SANTA AND FRUITCAKE

 

If your presents were a little late this might be the reason. He put a mighty dent in that fruitcake. Poor Rudolph. Fog doesn't stop him, can't fight the sugar high.

YOUR CAT

 

This meme is only partly true. Perhaps that cat was surrendered to a rescue because its human could no longer take care of their pet. People get old. They get sick. They get allergic, part of how I ended up with Midge again. Mom loved her, hated to give her up even though she was coming to me and I phoned her pretty much every day with kitty stories. Of course the pet doesn't know what happened or why. Thank heavens there are a lot more rescues out there than there were even ten years ago. I guess it's the almost self riteous attitude that bugs me. Here's hopig  you don't end up having to surrender this cat because of events that you can't control. 

I CAN'T SAY IT BETTER

 

I tried to come up with an entry to go with what he said. I can't. At least not today. 

A SOLSTICE FOR WINTER

 Heck with variations it works for summer too. From The Winter Solstice by John Matthews. I suspect Caitlin Matthews wrote the original litany

Stonehenge and the sun

For the return of the sun – Blessings and Peace

For the gifts we give…and receive – Blessings and Peace

For all the gift givers – Blessings and Peace

For the Children of Wonder – Blessings and Peace

For the children everywhere – Blessings and Peace

For sunsets and starlight – Blessings and Peace

For sunlight and moonlight – Blessings and Peace

For streams rippling under the winter’s ice – Blessings and Peace

For raging torrents rushing to the sea – Blessings and Peace

For rain and rainbows – Blessings and Peace

For the warmth of fire in the cold of winter – Blessings and Peace

For the trees on the hill – Blessings and Peace

For the tree in the corner – Blessings and Peace

For the candles in the window – Blessings and Peace

For the gifts of friendship – Blessings and Peace

For Bards and their gifts of poetry – Blessings and Peace

For Singers and the music they share – Blessings and Peace

For the prayers for peace – Blessings and Peace

For those who pray for peace where there is no peace – Blessing and Peace

The authors encourage you to adapt to include whatever you’re thankful for right now. I certainly did. The Matthew's have a soft spot for hand bell ringers, good food and that vital necessity. Good cooks. 

CHRISTMAS CHAOS

 This original story did not happen at Christmas. But it is way funny. And now picture everythng happening with Christmas decorations thrown in as everyone, including the cats, enters total chaos. 

You are in the kitchen, bottle of half frozen fizzy wine in hand ready to pull the cork when you hear the commotion in the other room. Still carrying the bottle you rush out to check. Distance and angle are just right when the cork shoots out of the bottle, followed by the stream of ice cold, semi frozen liquid to hit the fuzz ball on the top of the tipping tree. Total chaos. Cats, tree, ornaments, the angel, strings of lights flying everywhere. With luck you might get the war zone cleaned up by Christmas Eve. With a lot of luck. Chocolate is my go to for after disaster solace. In this case a LOT of chocolate. 

And a differnt Christmas chaos courtesy of Simon's Cats. Imagine that wine hitting the cat at the top of the tree.

Bugs and The Great Wine Explosion

By Franny Syufy

It all started soooo innocently...
DH and I were strolling down memory lane decided to revist our ill-spent youth by buying a bottle of Asti Spumonte, a sparkling wine that sort of tastes like apples. We wanted it for dinner and DH decided to put it in the freezer...where we promptly forgot about it.

When we got it out of the freezer, it looked pretty frozen. For reasons that can only be described as male, DH decided it to open the bottle just as Bugs, with his back turned to him, decided to eat some kibble half a kitchen away. Before I could yell, "Contents under pressure, you idiot!" DH popped the cork.

Which flew. Across the room. Hitting Bugs on the butt. With considerable force. He levitated four feet vertically into the air — just in time to meet the stream of Asti Spumonte ice winging its way through the air. Mid-air collision: cat, half-frozen wine, DH trying to save cat.

Howls. From Bugs and DH, who catches Bugs, claws first, because they are now fully extended and working with piston-like energy in full getaway mode because DH has the bottle, which is making splurting noises and foaming in an alarming manner, in the other hand . Bugs uses DH's chest as a launching pad and races off in blind panic through the livingroom, showering flecks of wine ice everywhere he goes.

