Lead, follow, or get out of the way

It's April in Minnesota. We can tell by the blizzard raging outside. April is, among other things, National Poetry Month. This year, 2019, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and publisher and founder of City Lights, turned 100. In honor of Ferlinghetti and National Poetry Month we have been (re)reading:

Unsurprisingly, we found a statement therein that seems highly appropriate for today's weather. It's in the section on What Is Poetry:

It is what the early spring is saying
about the deaths of winter.

We suspect the chickadees flitting through gusting winds to our sunflower seed feeders, and the juncos searching the snow-covered ground for morsels, have less poetical thoughts about today's "early spring" weather. More like "good-bye and good riddance" or "don't let the door hit your behind on the way out." Neither bird is anything like large, or even medium-sized. Neither weighs much more than a snowflake or a strong wind gust. Yet many of each are, so far, surviving this storm, presumably in expectation of thriving when it has passed. We hope our provision of some provisions helps them do so.

As we continue to feel dismayed by the chaos and malfeasance in our nation's capital, we find ourselves wondering about the extent to which we should focus on surviving the current political storm so we may thrive when and if it passes. Or, on the other hand, we realize it might be foolish to expect the same political parties and voters who got us into this mess to get us out of it. Much of that perspective no doubt stems from growing up in neighborhoods full of peers governed by the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Maybe, just maybe, the younger generations will manage to sort out and clean up the messes they've inherited from us.

We're pleased beyond measure to see that students and young people in Minnesota, as part of MN CAN'T WAIT, have introduced a statewide bill, the Minnesota Green New Deal. Elsewhere, the school strike for climate, initiated by a teenager, Greta Thunberg, is making progress pressuring political leadership to act now instead of when it's too late to be sufficiently effective. When we were younger, we were often governed by the premise "Don't trust anyone over thirty." We think we'll revert to that as an operational basis, at least in politics and public policy considerations. In fact, maybe we need to amend the Constitution to make 30, rather than 35, the qualifying age, and set an upper limit of 70 as is done for many public sector positions already. If we were wise, we'd include a provision that candidates for the presidency must release a decade's worth of federal tax returns in the same amendment. Maybe us old folks could get started on that before "the kids" beat us to it. Meanwhile, a recent Nobel Laureate had something to say about all this, quite a few years ago.

[UPDATE: SCIENCE MAGAZINE: Concerns of young protesters are justified]

My Back Pages

Written by: Bob Dylan

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now 

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