Category Archives: Commentary on the news

Beyond the Boundaries, Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate

America’s Id

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Amber and Lisa. Hummingbirds. Simple joys. Lisa. Her obvious concern and help. Derek, who offered to complete our fire mitigation work. A day of sunshine yesterday. Drove 150 miles yesterday to medical appointments. In air conditioned comfort. Tisha B’av. A day of mourning for the loss of the first and second temples. And, later, for all the trials of the Jews, including pogroms and the holocaust. A somber day. Yesterday.

A video maker held his Black Lives Matter sign in what he called the “most racist town in the U.S.,” Harrison, Arkansas. Here’s an edited version of that experience.

This video could be titled, America’s Id.

Also in America’s south, NASA successfully launched its Perseverance spacecraft. Headed to Mars with a helicopter and water seeking instruments, Perseverance continues the human fascination with life not of Earth. It will land in the middle of February, 2021 in Jezero Crater. An excellent explainer about why NASA chose Jezero is this July 28th article in the NYT.

Though Earthbound and isolated on Shadow Mountain Perseverance gives me a thrill. And, not just a thrill, but a scientific extension of my own interests. It pleases me in a deep way that we’ve not abandoned space exploration. Humans need to know, to explore, to test ideas and equipment. And, Mars! Speculations abound. I’m glad we Americans can still pull together for such an event. Looking forward to next February.

America’s Id and its shiniest example of hope. We are both, all. This time calls for Perseverance.

Commentary on the news, Health, Humor, Politics, US History

A Trumpburger

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: The clan. Riyadh. Singapore. San Francisco. Shadow Mountain. Cool mountain mornings. Beau Jo’s pizza. Kep walking on my back this morning. Rigel sniffing her way into breakfast. The new perspective aborning. Gettin’ ‘er done. That new drill. Those ten-year battery smoke detectors.

Let’s start with cows for relaxation.* Or, cow cuddling. Yes, it’s a trend. Before that steak dinner get up close. Might let some of those dairy farmers on the brink achieve a new revenue stream. Other than milk in a bucket. Why not? Cows are big. They’re warm. They’re ungulates.

Also prey animals. That’s the steak part. Probably something folks in India knew long ago. Sacred cows.

That was the sweet part. Let’s turn to jackbooted thugs wandering the streets of Portland grabbing U.S. citizens off the street. Homeland Security. Put in a picture here of my hat that reads: Let’s make Orwell fiction again. Where are all the second amendment freedom-loving Boogaloo bros? This is the kind of government overreach that they prattle on about. Could be a come to Jesus moment for the far right and the far left. Finally, an enemy we can agree on. Not holding my breath.

Then there’s cutting money for covid testing, contact tracing, and the CDC in the new Trumpian budget. More money for storm-troopers, a lot less money for the storm. Not forgetting the obvious move right now of the Administration lawsuit to zero out Obamacare. In the middle of a pandemic. Or consider. Who speaks for the W.H.O.? Not the plague flea in the Oval Office.

One positive for Biden’s campaign is Trump’s promise to restart the daily Coronavirus briefings that served him so well before. Let’s play another round of What Will He Say Next?

One thing he said next is that he will send Federal troops into other big cities. This is not the start of a dictatorship. It’s the realization of one. I’d like a black and white photoshopped image of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Trump. I will hang it on my wall as a precautionary tale for my grandkids.

Kate asked me the other day about the Trump Presidential Library. Always fun to speculate. Maybe big golden arches with an L.E.D. counter for lies. Let’s say it will start at 45,000. Inside will be screens of tweeted screed, a backroom full of unread briefing books and intelligence updates. Food, you ask? Of course, included in the $45 a person admission will be a large chocolate shake, a Trumpburger, and an order of Freedom Fries. That American Flag napkin is take-home souvenir.

What else can we do? We have to laugh at him. If we take him seriously, all is lost. He’s an unserious man, a man of no depth but infinite in his cruelty and his greed.

Vote. Please. Get your neighbor to vote. Get your family to vote. (No, not red hat Uncle Harry) but everybody else. Please. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Did I mention vote?

* “A farm in upstate New York is offering self-care seekers the chance to spend 90 minutes cosying up to cows. The Mountain Horse Farm explains that cows are “sensitive, intuitive animals” who will “pick up on what’s going on inside and sense if you are happy, sad, feel lost, anxious or are excited, and they will respond to that without judgement.”” Guardian

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Friends, Great Work, Health, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Torah, US History, Woolly Mammoths

A New Covenant

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Wednesday gratefuls: Mountain Waste. The Claussens, coming for my pallets. The much improved back. Mowed. Most of the detritus picked up and moved. Photographs from Scott of the Woollies at George Floyd’s death site. Sjogren’s, not Covid. Pork ribeye. Napa Cabbage. The heat. The coolness of the morning. Garbage bags.