And where does he take cover? In our bed of course, under the duvet, rolling wildly to get the nasty-smelling cold stuff OFF his back. Which meant, of course, that he had to have a bath, because not only is he sticky, but we're concerned that wine just can't be good for brown cats. Although Tum, whom we caught lapping at the pool of melted wine in the kitchen, clearly did not agree, given the protest he made when we locked him downstairs for the duration of clean-up.

Anyways, Bugs, wet and completely disgusted, has banished us to the bench for a prolonged time-out with prejudice. Anybody like a glass of winecicle?

- drunementon

Franny's Note: "the bench" refers to the "Mean Mommy Bench," aka MMB, where forum members are relegated for acts cruel and inhumane toward cats. You'll find one or more of us huddled there at any given time, sharing hot cocoa, ice tea, or wine, depending on the season and our degree of remorse.

IS ANYONE LISTENING/

 Ok I'm overdoing a little today. OK maybe a lot. But you manage to get on a roll these days you got with it. It's been awhile since I made our own Christmas cards. And I did it on a Mac. Not exactly compatible with a PC about two decades older than the long gone Blueberry IMac. 

So, I'm not sure if I paired Do You Hear What I Hear with this card front. If I did it was before I learned the story behind the Carol. When you reach a certain age, the sparkly lights and tinsel don't sparkle quite the sparkle theway they used to. And I believe I will stop right there. I believe a cat petting session is due right about now since I don't drink. (sometimes I wish I did)

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
Do you see what I see
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear.
A song, a song, high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea.

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring Him silver and gold
Let us bring Him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere,
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace, people everywhere!
Listen to what I say
The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

The piece was written by Noel Regney and his wife Gloria Shayne in 1962. 1962, the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m not sure how close we actually came to pushing that first and final button but this carol was their answer. A plaintive call for peace. If those missiles had been launched there would have been no one left for the night winds to tell their secrets to. The trees would have been charred skeletons. Branches lifted to ash filled skies in final a futile prayer for their lives. The songs of seabirds and waves silenced. All that would have been left were the stars shining down on a world with no one from kings to shepherd boys left to see them.

NOT YOUR TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CARD

 

Raised by parents described as pacifists, the story is that his mother cried when he left for West Point. Just about the only way a smart young man from a farm family could get a college education. Honestly, outside of Jimmy Carter, the last president who really "got it." Imagine the reaction if you put this on the front of your Christmas cards. 

BUT IT WAS A GIFT

 

Lucky did leave us "gifts" but they were ususally left out of the enclosed back deck not a coffee cup or my slipper. There was the one that was still breathing. Out came the tongs and the paper towels. Poor little mousie. As long as they stayed outside they were OK. Once the mouse was in the house it was a onoe way to mouse heaven.

DON'T MESS WITH GRANDMA

 I'm digging through old picture files searching for pics I created for our own Christmas cards over the years. Well this isn't anywhere near christmas but I just had another birthday and this badass gal made me smile.

And it doesn't look like she's even out of breath or even messed up- her dress. 

TOO WEIRD FOR WORDS

 I did this one a few years ago. Too bad it fits right in with all the conspiracy theories floating through the social media semi madness. Recognizing that LGBTQ citizens exist is not going to change anyone else through some "magic" spell. I still believe that there is enough real weirdness in the world. There is no need to make it up. Although at this point no one was advocating wholesale murder of gays or sticking them in concentration camps. 

There was an article on Huffington Post a couple of days ago about a gal who refused an invitation to her son to attend a birthday party for a little girl with two dads. Turns out the story was a hoax perpetrated by a couple of radio dj’s whose names don’t really matter at this stage of the game. With luck they’ll be drawing unemployment this time next week. Don’t know what they thought they were going to prove. Stories about real bigots are easy enough to find without making them up. And it just makes it harder to get people to believe the real stories when they surface.

Did lead to some very interesting comments though. And I gotta tell ya, there are some folks out there that are even weirder than I expected. One of the odder commenters seemed to believe that somehow giving gays equal rights and allowing them to marry would lead to the extinction of the human race. Unfortunately that original comment has been deleted. Can’t imagine why, HP’s moderators get a little too zealous in their duties sometimes, in my opinion. As long as the folks aren’t cussin’, calling people names and so on, I can be fairly cool with that. But, apparently, according to this commenter there is a world wide conspiracy of gays to force us all into same sex unions or some equally outrageous actions.

