for the children

 Leaf buds are burst. Leaf out has begun. The creeping Charlie in front of the house  has pretty little blue flowers. The lily of the valley patch along the driveway is about half a foot tall. Spring is sprunging everywhere. Today's temperature is in the upper 70's approaching 80. Next Sunday is Mother's Day. The humming bird / oriole feeder has been filled and hung.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi
NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

I'm trying, and sometimes failing, to not let the craziness emanating out of the state and national capitols sour me on the world and many of its inhabitants. When I stop doom scrolling and look around I can find beauty and goodness. Let's see if I feel optimistic enough this week to go buy a fishing license. 🤞

I bet you know that Minnesota's constitution has provisions governing spending lottery funds on environmental projects but doesn't have a "Green Amendment" establishing our right to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment. That strikes me as being a cart before the horse kind of deal. There's an organization / movement, Green Amendments For the Generations, with the mission:

to ensure every person and community across the United States is able to experience the health, quality of life, education, joy and economic prosperity provided by a clean, safe and healthy environment; to end environmental racism; and to help ensure that nature itself is able to thrive, by constitutionally empowering all people to secure and enforce their inalienable human right to pure water, clean air, a stable climate, healthy ecosystems and environments.

Minnesota is not listed as one of the states active in the Green Amendment movement. I'm curious to see if I can get a handle on why and how we might be able to change that. Please feel free to share thoughts in the comments

The Green Amendments movement is similar to but not the same as the Rights of Nature movement. The former focuses on anthropocentric values and the latter on nature's intrinsic values. I think we should look toward a "both and" approach rather than an either / or situation, but it may well turn out to be a one step at a time movement. Now that Minnesota is the headwaters of America's Most Threatened River, the Mississippi, perhaps the powers that be may become more amenable to the proverbial "clean up our act" effort. Stay tuned.

Today's poem is one of my own that I was fortunate enough to find a home for in a book by a friend of ours, Krista Detor's Flat Earth Diary. Most of those who will benefit from Green Amendments aren't yet born or grown up.

        A Way 

Earth's children grow
leave home
go away where
dragons roam

dragons fly aweigh
to lands on maps
filled with children grown
away from home

Hubble captures dragons a way from home
away from children
aweigh in space

children young and old
pass away as dragons fly
where earth aweigh
finds a way
to roam
home 

J Harrington

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Time to stop clowning around

June is almost gone, taking the first half of 2024 with her. My favorite season, autumn, lies ahead. I need to work harder to keep politics from spoiling what should be the better half of the year. (It would be the best half but it doesn’t include spring’s snow melt, Father’s Day, nor my birthday.) My inbox keeps refilling with messages from democrats informing me that the world will end if tRUMP and the GOP win in November. I don’t necessarily disagree with them but would much prefer to learn what wonderful things will happen to make the world a better place if democrats prevail. I’m not holding my breath.

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” ― Gaylord Nelson

Photo by J. Harrington

Most years I make a contribution to our local DFL senate district committee. This year I’m hesitating because of stuff like this: Environmental groups call for hearings over MPCA issues. Even with democrats controlling the executive and legislative branches, the environment, and therefore the public, keeps losing to “business" interests. As an aside, has anyone seen any studies about how much peoples’ health could improve, and health costs drop, if environmental regulations were rigorously enforced? Instead, we get reports such as: Research reveals toxic PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ accumulate in testes.

Does anyone really expect the presidential debate to engage in a substantive debate of significant issues? I think it would be a totally unexpected and therefore a very pleasant surprise. Speaking of presidents and debates, have we yet reached agreement on “what the meaning of is is?” My expectations for the debate between the sitting president and a convicted felon who once pretended to fill that office is about what I would expect of a debate between Buffalo Bob and Clarabell. I’ll probably watch some just to see if it’s as bad as I fear, but I doubt very much I’ll enjoy it and it certainly isn’t likely to affect my vote. Now I think it’s time to go listen to one of my favorite Judy Collins’ recordings, Stephen Sondheim's Send in the Clowns.

Send in the Clowns

Judy Collins version

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can't move
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns

Just when I'd stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer
Losing my timing this late
In my career?

But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year...

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

How to get a healthy health system?

