Monthly Archives: January 2023

Aging, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Work, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

It was a lynching

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Hot Water. My shower. Marilyn and Irv. Ageism. Aspen Perk. Aspen Park Dental. Darlene, the hygienist. Seeing the Magpies against the Snow as I sat in the dental chair. Clean teeth. Good gum health. No work needed. Yes. Grocery pickup. Home. Brined center cut porkchops. Cooked in the Air fryer. Mixed vegetables. Tangerine. Mary’s photos of her last days in Kobe. Eau Claire. Air travel. Sarah and Annie. The Jeep.

Sparks of joy and awe: Friends and family

 

A note I sent to my county commissioner, Lesley Dahlkemper, about a proposed Mountain bike park on Shadow Mountain Drive:

Hi, Lesley!

Met you at Marilyn Saltzman’s 70th birthday party. Before you became a commissioner. Congratulations!

I live on Black Mtn Drive. Up the hill about 2 miles from the proposed mtn bike park. Aside from the obvious degradation of a mountain side and a beautiful, clear running stream and aside from the obvious traffic nightmare on already difficult to navigate blind curves and narrow no shoulders Shadow Mountain Drive, I’d like to tell you about a 7 AM drive I took that passed by the bike park area.

There in that meadow were thirty cow Elks and one magnificent bull, a fourteen pointer. A mist was rising from Shadow Brook. Now that may not be a logical argument against the bike park, but it’s damn sure a good one to me.

 

Tyre Nichols. Still think the role of police in our culture doesn’t need drastic and dramatic change? Tainted by the power given to them by a frightened white majority the police live out the violent fantasies of those at home watching TV. Their color does not matter. What matters is their intent, their willingness to step well beyond the bounds of decency. Remember Derek Chauvin’s knee? One of the officers who stood by was Hmong. The others who stood and watched? Rodney King?

Tom Crane found an interesting interview with Rev. Dante Stewart. His words on lynching are worth sharing:

“That was more than police brutality. That was a lynching. They wanted to kill him because, in some sense, lynching is about the spectacle. It’s about what someone with power does to another human being to ride and rid them of every ounce of their dignity and put it in the public to show this is what we think about this person.

“When those in the past put Black people up on noose, it was a message to them: This is our estimation of your life, and much more, this is our hatred of your life. And when Tyre Nichols was beaten and the just immense disregard to him, it showed us in public once again the estimation of Black life, white racism and white supremacy.”  WBUR

This sort of action by the police reimagines the whip of the plantation slave master. Sanctioned violence to keep the enslaved in place. We still fear the emboldened and empowered other. What might they do to us? What to do? Do it to them first.

 

On a better note, also from Tom. On Kernza Grain. “I just came across this perennial grain developed by the Land Institute. I also ordered some from a site which sells it as a cereal much like oatmeal. I’ll let you know how it is.”

The Land Institute is a solution finder. Glad Tom found this product, the first commercial fruits of the Institute’s work. I’ll let you know what he thinks.

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Acting, Art and Culture, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Woolly Mammoths, Writing

A Festival of One Act Plays

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Monday gratefuls: Alan. The Mislaid Wife. The Festival of One Act Plays. Evergreen Players. Tal. Deb. Lisa. The audience. Jill. The Ancient Brothers on space. Between us. Within us. Center cut pork chops. Brining. Marilyn and Irv. Breakfast today. Aspen Park Dental. Cleaning. Also today. Grocery pickup. How to Become a Pagan. Learning Korean. Mary’s last days in Japan. Brother Mark in Oke city. Frozen vegetables.

Sparks of joy and awe: Theater

 

A medical week. Oh, joy. Teeth cleaning today. Kristie tomorrow. And the Vascular Institute on Wednesday. That should be plenty of body parts for one week.

Gonna go through the active metastases site with Kristie, then lay it to rest one way or another. Treat or not treat. Get a Prolia injection today, too. For ma bones. This is a treatment because of my other treatments which weaken my bones. Geez. Want to move the Prolia injections to Evergreen Medical Center. Closer.

