Illegitimi non carborundum*

Hints of gold are arriving amongst the greens of roadside grasses. Splashes and tints of tan can be seen in the verdant treetops. We're about a third of the way through August. Rumor has it that grammar school students have started to announce, with dismay: "Summer's almost over! Soon we'll be back in school!!" I'm discounting a number of reports about adults responding "Yes!!!" Even in this day and age I'm not ready to believe in that level of cruelty.

wild turkeys walking through August-ripe grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

About 3 am we were awakened by a round of thunder and lightning, and rain, that had been forecast for several hours later. It's been cloudy much of the day. Temperatures have pretty much dropped out of the nineties, for which we are thankful. In the midst of the current and continuing national and international madness, I'm really looking forward to Autumn's arrival, followed by the mid-term elections. Will the fractured and fragmented Democrats unite enough to oust the party of pedophile protecting Republicans? Will POtuS find a way to successfully disrupt the election outcome? If so, how will the country respond? The United States is emulating that old joke: "I'm not the man (country) I used to be; never was." If only we had no where to go but up. Do you think we've hit bottom yet? Are enough voters fed up with an international crime syndicate masquerading as a government? How bad and wide-spread do the wildfires and droughts have to get?

Meanwhile as I rearrange the deck chairs on our Titanic, I've been fly-fishing several weeks in a row now. That's an improvement over the past few years. All I've caught so far is one bush on a misplaced backcast, but that's better than staying home, not catching anything, and then bitching about not going fishing because it's too windy wet, etc. A similar perspective might be beneficial come voting time. I don't like being faced with an option of choosing the lesser of two options, but would like it even less if the greater clown won by one vote because I stayed home. Meanwhile, we'll probably wear out the tv's mute button due to political ads during the next couple of months. Maybe if we're good little girls and boys, by Christmas this will all be over until 2028 at least!

*  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum

Good Bones

Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

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Peak Summer perspectives

In our northern hemisphere, this coming Saturday, August 1, Lughnasadh is celebrated among the Celts and Irish Gaelic. Locally, row crop harvest will start in a couple of months and fruit and vegetable harvest has been underway for a couple of months. Somewhere close to or on August 7 we'll reach the midpoint between between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox. This sure seems like peak Summer and the weather concurs. Right now the temperature is in the mid 90's (℉) and the humidity makes it feel like 113℉. At least the wildfire smoke has eased away for now.

field corn not yet  ready for harvest

Photo by J. Harrington

The limited cool down forecast for the next ten days may be enough for those Minnesotans who vote in person on August 11 to get over being hot under the collar. Early voters, not so much. Those who pay close attention to the state of the world, the country, the state, and/or the 99% are unlikely to cool down regardless of the weather. I'm reminded of the key theme from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not." I'm here to say it's well past time we all stop voting for Once-lers while we still have a habitable planet to protect! I wonder if we could send all of the 1% to colonize the "Red Planet." (Am I the only one who sees real irony in that?)

At some point we seem to have allowed those who are supposed to represent US to act as though the words accommodate, tolerate, cooperate, and compromise are each spelled with only four letters and aren't to be used in polite political company. winner take all is the antithesis of a democracy, just as is the short-sightedness of not thinking beyond this quarter's profits. How can we be sure to vote only for those who realize we, and our descendants, are all in this for the long term? Your thoughts?

Ghazal: America the Beautiful

Alicia Ostriker

1937 –

Do you remember our earnestness our sincerity
in first grade when we learned to sing America

The Beautiful along with the Star-Spangled Banner
and say the Pledge of Allegiance to America

We put our hands over our first grade hearts
we felt proud to be citizens of America

I said One Nation Invisible until corrected
maybe I was right about America

School days school days dear old Golden Rule Days
when we learned how to behave in America

What to wear, how to smoke, how to despise our parents
who didn’t understand us or America

Only later learning the Banner and the Beautiful
live on opposite sides of the street in America

Only later discovering the Nation is divisible
by money by power by color by gender by sex America

We comprehend it now this land is two lands
one triumphant bully one still hopeful America

Imagining amber waves of grain blowing in the wind
purple mountains and no homeless in America

Sometimes I still put my hand tenderly on my heart
somehow or other still carried away by America

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This is a taxing season!

