A FEW JABS AT THE COMING DARKNESS

 

                            "The voice of sanity is getting hoarse,"

        Irish poet Seamus Haney said as he observed a war of soul, "the troubles."

                "Cut it loose or let it drag you down,"

        Bruce Springsteen wrote in Darkness at the Edge of Town, seeing the advance of nihilism. 

        Admonitions, across cultures, with divergent nexus points, but warnings, relevant still.

        Culture, soul, belief, enshrouded in a deepening darkness.

        Americans live with competing realities. It is a madness. There is no good in such a state.

            "Lives on the line-where dreams are found or lost."

                                                        Bruce Springsteen

            Who gains? Who loses?

        Many of us find pronouncements of "existential threats" wearing, but we must listen. We live with a serial "What If " pointed at our temple, loaded and cocked.

        What if the Supreme Court reverses Roe V. Wade?

        The court will be dangerously out sync with the American population, and even with policies of Catholic nations.

        What is the calculus of damage when the nation's highest court loses touch and behaves as an extremist moving against the beliefs and wishes of the majority?

        What other rights might then be targeted?

          Venality and deception were weaponized and turned against the republic and so it is true Democracy is under threat.

            The republican party is an agent of destruction of all the American experience has been. 

            Recent findings of the January 6th Investigation and independent journalists put it out there in black and white. The Trump regime tried to execute a coup. We knew that in our gut. We know that now by fact.

            The Kaiser foundation reports Republicans make up a majority of unvaccinated people. Unvaccinated people are those who are dying and who are spreading the virus and who are crowding hospitals to the breaking point.

            Too frequently we've heard about those about  to be put on a ventilator asking for a vaccination, only to be told it is too late. 

            Truth, fact and political sanity are under attack. 

               "...where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks"

                    Seamus Heaney  Whatever You Say Say Nothing

            What if?

         The "Troubles" of Northern Ireland were/are deep by generation, belief, politic and sense of identity. 

        Heaney observed it and withstood pressures so as to clarify, to seek rationality and to uphold humanity. 

        Bold honesty in the face of madness.

        

        Rationality, clarity and the advocacy of humanity are difficult to find in the US. The nation, tired from pandemic and the upending of all that is prized as normal, is angry, self- absorbed, and failing to think clearly. Broadcast and social media are contributing factors. Few people read. Fewer research, analyze and think. 

        Frenzied attention spans overlook a stability. Biden's approval rating does not give credit to the historic accomplishments of a first year. Historians, already hail the achievement and note it has been done without a real majority and while cleaning up after the debacle. 

        The pushback on the mask mandate is good for the system. I'm not convinced a President has the authority to insist companies do what he asked. I applaud his intention, but as an institutionalist,  I question that use of power. It is good to let the body politic argue about it.          

        Like junk yard rats, republicans feast on the flack, while their constituency dies of the virus. Sad and tragic facts and it should not be so.

         Economic and market strength, low unemployment, the recovery acts, the infrastructure programs, the massive vaccination totals, the steady hand at the tiller of the ship of state, the decency, the humanity, the display of traditional American values, and a genuine humility are all there.

        If we are to prevent the darkness from descending and snuffing the American beacon, America as hope, work is to be done. 

        The voice of sanity, hoarse or not, must make itself heard,  in the darkness. Reason, rationality and humane action radiate as powerful light. 

                                "History says, Don't hope

                    On this side of the grave,

                    But then, once in a lifetime

                    The longed-for tidal wave

                    Of justice can rise up,

                    And hope and history rhyme."

                                Seamus Haney from The Cure at Troy

        Dear readers, please accept this as this a Christmastide ghost story.  

        See you down the trail.

        

        

            

CAN WE BE FIXED? or STUMBLING TOWARD NIRVANA

 

Feathered Buddha by Lana Cochrun

        How would you explain our national mood to the "greatest generation," those who endured the "great depression" and who won a World War, defeating fascism and authoritarianism?

