Category Archives: Commentary on the news

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.

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Friends, Minnesota, Third Phase, US History

I Can’t Breathe

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: The sun. The protests. The peaceful protesters and the others. Consciousness rising. Again. Still. All my Minnesota friends. Especially Joanne Platte who worked at the Town Talk Diner. Another three set day in my resistance workout. The pain in my shoulder. The pain in my heart. Seoah, who has bought special treats for Kep.

A voice from our past:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” Thomas Paine, The Crisis

These are the days of our lives. Hard to believe that, in the middle of a pandemic, civil rights emerge, still repressed, suppressed, volatile. No, violence and looting. Yes, violence and looting. Put yourself in the heart of people who cannot run in Atlanta without getting shot. Who can’t put on masks for fear they’ll be considered criminals. Who have to teach their children what to do when the police stop them so as not to provoke a George Floyd response. Or, an Eric Garner. Not if, but when.

Imagine you’ve been in stay at home for weeks. Imagine that your community has been harder hit than the privileged whites who live next door or a few blocks away. Imagine that someone you know has had a bad experience with the police for driving while brown. Imagine that your son or daughter is brown. Now, see that video of the flagrant murder, the callous murder of George Floyd. Is your first thought charitable? Even your second one?

The Moon of Sorrow acquired another meaning. As if it needed one. Racism so permeates our culture that it is not visible to those who benefit from it. That’s us, at least those of you whom I know read this.

Plague. Racism. Climate change. Our work is not done, the race not complete.

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Jefferson County, Mussar, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Speak

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Wednesday gratefuls: The steer that gave his life for our ribeye. The potato, long underground, now eaten. Sweet corn. Mushrooms. Garlic. And, the helpers, butter, Tony’s prime rib rub. Seoah’s cleaning. Kate’s bowl hot pads. More sewing by her. A Red Flag Warning day. Second in a row. Heightened awareness. Taking out the trash.

The clan gathered. Mark says covid cases are down in Saudi Arabia. Might be the heat. Mary sent a drone video of a quieted Singapore. Diane reports no mask, no shopping in San Francisco. We have a VP sweepstakes going, final chips down on May 31. Prize will be one of Kate’s bowl hot pads and a Katydidit mask.

Apres zoom Seoah and I went to the grocery store. I went in, first time in quite awhile since I’ve been using pickup. Sorta wanted to. Bought only a few things: sandwich bags, pasta, snicker’s in the fun size for the freezer. Seoah did the vegetable shopping and bought more mineral water. She doesn’t like the taste of our well water. What taste?

A young couple came into the store as I entered. Oh, I see you’re not wearing masks. I’m 73. You’re putting me in danger. You’re turning away. You should feel ashamed. I’m finding my voice in this masked/unmasked world. Did the same thing at Beau Jo’s a week or so ago. An older woman tapped me on the shoulder. I agree with you. Ever since juniors weren’t allowed to go to the senior prom in Alexandria (1963) I’ve chosen to say out loud what some people keep to themselves. But, want to say.

I know at times I’m shrill. Or, a scold. I’m not willing to suffer fools silently since silence in the face of evil only encourages the bastards to believe there are no consequences. Yes, the three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Sometimes I’m not fully there on the last one. I want to be but my anger over, say, racism or flaunting disease protection protocols, often gets in the way. Working on it.

And, yes, self-righteous. Well, nobody’s perfect, eh?

In Korea the nation is open now, but everyone wears masks outside the home. If everybody wore masks, I’d feel safer and more comfortable out of the house. Though to be fair I did read an epidemiologist and m.d. authored article that said getting infected is unlikely in a shopping situation like a grocery store. They’re big, lots of air circulation, short period of exposure. That sort of thing. However. Choosing where to wear masks only makes overall compliance weaker. Let’s keep them on until we get those downward numbers consistently.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Up, down

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Thursday gratefuls: Kate’s slowly healing fingers. The bowl hot pads she’s making. Finding her in her sewing room. Yeah! Yeah! Seoah’s concern about what happens to us when she leaves. Rigel’s blood work. Good except for slightly elevated creatinine. Getting some of my workout in yesterday. New floods for the loft. LED. Blue skies smiling at me. Green Trees and Black Mountain. Shansin filled with love, canine and human. Two meat bundles from Tony’s bought before the oncoming crisis at slaughter houses. Ruby finally clean. Rigel back from her wobbly, painful Tuesday.