Anyway this is the salvaged comment.
"You just live long enough to see a very large number of LGBTs hold Political offices all over the World. It is a mathematical certainty, once you start pairing Humanity man-man and woman-woman, then, you eliminate the manifestation of Babies. And this will affect everything, the Economy and all, once Humanity stops making babis, then, it is game over-Extinction Point reached. "

I did get a reply to my reply and I’m including that. It didn’t get posted either. If I could have replied it would have been along the lines of just because gays have the right to marry; it doesn’t follow that straights are going to stop getting married (although they seem to be doing that any way) and having kids (the kids are arriving with or without benefit of clergy, a justice of the peace or the local Marrying Sam). Most of us with two X chromosomes are still attracted to those humans with the XY combo. Gay rights won’t change that. Gay marriage won't change that. Biology is still biology and at seven billion plus we're in no danger of extinction on that front.

Too many cases of terminal stupidity just might do the trick though.

PAINTING WITH WORDS

 This is a blast from the past. From back when Sarah Palin hit the news. Hard to believe we're "blest" with some who are crazier than she was.

This meditation, essay whatever was brought on by the news that Sarah Palin’s contract with Fox wasn’t renewed. And both sides are saying it was their idea. Whatever. A sorrier example of verbal illiteracy I’ve seen yet.

So, this is a bit  of a departure from what I’ve been writing, but maybe not so much. Back when the boys were little we picked out a few books that we thought would be fun to have on hand to read from. Turned out to be a complete flop. Kids that wore out my Sleeping Beauty tape couldn’t sit still long enough to listen to one of Kipling’s Just So Stories. I was entranced by The Elephant’s Child. They weren’t. (very long sigh here) BTW I ran into the Elephant's Child when I stumbled across Reading Rainbow. Mr. Burton you were and are still wonderful.

My generation were probably the last to be verbally rather than visually oriented. Read Kipling. Read Dickens. They drew word pictures and your imagination was free to run riot. Dicken’s intro to A Christmas Carol is really priceless. The winter cold. The fog. The growing dark at three in the afternoon. Fog so thick it was creeping through the key hole in the door. Scrooge, who went through life with an icicle hanging from his nose in the middle of July.

The elephant’s child with his ‘satiable curiosity and endless questions setting off to find out what the crocodile has for dinner complete with a supply of melons (green) Sugar cane (purple) and bananas (the little red ones) in search of the great, grey green Limpopo River all set about with fever trees, where, he’s told, the crocodile lives. On the way he meets a bi colored python rock snake… and the crocodile. Only to find that today, he’s on the menu. And did I mention that up to this point elephants had noses that looked more like a boot than a trunk?

So, here’s the elephant finding himself in the middle of a tug of war between the crocodile who has hold of his nose and the snake who’s hanging onto the hind legs with all his snaky strength and advising

“Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said, 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.' An ulster was a long coat with a built in elbow length cape. 

This is the way Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

Then the Elephant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.

And the Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer—and it hurt him hijjus!

Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, 'This is too butch for be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's Child's hind legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck' (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), 'will permanently vitiate your future career.” (Talented snake. He can do double clove hitches)

The crocodile the elephant and the bi colored python rock snake. 

I loved it. My nephews couldn't be bothered. They were too busy playing Super Mario Brothers. Heck I watch movies. I watch some TV. Not as much as I used to. But, we really lost something in the transition. The old authors painted pictures with words in a way that most film just can’t match. And that most writers can’t match either. No matter how many awards they get.

And that may be part what attracts me to the Celtic traditions. The old bards and poets were masters of the word. The best of the old poets could compose a satire that would topple thrones or cause a king who chose to ignore the rules of hospitality to break out in boils. So the old tales tell us. It was not wise to insult a bard.

MY OFF THE WALL SENSE OF HUMOR

 Yeah, I guess I did sort of fall off the face of the earth. Or a bad case of writer's block, Or whatever. More on that later. I hope.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent. The four weeks leading up to the Christmas Season. I grew up in a Methodist church so liberal we didn't do Advent or Lent. Don't remember the prophets being mentioned all that often either. Anyway. The lead up to the Christmas season plus some reading of the prophents over the past few years plus my twisty, off the wall sense of humor produced this:

Of the few of you who actually know me you will know that my sense of humor is well, sort of off the wall. Out in far left field actually.

God has sent prophets over the years from Amos through Jeremiah to Zechariah with mixed and apparently futile results. This is how it goes in my weird imagination,

"Son we need to have a talk. Remember that conversation we had a three or four eons ago on the other side of the Milky Way."