        Why and how in the span of our lifetime have we blown it so that now most of our traditions and institutions have been degraded and our culture has been vulgarized? 

        Professional politicos have trashed public service and turned governance and the selection of leaders into warfare. 

        What percentage of folks do you think even know the meaning of civility?

     We've elevated the trivial, and so much of what passes for human interaction is petty and mean. Stupid people have masses of followers and stupid ideas have trumped knowledge   and science. The lethality of this is recounted daily on your screen, large or handheld. 

        At a time of our greatest scientific knowledge, transportation and logistics, we fail to deliver existing inventories of vaccines to hundreds of millions on the planet.

        We have known for decades that forces were aligning to threaten life even to the point of extinction, and we mostly argue about it as a global doomsday clock ticks away.

       It exasperates many because we know better, we know what needs to be to "fix and make better." Instead we watch demise stalk us and we are not unlike that creature trapped in a spider's web, afraid of what is coming but unable to extract ourselves. 

        We are headed the wrong way on a bad road.

photo by Heath Johnson  Cal Trans

        George Will the conscience of modern conservatism says that movement has been hijacked by idiots and is no longer truly classical conservative thought or philosophy.

        Liberalism has also been hijacked by zealots and the illiberal and is no longer what it used to be. 

        Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, political philosophy professor and director of the Tocqueville program at Furman University write that classical liberalism that began with John Locke in the 17th century is dead "because it was designed to solve a different anthropological problem from the ones we're facing."

        Will says conservatives simply tired of trying to

"conserve." Conservatives had gained control of the Republican party but their languor and electoral desperation permitted one issue zealots, racists, and eventually fascists to steal the party.

         The Democrats move to the right, begun by Bill Clinton, sent their progressive wing into high gear and you get a Bernie Sanders and the less politic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez trying to shove the party. The trouble as the Storey's point out, liberal ideals were set for when people committed to churches, towns, professions, families, but all of those frames and norms have been busted by rapid change and disruption.

        In a digital world, commitment means something different than it did. We are not the nation we were. 

        Change has accelerated and in most cases there has been little forethought to consequences.

        Faith is a progenitor force in the history of the republic, including among the indiginous who had their land and nations stolen from them. Today faith is on the skids and, it is telling, so too is our republic and most of western "civilization." 

        One of the reasons I bristle when I hear people spar accusing liberals or conservatives of this or that, is because, like the society or anthropology from which they sprang, they no longer exist, or have changed so much there is no veracity or credibility in the definitions. They are ghost divides.

        We are stuck with old frameworks and strap ourselves to tired categories, but they are empty and meaningless. 

        We have abandoned values, virtues, and disciplines that served us well, until recently. It is intellectual laziness, on a mass scale, clouding our ability to see new horizons.

           The 20th century third rate romance between politicos and television, now social media has produced a bastard spawn that abuses the aspirations of our constitutional bones and the patience of the increasingly diminishing population of thinking citizens. Stress point is "thinking."

         We've even elevated the powerful tool of changing your mind into a kind of dunce cap calling people "flip floppers." To be sure there are politicians who flip flop for expediency, Kevin McCarthy for example on the topic of his party boss, or the insurrection and such. 

        Hucksters like that are disingenuous. But all people should be able to learn, adjust their thinking by new information, science, or experience and not be subjected to the sophomoric peals of mindless media.

        A future post will examine current media practices including the very damaging and even dangerous false equivalency. 

        Suffice it to say you need to be your own editor. If you have found a "news by flavor" favorite, you should pay attention to an opposite "flavor."  Better to get your information from multiple sources and still think about what you see, hear and read.

        Until we get unstuck from our echo chamber or silo form of news consumption, we are going to stay silly, and continue our slide away from greatness.

        Real analysis is not commentary, opinion nor snark. There is very little of the former and more than we need of the latter.