And then the world came crashing back into my consciousness. Been following the coronavirus spikes, unable to shed the schadenfreude that accompanies the horror. All those people sick and dying because of Trump, Fox News, sychophancy. The Master Race putting its own head on the guillotine. Fixated on this, like looking at a fire in the fireplace or a gently moving fan.

Opened up the email from Woolly Scott. Pictures of my long time friends at the site of George Floyds’ death. Long arcs of dead and withering flowers freshened up by new bouquets. A line of soft toys, teddy bears and rabbits, looking both sad and sweet. Mark Odegard in an orange shirt, a mask, looking at the George Floyd mural. These are friends who lived through the sixties, who understand this holy site in the context of MLK, Malcolm X, the Civil Rights Act, The Voter Registration Act. All that.

Statues falling. Folks going after not only the Confederate memorials, but Founding Fathers like Washington and Jefferson. Or, later, Woodrow Wilson. The screeches of foul play coming from the dotard in chief. His allies revving up their motorcycles, donning their leathers, taking their automatic weapons off their racks and out of gun safes. Heading out to protect the constitution and their way of life. Their white privilege. A complicated time.

Here I am on the mountain top. Moved, but unmoved. A latter day Noah on his ark, Ararat below me. Can this earth flooded with hate and hope create a new world? Maybe I need a dove.

What might be the sign of a new covenant? A bonding among all humans agreeing to live sustainably on our only home, in peace with each other. I can still see the double helix as the trunk of a tree of life, its crown, its keter, in the heavens, its roots dug deep below the soil. This covenant I can feel.

Let’s all cut our fingers, slash our palms, swear a blood oath that we will live as if all of it, you and me, the Lodgepole, the Whale, the Mountain, the Ocean are holy. Worthy. Precious. Loved. That should do it.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Good News

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Thursday gratefuls: Chuck roast fork tender in the Instapot. Yum. The stillness. Only the occasional car on Black Mountain Drive. Just us and the critters. Wild and domesticated. PSA next week. Kate’s ostomy nurse referral. Kep and the bone from the chuck roast. Rigel and the bone from the chuck roast. Kate’s voracious reading. Robertson Davies.

Doomscrolling. Covidiot. (thanks, Tom) Mask maker, mask maker, make me a mask. At home with the virus raging outside. Like a wild snowstorm blowing across Shadow Mountain. So quiet here.

Generation hide. They told us it would be bunkers, radiation hazards. They prepared us with duck and cover drills. (though, to be honest, I don’t remember any.) Pamphlets. Civil defense sirens. Those yellow and black icons of danger. Nope.

The biohazard sign, triplet open crescents over a circle. Duck and cover = masks. Bunkers = self-quarantine, but, at least above ground. No sirens, just daily updated charts of the infection curve. Never flattened here. Here, in the United States of America. Maybe we should duck and cover. In shame.

Mutually assured destruction now means all those freedumb loving libertytards who refuse to wear masks. Who refuse to believe the virus is real. Or, if it is real, they believe it’s germ warfare. God, our fellow citizens as intentional disease vectors. What….?

Our generation sits behind closed doors. Those books on the nightstand now read. Newspapers, for those ancient of days who still receive them. TV tuned to Netflix. As the bleeding edge of the Baby Boom, we’ve been in a high risk category for over 10 years. Now it counts.

Those who like good news can find a lot of it on television. Though I long ago stopped watching infotainment, the protests get covered. What a joy they are in this otherwise bleak time. Young people speaking their minds. Yes, something’s happening here. And this time, it’s very clear.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Great Work, Health, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Que serait

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Tuesday gratefuls: Seoah in Singapore (and quarantine) 6 days. Rick, the stump grinder, reasonable prices. David and Ray not so much. But the lawn will get cut. Moving the pallets. Giving the log cutter tool to Derek. Kate’s idea. At more ease with cash. Work happening. The clan.

Venality, denial, racism, support for white supremacists, demeaning the disabled, grabbing pussies. And, now, the worst treason of all: ignoring Russian bounties on U.S. troops. Outrage seems far too mild a response. This man is, and has been from the start, not only unfit for office, but a radical dismantler of its authority. No wonder the world has shaken its head, laughed, then cringed. Beginning to move on from us. A world without us. America cannot take getting much greater. Too much winning.