Not sure what to expect at the Vascular Institute. They’ll do an ultrasound of my left leg. Looking for a spot of restricted blood flow. If they find one, I’ll probably have a stent put in which will allow the blood to flow normally. Kate had a blocked superior mesenteric artery. Putting the stent in was not a big deal.

Next week my birthday present to myself is a pulmonology exam. Big fun. Specifically asking the question about continued living at 8,800 feet.

Nuff.

 

February is Black history month and I’ll say one last time that Imani Perry’s South to America is worth the read. It lagged a little near the very end, but up till then it was charming, sensitive, and challenging. Taught me many lessons. Would be interested to hear her on the Memphis situation.

 

The Festival of One Act plays. Alan directed The Mislaid Wife. Precis. A man calls the police to report his wife missing. She was funny, made me laugh. Lots of energy. And she was sexy. Conceit. His wife has not gone missing. She’s aged. And still in the house. Funny and sad.

A woman sat next to me. Older. Gray hair, a long flowing plaid dress. Gray vest. She seemed interesting. I wondered, as I occasionally do. Still no energy to pursue anything. We even chatted for a bit with Deb, the woman I took to my first acting class, after she finished her role as God. Maybe if I run into her again.

Joan Greenberg, member of CBE, and author of You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden wrote a country version of Orpheus and Eurydice. Highly stylized presentation. The best script of the batch by far.

Talked to Tal. He mentioned the acting class starting next week at the Synagogue. Jewish playwrights. Part of me would like to take it up, but I’ve told myself I’m focusing this semester on How to Become a Pagan. Though I’m not. At least not right now. Saying that out loud to him made me take a look at the way I’ve been doing my schedule. I really want to write this book. Not sure why I’m blocked on it. I have lots of research, years of thinking about the topic, and it matters to me. Maybe this was the jolt I needed?

 

Acting, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Korea, Mussar, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

New Labs

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Housing matters cleared up. Mostly. Ron. Luke. Bread Lounge. Evergreen. The ice fisherfolk on Lake Evergreen. The 8 outdoor ice hockey rinks on it. Those 30 or so Elk hanging out. The drive down. Rocks. Mountains. Ice covered Streams. Lodgepole Pines. Ponderosa. Aspen. Chinook Salmon toast and that Dulce le Lecha croissant. Coffee.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jew with Guns

 

Going to Evergreen Players today to see one-act plays directed by Tal’s last directing class as an employee of Evergreen Players. Alan has one in the showcase. Ron Solomon’s coming, too. Looking forward to that. A matinee. That magic word in my world of the performing arts.

Ron sat down with Alan and me at the Bread Lounge yesterday morning. He’s a screenwriter cum entrepreneur. He was part of the writer’s room for Saved By the Bell, but he didn’t like L.A. He wrote a book about Navy Seals published three or four years ago. Now he’s running a company that helps wholesalers make sure their retail prices hold up in the marketplace.

Ron’s also in the MVP group. He’s a very smart guy. Been around CBE for  years. He mentioned that later in the day he and Dan Herman, past president of the Synagogue, had an appointment at a gun range in Golden with a group called Jews with Guns. I’m not getting on a train. The Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh pushed him over the edge.

I told them that if it came to it I’d get a rifle and help them defend the Synagogue. Friends are worth dying for. Family, too. A silly misadventure in Vietnam dreamed up by anti-communist old white men? Not so much. I’m no pacifist. Though Kate was. Thorough going. Miss her.

Alan’s house is sold. He was going home to pack after breakfast. They close on both deals next week. Move in February. Glad for him. Moving stresses. Not easy.

 

Glad I dropped back to learn Hangul. Still working at it, but when I get done learning Korean will be easier. Hope to get over there for a month next October. Though. CBE’s got an Israel trip planned at the same time. Always wanted to see Israel. This could be a good opportunity. Will clarify as we get closer.

 

The what will I pay for my cancer drugs circus still has its tent up. No word yet on the foundation the nice lady from McKesson told me about. I’ll have to pick up some more Erleada samples if I don’t get a call before Tuesday afternoon when I see Kristie.