    We doom ourselves by our chronic feuding while a significant number of potential voters live in a fantasy of lies. They appear to be impervious to not only truth and history, but to help for their own survivability. Again refer to the Covid mortality tables.

    The only cure is to wipe them out electorally and to go about the work of disinfecting with reason, rational debate, political negotiation and abandoning the death maiden's embrace of a winner take all or zero sum game theory.     

    Politics is about the art of compromise, and statesmanship. 

    

        It's a tough chop out there. I consider my own sense of being at this age and can't begin to imagine the daily reality of being President of the US at this time. Pandemic, economy, the Republican devolution to running dog fascists, rebuilding foreign policy, stridency in his own party, stopping an endless war, anarchy and insurrection, domestic terrorism, cyber attacks, and an electorate that is increasingly divided between urban and rural, educated and ignorant, those who trust science and those who take horse dewormer, those who know the truth and those who believe in fairy tales and lies. 

        While he is moving strategically to deal with China he blew it by not notifying our ally France that the new Australian initiative was coming. France has every right to be angry, not only were they left out of the protocol, but US defense contractors just took some 66 $ billion off the French table. The move was handled stupidly and it is surprising coming from an administration with as much foreign policy experience.

        Chief of Staff Ron Klain and the boss need a mountain top one on one. This administration should not make such boneheaded mistakes.

        They also need to include a conversation about the Covid mandates. While we are in unusual and even emergency times, there is a genuine debate about the authority to do so. Should have been better finessed. 

        Yes, they have a lot on the agenda, but we are at an existential passage in the republic. There is little room for errors, especially stupid mistakes. 

       

        It is also time for the Republicans to heal themselves and divorce the fascist mindset that has robbed them of principle and a belief in America. There have been a few peeps from some in the Senate, but they need to rise up and act with integrity. It is time for a movement, more than a media blitz from the Lincoln project. It is time to put into action a movement to restore the party to worthiness. Until then the republican party will remain a party of Trump's whores and cowards. 

        I mean no disrespect because the Buddhist concept of Nirvana is akin to the aspirations and inner spirit of other faith practices, prayers, disciplines and states. But as bipeds on this blue marble, fixed with brains, and souls we seem to be tripping ourselves up. 

        We seem to be looking down and not inward or up. 

        We seem to be thumbing and stabbing our way through screens, and not seeing the reality of the world, and not lending a hand. 

        I'm curious what wisdom are we seeking to live by.

        There was a time when people of differing philosophy, politics and belief systems could either share or respect a wisdom. There was a time. Can we make it so again?

now, for something entirely different

 

       This is just a recent daily presentation from Lana's crop. They are not large, disappointing to her, but they are tasty. 

          She's already begun planning a new spot for next year's crop. 

        The yellow/orange cherries are off the chart delicious.

        I've used the San Marzano and red variety in sauces. Great flavor, but the skins are a little tough. 

        The large yellow in mid frame is an heirloom Kentucky Beefsteak. It's a new variety to us.  This years crop is small by Indiana standards in size, and even to last years. But everyday such a sight appears in the kitchen.  I'm not complaining.

        See you down the trail.

An American Lamentation and A Toast!

 

        (California Central Coast) Here's a view from the western edge of this old democratic republic as it rounds 245 years.

      Demanding and challenging times are ahead. 

      After the exile of the pandemic we arrive at this anniversary of our noble and declared aspirations only to be confronted by who we have become, or a recognition of who we have always been. Proportion and public acceptance has changed. 

       In the light of freedom from monkhood and the glow of returning to friends and work and life in a nation under a steady hand, we see the enemy amongst us.  

 

        It is telling the vaccinated can live with assurance, but 30% of the nation will continue to die and suffer because they remain unvaccinated. 

        Two and half centuries of commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, following our revolution against despotism, finds us divided and challenged by a fifth column that no longer hides.

        We have become more divided and more ignorant. 