"Yeah, the one where I end up on earth eventually learning the difference between oak and cedar and end up walking the length and breadth of the Holy Land, depending on the hospitality of strangers and all that goes with it, while basically repeating what those who came before me tried to teach?

"That's the one. It's time. I've got a great family chosen for you. Joseph is a carpenter and Mary is willing to take the risk."

"OK dad, Catch you on the flip side. I've got a feeling I'm going to get into more trouble that all the other prophets put together."

"Afraid so, Son."

STILL KICKIN'

 I did not drop off the face of the earth. No matter how it looks. Ran into some medical problems last month tied to my chronic cellulitis.talk about a gift that keeps on giving. As in a week in the hospital and the better part of a month getting my mojo back, such as it was or is, and clearing out the cobwebs. Between the meds and therapy I've been about as ambitious as a sponge on the good stuff.

Not really sure what to write about these days. but here's one. The ads have been pitching fake Christmas tree since before Halloween. Right down to the fake smell of the fake fir tree. Darn it half the fun of Christmas was decorating the tree. Picking one out that looked like a good one. Installing it in the tree stand, trying to avoid stepping on the cat's tail while she checked out the crinkly paper wrapping the ornaments. Standing up the tree and turning it so the best side was facing the room. 

And when I was little watching dad check out the lights on the string. We have at least two generations that probably don't have that memory. Sigh of relief if they all lit the first time. The going through the string one by one with a good bulb until you found the burned out one. After he had checked to make sure they were all screwed in good and tight. So you have a couple of strings of lights that light up. Those old lights were real light bulbs. They got hot. So when you put the lights on the tree you had to make sure that those lights didn't get anywhere near pine or fir needles. 

So the tree went up the week before Christmas and came down by New Years.Then it was on with the garland, the ornaments and the tinsel. Anybody remember tinsel? Remember the really good Hallmark ornaments? The skating moose. The fiddle playing bunny rabbit? The ornament celebrating the birth of my oldest nephew? A couple of really delecate ornaments that came from Grandma. 

So in reverse. Carefully removing the tinsel. Save that for next year. Rewrap the ornaments. Don't step on the cat who is batting the stray pieces around. Remove the strings of garland. Save that too. Finally the lights and all that's left are fallen fir needles and bits of tinsel. Did I mention the checking of the needles every day to make sure they are still firmly attached to the branches. 

There was that one year when we got the tree up and four days later we took it down. Little sucker was shedding needles like crazy. The only good thing about those fake trees it that you probably can't set one on fire.I don't have any pictures of those old trees. And guess what you can watch youtube videos to find out how to decorate an old fashioned tree.Youtube for cryin' out loud. 

Darn I wish I had a picture of the fiddle playing rabbit. Or the one that was ice skating. Or the drunking front legs crossed, ice skating moose. He was really a prize

SMALL BOYS

Yeah I haven't been posting very often but this caught my eye. It isn't the kittens. It isn't the kind of scruffy kid. The only thing missing are skinned knees. No it's the sweater. A prime example of making a virtue of necessity. Call it Fair Isle. Call it Norewegian. It's a way of using up the odd bits of yarn you can't see going to waste. Heck you probably spun and died it. Or know who did. The stripes are matched, or pretty closely. Probably almost impossible to get the kid to sit still long enough to get his hair combed but he will stop for kittens. 

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE AN APPLE PIE

 

Perhaps if all our recipes began with "if you want to make ____________ first create the universe we'd be reminded of our place in it/ SF classic author Robert Heinlein is said to have began his recipe for rabbit stew with "first catch the rabbit." To be honest the aple pie in the Cosmos segment needed a pie crust. This one sounds like a Dutch Apple pie with a crumble topping. Both are delicious. 

MORE PIPEDREAMS?

 US drought monitor map as of July 19 of this year. Parts of eastern Oregon and northern California have eased up. A bit.  Includes Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

Oregon and Washington aren't quite so bad off although there is a dark brown area that looks to be about where Bend and Sisers are located. Just dong a little sifting throught the websites yesterday apparantly the flow on the Columbia is down from the old normal. Say about fifteen to twenty years ago. The last time any water gushed around here was back in the nineties. 

A map of the area drained by the Columbia River system. Rising in British Columbia the rivers drain an area the size of France. By volume it's the fourth largest river system in the US and the largest draining into the Pacific. Small wonder greedy eyes to the south covet the waters of the Columbia. 

