Category Archives: Asia

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Hawai'i, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

Lucky and Privileged

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Cybermage Bill Schmidt. The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Joan. The Bread Lounge. Jamie and Benji. Rich and Ron. My son. Jon’s estate. Leo. Luke. Tal. CBE. The Parking Spot. Checking off my before Korea list. Close to done. Gray Skies before Great Sol has come above the horizon. Mountain Streams now running lower. That fourteen point Mule Deer Buck on Black Mountain Drive. Gracie and Ann. Janet. Metaphors, shaping our world. Shaping our metaphors, shaping our world. The brain. Consciousness. The sacred.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain in the Mountains

One brief shining: Pre-trip excitement beginning to rise, packing Artemis honey in bubble wrap (the last large jar), that Breckenridge tumbler, too, rolling up the t-shirts with Mountains and Buffaloes on them, the dish towels with Beavers and Mountain Goats, the children’s books about the Rocky Mountains, Colorado and Mountain stickers, carefully placing them all in that Chinese box that brought something here a while back, then packing tape, packing tape, packing tape along with an APO address and it’s off to Korea ahead of me.

 

Feeling lucky and privileged this morning. Healthy enough to travel at 76. Money enough to travel. Family I want to see living in a place I’m excited to explore further. Korea. Feeling the collision of four big events coming in this next week: the showcase on my first ever play script on Saturday plus Tuesday class and Thursday dress rehearsal, my first lesson with Rabbi Jamie for my conversion on Thursday, finishing up my travel plans by counting my drugs and ordering what I need if any, talking to Vince, Luke, nailing down how much money I’ll need in my bank account, and my appointment with Kristie where my drug holiday will probably be officially begun.

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled. Last time was to Hawai’i. My son and Seoah. I’ve not done any international travel since Kate and I went to Korea in 2016 for my son and Seoah’s wedding. This time I’m going radically light. Only a backpack with meds, electronics, one t-shirt, one pair of socks. I’ll buy socks, t-shirts, underwear when I get there. I already have some pants and shirts there as well as a split keyboard and a mouse. There’s been a lot of lost luggage this summer travel season and I want to travel light. Also, no direct flights. I don’t mind checking a bag onto a direct flight, but if there’s even one stop? Nope. Not sure yet what I’m going to do for Israel. Probably the same.

My whole family travels much more than I do, so this would be no big deal for them, but for me it feels like quite the adventure.

 

Looking at the devastation in Lahaina. Found my heart sinking, wondering most about the fate of the Banyan Tree around the court house. Relieved to see it was damaged, but not killed. A picture of a woman who spent five hours! in the ocean. So, so sad. 60 deaths. Knowing someday it could be Shadow Mountain captured by the news.

Acting, Asia, Writing

Fusion energy

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: A great workout yesterday. Murdoch, the hooman. 15 days till Korea. Whoa. 11 days till the showcase. Whoa! Memorizing. Acting. Writing. My new idea for a novel. Desiderata day. Great Sol, our energy, our life. The Wild Neighbors. Han Shan. Chinese poetry. Chan Buddhism. Asian history. K-dramas. Korean literature. China. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Monkey’s Journey to the West. The Dream of the Red Chamber. Outlaws of the Marsh.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Asia

One brief shining: Murdoch sat hind legs crouched, front legs straight on the leather bench next to my son, gazing across the table at another man in a blue US Airforce t-shirt as if ready to join the conversation and I got three pictures in quick succession from Seoah across the 9,000 miles that separate us something families do.

 

Closing in on being off book for The Trail to Cold Mountain. Maybe today, certainly this week. Good thing since the showcase is a week from Saturday. Remembered I have logs in the back already cut. Will try to lift one this evening. Still no cloak or boots. I’ve gone from being frustrated and tired of the whole thing back to energized.

When I work on things like this, I have them in my head as a priority task. All the time. You know, that nagging thing you need to finish. But can’t quite seem to get to. At least not enough to close it out. At some point with each of my novels I’ve reached that point. The energy drains out of them. The story is stale. It’ll never be any good. I want to chuck it, start over, or start something new.

Got there with the Trail to Cold Mountain last week. I had to perform last during the class. It was well past 8 and I was tired, my body beginning to wind down for sleep. I gave an unspirited, clunky version of my piece. Fell right into the writer/actor abyss. Why have I bothered with this? I’ll never act anyway. Maybe I’ll say I can’t make the showcase. Won’t matter. I’ve done what I wanted.