         A bastion of the nation has been split from our constitutional bedrock. The Republican party, has turned against America, rejecting democracy and republic to become agents of autocracy and authoritarianism. 

        Gaining power is the sole principle of Republicans and they employ lies, insurrection, voter suppression and the abandonment of oaths. 

        We can thank the "Natures God" affirmed in the Declaration, and sworn to in oaths of office, there are more Americans committed to democracy. The majority has the capacity to limit the rise of the aggressive fascist, but "they" have become adept at minority "rule."

        They are under attack. 

        A select House Committee, despite Republican opposition, will draw blood on the insurrection investigation.

        Biden's mastery of foreign policy and his decades of Senate law making, though challenged, are serving him and the nation well. He has bi-partisan support among the electorate. His performance with NATO and especially with Putin boosted his standing and served national interests while exposing what a fraud the previous administration amateur hour had been. 

        House and Senate Republicans represent a minority of American voters, but Congressional apportionment and Senate representation give the minority a big stick. That makes the mid-terms crucial. Recruiting and funding good House and State Legislative candidates is a Democrat must, as is another successful massive vote turn out.

        Trump legal issues will mount. There is likely more coming. 

        The Department of Justice is gearing up to enforce election law, even as a rightist Supreme Court attacks the voting rights act.

        The Biden and Democrat plan for gun control and funding of police, co-opts and shuts up Republican carping about crime.

        Democrats have given Republicans the gallows and the noose on voting rights. They may not carry the legislation because of racist and fascist Republicans including Mitch McConnell and his use of blocking tactics, but Democrats and former real Republicans are betting the majority of American voters favor extending voting rights. Polls validate the belief the fascist Republicans are likely to pay at the ballot box. Despite efforts to making voting more difficult, voting activists say the way is still clear for a large turn out. 

        Expect to see our US Capitol begin to resemble a "green zone," a reflection of the troubled times. It's easy to say this national split can be blamed on the rise of Trump, and he certainly contributed by pandering to our worst strain. But the truth at this passage of another year of "independence" is that it has been ever such.

        Nativisim, nationalism, racism, retrograde simple minded ignorance, demagoguery, and the damage they do have been with us from the beginning. Every inch of progress, every law expanding liberty, guaranteeing human dignity and rights has been a battle. 

        Picket lines, demonstrations, voter drives, confrontations, jail, street fights, political deal making, compromises, and pragmatism have been behind every advance toward our noble declarations and aspirations. Some of us are older, hoping it would not require such hard work, but the truth is independence is a fight, a democratic republic is a struggle. The fight is revolutionary against the totality of deception, manipulation, the power of wealth, the politics of favor and greed. 

        The nation has endured dark clouds repeatedly, finding a way to preserve and even repair and improve the union. It may be necessary for the power of the federal government to be brought against those who seek to destroy the republic, even public officials who seek to countermand what has prevailed since 1776, though war, rebellion, assassination, disaster, struggle for equality, and time. 

        Enough politics. Time to toast summer, good cheer and the truth.

         Here's an unexpected summer scene-

     

        I was surprised to see a hybrid electric truck, especially one wearing a famed American logo, on Cambria's main street. Progress?

        

      Here's another piece of Americana-summer gardening. 

You've read here before of our love of fava beans and Lana's considerable labor with them. Case in point..the bowl on the left are the pods, the middle bowl, the inner husk or shell* and on the far right, the bean.  The artichokes are from one of our raised beds and another early summer crop.

            *It's a matter of test about getting rid of the inner husk. I think they add a little flavor. Lana prefers them gone. Here's a secret, I used them, still in the husk, in a recent dish, and she didn't notice, or at least object! 

        We welcome a new member to the blog staff here at world headquarters.

        His name is Sunny. He's been here less than a week and continues to "terrorize" his seniors, Hemingway and Joy. The old cats are learning to accommodate the never ending energy and appetite of the little guy.

        He's got some ears to grow into. Needless to say the grands Addie and Henry, have a new buddy. We all do.