United StatesOn June 2914-day changeTrend
New cases40,041+80%

This box from this morning’s NYT follows Covid 19. In the last two weeks Covid cases have jumped 80%! So much winning. This man has actively caused the deaths of thousands of U.S. citizens. Ignored a James Bond villain, Vladimir Putin, who authorized election tampering and pay for slay in Afghanistan against American soldiers. Not to mention tweeting positive utterances about white supremacists. No, not only the “good people on both sides” remark, but new ones. Including the pink shirted man and the barefooted woman holding guns on protesters outside their St. Louis mansion.

Who would rid us of this troublesome President?

On a more upbeat note I scheduled my third Lupron influenced PSA for July 7th. I see my oncologist, Dr. Eigner, on the 17th and Dr. Gilroy, who managed my radiation, on August 3rd. A year ago I was in the midst of the 5 day a week drives out to Lone Tree. Lying down on the altar of sacrifice, listening to the Band.

Nope, I don’t think about cancer much. Life goes on until it doesn’t. Freezers go bad. (ours continue to chug along for now) Yards need mowing. Seoah’s in Singapore. Wildfires are possible. The future’s not ours to see.

Meanwhile, carbon emissions.

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

RAHOWA

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Monday gratefuls: The crew. David and Ray. The stump grinder coming by today. Will James for those two trees too close to the house. No one yet for slash moving, pallet moving. Maybe me? Protest. Protests. Protesting. Go, team. Reparations debate. The four horsemen: Covid, Trump, Racism, Economic crisis. End times for the GOP.

Perhaps this is the long awaited (at least since Hair) dawning of the age of Aquarius. Transitional times. Always, always hard. Power shifting. Values changing. Old ways struggling to hold on. White supremacy doesn’t understand its role. RAHOWA. Racist holy war. The Boogaloo Bois, skinheads, and their ilk. The action is not in their intent, but in the now advancing reaction to it. They’ve got their RAHOWA, but they won’t like the result.

Always boiling, roiling, disturbing. Enslavement and its aftermath. 400 plus years of the peculiar institution and its continuing pain. Not gone, not even past, as Faulkner would say. Like a pressure cooker. The lid has been on so long that nobody knows how powerful its release will be. Mighty. Surprising.

It makes me happy, joyous. May the struggle continue until every vestige of superior and inferior gets purged from the land of the free. May the struggle continue until the content of character does replace skin color. May the struggle continue until Jews, Women, Blacks, Latinos, Asians walk without looking over their shoulder for the next insult. The path out of Egypt is long. And, it is not easy. But the promised land, that dream of America as a place where you and I, both of us, protect each other, love each other. That’s worth it.

Power to the people! Right on!

Aging, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Great Work, Health, Minnesota, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, US History, World History

Wow

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate’s interstitial lung disease is stable. Now for almost a year! Her stamina let her, yesterday: go in for her pacemaker check, her blood work for her physical, and into Joann Fabrics to shop for mask making materials. She also got up early and got on the Clan call. Can’t imagine her doing this six months ago. The snow came. The snow went. Still cool though.

Yesterday was busy. Got up for the Clan call, ate breakfast, then talked with Michele, the home health care nurse, about Kate’s feeding tube. Nap. Then 4 hours plus going to Kate’s heart doc, the lab for her bloodwork, and finally to Joann Fabrics. No time to write.

Still tired this morning. My stamina’s not what it was either.

Understanding what’s going on right now? Priceless. And, impossible. The strong ropes of disruption woven by the coronavirus, the economic crisis, and, now, the rising and welcome wave of unrest will weave themselves together into a hawser capable of hauling us all into a new future.

There will be discontinuities with the past. Masks and social distancing will persist for months, as will staying at home for the older ones among us. How we can care for the hourly wage workers displaced, for the small businesses that go bankrupt or are severely damaged, for the economy as a whole could take years to sort out. The Black Lives Matter movement may unlock the biggest changes of all. And, of course, climate change continues its role as a disrupter of the past.

I’m excited about all of this. America, the world’s indispensable nation, has failed to live into its dreams of a racially diverse nation. That may be changing right now. We’ve never valued the low wage worker, dismissed them from our health care system and a path forward. These same workers saved our lives at risk to their own. Not by choice in most cases, but that’s the point. They work where they do because these are the jobs of our day. Important jobs. Each and every day. Small businesses, not Walmart or Target or Kroger’s or Wendy’s or McDonalds, make a place unique, local. They’re in deep trouble now which could mean a greater homogenization of our retail businesses unless economic reforms gain more traction.

Yes, it’s scary. No, the change will be neither consistent nor smooth. But it’s happening. We are responsible for guiding it in productive and valuable ways. Making sure we rid ourselves of the great divider is most important, but even a Democratic sweep in November won’t ensure success. A change of governance is essential, but insufficient. You and I need to watch, pay attention, act. For the rest of our lives.