As states reopen, it is clear what will follow. Our numbers as a nation, for deaths, for infections, for carriers without symptoms, for increased division between the masked and the unmasked, will multiply. It’s the nature of infection, of putting a penny on one square of a chessboard, then two on the next, then four on the next. You know the result.

Whether or not Trump realizes this, he’s placing a huge, a mega-whopper wager, the worst wager, the worst bet of all time, that the economy will rise before his election chances sink under a sea of body bags. He’ll lose that bet, but not before thousands more die and the infection fills hospitals.

Instead of the United States, folks around the world will refer to us as Little Italy with a bigger problem. You may have heard, or even read, Fintan O’Toole’s column in the Irish Times, THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT. If you haven’t, here’s the link to a copy of it.

I go up and down. Right now down. Can’t think too much about the armed protesters in Michigan, the willingness to choose the economy over sensible precautions. Puts me out of the now and into a tomorrow I find distressing to imagine. Stay up, Charlie, on Shadow Mountain. With your Family and Dogs. With the Trees and the Mountains. Read the Talmud. Exercise. Write. Play. Let tomorrow come in its own time and in the way it will come.

Commentary on the news, Dreams, Health, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Slow to Wake

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Spring and Corona Lunacy II

Monday gratefuls: Sweet potato pizza. No, really. Seoah found it on a Korean youtube cooking channel. Kate’s good days. Sleep. Lots of it. Bernard Cornwall and the TV adaptation of his Saxon novels: The Last Kingdom. The blue sky. The sun. Black Mountain. Cogency.

Sleep. Until 6:45. Usually up at 5:30 (or, 4:30 in the true time). Dreaming, unwilling to rise. Even though Kep jumped on me. Rigel barked. Kate poked me. Couldn’t. Get. Up. Finally. Still not awake. Writing anyhow.

Don’t know what to say next.

Check on the idiot. Who spent seven hours tweeting, retweeting. On Sunday. A nod to his evangelical sycophants? Not sure about that, but I am sure, after having read a Washington Post article that this guy is decompensating. He seems scared, isolated, unsure of what to do next. Imagine the prison a high profile, powerful job like President could be if you no longer felt you could do it. Instead of anger I’m beginning to feel sorry for DJT. Out of his depth, no tools. Months more in office with a crisis like no other roiling the waters.

If you love him, let him go. How his followers, his base base, should act toward him now.

Got further on reorganizing the loft. A periodic task which, when complete, energizes me. Will finish this week if the banker boxes come.

Of course, I have to wake up first. Soon. I hope. Things to do, but no places to go.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Writing

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Covid

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Spring and the Corona Lunacy

Monday gratefuls: Kate in her sewing room. Making cloth masks. With pockets for coffee filters. So good. Oh Death by Ralph Stanley. Talking about death with my old friends on Zoom. Mario, it’s still too abstract. More real in our 80’s or 90’s. Glad he thinks so. The Riyadh, Singapore, San Francisco, Rocky Mountain connection. Got out Jennie’s Dead, started reading. Will start writing when I’m caught up. Feeling better overall.

Might be the imminence of spring. Might be the space between bloody January and today. Might be Kate’s incremental improvements with her fingers and her leaking problems. It certainly is not the current state of Covid-19 testing. Whatever it is, maybe just my cyclical psyche ready for a new era, I’m feeling strong.

Organizing my loft. Again. A periodic task necessitated either by a long down period like this last one or a time of full on work like I’m entering now. Another facet of this change might be an inverse response to cabin fever. I can’t go out, so I may as well go in.