        Cheers.

        Slainte'.

        See you down the trail. 

 

 

        

 

The true Kings and Queens and Political Optimist or Pessimist?

        Sequoiadendron Giganteum are the royalty worthy of a bow.

    The Giant Sequoia groves, found only on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California, are amongst the oldest and largest life on this planet.

     Being in their presence is being on sacred ground.

        There is palpable sense of something more grand than human. 

          The oldest Sequoia is estimated to be 3,200. 

        They stand as tall as 279 feet and can be 26 feet in diameter. 

        They prompt a sense of reverence and wonder.  Some native people called them Wawona. The Tule River Tribe named them Toos-pung-ish. 

    English speakers named them in honor of Sequoyah, who developed the symbols for the Cherokee language.

        It is more than size and the history they have endured that make them extraordinary organisms. To a point, they survive fire.

      Unless the fire or heat reaches to the top branches, they will endure, scar, and live on. Their fibrous bark is thick and serves as a kind of insulation.     

        In a bit of perplexing nature, the Giant Sequoias seed only in the aftermath of fire, or extraordinary heat. 

        It is stunning to consider what has occurred on this planet in the last 3000 years and to know these regal forms of life have endured that span.

        Science speculates there were more of these giant redwoods in pre-historic time, but things changed in the ice age. It is said the climate has been right only the last 4000 years, but now that is changing. The future for these giants is uncertain.

        From majesty to monsters

         As conservative republican David Brooks wrote in his column, "The level of Republican pessimism is off the charts." 

       Some of them are urging murder.

       Brooks tells of an Economist survey that asked Americans what was closest to their view: 

        Option A-- The world is big and beautiful mostly full of good people and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated.

        Option B--Lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.

         75% of Biden Voters chose the good world. 66% of Trump voters said our lives are threatened. 

        The more the world witnesses the competence and skill of the Biden Presidency, the sillier it is that some cling to the Trump big lie. News clips of his toxic and unhinged presidential moments gain greater vulgarity with time.

        It is a shame so many American citizens have their heads so deluded and hidden in another portion of their anatomy. Their blindness presents a problem to all of us.

        Brooks wrote "This level of catastrophism, near despair, has fed into an amped-up warrior mentality."

        "The decent know that they must become ruthless. They must become the stuff of nightmares," Jack Kerwick writes in the Trumpian magazine American Greatness. "The good man must spare not a moment to train, in both body and mind, to become the monster that he may need to become in order to slay the monsters that prey upon the vulnerable."

    I share Brooks' concern about the massive disconnect from reality that Trump loyalists are infected by, and that in turn has destroyed the traditional Republican party. We are not talking about a small fraction of people. There are tens of millions who have been so propagandized, fed distorted information and flat out lies as to be functionally politically illiterate and/or psychotic.

    Here is a measure of how sinister the savaging of truth is. Fox News viewership is declining as poor misguided and sad souls flee to two bozo outfits who made it their goal to be more right wing propagandized swill than Fox. 

    The evil that Joseph Goebbels launched and that Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch practiced has spawned a new mind damaging seed. 

    Ever the believer that truth wins out, I take succor in the wide Biden public approval rating, and the bipartisan support of most American voters for his programs. The more they see, the more they like. That dose of excellence is likely to be an antidote to the poison of deception and corruption that so many suffer from. It is not unlike the wonder of the vaccine that lessens the horror of the virus. 

        It is liberating when humans appreciate science, knowledge, history, and practice intelligent functioning. Some folks are starting to throw away those red hats, and are embarrassed about believing in Q. For the benefit of those who resist the truth and for the of us, we need to find a way to heal.

        Intelligence is standing it's ground, but there is more work to do. It might help to think of those former friends or family members as being victims. They have been damaged by lies, poisoned by hateful division, and some simply don't know the truth, or are not willing to challenge their suppositions.

        Stay strong.

        See you down the trail