One week from today, March 1, is the start of meteorological Spring. Astronomical Spring follows about three weeks later. Then, here in the North Country, we enjoy several months of false spring with intermittent periods of snow and melting. Then, usually in late May or early June, the temperature jumps from the 60's to the upper 80's within a week, and it's Summer. I find it distressingly rare for Minnesota to produce a gradual, progressive, temperature increase between winter and summer. The clothes hooks in the front hall are crowded with three seasons of coats and hats, but it's an improvement over single digit temperatures and freezing rain. Thanks for letting me me get that off my chest!

Spring will slog her way to Summer

Photo by J. Harrington

This past week SCOTUS announced a decision that partially clips FOTUS' wings on tariffs. A recent study indicates that almost all of the cost of tariffs is paid by American households and businesses. Other analyses indicate that tariffs cost the average household $1,000 or more last year. In skimming through the reports, I could find no indication of a compounding effect on household budgets caused by local and state sales taxes. In a nearby city where we do much of our shopping, the sales taxes we pay are listed as follows:

State    6.875%
Special 0.75%
Special 0.25%
Special 0.50%

The cumulative 8.375% state and local sales taxes would add $83.75 (approaching 10%) to the household cost if the goods on which tariffs were imposed are also subject to local taxes. Something to think about between now and midterm elections.

I don't know about you but I haven't seen any indication of receiving any kind of actual offset to the increases imposed by the current regime, have you? It sure llooks to me as though only billionaires and large corporations benefit from getting US to vote Republican.

The Tax Poem by Author Unknown

Tax his land, tax his wage, Tax his bed in which he lays. Tax his tractor, tax his mule, Teach him taxes is the rule. Tax his cow, tax his goat, Tax his pants, tax his coat. Tax his ties, tax his shirts, Tax his work, tax his dirt. Tax his chew, tax his smoke, Teach him taxes are no joke. Tax his car, tax his grass, Tax the roads he must pass. Tax his food, tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think. Tax his sodas, tax his beers, If he cries, tax his tears. Tax his bills, tax his gas, Tax his notes, tax his cash. Tax him good and let him know That after taxes, he has no dough. If he hollers, tax him more, Tax him until he’s good and sore. Tax his coffin, tax his grave, Tax the sod in which he lays. Put these words upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom!" And when he’s gone, we won’t relax, We’ll still be after the inheritance tax.

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Minnesota has a long history of celebrating ICE OUT!

 It's Superb owl Sunday. The sun is shining. Temperature may reach 32℉ for a short time today, more time at higher temperatures later this week. Mother Nature is providing more ice-melting heat early this season than the Democrats have all year.

some years ice out comes early

Photo by J. Harrington

We didn't have ICE agents until about 25 years ago. Twenty-five years is about ten percent of the time there's been an US. The Department of Homeland Security was created in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. As I recall, we attacked the wrong folks in response to the attacks and did little, if anything punitive toward the country that was the home of the vast majority of attackers. Looking at the track record of ICE and DHS since their creation, a case could be made that the creation of DHS was as effective a response to 9/11 as our attacks on the Taliban.

We are overdue for a major overhaul of our democracy. Remember the old saying of "use it or lose it?" That seems to me to explain much of what happened in the election of 2024. If a significant number of those who usually vote for Democrats hadn't stayed home, most likely we wouldn't have a convicted felon in the White House. And yet, Minnesota Democrats are on their way to provide an echo, not a choice, once again. The leading candidate for governor is a committed centrist who may cause a number of progressive voters to stay home come November. Might that be enough to enable a Republican win?

I spent decades as a regional/systems/urban/environmental planner. One piece of guidance I found to be consistently useful: "More of the same never solved a problem." I'm not sure what the solutions to our dysfunctional political, economic and social systems may be, but I'm pretty sure that (re)electing politicians focused more on emphasizing our differences instead of creating solutions to our common problems won't get US where we need to go.