Brother Mark sent me a picture from a rally, a sign that said, Give me Liberty or Give me Covid. These folks understand liberty and freedom in their most restrictive meaning. Liberty means you can’t tell me what to do and freedom means only freedom from, not freedom for, too.

Both have more expansive connotations. Liberty is also the ability to choose for others, to use your power, your resources on behalf of your neighbors. Freedom is not only freedom from the unreasonable intrusion of the state or the opportunity to follow your own dreams wherever they may lead. It’s also freedom to choose community responsibility. Freedom to vote, to organize, to lift up your nation. To stay in your home not only on your own behalf, but also in service to your elders, to the vulnerable.

Give me liberty or give me Covid illustrates too well the blinkered version of Lady Liberty, the one proclaimed by those yellow flags with the snake. That liberty means stay the fuck outta my way. Or, else. Misunderstanding the nature of liberty can be fatal. That sign proves it. Not sure how, or even if, this truncated view of two basic American values gets remedied. Especially if the false choice between liberty and illness gains traction.

What do you when the treasonous bastard encouraging these already misguided folks is the President? Save your sacred Second Amendment, he says. And the connection to all of this is what? Shoot the sick ones? As a New York Times story title says: Head of Government Encourages Anti-Government Protesters. This is where Kristallnacht came from. We’re way past the turn off for a reasonable resolution to this stand off.

What comes next? No idea.

Aging, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Politics, Third Phase, US History, World History

Never again

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Spring and the Corona Lunacy

Saturday gratefuls: Brenton and his concern for Murdoch. Nursing assistant skills I’ve learned. Kate’s reduced leakage. Rigel, that rascal. Her spring fever digging at the edge of our deck. The solar snow shovel. Thursday’s snow all gone on the roadways. Remembering Mom and the garden spider at our breakfast table window. Trips to Stratford, Ontario.

Watching Orwell come alive again. Still. With Trump. Using the word liberated to incite insurrection against legally elected government officials. LIBERATE MICHIGAN! Even Minnesota. Calm, orderly, polite, compassionate Minnesota. Treason is a capital crime, a crime emanating from our capitol. Playing to his base in the basest way possible: hand out money, fan understandable frustration into the flames of unrest. Friends, it’s alternate universe time.

Life in the slow, slow, sloth lane. While all that swirls around, we eat breakfast, feed our dogs, shake our heads.

And in the third year of a faux monarch’s reign came a plague, not just here, but all across the world. Before this plague our country, beautiful and vibrant, had become ugly, violent, cruel. Now we’re sick and dying. What the hellfire and brimstone preachers called Old Testament times. Yet it is not long ago, not in a world of different customs and languages, but in our time, in our nation. It makes my heart sick. My head ache.

How can we teach our grandchildren that this is not what a nation is? When the Wizard of Oz pulls the curtains aside himself and makes clear that all he has are levers and knobs and steam whistles where competency need to be, what do we say to them? How do we explain that we have stood for freedom, for true liberation, for inclusion, compassion for the poor, the sick, and the elderly?

It was true in my memory, I’ll say. No, of course it was never all this or all that, of course not, but never did we have a party and a President who made it their holy crusade to pollute the rivers and skies, cage children, glorify sexual predation, and those made ill by race hatred. Never did we have a President and a party who praised our enemies and blamed our allies. America, like any nation, has always had greed, servants of Mammon, but rarely have we turned our government into a mechanism for siphoning money from the poor into their hands.

No, I’ll say, this is not us. It just is not us and it will require your good will, your good sense, your compassion, your sense of justice to make right. I hope you, Ruth and Gabe, can muster all these, can grow into the leaders who remedy the failures of this time. I will support you and any of your generation who are able.

