“Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d’état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes…. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.”
~ Umberto Eco
Dec 12
November 2020 – Quote of the Month
Nov 30
Trump, the Losingest Loser Loses
I’m happy to be wrong about Trump winning Pennsylvania. But why was I wrong?
For starters, I suppose I was wrong because I didn’t want to let my guard down based on the surprise of the Trump 2016 outcome. I didn’t want to feel complacent. And because of my apprehension, I put more effort into fighting against Trump and his enablers.
But, there was also evidence: signs, signs, everywhere Trump signs.
One of the reasons for this is likely due to Trump’s disregard for public health and safety. Trump’s campaign was waged in a door-to-door campaigning, (not to mention rallies) where as the Biden campaign opted for more public safe options such as television buys and digital marketing.
BothTrump rallies and door to door campaigning would have manifested more lawn signs than Biden’s more digital approach.
And then there is the factor of rural vs urban voters. Urban voters far outnumber rural, but, of course, rural, pretty-much by definition, are the ones most likely to have yards and farms for signs to be posted.
For us, although we’re rural, we opted to not put out a yard sign for a number of reasons, including the fact that we don’t care to broadcast our political proclivities to many of our Q-Anon, radical right neighbors. But just as importantly, we didn’t want to generate more garbage for landfills. (Yeah: we hug trees too…)
But even if I was wrong in my yard sign calculations, I’ll say that I was way too close to being right. It shouldn’t even have been a contest. Even now, as I did correctly predict, Trump is advocating for nothing less than a coup d’état: an over turning of the will of the people. It amazes and devastates me how normalized this treasonous behavior has now become.
But I want to end on a positive note. The battle is not won, but it is joined. Trump, the loser, lost again. Biden, a man of compassion, has won. And for that, we turned on our smart-bulb lights to red, white and blue and blasted fireworks into the sky. Sometimes, being wrong, is alright.
Nov 29
October 2020 – Quote of the Month
“There’s no art in this White House.
There’s no literature, no poetry, no music.
There are no pets in this White House, no loyal man’s best friend, no Socks the family cat, no kids’ science fairs.
No time when the president takes off his blue suit red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt and khaki pants uniform and hides from the American people to play golf.
There are no images of the First Family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation.
No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport.
No Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape.
Where’d that country go?
Where did all the fun, the joy and the expression of love and happiness go?
We used to be the country that did the Ice Bucket Challenge and raised millions for charity.
We used to have a President that calmed and soothed the nation instead dividing it, and a First Lady who planted a garden instead of ripping one out.
We are rudderless and joyless.
We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great.
We have lost our mojo, our fun, our happiness, our cheering on of others.
The shared experience of humanity that makes it all worth it.
The challenges and the triumphs that we shared and celebrated.
The unique can-do spirit that America has always been known for.
We are lost.
We have lost so much in so short a time.”
~ Elaine Griffin Bake
Oct 29
How Democracies Die
We’re counting down to the election. Less than a week away now.
I think there is a palpable dread in the air.
My take is: even if Trump is flushed from the White House, the damage that he and his toadies have done to this country may be a fatal wound. – It will certainly leave scars and damage that will take a long time to recover.
The Supreme Court (and a now a huge percentage of the federal bench) is in the clutches of the far right. That fact alone will continue to bleed the country of justice for a long time to come. In that way, Trump (and more credit worthy), Moscow Mitch McConnell, have already won.
And if Trump loses, a huge percentage of the populace won’t accept it. That will includes reinvigorated right-wring militia and white nationalist types.
Our best hope to pull out of this nose-dive isn’t just a Biden / Harris landslide, it’s also if the corrupt GOP loses control of the Senate.
But even so, I fully expect Trump will never accept his loss and will gather his sycophants around to poison the body of our democracy.
A trump loss doesn’t mean we’re healed, it just means, at best, that we’ve stopped the most aggressive stabs to the American body. We will still be in jeopardy of bleeding out. We will still be at risk of a poisonous infection.
“This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and ‘weaponizing’ the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it.”
~ Steven Levitsky, How Democracies Die
Oct 27
September 2020 – Quote of the Month
“The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.”