Last year actual ice out dates in Minnesota stretched out over two months plus, from mid-March to after mid-May. Ice houses must be off lakes by the end of February in a "normal" year. Perhaps the Minnesota legislature could feel enough heat from citizens concerned about those who abuse our laws to violate our Constitution that that can enact bipartisan solutions to our current icing problems. Else our democracy may slip and break its neck.

Democracy 

Dorianne Laux
1952 –

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass
homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—
someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last
tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold
at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide
which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping
the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head
shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.
So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have
a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have
a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog
off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled 
on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed
in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch
your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind
the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out
his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat
in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream
as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl
who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots
to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it
as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,
jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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Spring melts ICE

Today is the Celtic feast of Imbolc. In Celtic country it would be the first day of Spring. Here in the North Country it's mid-Winter and snow is falling. We're a month from the start of meteorological Spring and about seven weeks from astronomical Spring (locally Friday, March 20, 2026 at 9:46 am CDT). At least the temperature is beginning to moderate from the well below 0℉ we've been experiencing for days.

when ICE melts it flows away

Photo by J. Harrington

It's also the first day of Black History Month. This year is the 100th anniversary. We as a country and as a collection of peoples continue to battle, 250 years after declaring independence, on the proper interpretation of the phrases in that declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

In a couple of weeks it will be Valentines Day, a fine time to acknowledge that Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness for all (men) are at the heart of what America keeps trying to be all about.

Too many of US try to insert a parenthetical (white) ahead of men and apply only a literal interpretation to that three letter term, erasing the Bill of Rights and the 14th and 15th amendments to our Constitution. Since this year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding, it seems highly inappropriate to regress to making a black person equal to 3/5 of a white and rescinding the rights of women to vote, bodily autonomy, and health care.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. It's forecast to be cloudy until almost 10 am tomorrow in Punxsutawney, PA, so maybe Phil won't see his shadow and we can look forward to an early Spring and an accompanying destruction of ICE and the other negative forces supporting a kleptocracy of autocratic oligarchs who would turn US into a nation of slaves. We can do better!

I look at the world

Langston Hughes

1901 – 1967

 

I look at the world

From awakening eyes in a black face —

And this is what I see:

This fenced-off narrow space

Assigned to me.



I look then at the silly walls

Through dark eyes in a dark face —

And this is what I know:

That all these walls oppression builds

Will have to go!



I look at my own body

With eyes no longer blind —

And I see that my own hands can make

The world that’s in my mind.

Then let us hurry, comrades,

The road to find.

“I Look at the World” by Langston Hughes, copyright © 2009 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Langston Hughes and International Literary Properties LLC.

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Back to the Future, again?

It's been so cold for so long even the dogs have cabin fever. They clamor to go out but as soon as we're outside in -10℉ to -20℉ temperatures and/or windchills, they decide they made a mistake and want to go back inside, forgetting about why they wanted out in the first place. I'm sympathetic but so far each dog has refused offers to be trained to use the inside toilet. They claim their legs aren't long enough. Spring seems like a lonnngg way off this week.

Are we confusing knowledge with wisdom?

Photo by J. Harrington

The days are noticeably longer than they were at the solstice four and a half weeks ago. It's the lag between day length and temperatures that's the problem here in the North Country. But then we're living in times when it snows in Florida so is the concept of "normal" even relevant? Not if we look at Washington, D.C. and the stories coming from there.

It was Buckminster Fuller who told us years ago: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” I've been thinking about that as the current regime, still supported by 30% to 40% of the population, continues to attack the rule of law and disregard our Constitution. The checks and balances envisioned by the Founders aren't. And it's not just for US that democracy is eroding.

Several years ago the Center for American Progress issued a report on Why the World’s Democracies Need a Global Kleptocracy Initiative. There appears to have been as much progress on that front as there has been resolving climate change. And yet we see more and more folks supporting Sarah Kendzior's assessment that "the US is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government". It becomes more apparent by the day that we need a new model for our country. Maybe we need to mirror some of the thinking the Founders considered when declaring independence and drafting a constitution. They, in part, reflected practices from Native American culture. We could try a variation.