Good news though. PSA still undetectable. Lab results came early this morning. Testosterone at 11. Low testosterone is 287 at which point fatigue becomes a factor. Alan’s getting his testosterone boosted for that reason. As for me. Well, I tire easily. But. My cancer doesn’t get its food. That’s the concept.

 

Ancient Brothers topic this morning is space. The space between and among us. Is it too far? Too close? Mussar has a lot to say about this.

 

 

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Mountains, Politics, Weather +Climate

Mountain Lion and other stuff

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Origins of North America. Canada. Oh, Canada. Mid-Continent Rift. Keweenaw Peninsula. The U.P. Porcupine Mountains. Copper mined by indigenous folk. Isle Royale. The Upper Midwest. My home turf. Rocky Mountains. My home. Sun through the Lodgepoles. Snow hanging around. Solar Snow shovel failing us right now. More cold to come.

Sparks of joy and awe: Cold

 

Cold air feels pure to me. As if all the sneeze causing stuff has been cleared away. As if its source were a temple mountain to the Goddess of all things clear and refined. Compare it to the muggy, insect and dust laden heat of a Midwestern summer. Cold air brings sleep. Hot air robs sleep. Part of my ongoing love affair with living at altitude, in Minnesota. Traveling in Canada.

Kate and I both loved the cold. Were happiest in the winter months. Except for the chance to garden that only heat and Sun brings. Oh those gardening days. Halcyon. At least in memory. No wonder Elysian fields, Paradise (a walled garden). Where we humans and the Earth are openly, even gleefully in symbiosis. No wonder farmers don’t want to quit.

 

Learning about synclines and anticlines, Cratons, native Copper, room and pillar mining, truck thumpers that produce seismic waves for investigation of the geological. The sheer joy of a person who loves his subject matter. What fun. Also, I don’t have to do anything except listen. Look. Think. What I needed at this point.

 

You’ve probably noticed I’ve stopped posting photographs and images. Took too much extra time and exposed me to the occasional wrong footing of using an image under copyright. Having said that I’m going to post this picture anyhow:

 

The hunter in this picture is a former Bronco’s defensive linesman. (a big guy in other words) This Mountain Lion got tagged by Colorado Wildlife officials for killing dogs. Lots and lots of commentary on this. Mostly negative. But. It was a legal hunt done under state auspices. Last week.

Not around Shadow Mountain but not far from here either. I wanted you to see the size of this animal. Not something to be trifled with. A wild neighbor, probably weakened in some way by injury or disease so focused on easy to catch prey.

 

Can you see the debt ceiling from where you are? It’s pretty high up. The economics of nation states is a mystery to me. I know it’s not at all the same as your budget or mine, an error made by conservatives quite often. For one thing nation states can print money. I can’t. On the other hand like Everett Dirksen famously said, I’m paraphrasing here: A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Current national debt is somewhere north of thirty-two trillion dollars. Here’s a site that explains it.

Gosh that’s a lot. Eh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain

A bit of an organ recital. Another gun rant.

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Robin and Michelle. Space Wranglers. Coming today. Kep, the sleeper. Award Winning Pet Grooming. His next big adventure. Cool temps. 8. The Rockies in Winter. Alan and his moving angst. Computers. Zoom. Smart phones. Cancer meds. Imani Perry. A good nights sleep. Mark. Mary. Diane. Tom. Ancient Brothers. Vince. Furball Housekeeping. Ana.

Sparks of joy and awe: Clean house. Thanks, Ana and friend. Makes my daily life better. This time they loaded the dishwasher and ran it, too. Feels good to have a clean house.

 

While they work, I worked out. Getting in 70 minutes of quality time with my old friend the treadmill. For some reason I’ve been resisting resistance work. (see what I did there?) Know I need it. Or sarcopenia will keep getting worse. Just. Not. Doing. It. Right now.

Might need an Ode solution. Go to some faraway Beach and walk in the Sand and the Sun.

 

Used my air dryer for the first time last night. It cooked my tator tots while I fried my Alaskan Rock Fish on the stove and cooked peas in the microwave. Using all my electrical appliances in a coordinated fashion. A kitchen symphony. Most excellent.

Been doing my own cooking almost exclusively over the last couple of weeks. Liking it. Lost some weight in the process. As my doc thinks is important for me to do. Four, five pounds.