The system supports over sixty dams tying toether irrigation, hydropower and a network of locks and barges that ties the Port of Lewiston to the Pacific. And has cut down the salmon runs to almost nothing including the destruction of the fishery at Celilo Falls. Somehow I don't believe that naming the reservoir Lake Celilo quite makes up for that. 

The Snake and the Columbia form the squiggly sections of the borders between Idaho and Washington. During the low flow parts of the years Spring, Summer and Fall waters from the Pacific can flow up to one hundred six miles up the river. So far seawater hasn't made it into the Willamette River which joins the Columbia just over one hundred miles from the Pacific. 

There are four dams on the lower Columbia between Oregon and Washington; Benneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary. All four have lochs and power stations. The Columbia reaches Oregon just east of McNary dam. And the weirdest thing happened when Rick took us over to the Washington side where the loch is located several years ago. We lucked out and the loch was in use. As the water drained out to the lower level the illusion was that we were going up, not that the water was going down. Reeealy weird. 

Unfortunately I can't find an opinion piece I read yesterday asking why water from the Columbia can't be sent via pipeline to the southwest. One of the comments on the piece claimed that diverting ten pecent of the flow from the from the point where the river enters Washington. I can only assume the commenter hasn't seen a topo map of my home state. 

See that green area that ends at the point the state border becomes a straight line. That's where the river enters Oregon. The green you see is the lowest elevation. The shades of purple to blue are progressively higher in elevation. The cerntral plateau averages about three thousand feet in elevation.

His theory was that diverting ten percent of the flow would not harm the salmon runs. Any more than they already are. More on that later. I'm assuming some sort of pipeline. I'm guessing they'd want to tie into the Colorado system somehow, somewhere. I believe the closest the Colorado comes to Oregon is donn the corder of Utah. A long way to go and a lot of rugged real estate in the way 

Now about that ten percent of the flow. How will that affect power generation. Can wind generation take up the slack? How will losing ten percent of the flow affect barge traffic. And how will that ten percent really affect the salmon runs. Will the diversion cause the waters in the reservoirs to warm up even more? Warm water and salmon don't exactly mix. 

Water from the Pacific already makes it just over one hundred miles up river. What would be the effect of a ten percent diversion have on possibly increasing that distance. The mouth of the Willamette is one hundred one miles from the mouth of the Columbia. Could this affact water quality in the Willamette. What if any effect would this have on wells near the river? Add in rising sea levels and what happens to the that equation?

This tale certainly grew with the telling. Haven't written anything like this in a very long time. Feels good. 

A SCARY PIPEDREAM

 A bit of a change brought on by this article. One of several published in the Desert Sun, a Utah newspaper, over the past month or so. A quick Google hasn't uncovered much along these lines from other sources. Probably because Southern California has already understood that there are limits to what can be extracted from the rest of the country. I posted this on FB and this is what I wrote to go with it with a few additions. 

You chose to live in a desert. You are encouraging more population to move to your desert. And basically mocking anyone who points out that it is a desert and pointing out that other civilizations came a cropper when the water stopped flowing.

Once that pipeline is built it won't stop with just a portion. The rest of us will hear a giant sucking sound as every drop of fresh water is diverted. Earlier in the last century a plan on paper would have diverted fresh water from just about everywhere including the Great Lakes.

Check out Cadillac Desert. There once and is on file somewhere a plan that would have diverted water from ALASKA via British Columbia down to the southwestusing a network of dams and pipelines. The Canadian Prime Minister thought is was a good idea. A great many of his potential voters weren't too cool fwith the idea though, since the plan involved building that huge dam and creating a reservoir five hundred miles long.

Most of western Canada probably looked at THEIR rivers that were awfully close to that network and wondered how long it would be before the US cast our greedy eyes towards those rivers. There are limits damn it. We either learn to live within them voluntarily or the universe will impose the limits and believe me, we won't like it. Although I probably won't be here to see the fallout. Not so sure about my great nieces and nephews.

And how blithely the commenters spoke of diverting just ten percent of the flow from the Columbia. Won't hurt the salmon since we won't need to build any new dams. Yo, we have a drought up here too. Maybe Oregon and Washington could build greenhouses and supply some of those out of season vegetables.

And what would a ten percent decrease do to Portland's viability as a port? And what would ten percent mean to pulling sea water up the Columbia River. The whole "we need it so let's figure out how somebody else can give it to us." Incidentally the Columbia was placed off limits by congress two generations ago and believe me we will fight to keep it that way. Thank you senators Jackson and Magnuson of Washington. You see some folks down south just hate of idea of ANY fresh water making it to the sea.