Have you heard oof the Seven Grandfather Teachings?

"The Seven Grandfather Teachings have always been a part of the Native American culture. Their roots date back to the beginning of time. These teachings impact our surroundings, along with providing guidance toward our actions to one another." They are: Love, Respect, Bravery, Truth, Honesty, Humility, and Wisdom.

When was the last time you heard our political leaders talk about these qualities as part of our political process, the American Dream, or the Good Life? To borrow from a popular movie, could it be time for US to go Back to the Future?

What I Keep

Linda Hogan 

Once we had mountains
and you took them down.

It was enchanted before,
with the song of golden winds
of pollens from flowers
you also removed, as if it were the gold
you searched for. We gave you our labor.
We gave you our food, our sleeping mats.
You slept a year before we sent you away
with burning arrows and your fat ran across earth.

You took the plants on ships
away from our beautiful woods
from the forest,
you took them back to strange lands
already destroyed.
Then you needed our lands,
our labor,
and more of you
always arriving,
until you took our homes
while we still lived inside them.
You took the birds, the rookeries of beautiful waters,
feathers for hats
made from animals of this land
and all the time you lost,
so much even
a young woman had to lead the way
for your fame.

You need us now,
so I give to you
my knowledge, my mind, my stone soup.
But to myself, for myself
I keep my soul.
Our gods, your people
will never take.

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As we were saying...

Today's windy and cloudy weather feels threatening, sort of like the regime in Washington, D.C. I've been trying to track events and developments fairly closely during this past week and I've ended up with more take-aways on what NOT to do than what to do. I'm taking that as an opportunity to claim it's time to remember the parable of the babies in the river. [check it out, we'll wait right here]

There's also the quote from Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness: “Almost everything carried to its logical extreme becomes either depressing or carcinogenic.” I believe we've reached the logical extreme end of capitalistic oligarchy as exemplified by the current crew in D.C. To borrow a dictum from my time as a planner: "More of the same never solved a problem." And who was it that claimed "Life must be lived forward but can only be understood backwards"?

"We the People"  No Kings 10/18/2025

We aren't, I believe, likely to get ourselves out of the mess we're in by trying to return to anything like an old normal. The old normal was too extractive and, as we all know, "there are no jobs on a dead planet" and "there is no planet B." We need a transformative change so our society is no longer primarily dependent on growth and GDP as indicators of success. Let me once again share one of my all time favorite quotations from a 1968 speech by Robert F Kennedy:

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

It is, I believe, time for us to head upstream and see who's throwing the babies in the river and stop them. This is neither an original nor a new idea. Wendell Berry writes of a similar approach in today's poem (if you allow for a certaain stretch of poetic license).

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as Women do not go cheap
for power, please Women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

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We need better constitutions and laws

There’s an article in the Minnesota Reformer claiming we need a full time legislature. As I read through it the other day, I couldn’t find a clear explanation of how going from part time to full time would improve the quality of laws or related decisions. Meanwhile, the Kansas Supreme Court has found the "state constitution does not provide the right to vote.” Finallly, although I wasn’t there at the time, I don’t recall reading that the framers of the US Constitution were under time pressures when they decided the qualifications to be president to be limited to the following:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

I believe the requirements to purchase and/or carry a firearm are considerably more stringent. Look at the situation we’re currently facing: a convicted felon, on 34 counts, is the presumptive candidate for president, expected to represent one of our two major political parties. Felons aren’t allowed to vote, why should one be allowed to serve the highest office? Don’t we think more of our democracy, and ourselves, than that.

Hieracium aurantiacum (Orange Hawkweed) invasive species

Photo by J. Harrington

At the state level, I’ve been looking at Minnesota’s laws defining invasive species. Although I am not a lawyer, they seem vague enough to be found unconstitutional, See what you think:

• 2023 Minnesota Statutes
• AGRICULTURE
• Chapter 18
• Section 18.77

Subd. 17.    Invasive plant.