There’s an article in MinnPost that has me more confused than usual: Greater Minnesota cities seek funding for EMS delivery, infrastructure in ’24 session . Here’s the part that makes me wonder:

“Over the last two years, our communities have been literally ringing alarm bells about the fragility of the system,” Bradley Peterson, CGMC’s executive director, said during a Zoom call about the organization’s legislative priorities. “Reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid and private insurance are simply not keeping up with the services provided. The fee-for-service model is, frankly, in many of our communities, not sustainable.”

If the real issue is the reimbursement rate, wouldn’t metro area cities be facing the same issues? The article fails to mention that aspect.

EMS are far from the only rural health service facing cost and sustainability pressures. As noted in an article in The Daily Yonder: Seeking a Cure: The Quest to Save Rural Hospitals:

Across-the-board cuts in Medicare payments and reductions in reimbursements for uncollected patient debt disproportionately have impacted rural hospitals, whose patients are more likely to be enrolled in government health programs.

Rural hospitals must support fixed costs with fewer patients. They frequently struggle to comply with regulations that are not designed for small facilities, or maintain aging buildings that date back to an era when hospital stays were longer and inpatient care was more common.

Are you ready to vote?

Photo by J. Harrington

But wait! he wrote, there’s more. Right here in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Fairview, Sanford call off health systems merger . This, after a prior merger between Fairview and the UM Medical Center hospital. Even the “big guys” are having real problems. Is it time to consider nationalizing our health care system? Are we getting what our insurance companies are paying for?

US spends most on health care but has worst health outcomes among high-income countries, new report finds

US comes in last in health care rankings of high-income countries 

Things are so bad you’d think the Republicans were in charge.

Hope 2020

Ashanti Files

I tried to write about hope
But wasn’t sure I had the audacity
The pandemic took a toll
And our last president was a fascist
He
Said he did more for Christianity
Than Jesus
And between the BLM protest and right wing hatred we just
Stayed inside and tried to live
Contemplating if loans would be forgiven
To provide a little relief
We were safe at home but had to march in the streets
To beats
Of Black Lives Matter
See I was flattered
To be part of the Healthcare Hero’s
Until I start telling the truth and the death toll added zeros
And zeros
Until the number reached 100000
And still people believed it was a hoax
And wouldn’t wear masks in public places
The deck was stacked against us and the government held
Aces
But they underbid as the death toll continued to rise
But as the number grew there were fewer tears from eyes 
Of the privileged
Because big business needed that money
Propaganda had normal people acting funny
Yet still I dared to hope
Until I couldn't breathe as
George Floyd choked and his killer walked the streets free
See
We're going back into summer
But instead of George Floyd the name we will march to is
Daunte Wright
And we again will wear our masks as we continue to fight
Systems of oppression
The National Guards were called and wore bullet proof vest
When we said Black Lives Matter
But were nowhere to be seen when the right wing
Unhinged the government’s seat of power
And the hours
Continued to tick on
525600 deaths but rent wasn’t on
But Nurses were on
The verge of a mental break down every day
Saving lives of the people who claimed don’t tread on me
And yet I say I’m going to write about hope
As a black woman in America it’s impossible not to choke
On the repetitious contradictions
Vaccines vs quarantine things while the seams are bursting
On the national debt
“Make 600 dollars enough” because it’s all you gone get
As you try to survive this crisis
Going hungry while giving the nation its slice is
Your patriotic duty
I’m a poet and I know it sounds looney
That I can’t write about hope
2020 had me riding a high worse than dope
And when I came down it was comparative to death
Knowing that nothing would change
So I inhale and deep breath
And continue to think about hope

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Demography :: Destiny

Many, many years ago I encountered the quote: “Demography is destiny,” probably in a college sociology course. This morning, and in other recent readings, I’ve seen the truth of the observation in question.

From today’s Daily Yonder story, Commentary: Wyoming Puts Moms – and Rural Communities – at Risk with Gaps in Maternal Care. But Wyoming isn’t the only state to face inadequate maternal care: Less than half of the rural hospitals in America even offer labor and delivery services. Writing about one particular mom, the author notes:

Today, her county of Fremont, a New-Hampshire-sized area home to 40,000 people, has gone from two birthing hospitals and many obstetricians, to one delivery facility and a single pregnancy doctor for the general population. The trend prompts women in increasing numbers to travel out of the county to give birth—an expensive and logistically challenging option. “I just think it’s insane,” Wachter said. “It puts women at risk.”

The statistics bear out her observation. Women who live farther from delivery hospitals are more likely to experience adverse medical outcomes, such as requiring neonatal intensive care. 