Once upon a time the Colorado reached the Pacific though wetlands and delta rich in plants and wild life. The Colorado reaches the ocean maybe every few years and then only a trickle. The Colorado network never carried the water it was assumed it would provide and that was over allocated. There are limits folks. Don't assume that the rest of the country is going to bail you out without some draconian limits placed on your dreams. If the dreams are fulfilled at all.

We might be convinced to keep the lights on and the faucets flowing for the population you have NOW. You want more people you figure out how to get the water. You won't get it from us. We have our own lights to keep lit and our own faucets to fill.

NOW THAT HE IS SAFELY DEAD

  

Photo courtesy of the National Park Service I really do hate that statue. It doesn't do the man justice. Has he been safely dead long enough to quit running edited videos of that "I have a dream speech/" And I have never been able to get around Blogger's formatting issues. Sorry.

 Several years ago I ran across a skinny little volume of poems and essays remembering the death of MLK. Ironicall while Drum Major for a Dream was edited by religious studies professor Ira Zepp and Del Martin who teaches literature, writes some poetry. Both were respeccted instructors at Western Maryland University. The volume was produced by the Writers Workshop - Indian Creative Writing in English headquartered in, wait for it, Calcutta. India. 

Now that he is safely dead

Let us praise him.

Build monuments to his glory

Sing hosannas to his name

 

Dead men make such safe,

Convenient heroes:

They cannot rise to challenge the images

We would fashion from their lives.

 

And besides,

It is easier to build monuments

Than to build a better world.

 

So, now that he is safely dead

We, with eased consciences

Will teach our children

That he was a great man…knowing

 

That the cause he lived for

Is still a cause. And that the dream

For which he died is still a dream.

A dead man’s dream.

 Carl Wendell Hines Jr. in Drum Major for a Dream

This piece was written in memory of MLK Jr. Screen shot from the Amazon Books website. The volume only has seventy or so pages. Bound in the cloth used for saris. Not the really nice, shimmery ones. the kind of cloth the village women wear. Poems, short essays, some very angry. I believe that only one edition was produced by this group. If there is an earlier version I haven't found one. The only copies avaiable are used and they are pricey. Very Very pricey. Believe I will do a little digging. Now if I can just solve the formatting issues in word.  Grrrr. 

 Actually this is an update of an earlier journal entry. This piece was written in memory of MLK Jr. However it could also describe the fate of the teachings of a certain footsore rabbi who came a cropper when he went against the combined power of Rome and the Jerusalem power structure. However unlike MLK who left his letters, speaches and sermons that footsore rabbi left no written record. We don’t know what HE taught. He didn’t write anything down. People with their own agendas did write things down and out of those writings at least one author has identified eight distinct theologies in the New Testament. And he believed that seven of those were wrong. Unfortunately that book didn't make the trip to Eastern Oregon and damn if I can remember the author or the title. 

 Now that He is safely out of the way we can make just about anything we want out of the scraps that were allowed into the accepted canon and proceed to beat each other over the head with them and build fences with safely locked gates. Above those gates are the words Keep Out.

EXCERPT FROM A LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL

 Written in April of 1963

 “I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice, who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice, who constantly say “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.” Who paternalistically believes that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom…” Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail. 

He echoes what I've often felt. Who are the greatest enemies of change? The diehard segregationists, abortionists, talking heads at least they make no secret of who they are? Or is it the nice people who just can't be bothered, don't want to rock the boat, don't have time or are afraid that they'll get into trouble too. 

And another group we've seen all too many of these last election cycles. They can't get al that they want, when they want it, so they pick up their marbles, go home and forfeit the more important right we have that is guaranteed under the constitution. The right to vote. Also the responsibility to make sure the candidate are there to do the job, not running as a spoiler. Jill Stein comes to mind as an example. And if Ralph Nader had sat out the election in 2000? Old news but it does get you to thinking. 

Also the churchmen who told King that he was supposed to stick with spiritual matters and not meddle in politics. But how can you separate the two? You can't. King pointed out that young white men and young black men were being sent half way around the world to fight toeither when in many parts of the country they couldn't sit down a share a meal in the local  diner. 

THE INCONVENIENT HERO

 t's the annivesary of the I Have a Dream speech. Our national mythology drops MLK off the radar in 1963 and he resurfaces just in time to be murdered in cold blook in Memphis in 1968. Ah the sixties. frankly when you think about it very little permanent good came out of that chaotic decade.  