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Jefferson County, Judaism, Music, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Narrow, Pharaoh Mind

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Wednesday gratefuls: The garbage collectors. Zaidy’s Deli for Seder fixings. Jewcy for the Haggadah. Kate’s no leak bandage routine. Seoah’s potato and sausage soup. New kabbalah class starting today. Learning and the ability to learn. Books. Printing presses. Newspapers. The much maligned, but oh so important news media. Diane’s willingness to get up early to talk. Mark and Mary in month long lock downs (of varying strictures). Gov. Polis and Mayor Hancock (Denver) for stepping up. Jeffco, too.

What’s the idiot up to now? That’s how I think of my first look at the news when I get up. These days though I find the question moot. He already did it by screwing up the testing, playing keep away with the national stockpile of medical equipment, and blaming, blaming, blaming rather than acting.

John Prine died. One of my favorite musicians. Hello in There. Angel from Montgomery. Ballad of Sam Stone. An American original like Bob Dylan, who was a fan of John’s. Covid-19.

Passover starts tonight. Easter is on Sunday. Zaidy’s Deli in Denver, performing a mitzvah, offered takeaway Seder boxes with matzo, Manischewitz blackberry wine, brisket, haroset and other sides, items for the seder plate. Rigel and I drove over to CBE yesterday to pick up our order. Eve, the executive director at CBE, had put haggadahs in there.

Like many synagogues, most, I imagine, CBE will hold a virtual Passover meal on Thursday night. We’ll use the Jewcy Haggadah, the ritual for the service. It has the famous four questions including how is this night different from all other nights?

The primary purpose of Passover is to recount to children the foundational story of the Hebrew slaves and their liberation from Egypt. Kids hunt for the hidden afikoman, a piece of matzah, and get a reward if they find it. They also hear about all the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, sing songs, and generally have a good time.

Passover brings many friends and family, including a Gentile or two or more, into a bubbe’s home. Not this year. The story with the plagues has been changed by a plague. The irony has not been missed. Many of our friends are sad because this is a joyous occasion, a time to celebrate, and not having folks in the house will seem very strange.

At passover we move from a narrow place, a narrow pharoah mind, to an expansive place, the Promised Land. Rabbi Jamie in last week’s morning prayers, Maladies and Melodies.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

We Are At Home

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Spring and the full Corona Luna

Tuesday gratefuls: A good workout. All the delivery people: USPS, UPS, Fedex. Again, and still, all the service workers, warehouse workers, truck drivers, doctors, nurses, governors and mayors who’ve chosen to confront life under the pandemic. And, again, the coronavirus for unveiling the lies we tell ourselves to preserve our status, our pollution, our failed economic systems. Seoah, who cleans and cooks and smiles and laughs and orders from Lululemon.

The snow is melting. We’ve had bright sun shiny days. Jeffco put the entire county on stage 1 fire restrictions indefinitely. It’s unusual for that restriction to come this early, with much snow still to come. Not good news.

What would happen right now if we had a major disaster, like a wildfire? It would up end our life here and create a turmoil wherever we had to go. Or, an earthquake in California. A hurricane hitting Florida or New Orleans. Tornadoes in the south. Disasters during an ongoing disaster. Are we ready for these? They will happen.

We’ve flagged off our housecleaner for the second time. We’ve continued to pay her though, as we will pay our hair stylist. These are one woman businesses. They are our contract employees so we’re supporting them. How long? Don’t know.

Seoah cleans so we’re ok. And the hair? Somebody said a couple of weeks ago that we were only three weeks from knowing everybody’s true hair color. Shaggy’s been my look most of my life. Another couple of months is NBD.

Another zoom time this morning with Clan Keaton. Linking the far flung Ellises and our first cousin, Diane. Mark sent me a clip from the Arab News announcing a 24 hour curfew in Riyadh. Residents can only go out between 6am and 3pm for food and medicine. Today begins a month long lockdown in Singapore with somewhat looser restrictions. San Francisco’s been shelter in place for longer than most.

All this physical distancing and social distancing has begun to work. How much it will flatten the curve and what happens when it ends are still uncertain. Like our lives.