What troubles me deeply, is the lack of mention of another aspect of maternal health care, as noted in Obstetric Volume and Severe Maternal Morbidity Among Low-Risk and Higher-Risk Patients Giving Birth at Rural and Urban US Hospitals.

Conclusions and Relevance  In this cross-sectional study of births in US rural and urban counties, risk of SMM [severe maternal morbidity] was elevated for low-risk and higher-risk obstetric patients who gave birth in lower-volume hospitals in rural counties, compared with similar patients who gave birth at rural hospitals with greater than 460 annual births. These findings imply a need for tailored quality improvement strategies for lower volume hospitals in rural communities.

rural farm field, few people here

Photo by J. Harrington

Urban and rural fertility rates appear similar enough that one distinguishing major variable is likely to be total population and density differences between urban and rural areas. For example, Fremont County, Wyoming’s popullation of 40,000 compares to New Hampshire’s 2024 population of about 1.5 million. The former has shown a significant decline in births by mother’s county of residence between 2008 and 2022. This, of course doesn’t address the chicken and egg question of which came first, loss of birthing centers or decline in number of births. It does suggest that Earl Butz took an extremely short term, short sighted, view years ago when he suggested farmers and ranchers should “Get big or get out.” Perhaps rural areas would have been better served over the long term if he had said “Use it or lose it.”

Ultrasound

By Rachel Richardson

Novel unbegun,

half-loaf rising,

lighthouse northward

and anchor south.

 

Lemon to grapefruit,

you sleep-step sidewise,

turnover, pop-up,

tongue in the mouth.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Walk? Chew gum? Simultaneously?🤣🤣

A growing number of cities have or are eliminating single family zoning to increase density and make housing more affordable and cities more walkable and bikeable. In a comparable effort, Minnesota is considering eliminating minimum parking requirements. Neither of these, not similar efforts, come close to addressing the growing awareness that it benefits people, a lot, to be in direct contact with nature. Creating an appropriate balance between the built and the natural environment, and incorporating that in a  physical design used to be one of the primary purposes of a community's comprehensive plan. These days such plans seem to be focused on meeting legal requirements for state and/or federal funds, unless that involves environmental review.

nature in the city -- equitably distributed?

Photo by J. Harrington

We seem to have lost, or given up, the ability to think coherently and holistically. As further evidence, without mentioning Israel, Ukraine, Jordan, etc., I call to your attention our inability, right here in Minnesota, to resolve what appears to me to be a reasonably straightforward issue regarding School Resource Officers.

Perhaps all these types of irresolvable conflicts can be sorted (sordid?) out once Artificial Intelligence has finished pawing through our private messages to learn how people (not persons) think and feel.

If it appears I’m getting increasingly disgusted and disgruntled with how the contemporary world is (dys)functioning, you’re reasonably perceptive. Worldwide General Strike anyone?

"The world is a beautiful place"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti     1919 – 2021

                The world is a beautiful place 

                                                           to be born into 

if you don’t mind happiness 

                                             not always being 

                                                                        so very much fun 

       if you don’t mind a touch of hell

                                                       now and then

                just when everything is fine

                                                             because even in heaven

                                they don’t sing 

                                                        all the time

             The world is a beautiful place

                                                           to be born into

       if you don’t mind some people dying

                                                                  all the time

                        or maybe only starving

                                                           some of the time

                 which isn’t half so bad

                                                      if it isn’t you

      Oh the world is a beautiful place

                                                          to be born into

               if you don’t much mind

                                                   a few dead minds

                    in the higher places

                                                    or a bomb or two

                            now and then

                                                  in your upturned faces

         or such other improprieties

                                                    as our Name Brand society

                                  is prey to

                                              with its men of distinction

             and its men of extinction

                                                   and its priests

                         and other patrolmen

                                                         and its various segregations

         and congressional investigations

                                                             and other constipations

                        that our fool flesh

                                                     is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all

                                                           for a lot of such things as

         making the fun scene

                                                and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

                                         and singing low songs of having 

                                                                                      inspirations

and walking around 

                                looking at everything

                                                                  and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

                              and even thinking 

                                                         and kissing people and

     making babies and wearing pants

                                                         and waving hats and

                                     dancing

                                                and going swimming in rivers

                              on picnics

                                       in the middle of the summer

and just generally

                            ‘living it up’

Yes

   but then right in the middle of it

                                                    comes the smiling

                                                                                 mortician

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Seasoned giving, this hard thing

Here in Minnesota, today is “Give to the Max Day.” My email inbox and our snail mail box have been getting loaded with notices about how much we can help everyone and everything by donating early or today. I’ve contributed to a few organizations and rejected more opportunities than I’ve supported. Many requests don’t do a good job of explaining what the organization actually accomplishes. That’s unfortunate. I realize that we’re better off than many and feel an obligation to help, but I also feel an obligation to be responsible in my giving.