This is an excerpt from the conclusion of Vincent Harding’s essay The Inconvenient Hero found in his collection Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero.

This essay collection was originally published in 1996. The echoes of the fall of the Soviet Union were still reverberating. If he had revised the essay for the second edition he probably could have used manipulated anti terrorism and it would mean pretty much the same thing.

1996 the videogame industry was just taking off and “Reality TV” was a nightmare waiting to be born.

The so called Free Trade Agreement treaties were just being negotiated and signed. Beware when anyone in any government or corporate position tries to pat you on the head and tell you not to worry your little head about the details; it’ll all work out.

And the toxic hyper individualism pushed by the likes of the Ryans and Santorums was just beginning to send out its poisonous tendrils.

Harding really catches the cadence of the spoken word in the written word. If you can get away with it try reading it out loud. And Mr. Harding goes in the neglected Wordsmith column.

“Who dares recall the man when, when all the plagues he fought are still among us, standing in the way of the “America we hope to be”: poverty and exploitation, racism, militarism, materialism, manipulated anticommunism? How shall we recall him when the America which has been is still protected and justified by Bible quoting presidents and supine legislators who offer no visionary leadership to a spiritually crippled people?

Who dare rededicate themselves to the causes of this hero? Who is there now when major portions of his black middle class have made their peace, found equal opportunity in the America that is? Someone.

Who is there now when the overwhelming experience of the black church is still focused on the individualistic religious experience, breaking faith with the Tubmans, the Turners, the Truths, and the Kings (and the King)/? Someone.

Who is there now when so many Black youth in whom the fire once burned are now being cooled out by drugs, by jail, by military lies, by poisoned cultural opium in music and on screens, and by big money for small games? Someone.

Who is there when so many of his white comrades now stand by in cynicism, success, fear, and puzzlement? Someone.

Who is there when the poor (and the recently poor) now compete for crumbs across racial and ethnic lines, rather than standing together in vision, to pray, to recollect, to plan, to struggle? Someone.

Who stands with a hero who insists on living for the broken and exploited,  Who refuses to deny nightmares, who still will not let dreams die, and is not afraid to go on exploring, trembling, stumbling wherever dreams lead him? Someone.

Who will open the door for the children, to let them see him, feel him, as he was, to recall him as he is, perhaps to expose their hungry, directionless lives to the flaming vector of his passion for the poor? Someone.

Is he safely dead? Perhaps we should recall him and see. Now. Perhaps in the process we  learn again how to live – unsafely, in love with God and neighbor, with cleansing, purifying fire, with the America that is yet to be created – by us. 

STILL PASSING FACE PALM APPROACHING MELT DOWN

 

When I originally wrote this entry you could make comments on the reviews on Amazon. Back in 2020 Amazon not only removed the ability to comment on a review but removed all the comments already written. Too bad. It was a riot to read the comments on this particular review. 

I have admited over the years that admired Carl Sagan. He may not have been the best scientist in his field but his ability to explain how science works was remarkable. He didn't talk down to his adience. He assumed that anyone who was curious, willing to listen, perhaps willing to do some of their own research was capable of understanding the basics of science. He had his prejudices and was upfront about them. Didn't have much use for astrology or the UFO mania. He didn't discount the possibillity of life on other worlds just that was no hard evidence that thos possible aliens had visited earth. Or if they had they didn't leave any evidence  behind. I still make no apologies for being totally PO'd  at a reivew written by someone who didn't bother to watch the series or do any basic reserach on Dr. Sagan's background and education. And it's only gotten worse. At least it looks like it to these tired eyes. 

Between politics, crap like this and some stories about rape/shaming culture in certain fundie colleges in this country I was just about ready do somebody some serious injury last night. So I wrote it out instead of punching it out. 

“I rented the 13 episode series after having watched a portion on PBS, thinking that it seemed like a good watch. How wrong I was. This is nothing more than a New Age brainwashing series. The music, often Vangelis, repeating the same things over and over, does nothing but brainwash and dumb the viewer. The overall purpose of the video series is a "science as religion" infommercial (and perhaps a means of self-worship -- he seems to enjoy the sound of his own voice). Sagan, as it should by now now be widely known, himself engaged in his fair share of pseudoscience. He is best described as a sci-fi writer pretending to be a scientist. By accusing others of pseudoscience, he was able to divert attention away from his own pseudoscience because clearly, anyone accusing anyone else of something can't possibly be doing the same thing. That would be hypocritical! And, after almost 30 years, the tapes still sell for this ridiculous price. Save yourself the time and/or money and restrict yourself to series about real science. This is in the same league as "What the bleep do we know?", judging by the trailers and clips of the latter.”