Except. I didn’t. I kept memorizing even though it felt like a waste. Then, a breakthrough. As I got close to having it all down, my excitement about Han Shan and even the work I’d written returned. I can do this. I’ll introduce Chinese Rivers and Mountains poetry to a new audience, blending my words and his. Donning the costume, using the gourd water bottle and the logs, the parchment paper filled with Cold Mountain’s poetry. Herme will have his night to shine.

And, it just occurred to me, that threshold will be crossed. In the months after Kate died I felt and lived like a hermit with benefits. Friends, that is. The notion of the Hooded Man from the Tarot Deck, so strong an archetype for me. I had him created in neon. Herme.

Now I’m bringing that archetype to life, blending it with the Asian pivot my whole family, save for me, has made. A fusion of life with family Mary, Mark, Seoah, my son, Murdoch, the Jangs, life with friends Tal, Alan, Joan, Deb, Rebecca, and life with CBE-classes held there, performance at the synagogue’s amphitheater, Tal my teacher, the Rabbi’s son.

To be clear. This does not constitute all I wanted to do with the threshold ceremony. I still want to do the mezuzah hanging ritual and a celebration of male aging. Pushing it off to next year, maybe my birthday. 77.

Acting, Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Travel, US History, World History

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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.

 

 

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

Korea and Reading

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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, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism

The Hermit Kingdom

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Saturday gratefuls: Leo coming up for the night. Fruit salad. Sleep. Good sleep. Korean history. Changing my view of northern east Asia. First full draft of Herme complete. For the acting class. Going to work with it today. Finding my sweet spot with exercise, reading, eating out with friends. A full life. Brother Mark and his rental car. The trap of desiderata. Opening myself further. Living on Shadow Mountain. In my mostly finished home. All the Creeks, Streams, Rivulets, Ponds, Marshes of the Mountains

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Change

One brief shining: A therapist lives in my finger tips ready to take on any inner problem dice it up, spread it out on the page for consideration and evaluation then continue on through a resolution that often ripples through my lev in a way I can feel in my chest, the issue put in a new context, revealed as an old pattern, or tucked away behind my ear as a learning to keep close.

 

Went part way down the hill to Morrison. The Cow. Alan and I met there for breakfast. It was a Friday, but the damned place was so busy. We had to wait twenty minutes. The closest sort of Mountain town to Denver Morrison sits right next to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater. Downtown has plenty of places to hoover up tourist cash. The Cow among them. Apparently the only breakfast place though. Which makes sense since Red Rocks Concerts are evening affairs.

Alan’s first question when I told him about my planned conversion? When’s your bar mitzvah? Hadn’t thought about that. Maybe around my birthday next year?

 

Spent most of yesterday reading in a one volume history of Korea, Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings. I’m about halfway through and finding it fascinating. He focuses on contemporary Korea, but had to give an overview of earlier Korean history to put this time period in context. I’ve learned so many new things. How little I know about Asian history for one. I mean I knew I didn’t know much but the vast field of my ignorance has never been more obvious. It matters, too. Not my ignorance specifically but the general ignorance of Americans about Asia and its long, long history.

Up until the end of the nineteenth century Korea was the little brother to China. Korea’s king went to the Emperor of China for investiture and the two nations had cordial relationships, including significant trade. But. China took no role in Korea’s internal affairs nor its external affairs except to serve as a deterrent to outside invaders. Korea kept itself to itself, repelling foreigners with force. That’s how it came to have the title the Hermit Kingdom.

Did you know we had a military government in Korea from 1945 to 1948, immediately following the collapse of its Japanese occupation? Or, that the communists who were influential in the North were Russians, not Chinese? I didn’t. Only a hint of the insights and new facts I’ve gained.

Art and Culture, Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah

Calligraphy and OMG channel

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Air. Thin air. Earth. Wind. And Fire. Elemental, my dear Watson. Sherlock Holmes. Perry Mason. Hercule Poirot. Daiglish. Mystery. Mysteries. Books. The written word. The spoken word. Acting. Herme. Han Shan. Whitman. Rilke. Rumi. Oliver. Harrison. Lee Child. CJ Box. Richard Powers. Idris Elba. Ethan Hawke. K-dramas. The lev, the mind-heart. The Moon. The  Sun. Our Home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writers

One brief shining: A Mountain morning blue Sky above Black Mountain curving behind the Lodgepoles in my Yard a cup of coffee and water on the desk my fingers dancing on the keyboard not only an extension of the curves and folds of my brain but of my lev saying things before I think them reading what I have written to know what I’m saying the joy of writing.