At one point I must have supported an organization that sold my name and email address because I’m getting requests from folks i’d never consider giving a donation and, as I get more and more of them, I become more critical in my screening of all potential contributions. That’s not really how I like to enter the giving season. Of course, I also fail to understand why “moderate” Republicans and all Democrats haven’t made it clear to the dozen or two radical Republicans that they’ll never get any support because they’re making everyone look bad.

what are you hoping for under the tree?

Photo by J. Harrington

On a brighter note, I’m thankful we’ll get through the holidays before the country faces the next government shutdown crisis. I’m thankful things aren’t worse than they are. I’m looking forward to being thankful that governments throughout the world have become more responsible, less warmongerish, and more focused on addressing climate change and loss of biodiversity. (It doesn’t cost any more to wish big than small.) The package I’m looking for is me, happy and healthy; plus the same for those in my family, my friends, my home state, my country, and my (our) world. We can do it if we all try. Just ask Carrie Newcomer.

You Can Do This Hard Thing

by Carrie Newcomer

There at the table

With my head in my hands

A column of numbers

I just did not understand

You said “Add these together

Carry the two, now you."

You can do this hard thing

You can do this hard thing

It′s not easy I know but

I believe that it's so

You can do this hard thing

At a cold winter station

Breathing into our gloves

It would change me forever

Leaving for God knows what

You carried my bags

You said "I′ll wait for you"

You can do this hard thing

You can do this hard thing

It's not easy I know but

I believe that it's so

You can do this hard thing

Late at night I called

And you answered the phone

The worst it had happened

And I did not want to be alone

You quietly listened

You said “We′ll see this thru"

You can do this hard thing

You can do this hard thing

It′s not easy I know but

I believe that it's so

You can do this hard thing

Here we stand breathless

And pressed in hard times

Hearts hung like laundry

On backyard clothes lines

Impossible just takes

A little more time

From the muddy ground

Comes a green volunteer

In a place we thought

Barren new life appears

Morning will come whistling

Some comforting tune for you

You can do this hard thing

You can do this hard thing

It′s not easy I know but

I believe that it's so

You can do this hard thing

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

For Earth Day 2022, let’s mine our own business

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Today, in honor of tomorrow, I urged my Congressman (Republican) and my two US Senators (Democrats), to support reforms to the 1872 Mining law. The kind of reforms I want to see, and that I think we all deserve, include:

• Establish meaningful Tribal consultation and Indigenous resource protections.


• Protecting special places from mining


• Strengthening environmental standards


• Fiscal reforms
• unlike all other extractive industries, hardrock mining pays no royalty for minerals taken from public lands;
• for $5 an acre, mining interests have patented (purchased) an area roughly equivalent in size to the state of Connecticut containing minerals valued at more than $300 billion.

• Enforcement, inspection, and bonding


• Abandoned mine reclamation fund

It’s the only home we’ve got
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

In Minnesota, proposed hardrock mines threaten water quality in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Mining employment has been declining in the iron mining sector and miners have been clamoring for jobs that support their way of life. I don’t know of any employment sector that offers such protections, do you?

One of the organizations to which I’ve long been a member is Trout Unlimited. They’ve been working for several years on behalf of responsible mining.

At the center of Trout Unlimited’s work on responsible hardrock mining is a commitment avoiding the mistakes of the past. To this end, we approach new mines on a case-by-case basis. We work directly with mining companies, as well as state and federal permitting agencies, to apply policy and practices to mitigate the impacts of new mines on coldwater fisheries. In the case of a wrong mine in the wrong place, Trout Unlimited will strongly advocate in opposition. Location is everything and when the threat of groundwater depletion, acid-mine drainage and potential for spills cannot be responsibly mitigated, Trout Unlimited reserves the right to say no.

They also are advocating for A “Good Samaritan” bill in Congress would make it easier for conservationists and partners to tackle abandoned mines polluting Western waters .

