Judaism Korea Literature Politics US History World History