Wow. What a time.

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Friends, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

A Change in the Weather

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: Gray rain Clouds over Black Mountain. The blue Sky behind and above them. The two young Bucks dining on our grass yesterday. This weakened body, ready to be free from Lupron…and cancer. Protests. And, the protesters. The police. Those whose lives have been damaged in the last six months whether by Covid, or job loss, or police brutality. Each Black life heartened. A new day dawning. I fervently hope.

Ghosts. During my workout yesterday I did a triceps exercise, close-grip on workout bench. I could hear Dave telling me, “If you want to make it harder, just take your chest closer to the bench.” It was as if he were in the room, encouraging me. The reality of the experience shocked me.

All day yesterday and still this morning a gray cloud like the one over Black Mountain hangs in my inner world. Not quite to melancholy, but close. This world is too much with me, late and soon.

I wonder, why am I not like this all the time right now? That’s an encouraging thought. Why? Because it means I’ve learned to accept the reality around me, the moments of grace as well as the moments of sadness and sorrow. I’m not pushing either of them away, nor am I letting any of them dominate me. They come and they go.

Shadow Mountain is far away from Lake and Hiawatha in Minneapolis. Far away from my friends joining with others there. Far away from the folks with whom I worked over many years. It feels strange to not be there. Just another of the wispy clouds floating in the sky of my inner world.

The outer winds blowing here this morning are coming from the east, not usual. It’s as if the power of change sweeping through the Twin Cities has caused a change in our Front Range weather. May it be so for us, and the rest of our country, the rest of our world.

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

Lift the knee

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Wednesday gratefuls: Trash pickup. Silicone. Glass. Rubber. Books. Red books. Green books. Yellow books. Big books. Small books. Heavy books. Light books. Children’s books. Authors. Writers. Keyboards. Fingers on keyboards. Sounds. The wind in the trees. Neil Diamond radio on Pandora. The cello. Motorcycles. The hiss of tires on Black Mountain Drive. Rigel’s insistent voice. Kep’s warning bark. Kate’s voice in the night.

Social convulsions. Seizures in our cities, on our streets. This dystopian nation with all its flaws exposed. Exposed is a key word. The dystopian face of this nation has always been turned towards African-Americans and Latinos and Native people. They’ve seen it, slept with it, worried about their children being seen by it.

Some of us, sometime allies, have seen it, too. It has a scowl of disapproval, that face. The occasional smirk. A condescending laugh. That white face. Oh, didn’t I say? It’s your face. My face. Our face. Teresa of Avila said:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

I say, replace Christ with the Devil. Replace compassion with scorn. Replace good with evil. Replace blesses with curses. Then you’ll have the body that carries that face. Our original sin. Not original to us, of course. Racism crackles in all shades of melanin, but only through the conduit of power. No power. No racism.

It is, now, a time of sorrow. We may not emerge, may not find joy for some time. The disease will let up. The economy will recover. Yes. But racism? Without root and branch work, it will stay. It kills more people than Covid 19. It forces more people to dream about a stable life than any recession ever did.

When will we get our knee off the neck of fellow human beings?

Commentary on the news, Politics, US History

They’ll Bite

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Tuesday gratefuls: Green. Light. Dark. Muted. Flagrant. Grass up the mountainsides. The Creeks running full with Snow melt. Mule Deer young ones enjoying the fresh, soft food. The view from the mountaintop. The riots. The economic crisis. Covid 19. America, our failed state. Our home. Us. In pain and tears and sick, but still our home, still Us.

For months, over a year plus, I’ve slept well, little disturbs me. Last night though. I woke up and that image, the one of Trump holding up the Bible near the sign of St. John’s Episcopal, that one. It wouldn’t move away from my inner eye. And it disturbed my equanimity. Roiled me. Made me mad, anxious.

I did something similar twenty years or so ago. When I felt powerless. Kate developed a systemic herpes infection and lost her voice. The practice where she worked wouldn’t let her back to work. Kate and I had lunch with Tom Staley, the lead doc for the group, Metropolitan Pediatrics.

When we went to the lunch, I took a Bible with me and placed it on the table. Tom’s a cradle Catholic and I thought it might work on his conscience. I’m embarrassed by that now. I took the Bible with me to enhance our power, instead I revealed how vulnerable we felt.

He is a weak man. Fearful. Bunkerman. Hiding from the protesting outside the Whitehouse. He’s a stupid man, wanting to use the military to push down an already pushed down people.

Never force an insecure dog into a corner. They’ll bite.