Personally, I believe it would be fantastic if mining reform legislation were combined with Right to Repair, enhanced incentives for recycling electronics waste, and requirements that all metals used in products sold in the US be produced in accord with the standards of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance and be ISEAL certified.

It’s been more than fifty years since the first Earth Day. We’ve made too little progress protecting our only life support systems. That’s why we’re in the trouble we’re in. We can and must do better. Mining is a global industry that should be required to meet stringent global standards for protecting the environment, affected communities and those who do the actual mining.

An Earth Song 

Langston Hughes - 1901-1967

It's an earth song,—
And I've been waiting long for an earth song. 
It's a spring song,—
And I've been waiting long for a spring song. 
    Strong as the shoots of a new plant 
    Strong as the bursting of new buds
    Strong as the coming of the first child from its mother's womb. 
It's an earth song, 
A body song, 
A spring song, 
I have been waiting long for this spring song. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

To win, first show up!

Except for a few wreathes, Christmas has been put away for another year, just in time to prepare for Imbolc on February 1, which is also the date of local precinct caucuses in Minnesota. Yesterday we fussed about the prospect of attending in person. This morning we read on Twitter, from Ken Martin, Chair of the Minnesota DFL:

Excited to announce that last evening the DFL State Executive Committee adopted my proposal to allow our local organizing units to have an option to conduct contactless covid-safe precinct caucuses:

https://dfl.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/SEC-Emergency-Declaration-Regarding-Precinct-Caucuses-Rev-000.pdf

covid-safe anyone?

Photo by J. Harrington

It’s improbable our fussing had much, if anything, to do with the decision, but we were among a number of folks who were raising concerns about the health risks of caucusing in person. It remains to be seen whether our precinct caucus will support the contactless option. I’m not about to get carried away with optimism, but there’s a few signs that there may be hope for the future of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. The fact that caucuses are being held on the day that Celtic spring [Imbolc] begins doesn’t hurt either.

On the other hand, the Chisago-Isanti DFL web site doesn’t yet list the February Precinct Caucuses [“There are no upcoming events at this time.”] nor provide any information about the  possibility of a covid-safe precinct caucus option. This is not encouraging in  any way, shape or form. When we first moved to our home 25 years ago +/-, our House district was represented by an intelligent, progressive Democrat. That lasted for one+ term. Were we caught in a political bait and switch? Can Democrats win in rural areas? Not without help from an active political party! Do Democrats have a cart before the horse(’s ass)?

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

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

DFL precinct caucuses: out in the cold?

We officially had a January thaw yesterday and it’s continuing today. The Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service Tweeted this midday yesterday:

At 1:45PM today, MSP Airport surpassed 32 degrees. This is the first time since December 27th in which we have seen a temp greater than 32 at MSP.

In other words, 365 hours and 26 minutes of freezing or below temperatures.

Today we’re being put on notice about Friday’s snow potential. Sigh!

We used the brief interlude of warmer than average temperatures to take down the icicle lights on the garage. It wasn’t quite luxuriating, but it was a nice taste of spring days to come. We actually did see a few signs of snow melting late in the afternoon. The dogs have been giddy at the less than frigid temperatures.

Meanwhile, COVID cases continue to spike in Minnesota and nationally and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party caucuses are scheduled for February 1. I checked the local DFL’s web site and FB page (neither of which appear to have been updated for several months) and it looks as though our district caucus is still planned to be in person, despite the fact that I’ve received several emails inviting me to learn how to caucus online. It’s unclear whether the issue stems from a lack of consideration of public health concerns, a lack of timely communications, both, or some other combination. Remember Will Rogers entirely too apt quote “I belong to no organized party. I'm a Democrat.” 

I have no intention of participating in a face to face caucus in several weeks. I’m irritated that it’s not easier to track what’s going on with DFL caucuses, and am anxious and frustrated by the ability of Republicans to thwart action in the US Senate on voting rights legislation and the Biden administration’s continuing inability to better organize and communicate essential messages and supply chains regarding the now two year old pandemic.

women’s voting rights at one hundred (but who’s counting?) 

Evie Shockley

eenie meenie minie moe
catch a voter by her toe
if she hollers then you know
got yourself a real jane crow

* * *

one vote is an opinion
with a quiet legal force ::
a barely audible beep
in the local traffic, & just
a plashless drop of mercury
in the national thermometer.
but a collectivity of votes
/a flock of votes, a pride of votes,
a murder of votes/ can really
make some noise. 