 

 

Calligraphy. An art almost unknown to Americans, even more so to millenials who have famously not been taught cursive writing. When Kate, my son, and I went to China, I remember we went to a national museum in Beijing. I was excited because I had always found Chinese art compelling. Disappointed. The exhibits were all calligraphy. Mostly long sheets of rice paper [made from mulberry leaves] with the squiggles and wiggles of Chinese cursive ideograms. Unintelligible. It took a while for me to realize the power of what I’d seen. How I wish now I could return to that exhibit.

Oddly, many at CBE remember me for a project during one Kabbalah class focused on the Hebrew alphabet. Using sumi-e brushes and black ink from Japan I drew many of the Hebrew characters in a flowing cursive, put a small verse beside them, then signed with my chop I purchased when in Beijing. The small red mark of my name contrasted with the black of the aleph and bet and vav and nuns. I set up tables and had everyone try the experience of using sumi-e brushes.

Mark Odegard sent me an image of a Han Shan, Cold Mountain, poem he had done by a Chinese calligrapher. What a beauty. Made me want to own a nice piece of calligraphy for my home. Searching for one.

 

Had a bad time Friday evening and Saturday morning. I let the worm of anemia enter my omg channel. Usually I get diagnostics back from my blood work the next day on Quest Diagnostics. The result of the latest round of blood draws, taken Thursday, has not been posted. I think some maintenance issue on the Quest website. However, it left me wondering about anemia with no helpful information to counteract speculation. Internal bleeding? Probably not, although not to be ruled out. Low iron or vitamin B? The blood tests will show. So I went to the logical place next: leukemia. I have cancer already, why not two kinds rather than one? With no data my mind went down that road pretty easily.

Here’s the thing. I’m not afraid to die, but I’d prefer later thank you very much. Still. Could be now? Right? I’m ok with that, yes, but again, not my preference. I went over the legacy such as it is. My writing. Friendships and family. This stand and that for justice. Perhaps a few original ideas not well developed. Got sadder as I thought. The evening was chilly, rainy. Gloomy. Outside mirroring inside.

Took me a bit of time to right the ship. Not long but not before I’d had a persistent gnawing angst for a few hours. Didn’t disturb my sleep however.

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase

A tale of two

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Thursday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Their two pups. Heidi. Psilocybin. Dr. Gonzalez today. Mussar. My wedding ring Kate bought in Taos. Amazing changes in my sense of self. Dogs. Kep and Rigel, their memories a blessing. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. Our Planet. Its travels with us as passengers. Shorter travel to Korea and Israel. An open heart. A clear mind. Tara. Luke. Leo. Vastness. Wildness. Wilderness. Ocean depths.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The World Ocean

One brief shining: A moment to remember the Titan and its now dead passengers perhaps we could call them explorers who lost their lives on the real final frontier a watery realm extending all the way round Mother Earth and little known in any detail yet why I wonder pay to risk your life in this way. Why?

 

Understanding Whitman more and more. I am large, I contain multitudes. Sometimes I don’t recognize the person I was moments or hours before. Sure my twenty year old self and I are different in substantial ways. But my morning and afternoon selves? Oh, yes. Morning Charlie has energy. Readiness. Eagerness. Writes. Makes breakfast. Works out. Takes on challenging chores like calling United Healthcare for the seventh time to deep six that ghost bill of $429. Makes a typhoid vaccine appointment. Visits friends. Opens himself out to the world.

While late afternoon and evening Charlie. Sits. Watches TV. Reads. Often chooses, most often chooses, to stay home. Do little. Much more passive. Has less energy. I wonder if this is habit, some of it surely is. I wonder if this time of day could be different? Could it be a creative time? My buddy Ode works hours at his art each day. How I admire that. Not sure who this Charlie is. Not really. Sometimes I feel like I’m living my life in the mornings and observing my life in the late afternoons and evenings.

Or, am I just testosterone challenged? Using up my available energy in the morning? I don’t have that same disturbing fatigue I had until my thyroid stimulating hormone got right. Even so, I become smaller, less somehow. Is it age? An effect of my cancer drugs? I think back to Kate’s long illness when I had to be on literally 24/7. Did I use up some story of energy or will or ambition then?

You’ve guessed by now that I’m uneasy with this tale of the two Charlies. As if one is right and the other wrong. Yet. Is that just the American curse of worth by achievement? Who you are is what you do? Han Shan says: A thousand clouds, ten thousand streams, here I live, an idle man. That’s a Taoist perspective with which I largely agree, or think I do. Han Shan wanders the green Peaks by day and sleeps by the cliffs at night. There was a whole tradition of Chinese scholars who found this life way not only ok, but valorous. After the working life, come to the Mountains and live with the Tao, letting life and nature flow over you.