This is a review of the original Cosmos series I stumbled over on Amazon. I do love the one star reviews. In a back handed, how can anybody be so freakin’ braindead in the 21^st century sort of way.

One the reviewer doesn’t tell us how much of the series he/she actually watched. I’m guessing just enough to trigger the inbuilt fundie meter. I gathered enough from their other reviews to suspect we might be dealing with some kind of “theology” student here.

Anyway, typical fundie bashing of anyone they don’t agree with. Beginning with, drum roll please.

“New Age propaganda.” New Age as defined by Webster: an eclectic group of cultural attitudes arising in late 20th century Western society that are adapted from those of a variety of ancient and modern cultures, that emphasize beliefs (as reincarnation, holism, pantheism, and occultism) outside the mainstream, and that advance alternative approaches to spirituality, right living, and health. If this mindless twit had bothered to actually watch the series he/she would have discovered that Carl Sagan was about as New Age as my mother. He doesn’t mention reincarnation, had no patience with the occult, astrology or the UFO cult of the times. He doesn’t discount the possibility of extra terrestrial life. Just that we’ve been visited recently. Or any time for that matter.

Geez, what do you have against Vangelis? The soundtrack also includes other “New Age” brain washers such as Vivaldi, Bach, Pachelbel and Rimsky Korsokoff.

Science as religion. Excuse me while I go take forty turns around the yard to cool off. Science is just that science. And Sagan did spend a fair amount of time over the course of the series lamenting what we’ve lost in the fires of history. Also lost libraries.

“loves the sound of his own voice.” Yo, Spam for brains (sorry for insulting a perfectly useful if calorie and salt laden lunch meat) he’s the narrator for cryin’ out loud. The programs are his personal opinions so there are very few other talking heads involved. I guess he could have collected a bunch of slides, put labels on them and did a thirteen hour slide show. 

“A pseudo scientist pretending to be a scientist.” Face palm, head bounce, ear splitting scream. Two bachelors, a master’s and a PhD. Taught in California, at Harvard and Cornell. He participated in several space missions through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I mean how much MORE DO YOU WANT!!!. I have at least four of his essay collections in my library. Demon Haunted World was probably the best.. He did write ONE novel. Contact, which I haven’t read. Saw the move though. It was cool. Known as a science fiction writer pretending to be a scientist????? Are we even on the same planet?

I suspect that the so called pseudo science in question is Sagan’s thorough going, passionate defense of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. And I do mean passionate. He spent at least ten minutes in the second episode waxing nealyr poetic over the shared ancestry of bacteria, fish, trees…and us. And I just rewatched the third episode. I suspect the other "pseudoscience" is climate change. Sagan was ringing the alarm bells back in 1980. 

This is a prime example of the mountains of crap we have to put up with as we try to too many of our fellow citizens kicking, screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs out of the Dark Ages and into the future. Can’t stop now there’s too damn much to lose.

 And please excuse the caps and extra punctuation, but I passed pissed off yesterday and am rapidly heading into ballistic territory.

One consolation out of thirty six comments originally attached to this one star review, ninety five percent were of the “bro, what HAVE you been smoking” variety. 

THE PALE BLUE DOT

 Shot taken by the Cassini space probe. That tiny dot below the rings of Saturn is our earth. What Carl Sagan called "the pale blue dot."  

When the Voyager space craft had reached just beyond the outer planets Carl Sagan persuaded the  mission controllers to turn the space craft around to take pictures of the planets. Earth didn't even cover a whole pixel. And this is what Carl Sagan had to say about that piece of a pixel. 

What he had to say about that small island in the Cosmic Ocean can't be said often enough. Neil Tyson used this quote in the finale of the final episode of the new Cosmos. That quote and his summing up are enough to get me to buy the series.

"From the Pale Blue Dot.

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar. Every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, live there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturing, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity-in all this vastness- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and if I might add, a character building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known..

 Carl Sagan.

Yes, it's the only home we have or will have in the forseeable future so we do we keep treating it like a garbage dump? Why do we treat our neighbors as if they were disposable trash? Why, oh why, oh why. I was literally in tears at the end of the episode. We're capable of so much more. So damn much more.