 

On paying for my cancer meds. OMG. So I asked about the billing of my orgovyx at $135 instead of $896. The McKesson finance department in response sent me every bill they’ve ever made with my name on it. Thankfully online. With the last one which reads $135. WTF. And on the Erleada. Would I like to have help with my copay? Sure, but if it’s the manufacturer’s plan I don’t qualify for it. Oh, no. This is a foundation. Not the Assistance Fund? No, something different. Well, hell yeah. We’ll see if I qualify.

But, in the interim. No Erleada. Fortunately I have some free samples and a bit more from my last delivery. Otherwise. This helping would be creating over a two week lag in my meds. Sigh. Still, better to have folks trying. As long I have some meds. I mean, they are for my cancer after all.

Between this and the moving target that is my thyroid stimulating hormone, some changes to my blood pressure meds and statins. Getting complex. Along with upcoming appointments to a vascular surgeon and a new pulmonologist. Dentist. And I feel fine. Except for this damned fatigue. Worst in the afternoons.

Thus endeth the organ recital.

 

7 more in California. Half Moon Bay.

“In the first few weeks of 2023, at least 69 people have been killed in mass shootings across the country, including two shootings within days of each other in California.” ‘Tragedy Upon Tragedy’: January Brings Dozens of Mass Shootings So Far

And the folks who sponsored this epidemic of gun ownership and their violent use on other humans want to take over the government.

My heart does not like this. How much sadness can we stand until we do something effective?

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Colorado, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Tea, Travel

Dushanbe Tea House

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Monday gratefuls: A good night’s sleep. Cool temps. Light Snow keeping things fresh. Mike and Kate. Dushanbe Tea House. Lapsang Souchong sausage. The brewing tea at altitude dilemma. Central Asia. Boulder. A drive. Ode in Rarotan. DAVA fund raiser for the kids. California. Now another mass shooting. See that adjective? Another. C’mon. Relationships. Friendships.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel

 

What fun. Brunch at the Dushanbe Tea House with Mike Banker and Kate Strickland. On so many levels. First, the drive. Getting down the hill, yet driving very close to the Hogbacks that mark the beginnings of the Laramide Orogeny. The Flatirons, too. Sheets of Rock thrust up.  Going past the Rocky Flats Site. Then down into Boulder. As the wags like to say, 25 square miles surrounded by reality.

On the way into Boulder on 93 you pass a big campus with NOAA, National Weather Service, and an experimental laboratory for the Dept of Commerce. Further on is the CU Boulder planetarium where I’ve taken Ruth many times. Before downtown by about a block is the Tea House.

When I got there, I parked and saw a large crowd outside. 45 minute wait. I was a little early so I put my name for a table for three and went to sit at the bar. Ordered silver needle white Tea. Mike and Kate showed up as I poured my first cup. They ordered Darjeeling, Kate in memory of her trip to Darjeeling before her time in Japan, and Matcha, Mike likes the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

The second level. The wonderful coffered ceilings, all ceramic, a riot of colors. Plants in the center of the large open seating area. A crowd, young for the most part, Boulder’s a college town. The Tea. I should say, the Teas. A thick bound book has five pages with different Teas listed front and back. You can buy Tea there, too. Loose and in satchels for ease of use. When your small white teapot comes, the waiter places a tiny three minute hour glass down with it and tells you how to long to let your choice steep. Three minutes for the white Teas.

The third level. The brunch menu. I had the Swiss Raclette. Eggs in a dish of melted fondue cheese with small chunks of ham and Yukon gold Potatoes. Toast on the side. Kate ordered a side of lapsang souchong sausage so we could taste it. Delicious. Mike had the lapsang souchong flavored bulgogi! And Kate had the Indian Dosa. An exotic menu. Great tastes to go with wonderful Teas.

The fourth and most important level. Being with Kate and Mike. A bright young couple. Kate engaged in the Great Work, creating a sustainable presence for human beings on this planet, Mike now at work with a documentary film company that had him most recently in Kyiv. The table conversation was witty, wide ranging, and fun. I told them how much I appreciated spending time with folks their age. Most of my friends are further along in the aging process. Ahem.