Perhaps the way to integrate the two Charlies is to accept both of them, not as better or worse, but as different responses to the Tao as it flows here on Shadow Mountain.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Travel, US History

Happy Birthday to the good ole U.S.A.

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Tuesday gratefuls: Acting class tonight. First half of Israel trip paid for. Herme introduction rewritten. Parchment paper ordered. No Fireworks up here. Good for Dogs. Fire. Air. Thin air, melting into thin air. My feet and toes. Holding me up since 1947. My ankles and calves and thighs. Mobility. My pelvis, butt, penis and testicles. Sitting, twisting, elimination. No joy at this point in my life. My thorax. Holding important stuff in. My arms and fingers. Dexterity for all my needs. My shoulders and neck. Supporting my head. My head, mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. Eating, hearing (sort of), seeing, smelling, taking in oxygen, a case for my brain. All these years forgot to be grateful for that which is closest.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My body

One brief shining: Can you imagine the evolution of the eye or the slow changes necessary to create a thumb perhaps you are the one who can follow the path from our One-Celled ancestors to a beating heart maybe you grasp the folding and intricate interlacing of brain matter neurons synapses the marvel of language as it first sat on the first tongue to express a thought through sound oh this everyday miracle our body ourselves our home for life.

 

I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July. Today is Seoah’s Yankee Doodle birthday. What a great birthday for a naturalized U.S. citizen. Seoah and my son. Ruth and Gabe. My immediate family. Mark in Saudi Arabia. Mary to return to Malaysia and South East Asia. They are my hope for this country. Them specifically and what they represent.

Seoah, a Korean by birth and a citizen of Korea until two years ago. She married my son, a Bengali by birth. Both now naturalized citizens of the U.S.A. My son serving this country in the military. Both abroad, in Korea, protecting not only the U.S.A. but much of Asia as well. This is, in these two people, the most fundamental promise of America. That you can come here from wherever you were born, no matter the circumstances, and become a citizen, a full-fledged participant in the colorful tapestry of American life.

Or consider Ruth and Gabe. On their mother’s side Jewish, their grandfather a Romanian Jew from Bucharest and their grandmother of an immigrant Jewish family as well. Third generation. On their father’s side Norwegian ancestry four generations removed from Bergen. They are also both Gen Z, the most politically aware generation since the Boomers. They will need to be with the crushing weight of adaptation to climate change they will have to carry.

Mary and Mark. The expat life. Being American on foreign soil. Contributing to the lives and welfare of Saudis, Thais, Malaysians, Japanese, and Singaporeans. Representing the American ideal of a world known for its inclusion rather than its chauvinism. Representing our country to other cultures. Being the good American rather than the ugly American.

How can I not be hopeful when I can see in my own family the very America I hold so close and dear. Especially on this day.

 

Acting, Asia, Poetry, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

Who can leap the world’s net?

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Summer and the Super Full Summer Moon Above

Sunday gratefuls: Sundays. Ancient Brothers. The Fire This Time. Jude. Jessica. Neighbors. Derek. Mark in Camel Land. Mary in Friday Night Fish Fry Land. Me in the Land of Mountains and Dogs. Mountain Wild Flowers. The spike Mule Deer Buck eating dandelions. The Doe who came again. A day of small chores, reading, Han Shan poetry. Releasing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Letting go of the to do list

One brief shining: The Mountain Streams have calmed down only running now as they might after a wet Spring that ended in early June temperatures though remain cool a couple of hot days as a reminder but we hope for the Monsoon rains to start to tamp down the remaining fire risk and give us a low Smokey sign for an entire year which would be a first for me.

 

Sat down in my upstairs chair yesterday. Finished memorizing my fifth Cold Mountain Poem:

 

I’m on the trail to Cold Mountain

The trail to Cold Mountain never ends

Long clefts filled with rock and stones

Wide streams buried in dense grass

Slippery moss, but there’s been no rain

Pine trees sigh, but there’s been no wind

Who can leap the world’s net

And sit here in the white clouds with me?

 

After this I realized I’d paid all my bills, had food in the fridge, no urgent chores. I was caught up. A twinge of anxiety. Searching for something that needed my attention right now. Nothing. Well now. How about that? I could leap the world’s net and sit in the white clouds with Han Shan.