"Invasive plant" means a nonnative species whose introduction and establishment causes, or may cause, economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. 

  

• 2023 Minnesota Statutes
• CONSERVATION
• Chapter 84D
• Section 84D.01

Subd. 9a.    Invasive species.

"Invasive species" means a nonnative species that:

(1) causes or may cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health; or

(2) threatens or may threaten natural resources or the use of natural resources in the state. 

So far, I’ve not been able to find any description of a process or criteria to be followed in reaching a determination of the quantity and/or quality of “harm” that needs to be caused to the economy, human health or natural resources in the state for a terrestrial or aquatic species to be listed. 

The last time I checked, most educated, thinking people were familiar with and generally agreed with the  theory of evolution. That means ecosystems and their elements change over time. Then there’s the problem of human caused environmental pollution that’s causing massive amounts of economic and environmental and human health harm. I’m not holding my breath until the commissioner of agriculture or natural resources declares humans an invasive species but, if we look back far enough, I don’t think we fit the definition of native for this continent.

Don’t we need better laws to have better enforcement and attain the results we’d like? Do we really want to see a convicted felon in our highest office? Should our definitions of invasive species, and how they're applied, be more specific? How do we start to make that happen? We need to begin with better quality candidates and better defined issues!

Tomorrow I’ll share some questions I hope could help get a better handle on invasive species. Maybe we can work up to qualifications for president.

anti-immigration 

By Evie Shockley

the black people left, and took with them their furious

            hurricanes and their fire-breathing rap songs melting

the polar ice caps. they left behind the mining jobs,

           but took that nasty black lung disease and the insurance

regulations that loop around everything concerning

           health and care, giant holes of text that all the coverage

falls through. the brown people left, and took with

           them the pesticides collecting like a sheen on the skins

of fruit. they went packing, and packed off with them

           went all the miserable low-paying gigs, the pre-dawn

commutes, the children with expensive special needs

           and the hard-up public schools that tried to meet them.

the brown people left, railroaded into carting off those

           tests that keep your average bright young student outside

the leagues of ivy-lined classrooms, and also hauled off

           their concentrated campuses, their great expectations, their

invasive technology, and the outrageous pay gap between

           a company’s c.e.o. and its not-quite-full-time workers. they

took their fragile endangered pandas and species extinction

           and got the hell outta dodge. the black people left and took

hiv/aids, the rest of their plagues, and all that deviant

           sexuality with them. they took their beat-down matriarchies

and endless teen pregnancies, too. those monster-sized

           extended families, the brown people took those. the brown

people boxed up their turbans and suspicious sheet-like

           coverings, their terrifying gun violence, cluster bombs,

and drones, and took the whole bloody mess with them,

           they took war and religious brow-beating tucked under

their robes. they took theocracy and their cruel, unusual

           punishments right back where they came from. finally,

the white people left, as serenely unburdened as when

          they arrived, sailing off from plymouth rock with nothing

in their hands but a recipe for cranberry sauce, a bit

           of corn seed, and the dream of a better life. there were

only certain kinds of people here, after the exodus, left

           to wander the underdeveloped wilderness in search

of buffalo, tobacco, and potable water, following old

           migratory patterns that would have been better left alone.

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11/5/24: Felonious assault?

Next November 5 has the possibility of telling the world a lot about the character of the American people. Barring the unforeseen, a growing challenge these days, the choice will be between a sitting president with a demonstrable track record and a convicted felon not noted for his truth-telling. In the world I grew up in, it shouldn’t even be close. If it is close, people should remember that "It was Joseph de Maistre who wrote in 1811 "Every nation gets the government it deserves.”” It may be difficult to claim we are a nation governed of, by, and for the people if we allow a felonious, autocratic, would-be dictator to get elected by those who deserve such.

Many these days choose to blame tRUMP for many things wrong with the country. I believe that’s misplacing blame that should be borne by those who voted for him in 2016. Although, if we were to do a root cause analysis, blame should lie with the Democratic and Republican parties who chose the candidates for president in 2016.