We agreed to meet again in Evergreen. Sometime soon. I felt they genuinely enjoyed hanging out with me. Honored.

 

DAVA. The annual Aurora art teachers art show is this week. They’re having a fund raiser for Ruth and Gabe. This is the first year Jon won’t have any work in the show. I’ve been to the show many times over the years. The art teachers have donated art for sale, the proceeds going to the kids. I’m going with Jen, Ruth and Gabe.

 

My buddy Ode is on Roatan, an Island off the coast of Honduras. Continuing healing for his new knee. Enjoying the sun.

 

Last. How bout those mass shootings, eh? They just keep on coming like the Blue Light specials at the old K-Mart stores. When I opened the NYT yesterday and saw that, my heart shriveled. Again. Another. Then my mind went to the good guys with guns. Like the one here in Aurora who shot a perpetrator only to be killed by police. With their guns. Guns. For god’s sake. Can’t we see the problem is the damned guns?

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Korea, Mathematics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

The Great Wheel turns for us all

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Winter and my 76th Valentine Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Alan. The Campfire. Snow. Dribs and drabs keeping the Mountains white. Going out today. Adventure! Watching women’s soccer on HBO. Motorsports Magazine. Road and Track. Bomani Jones. Going to Savannah and Charleston with Imani Perry. Doctor Who. New Amsterdam. Collard Greens and Kielbasa. With a tangerine chaser. The nudger. Lao Tze. Chuang-tzu.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

 

Color me confused. Looked at my credit card statement. After all the heavy breathing, my charge from McKesson pharmacy for the orgovyx was $135. Not sure if it’s a mistake or not. They told me $896 on the phone. With Erleada yet to come. This whole damned thing. Who needs this $*!#?

 

I’m feeling proud of myself this morning. I did go through all of the boxes in the Kate dining room. Took out some, left most. When Robin comes on Tuesday, she’ll be able to load those directly into her and Michelle’s vehicles, take them to recycling. Should be time left over for the pruning I’ve done in the new upstairs office. Might even get to that walk-in closet before they come. Yes, sir. Moving things along.

Also my Korean’s improving. At least on Duolingo. When I see Seoah next, that will be a good test. Now I’m saying very, very low level learning. For speaking. Better for reading and understanding. Very low level. But still a long ways from zero. I’m picking up the occasional words on K-dramas now. No sentences yet. Amazing myself. I am working at it daily. I know both math and languages require daily work.

Hangul makes it harder. Obv. I need to go back and refresh the Hangul that came at the start. Though. The repetition has me recognizing more and more. Not sure of the pedagogy. Am I learning the Hangul through repetition? I am, yes, but is that the plan? I don’t know. Verbs? Not so much. A little exposure that I’m not sure I understand.

 

Yes, this new moon will be the 76th to preside over my birthday on Valentine’s Day. Wowzer. Closer to 80 than 70. Odd. As I’m sure everyone who hits this marker feels. Life keeps offering surprises, joys, love. I’m good for another decade anyhow. Psychologically. Physically? We’ll have to see.

It will feel strange to cross the line, if I do, past Kate’s age at her death. 76 years and nine months. October of this year for me. As it felt strange to turn 47, the age my mother was when she died.

Not sure if I mentioned here coming across Kate’s couple of pages description of our dogs. Made me cry a bit. Her handwriting. Her thoughts on the page. Our shared love of the many, many dogs we both knew and cared for. She’s gone, but her memory is for a blessing. As my Jewish friends say. Her second yahrzeit comes this April. Hard. Two years gone.

Still alone but not lonely. Me. Knowing now the Great Wheel does turn even for those we love, and for ourselves. The consolation of Deer Creek Canyon. Yes.

Weather +Climate

this. that.