* * *

one vote begets another
if you make a habit of it.
my mother started taking me
to the polls with her when i
was seven :: small, thrilled
to step in the booth, pull
the drab curtain hush-shut
behind us, & flip the levers
beside each name she pointed
to, the Xs clicking into view.
there, she called the shots.

* * *

rich gal, poor gal
hired girl, thief
teacher, journalist
vote your grief 

* * *

one vote’s as good as another
:: still, in 1913, illinois’s gentle
suffragists, hearing southern
women would resent spotting
mrs. ida b. wells-barnett amidst
whites marchers, gently kicked
their sister to the curb. but when
the march kicked off, ida got
right into formation, as planned.
the tribune’s photo showed
her present & accounted for.

* * *

one vote can be hard to keep
an eye on :: but several /a
colony of votes/ can’t scuttle
away unnoticed so easily. my
mother, veteran registrar for
our majority black election
district, once found—after
much searching—two bags
of ballots /a litter of votes/
stuffed in a janitorial closet.

* * *

one-mississippi
two-mississippis 

* * *

one vote was all fannie lou
hamer wanted. in 1962, when
her constitutional right was
over forty years old, she tried
to register. all she got for her
trouble was literacy tested, poll
taxed, fired, evicted, & shot
at. a year of grassroots activism
nearly planted her mississippi
freedom democratic party
in the national convention.

* * *

one vote per eligible voter
was all stacey abrams needed.
she nearly won the georgia
governor’s race in 2018 :: lost by
50,000 /an unkindness of votes/
to the man whose job was purg
maintaining the voter rolls.
days later, she rolled out plans
for getting voters a fair fight.
it’s been two years—& counting.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

As Advent approaches...

Thanksgiving is over, although we’ll be eating turkey for awhile yet. Thanks to the Better Half’s [BH] efforts today, the house is looking all sparkly and twinkly. Christmas must be coming.

sparkling snowflakes cover the window

Photo by J. Harrington

Tomorrow the BH and I will see about choosing one of the skinny pines on the property for this year's tree. The  Daughter Person’s birthday is early next month and  it’s been a long-standing tradition that the house has to be decorated by her birthday. It looks like the tradition will again be upheld this year. And, after all, aren’t traditions a big part of most Christmas celebrations?

By now you’ve probably heard the news reports about yet another worrisome COVID-19 variant and are wondering how much this year’s “season of joy" will be disrupted by the continuing pandemic. There is at least one other way to look at the circumstances surrounding this year’s Christmas. Any disruptions we experience may parallel those of Mary and Joseph, thanks to governmental lockdowns for the Roman census. According to Luke:

At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiance, who was obviously pregnant by this time.

And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn.

Meanwhile, lots of folks these days  are complaining about wearing a mask or getting a vaccination to help protect those who are more vulnerable, especially children under 5, who aren’t eligible to be safely  vaccinated. Makes me wonder how many of US know the form but not the real meaning of Christmas.

“Your Luck Is About To Change”

By Susan Elizabeth Howe

(A fortune cookie)

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news 

to get just before Christmas, 

considering my reasonable health, 

marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan, 

career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet. 

Not bad, considering what can go wrong: 

the bony finger of Uncle Sam 

might point out my husband, 

my own national guard, 

and set him in Afghanistan; 

my boss could take a personal interest; 

the pain in my left knee could spread to my right. 

Still, as the old year tips into the new, 

I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking 

his legs in the air. I won't give in 

to the dark, the sub-zero weather, the fog, 

or even the neighbors' Nativity. 

Their four-year-old has arranged 

his whole legion of dinosaurs 

so they, too, worship the child, 

joining the cow and sheep. Or else, 

ultimate mortals, they've come to eat 

ox and camel, Mary and Joseph, 

then savor the newborn babe.  

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

In the spirit of the season

Branches bare of leaves are top-coated with snow. The woods look full of giant skeletons. An occasional peek of sunshine brightens an otherwise dull day. Fields freshly coated with snow will soon return, for a time, to their autumnal tans, bronze, and brass. Consider last night and today a preview of coming attractions. The dogs don’t remember last winter’s snow so they’re freshly disconcerted by this stuff on the ground under their paws.

pileated woodpecker at suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Conifers have been seasonally highlighted by sparkling flakes. The birds and squirrels have already displaced most of the 3” snow cap on the deck railing. This morning, for the first time, we saw a flicker at the bird bath. Some time during the next few days we’ll put up the suet feeder and see how long until a pileated woodpecker arrives.