Perhaps the real issue is that we have, after almost 250 years, come to take democracy for granted. Perhaps we have compromised our way into something less than mediocrity. According to an assessment by US News, the US ranks 23rd in Quality of Life, although we’re ranked higher in other categories. Might it be time for US to figure out what we really want to be when we grow up?

We need significant improvements in our education and heath care systems. The urban-rural divide needs, at a minimum, better bridges. We also must find a way to make any major political party more democratic and less under the control of an oligarchy if we want a democracy worthy of the name.

Democracy Poem #1

By June Jordan

Tell them that I stood

in line

and I waited

and I waited

like everybody

else

But I never got

called

And I keep that scrap

of paper

in my pocket

just in case

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Today’s actions make tomorrow’s memorials

For a holiday weekend that represents the unofficial beginning of summer, we're “enjoying” another gray, showery, cloudy, dreary day. At least next month is normally the wettest month of the year around these parts. I know, it could be worse. We could live in Gaza or the Ukraine or Sudan. By this time next year maybe we’ll think we are living in a war torn country if MAGAt threats come to pass.

let’s not turn cloudy skies into dark days

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m pondering what those, like my father and father-in-law, who fought in World War II to protect and secure our freedoms, would think of what we’ve done with and to the country they left US. I suspect my father would be a little bit ashamed and embarrassed and fearing that he’d maybe been played for a sucker. I doubt very much he would have relied on the  “leadership” of a con man, one a presiding judge has found civilly adjudicated of having committed rape. One also charged with numerous felonious actions against US while claiming to ”Make America Great Again.” The country my father fought for may have its warts, but is worth improving more than destroying.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I ask you to tap into your memories and remember what was great about your childhood. Did all your friends and neighbors share what you felt was great? Did anyone try to stop you from enjoying learning? [I remember that certain movies were banned but don’t recall book banning or burning as has happened recently. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.] Anyhow, please think about whether, if everyone enjoyed the things that made your childhood best, would that help make America great? What would a great America look like to you? What kind of America would be important enough to you to defend in a world war? Remember that many citizens strongly opposed the Viet Nam war, just as many oppose the current support for Israel’s attack on Palestinians.

At the Retirement Home

Tony Barnstone

^{U.S. Soldier, 194th Armored Regiment, retired, Brainerd, Minnesota}

I’ve had both knees replaced. I’ve got a steel
pin in my hip. I don’t hear you so good,
but I’m not stupid, son. How would you feel,
surviving the Bataan Death March, no food
for days, no water, and the ones who fell
behind were bayoneted where they lay,
and now you’re marching off to death? Real hell
is not old age, though. No, taking away
the rights we died for, saying torture’s right,
that’s hell. Hand me the iron and those shirts,
would you? Thanks, son. As long as I have fight
in me I’ll love this country till it hurts.
And it does. This is worse than what I saw
overseas. Torture. In America.

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A modest proposal*

The other day I was fussing and fuming here about the Minnesota legislature, among other things. These recent articles (Chaotic end leaves Democratic Legislature with a few wins and Legislature adjourns with mega-omnibus, loud finger-pointing as DFL leaders shut down GOP delays to meet deadline) reinforce my negative assessment. We have reached a point at which scoring points is more important than solving problems. Politics is (pardon me) trumping governance. But, much of the issue stems from a process problem. Hence, my borrowing the *Jonathan Swift phrase for today’s title. Here’s my proposal to help the kids do a better job of playing together in the sand box we pay them to play in.

I Voted

Photo by J. Harrington

Let's create and get enacted a constitutional amendment that structures the legislative process to minimize the type of endings that have become all too typical. I presume you know that our legislature meets in biennial (2 year) sessions. The amendment would prohibit, except for emergencies, enacting laws the first year of a session. That year would be spent holding hearings, crafting language, outreaching to stakeholders, including taxpayers, and answering the question a former state senator used to ask in conference committees [at about 2 am]: “What’s the problem we’re here to solve?”