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Friday gratefuls: Kep in the Snow. His good appetite, his nudges. Thursday Mussar. Empathy for my situation, anger over our broken health care system. David Lieberman. Rabbi Jamie. Minnesota’s very, very Snowy year. Diane. The Rains of California. Reading Shaw. Salmon and white Bean stew. Peruvian Chicken. Going through my past. Cooking. Ramen. With additions. Pharmaceutical companies. Their drugs. Alan and his plays. One acts.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Living

 

An odd week so far. I’ve only left the house once. Seen nobody except Mark, the mailman. In the flesh. On zoom Diane and the Thursday Mussar group. The Origins of North America class. Otherwise. No one. Talked to the McKesson folks, a nurse from Kristen Gonzalez’s office, and David Lieberman. I can tell it’s been odd. Wouldn’t want every week to go this way, but with zoom I’ve gotten my sociability needs met. Good exercise, sleep. Lots of progress on pruning. Will talk to Tom in a few minutes.

Mary leaves Kobe, Japan in a few weeks, heading back to the wilds of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. From the subtropics to the frigid Upper Midwest. Mark remains in Oklahoma City, maybe about to become a US Postal Service employee. May it be so.

 

Korean study going well. I’ve learned over two hundred nouns and can now translate sentences with help. It’s gotten harder. The lessons taking longer, but I can see the progress. Satisfying.

Calculus lags behind a bit. I moved my work on it upstairs to my new office, but I have not gotten that space finished yet. As a result, I’m not using it as much. I will get back to it.

Same with How to Become a Pagan. When I get the new space finished, work on it will pick up.

 

Did you know the term Atmospheric River before this Winter? Not sure I did. Its effects have made it a household world in plague ridden California. Wildfires. Floods. Or, Summer and Winter. Diane has gotten back to jogging up to her hill, but she says it remains slumped. Too many sites like it for public works to contend with. Also, Tom sent a note that this is Minnesota’s fourth Snowiest Winter ever.

 

Still moving through South to America. Here’s the kind of lens I now have as a result. I started watching the new Elvis movie with Austin Butler. If you’ve seen it, I think he does a great job as Elvis and Tom Hanks certainly gives Colonel Parker a distinctive character. The movie makes clear the impact Beale Street in Memphis had on Elvis, right down to his signature grind.

Here’s the thing. Perry made me realize that what Elvis really did was make money out of the moves of Black performers he came to know on Beale Street. The same quality of musician, singing the same quality of music, with the same sort of performing charisma already had careers. In Black establishments. They couldn’t cross over into the popular music market where the big money was. Elvis could. And did.

This is the same lens you can find on HBO Max’s Game Theory with Bomani Jones. He’s worth a watch if you get that streaming service.

 

 

 

Dogs, Memories, Plants, Politics, Travel, US History

Stolen Work, Stolen Land

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kate Strickland and Michael Banker. Seeing them on Sunday. Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder. Diane this morning. Tom tomorrow. Tom Tomorrow! Alan on Saturday. Mussar today. Fresh white Snow. Kep, the sleeper. His sleeping sounds. Sudbury Impact Crater. Ejecta all the way to Gunflint Lake in Minnesota. Subduction. Nickel. Copper. Platinum. Paladium. Zircon. Uranium. Colorado Plateau. Placer deposits of uranium. Manitoulin Island. The Georgian Bay. The Chi-cheemaun.

Thursday gratefuls: Life in all is wonder

 

Getting a distinct Canada jones. This Origins of North America course has rekindled memories of Stratford, Ontario, taking the Chi-cheemaun ferry to Manitoulin Island. Also my trips circumnavigating Lake Superior. I’ve always loved Canada. Every since our first family trip there and I saw those road signs with the crown on them. And those Fords that looked like Fords but had a different name: Meteor. That moment on Lake Huron in Ipperwash Provincial Park. One with the Lake and the Sunseen.

Now I see this is land stolen from the Chippewa Band of Kettle and Stony Point. This story about the sniper killing of band member Dudley George in 1995. Maybe the spirit of the Anishinabe inhabited me that day.