~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
‘My Own Words’
Sep 18
I Hope I’m Wrong
I’m writing this, having just learned that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. Vladimir Putin’s puppet, Trump and Moscow Mitch will steal another position on the Supreme Court.
Last weekend, I had an occasion to drive across Pennsylvania. I saw Trump signs out number Biden signs at a ratio of about 100 to 1. And so many of the signs weren’t just run of the mill, small signs. Many were extra large, banners and home made billboards. I can’t vouch for the rest of the swing states, but I think Trump is going to win Pennsylvania. Perhaps not the popular vote, but I think he’s going to get the electoral votes.
I saw this in a parking lot today. This is the level of enthusiasm Trumpkins have for the lying, racist, sexual assaulting, thieving, draft dodging, russian colluding, environment crushing, corrupt, charity stealing, vaguely human shaped piece of orange shit.
America has been hacked. The will of the majority does not count: The United States has a president who received nearly 3 million fewer votes than his Democratic opponent.
I write this, not in despair, but in anger and in the hope that my voice moves the search engine needle even 0.000000000000001% against Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Trump party formally known as the GOP. I’m off now to make another donation to support the Biden / Harris campaign.
I might not like our odds, but hell if I’m not going down swinging against the oligarchs.
P.S. Read and Act: How to help protect Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat until the election.
Sep 18
August 2020 – Quote of the Month
“The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.”
~ Francis Bacon
Aug 30
Vacation Mirage
End of the month; actually a lot happened; more than I have time to write about; yada yada yada…
So, instead, in commemoration of the vacation I’m not taking this summer because of the plague: here is a hot summer breeze blast from the past photo memory. Lake Powell: September 3rd, 2017. Oh, how I miss you.
Aug 04
July 2020 – Quote of the Month
“We should always be asking ourselves: ‘Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?’”
~ Epictetus, Enchiridion
Jul 29
Five Feet Nine Inches
My better half and I know, or at least highly suspect that among most of our friends, we’re the considered the crazy germaphobes.
Visiting Home Depot tonight, we saw a woman pushing her cart around without a mask. (In spite of the BIG sign on the store front that says masks are mandatory.)
We grumbled to ourselves about this disrespectful infraction, with many a surly glare towards the massless woman.
Checking out through the open air garden center, wearing our masks, we were still fuming over the woman, when a masked man in front turns to us, looks down at the marking on the ground and says, ‘6 feet’.
We were about 3 inches short of the 6 feet social distance marker painted on the cement floor.
Proving once again that: crazy is relative.
Jul 22
June 2020 – Quote of the Month
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
Jun 30
Faith, Hand-washing, Compost Trespassing and Milk Drinking
Some more sights from a neighborhood walk I did in mid April.
Again: I wonder at people’s thought processes. This is a decently maintained property. (Although the garage looks a bit nicer than the house, interestingly enough.)
There is an interesting combination of earnestness and humor.
Jun 28
May 2020 – Quote of the Month
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
~Pablo Neruda
May 31
Yard Adornments
In pursuit of some level of exercise, I have occasion to walk local neighborhoods. There are little, implied stories in the neighborhood yards.
I’m rather found of yard kitsch. There is a story here, if only we can read it.
Here is one such story:
This is the front yard of a house. The lawn is unmowed and unkempt. And yet, there is a small, roughly rectangular patch of dirt, about 2 foot by 4 foot.
The patch of dirt is decorated with a selection of flowers: both real and artificial, attended to by scarf wearing ceramic rabbits and two faux-butterflies. Laying on its side is a black and yellow, watering can invoking the image of a large, grounded bumblebee.
So, is this someone’s idea of yard beautification? Is the watering can part of the tableau or just abandoned after a recent flower watering? Did the designer buy the plants and ornaments specifically for the scene or is this cobbled together from treasures already on hand? After the flowers were watered, did the creator stand back, hands on hips, nodding in self-approval. ‘There! THAT is what the yard needed!’
Or is this all tongue-in-cheek? Created with a wink and a knowing smile: some private joke, laid out for the neighbors to see and ponder.