There’s been a serendipitous alignment between our season’s first snowfall, watching video’s of our one year old granddaughter exploring her yard in the snow (with parental assistance) and a paragraph in a book I’ve recently begun reading. I may be stretching a little, but not a lot. See what you think:

.... We know that, although our children have come through us, they issue from a source deeper than us. In their face we glimpse something of the Light from which all life has come. In their skin we smell the freshness of life’s origins. It is this deep natural knowing that Celtic wisdom builds on. It is a sacred knowing that becomes the basis of spiritual vision.

The book just quoted is Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World. I picked it up at Scout & Morgan Books on not much more than a whim, while dallying before checking in for my COVID booster shot at the Cub pharmacy down the road. Since the snow doesn’t warrant blowing, and I’m feeling more lethargic than usual, and my left arm is sore, I’m curling up with that interesting book until I return to what laughingly passes for normal around here. Today’s Campbell McGrath poem seems to capture much of what Sacred Earth is about.

The Everglades

Campbell McGrath

Green and blue and white, it is a flag
for Florida stitched by hungry ibises.

It is a paradise of flocks, a cornucopia
of wind and grass and dark, slow waters.

Turtles bask in the last tatters of afternoon,
frogs perfect their symphony at dusk—

in its solitude we remember ourselves,
dimly, as creatures of mud and starlight.

Clouds and savannahs and horizons,
its emptiness is an antidote, its ink

illuminates the manuscript of the heart.
It is not ours though it is ours

to destroy or preserve, this the kingdom
of otter, kingfisher, alligator, heron.

If the sacred is a river within us, let it flow
like this, serene and magnificent, forever.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

This may go into your permanent record.

Welcome to autumn, meteorologically speaking. As far back as I can remember it’s been my favorite season, despite summer’s freedoms being replaced by a return to school. Even that brought the return of school friends barely, if at all, seen for months. Of course, all of this was decades before the complications of schooling during a pandemic like the COVID-19 virus compounded by wildfires, droughts and other concurrent indicators of our climate crises. I’m old enough that I was attending school before the polio vaccine was approved for use. I don’t remember if I received a shot of the Salk vaccine or the orally administered Sabin version, although the latter seems likely since I have vague recollections of summers full of concerns about becoming crippled or ending up in an iron lung. A face mask is far less limiting to my current freedom than experiencing intubation during an ICU stay.

preview of coming attractions: autumn leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

Despite my memory lapses, the reading I’ve been doing recently makes it clear that those opposing vaccination are but the latest incarnations of a tribe that’s been around most likely since the development  of vaccines. And long before that, remember the Salem witch trials? There’s a long and unfortunate history of people being irrational and unreasonable, and wrong, ever since there were people, or at least records about people.

I recently got a booster shot, not for COVID-19 but for tetanus. Why? Because my primary care physicial knows I occasionally play in the dirt and that’s where the bacteria live. Somehow I had acquired the misinformation that tetanus was caused by getting cut by a rusty piece of metal. I had also lost track of getting a prior tetanus booster a decade earlier.

I doubt if I could find a paper trail of which shots I’ve received or when I received them, although I do have a copy of my baptismal certificate, and there’s a bunch of other information scattered about in other  paper files around the house, but organized? complete? not so much. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a copy of my  permanent record? Have you seen  yours?

When the Virus Comes

Angelo Geter

When the virus comes,
Talking heads on television screens
will tell you to abandon ship.  
To drown yourself in a sea of isolation.  
Submerge homes in lysol wipes and hand sanitizer.
Engulf body in face mask and plastic glove
until it becomes second nature.

They will tell you to turn your kitchen into a panic room,
basement into fallout shelter.
Instruct you to grab everything you can,
while you still can.
They will say
the shelves at the stores are empty,
and not realize they are also talking about you.

They will preach from the gospel of quarantine.
Shout parables of
“Thou Shalt wash thine hands.”
“For God so loved the world
he socially distanced himself
from the very people he wanted to save.”
It will make you wonder how a hero
or a government
Can rescue someone they can’t even touch.

When the virus comes,
you will kiss your lover like it’s the last time,
because maybe it is.
You will dance on timelines
like decades are stuck on the balls of your feet.
Sing like a quartet is trapped in your throat.
Laugh like this is the last time you know what joy feels like,
because maybe it is.