The second year of a session would be used to ensure the required processes and procedures are followed to preclude whatever got enacted being promptly declared invalid for some legal, technical rationale. In that vein, the last week of the session would be reserved for action only on revisor’s corrections to previously passed legislation. No last minute negotiating nor games played. That all has to get done in year one of the biennium.

If voters didn’t have such short memories, or paid more attention in the first place, we wouldn’t find that representatives and senators paid more attention to lobbyists than to constituents. We would then more regularly “Vote the rascals out!”

Does the proposal above seem like a concept worth developing to bring democracy back to our governance? Feel free to leave a comment.

On Laws

By Kahlil Gibran

Then a lawyer said, But what of our Laws,

master?

    And he answered:

    You delight in laying down laws,

    Yet you delight more in breaking them.

    Like children playing by the ocean who

build sand-towers with constancy and then

destroy them with laughter.

    But while you build your sand-towers the

ocean brings more sand to the shore,

    And when you destroy them the ocean

laughs with you.

    Verily the ocean laughs always with the

innocent.

 

    But what of those to whom life is not an

ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-

towers,

    But to whom life is a rock, and the law

a chisel with which they would carve it in

their own likeness?

    What of the cripple who hates dancers?

    What of the ox who loves his yoke and

deems the elk and deer of the forest

stray and vagrant things?

    What of the old serpent who cannot

shed his skin, and calls all others naked

and shameless?

    And of him who comes early to the

wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired

goes his way saying that all feasts are

violation and all feasters lawbreakers?

 

    What shall I say of these save that they

too stand in the sunlight, but with their

backs to the sun?

    They see only their shadows, and their

shadows are their laws.

    And what is the sun to them but a caster

of shadows?

    And what is it to acknowledge the laws

but to stoop down and trace their shadows

upon the earth?

    But you who walk facing the sun, what

images drawn on the earth can hold you?

    You who travel with the wind, what

weather-vane shall direct your course?

    What man’s law shall bind you if you

break your yoke but upon no man's prison

door?

    What laws shall you fear if you dance

but stumble against no man’s iron chains?

    And who is he that shall bring you to

judgment if you tear off your garment yet

leave it in no man’s path?

 

    People of Orphalese, you can muffle the

drum, and you can loosen the strings of the

lyre, but who shall command the skylark

not to sing?

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Is a president qualified for immunity?

The media coverage I’ve seen so far has focused on the questions raised by SCOTUS members and claims made by opposing sides in the question of presidential immunity. I am not a lawyer (a fact for which these days I am quite thankful) and much of my reading about governmental immunity has centered around assertions of police immunity. This morning I discovered there’s a briefing paper by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office: AN OVERVIEW OF GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITIES, A Tutorial and Update. I offer the link here in hope that someone actually briefed SCOTUS on the size of the can of worms they’re opening and, if not, that the linked report will somehow end up in the in baskets or boxes of the SCOTUS members. It looks to be a much larger mess than it appears at first. This is probably one of the few times I would suggest that the classic Republican, conservative (MAGAt) solution to “Just Say NO!” may be the best response.

votes include more than just the candidate

Photo by J. Harrington

Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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Urban? Rural? Who knows? Do you care?

It seems to me that Dee Davis’ (publisher of the Daily Yonder and president of the Center for Rural Strategies). review of White Rural Rage plays a little fast and loose with terms, especially conflating metropolitan with urban. Here’s some examples scattered throughout the review:

• "They do not talk about national Democratic Party decisions in 2000 and 2004 to move resources away from the rural battleground and to metropolitan strongholds, opting for base strategies over outreach."


• "Nor do they mention that Texas which is 83% metropolitan, and Florida, which is 91% metropolitan, both rejected Obamacare."


• "Two would-be terrorists living in major metropolitan urban areas with over a million residents each, yet the rage narrative is about rural insurrection."


• "Those relatively few Capitol insurrectionists were disproportionately metropolitan, not rural, but who’s from what Zip code is not what’s alarming."