Or is it a sad monument to a fallen pet? If so, it’s kind of large and peculiar with its front-yard location. If it’s a pet cemetery, one must know that it will someday be lost to the yard. And yet, how sweet? – An homage to a loved companion.
Perhaps it is more sinister: a grave of a minced murder victim. – All suspicion covered in kitsch.
“There are eight million stories in the naked
citysuburb. This has been one of them.”
May 31
April 2020 – Quote of the Month
“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
~Yoko Ono
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”
Apr 26
Exposed Exposé
Watching news on YouTube yesterday, I was amused by a little detail I noticed in the background of a video of Alex Ward, a VOX staff writer, as he was giving a report to CBS News.
In the video, Mr. Ward is well besuited as he outlines the latest speculation on Jong-un’s health from his bedroom… Wait what am I seeing? Computer: zoom in. Enhance lower left corner of screen…
Apr 26
March 2020 – Quote of the Month
“Yet do not cast all hope away. Tomorrow is unkown. Rede oft is found at the rising of the Sun.”
~Legolas
The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings
JRR Tolkien
Mar 30
Wondering Where the Lions Are
COVID 19 is the mainspring of the day. It’s hard not to make note of it this month.
Here, at the end of March, we’ve watched as the virus has risen from footnote to a driving force of the world in about a month’s time. Remarkable.
Even now, there is a struggle with the concept and implications. How bad is it? How is it worse than the flu? What will it do it the world economy? How will the world be changed?
Interestingly, so many people are confident of the precautions that they, themselves, are taking. – From those who are most cautions to those who are taking it lightly and the gradients in-between, most people seem self-assured that they’ve got it right and everyone else is a little off their rocker.
I can’t help but think of parallels between this situation and global warming. We as a species haven’t done a really great job of preparing for a pandemic. – Fortunately, in so many ways, COVID 19 isn’t nearly a bad as it could be. It could be a little more virulent or a little more deadly and then we’d really see the world crashing around us. Hopefully this will be a bit of a wake-up call.
But in this pandemic, I see a dark foreshadowing of global warming. Global warming is more destructive but subtlier. And the degree to which it is acknowledged, it is aided by a sense of creeping normality. The changes are slow and diffused and the cause and effect are less obvious from an average human scale and perspective.
Some are hopeful that the Coronavirus pandemic will be a reawakening to the value of expertise and the ‘elite‘. With our current leadership trends, I’m less optimistic these days. I hope I’m wrong.
The song, ‘Wondering Where the Lions Are‘, usually strikes me as hopeful. Today, it strikes me as a warning.
Sun’s up, mm-hmm, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I’m thinking ’bout eternity
Some kinda ecstasy got a hold on meI had another dream about lions at the door
They weren’t half as frightening as they were before
But I’m thinking ’bout eternity
Some kinda ecstasy got a hold on meWalls, windows, trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I’ll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kinda ecstasy got a hold on meUp among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kinda ecstasy got a hold on meAnd I’m wondering where the lions are (wondering where the lions are)
I’m wondering where the lions are (wondering where the lions are)
I’m wondering where the lions are, uh-huh…
Bruce Cockburn
Mar 28
February 2020 – Quote of the Month
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
~Calvin Coolidge
Feb 29
In Gear Against the Gloom
Ah! February 29th: the rarest of blog days. Kind of makes me wish I was born on February 29th, then I’d be four times as young.
Since September of last year (2019), I’ve been getting out, doing a lot of walking and hiking. And this last weekend, we did an overnight backpack trip. (I’ve done my share of backpacking, but it’s been a while and I was rusty and inefficient.)
Each month, I have had a workout goal measured in hours. I started slowly, in September with only a 10 hour goal. And each month since then, I’ve increased the goal by 5 hours. So, February’s goal was 30 hours. – March’s will be 35, April 40 and then it’s 40 for the foreseeable future. (Turtles all the way down.)
Since September, I’ve walked or hiked 266 miles. (That is to say: concerted, exercise, not incidental, boring old, everyday walking.)
What’s more: I’ve started a little resistance workout again.
All of this is a positive development and has helped me weather the gloom of late fall and winter.
As an aside: thinking about weathering the weather makes me think of this:
Who knows whether the wether will weather the weather.
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