And so back to Imani (faith) Perry and her South to America. In her chapter on the Soul of the South she talks a lot about the Black Belt, a geological region that runs through Alabama, Mississippi, parts of other Southern states which was especially good for growing cotton. The term also has a broader definition: “Political analysts and historians continue to use the term Black Belt to designate some 200 counties in the South from Virginia to Texas that have a history of majority African American population and cotton production.” wiki

The Black Belt and the Chippewa’s struggle over Ipperwash are of a piece. They are land used by White governmental and economic structures enforcing white supremacy over those deemed lesser. This is why Perry says to understand the U.S. we have to go to the South. Because slavery informed the founding documents of our nation and because the wealth of the early United States had its base in cotton production and trade. These two facts go together. The wealth of the Southern states allowed them to have an outsized voice in the negotiations creating our nation.

That would mean that originalism is ipso facto racist. It says we have to interpret only the words of the constitution and use the plain meaning of those words as laid down by the founders. Well, hey. The three-fifths clause. The electoral college. Senators two from each state. That means the Extremes are not only hard right conservatives but also standard bearers for white supremacy. Wonder how Clarence feels about that.

February is Black history month. Would be a good time to read some DuBois, maybe some Richard Wright, Imani Perry, Frederick Douglas. Margaret Walker. Toni Morrison. Maya Angelou. James Baldwin. Langston Hughes.

Back to that Canada thing though. Think I’m gonna plan a trip. True North Shore of Lake Superior, over to the Georgian Bay, cross the bay going South, Head to Stratford for some good theater. Anybody wanna come?

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

Books and the dumb side of Politics

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate and our IRA. Enough money to keep me alive. Another new knee. Warren. Ode. Now Stefan. Age and its attendant insults. Medicine and its remedies for them. Rich’s new class. Looks fun. The Muddy Buck. Old Evergreen. The Evergreen Hotel, long gone.  Evergreen. A mighty fine Mountain town. Living in the Mountains. The silence of a Shadow Mountain Night. Sleeping. Kep, the dogged. Solving problems. Accepting reality.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Silent Night, Holy Night. Every Night

 

All that. Money stuff. Doctor and pharmaceutical stuff. Put to bed for now. Moving on. Occupied me for two days straight. Gotta have stuff to do when you old.

 

Reading two new books. Stunners. The first South To America by Imani Perry. A professor of African Studies at Princeton. A delicate, hard fisted, beautiful intelligent travelogue of her journey to her home state of Alabama. She begins at Harpers Ferry with thoughts on John Brown, Confederate reenactors, an unexpected conversation with one who volunteers at a store that’s part of the historic Harpers Ferry.

She writes about race and racism in a way that enfolds and  unfolds its complexity. An example. Her feelings of tenderness toward the exploited coal miners of Appalachia. All of them. Then an observation about how even in the mines Blacks had the filthiest most dangerous jobs. Lived on the fringes of white poverty.

I’m still early in the book. Virginia. Trenchant and profound observations about Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Both owned slaves. Both believed it was wrong. But lust overcame Jefferson and ambition overcame Patrick Henry. They kept their slaves.

 

The second. The Good Life. By Robert Waldinger and Marc Shultz. Director and Assistant Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Longest running longitudinal study of human development in the world. Its message. Develop and keep good relationships. Intimate ones. Friendship. Family. Even strangers. Well written, clear. Helpful. Reinforcing.

In that spirit I have breakfast with Alan this morning at the Parkside Cafe in Evergreen. The newer part of Evergreen. For locals. Tourists sneak in on occasion, too. Near the Bread Lounge. Often has folks I know.

Rebecca Martin should be back from India and we can resume our breakfasts. Luke and I have our lunches. Diane and Tom. The Ancient Brothers. MVP. Mussar on Thursday. Staying connected. Rich again in two weeks. Knowing and being known. Seeing and being seen. The human, the primate, way. Love in its many forms.

 

How about those classified files at the Bidens? Ooops. There goes a second term. So. Damned. Stupid. And right now? He’s overperformed. Rich and I agreed. Then stepped right on his well you know. And hard. Without necessity. Come on, man!

Takes the stage away from that lying George Santos. The Long Island prevaricator.

How bout those Bolsanorans? I mean. Guys. He fled the country. To Florida. On an A-1 visa reserved for heads of state. He left Brazil before he left office. Trump went to Florida, too. Lots of parallels, eh? Trump and his like are cancers in the body politic of many countries. As 1st graders used to say, He’s copying!

All for now.