It is unfortunate, to put it mildly, that the Federal Government has something in the neighborhood of three dozen different definitions of rural. However, the distinction between urban, rural, and metropolitan becomes clear if one scans the maps of Minnesota displaying Three rural definitions based on Census Urban Areas and compares it to the map of Rural definition based on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) metro counties. It looks to me as though there’s quite a bit of nonurban area in metro counties.

is this road urban or rural?

Photo by J. Harrington

If, as I hope we do, we truly want to manage to bridge and heal the urban rural divide and/or split, I strongly suspect it would be helpful if all of US were talking the same places. I’m disappointed Dee Davis doesn’t appear to share that perspective.

Full disclosure: I live in what, not long ago, was a township in an OMB "metro county" that’s not part of the official 7 county Twin Cities Metro Council area. The township in which I used to live has been annexed [in]to a city because, in Minnesota, townships are considered little more than holding areas awaiting urban development. If it’s not clear, that’s not my view of what  should be the role of rural area townships. My perspectives are more in alignment with those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison in The Founding Gardeners.

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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Our system is broken

When I voted this morning, there were four election judges, and me, for the entire mid-morning time I was there. Someone left the voting site as I parked and I held the door for someone entering as I left. That was it. Apparently democracy isn’t as popular as it once was or folks can’t make up whatever they use for a mind and stay home? I’ll be curious to see the turnout numbers when they’re available.

“I Voted” button

Photo by J. Harrington

I was less than enthusiastic about voting today. I don’t like the idea of living in a Yogi Berra-ism such as 'It's deja vu all over again’ or being trapped in a movie like Groundhog Day. Plus, I can’t begin to comprehend how the polls can have the race so close in light of what should be known about the multi-indicted candidate. What do you suppose it would take to throw out both major political parties, at least three members of SCOTUS, half of Congress, and finally ratify the ERA? Our government has not been doing a good job of being “of the people, by the people, for the people” for quite some time, regardless of which party was nominally in charge. If you want to answer the infamous “are you better off now than you were four years ago,” don’t forget to include climate weirding and its consequences, a deteriorating health system and public education system, and the fact that many middle class families pay a notably higher effective tax rate than many profitable corporations. Gerrymander, anyone?

Alexander Hamilton is reported to have said, “People get the government they deserve.” If Biden loses in November, that will be true for Republicans and turncoat Democrats. The rest of US will be little more than fellow passengers on the Titanic. Let’s do everything possible, and some impossible things too, to make sure MAGAts sink alone. Then we need to change the system so we can never again come this close to the mess we’re currently in.

Why We Oppose Votes for Men

Alice Duer Miller
1874 – 1942

 1. Because man’s place is the armory.


 2. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.


 3. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.


 4. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.


 5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them particularly unfit for the task of government. 

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Is Minnesota too (small d) democratic?

I’ll spare you most of my sputtering and ranting about this. Perhaps you’re already aware of the plethora of opportunities to exercise our rights as a citizen and voter. Let me note that some of US might be wondering if this is too much of a good thing.

• February 27, 2024 Precinct caucuses
• March 5, 2024 Presidential primary
• November 5, 2024 Election Day

Full discllosure: my nose is still bent out of shape from several elections ago when I, and many others, made successful pitches at local caucuses in support of a position that the party’s state central committee(?) decided to ignore.

Your Voice Your Vote   Use It

Photo by J. Harrington

It seems to me to be far from clear why one might wish to participate in a caucus and vote in a primary. I suppose there are hard core political junkies who enjoy that kind of thing. I’m already annoyed by repeated requests for contributions piling up in my email and snail mail boxes. But then I remind myself that “No good deed shall go unpunished.”

Let me make clear that I’d be less grumbly if the process(es) were better structured so that there might be a reasonable relationship between effort input and results. Unfortunately, given the amount of mis- and disinformation being spread around, the lack of integrity by most representatives and representations of one major party, and my lack of patience in dealing with ill-informed, stubborn individuals, I plan on voting but not much more. It seems like a poor investment of time. Does that leave the field to “true believers” and charlatans? Perhaps. but contemporary politics seems to display too much resemblance to the old saying about “good money drives out bad.”

Good Bones

Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

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