So I did.

 

In case you need some slivers of hope in this benighted decade here are a few I’ve found of late.

 

Miss Texas Averie Bishop. Read this Washington Post article about an Asian Miss Texas who is shaking up the majority-minority state that is current day Texas. We don’t know yet how the demographic changes that have slowly edged their way closer to reality will affect us politically but if Miss Bishop is any indicator watch out Far Right and moderate Right.

 

Déjà News by Rachel Maddow. Alan suggested this podcast by the MSNBC news personality. Here’s the podcast’s description from its website: ” In each episode, Rachel and co-host Isaac-Davy Aronson seek a deeper understanding of a story in today’s headlines by asking: Has anything like this ever happened before? Would knowing that help us grapple with what’s happening now… and what might happen next?”

 

Consider this very strange NYT story. A ‘Cage Match’ between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg? Yes. There is a current discussion on the details of a cage match between these two titans of American commerce. Need I say more?

 

My own reading over the last six months or so has made me aware of the sine wave nature of extreme right wing politics dominating either states or the Federal Government or both, then being pushed back by an onrushing tide of progressivism. I admit it looks bleak in many ways right now, but consider the end days of the KKK in Indiana as evidenced by Fever Dream in the Heartland. Or, consider the Reconstructionist pushback against a wave of nativist sentiments before and just after the Civil War. Consider the demise of the Joe McCarthy era and the liberal era of civil rights and anti-establishment politics that followed.

We’re overdue for a liberal backlash and I hope women, minorities of all kinds, and those who would move up our socio-economic ladder link hands and throw the capitalist, white supremacist, homophobic, misogynistic minority back on the trash heap of history where they belong.

 

Acting, Asia, Commentary on the news, Poetry, Politics, Science, Travel, US History

Summer, the American Season

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Mini-splits cooling. A cool night. Good sleeping. July 4th. Seoah’s birthday. Sending her a Jacquie Lawson card. Mary in Eau Claire. The most recent CJ Box book. K-dramas. Stranger. Sky Castle. Itaewon Class. Cod. Potatoes. Collard greens. Herme.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our Earth

One brief shining: Geez Tom passed on an image from JPL that showed all the asteroids that could strike the Earth and they wove in and out of the Solar system creating a web of white that looked like doom doom doom for the Planet but no JPL says not this century.

 

Learned another one:

 

I traveled to Cold Mountain,

Stayed here for thirty years.

Yesterday looked for friend and family

More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs

Slow burning, life dies like a flame,

Never resting, passing like a river.

I stand in my lone shadow,

Suddenly, the tears flow down.

 

Summer feels like the American season to me. The 4th of July. The Indianapolis 500. NASCAR. Baseball. Family reunions in city parks and on family farms.

For many years I would take the summer to read American history, political philosophy, political analysis. Haven’t done it for a while but recent reading about the far right was the sort of thing I would do.

I also have a modest Civil War jones. I love to visit battlefields. Again, like the summer reading, it’s been a while since I’ve set out on a road trip to visit Civil War sites. Thinking I might do it next year. Visit Sarah and Jerry, Paul and Sarah. This year’s occupied with Korea and Israel.

Let me see. I’ve been to Manassas, Antietam, Shiloh, Ft. Sumter, Stones River, Vicksburg, Ft. Donelson, and Andersonville. Still missing Gettysburg and several others. Enough for a long trip.

 

Guess I could also visit Trump era proto-Civil War sites like the Capitol Building and Richmond, Virginia.

With the Extremes dismantling  years of liberal policy and law trying to take us back to their own future, a dismal and cruel place, learning what the far right wants has become more and more important.

They want no special treatment for African Americans. Even if the special treatment of slavery skewed not only the politics of our constitution but embedded racism in the very interstices of our law and governance. Even if the special treatment of slavery ginned up the falsest of lies, white supremacy. Even if we know all of this for sure.

They want all life held sacred. Except the children born to poor parents or the children of immigrants. Or the victims of mass incarceration who end up dying needless deaths in prisons across the U.S. I mean not only, not even primarily, capital punishment, but deaths of despair, of under treated illness, deaths of families living without fathers.

They want to be left alone in their enclaves of Christian Nationalism or survivalist paranoia or anti-globalist, America first isolation. They want to treat all Federal lands as personal property and suffer no accountability for their actions.

They want guns to protect their liberty from the fascist Federal government while supporting the actual fascists who will certainly take their liberty and impoverish them even more.

They want the libtards to stop trying. We cannot, must not. Ever. Stop.