And today that will be more than enough. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Time to extinguish a few crises

So, yesterday's good news is that I had enough sense to begin wearing a COVID-19 face mask while outside for any period of time in the smoke-filled air of east-central Minnesota, such as when walking the dogs. We all know the bad news, that we're setting Minnesota records for bad air quality from forest fires to our north and others to our west. If face masks are a means to help keep teeny, tiny virus particles out of my airways, they should also work to reduce inhalation of smoke and/or fine particles (PM 2.5).

this time last summer, spotted horsemint was more abundant

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, the drought continues; the current administration continues to avoid the implications of not suspending or revoking the permits allowing  construction to continue on Enbridge's new Line 3 tar sands transport pipe; folks are beginning to suffer whiplash from "adjustments" to indoor mask "guidelines" related to the delta variant of COVID; and, in a much lesser vein, I became thoroughly embarrassed to learn that Minnesota's sharp-tailed grouse range extends much further east and south than I ever knew. (I know about the Northcentral zone and have almost since I moved to Minnesota. Somehow, the East-central zone has stayed off my radar screen until this morning.)

It's no doubt timely for information affecting hunters and hunting seasons to begin to be released by the Department of Natural Resources in late July, since Sunday, two days from now is Lughnasadh, the beginning of Gaelic harvest time in the Druid Way. As we continue toward autumn, may the wildfires and their smoke be contained and extinguished; may all of US who can safely do so get vaccinated, extinguishing the COVID virus; and may the state and/or federal governments extinguish the Line 3 permits and honor the treaties which Line 3's construction fails to honor.

Tiger Mask Ritual

By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

When you put on the mask the thunder starts.

Through the nostril’s orange you can smell

the far hope of rain. Up in the Nilgiris,

glisten of eucalyptus, drip of pine, spiders tumbling

from their silver webs.

The mask is raw and red as bark against your facebones. 

You finger the stripes ridged like weals

out of your childhood. A wind is rising

in the north, a scarlet light

like a fire in the sky.

When you look through the eyeholes it is like falling.

Night gauzes you in black. You are blind

as in the beginning of the world. Sniff. Seek the moon.

After a while you will know

that creased musky smell is rising

from your skin.

Once you locate the ears the drums begin.

Your fur stiffens. A roar from the distant left,

like monsoon water. You swivel your sightless head.

Under your sheathed paw

the ground shifts wet.

What is that small wild sound

sheltering in your skull

against the circle that always closes in

just before dawn?

Note

The poem refers to a ritual performed by some Rajasthani hill tribes to ensure

           rain and a good harvest.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Hot enough to...

On our very own home front, there's been limited action at the bird feeders this week. Time for nesting, incubating and/or feeding nestlings? No signs of any scarlet tanagers yet. This year we also appear to be missing any bluebirds. Tree swallows(?) are using one of the bluebird houses and the other is sitting empty. That's a disappointment. A male cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, and a red-bellied woodpecker of unidentified sex were at the feeder late yesterday. (I need to remember to look for a red crown to id the male.) Today we saw the first chickadee in a week or two at the birdbath. Are birds affected by heat as much as humans are? Audubon notes that "Spring heat waves endanger young birds in the nest."

Heat waves also endanger humans who lack the sense or opportunity to avoid getting overheated by working outside when the temperatures exceed what's been considered normal. Although I enjoy reading, June's temperatures have had me inside, sitting and reading much more than I prefer at this time of year, when the normal temperatures are supposed to be about 20 degrees cooler than they've been. I wonder how the corn, that was two to six inches tall a week or ten days ago, is faring under this hot spell.

will the heat wave stunt the corn?

Photo by J. Harrington

I also wonder if we'll see (m)any more stories about how climate breakdown is causing Minnesota's winters to warm faster than our summers. I believe we're headed to some sort of record-breaking June heatwave of nine or more days at or above 90℉. Meanwhile, Minnesota Republicans in the legislature are threatening the possibility of a state government shutdown because they object to the Clean Car rules. They're also focusing on breaking parts of the government that appear to be functioning quite well, such as the Minnesota Historical Society. One occasionally speculates whether the Republicans are trying to bring the equivalent of Sharia law to US. One also gets angered by unwarranted, obstructionist actions that endanger the health, life and safety of the rest of US. Neither COVID-19 not climate breakdown is a hoax, despite what self-serving charlatans, witches and warlocks would have US believe.

Heat

H. D. - 1886-1961

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat—
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.