It’s the time of year for...

Cleaning the gutters today was complicated because the gunk was frozen in some places. The bird bath was also frozen although, until late yesterday, the overnight temperatures weren’t forecast to drop below freezing. The bird bath heater is now plugged in. Gutters and roof are cleared of gunk, pine needles, acorns, and leaves. More leaves and needles will fall this year, but next spring’s snow melt should flow reasonably well. At least that’s the hope.

ice covered bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

Before his arrival, I climbed a ladder repeatedly to clean the gutter-gunk. The Son-In-Law then did the part that involved walking around on the roofs with an electric leaf blower. As an element of my mostly unsuccessful attempts to age gracefully, I had acceded to the wishes of the Better Half and the Daughter Person to "stay off the roof and act my age," although their concepts of age-appropriate behavior don’t match mine. In any event, everyone  is safely back on the ground. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll bag and mulch the leaves covering the front and back yards and then debate whether to celebrate Halloween with a fire in the fire pit, again, weather permitting.

fitting for All Hallow’s Eve?

Photo by J. Harrington

In case you missed the announcement, Folk Alley has a Scream Stream playlist for your listening pleasure this weekend. I offer the link as further evidence of my contention that one is only as old as one acts. See what I mean about a lack of success at aging gracefully?

Written in a Carefree Mood

- Lu Yu

Old man pushing seventy,
in truth he acts like a little boy,
whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits,
laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers;
with the others having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda,
standing alone staring at his image in a jardiniere pool.
Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read,
just like the time he first set off for school.

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On Labor Day

Happy Labor Day. Have you noticed we live in times when change means jobs are being lost to automation and/or Artificial Intelligence. Will the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate soon become meaningless statistics? Care providers are suffering burnout due to COVID and resistance among many to common sense. Service jobs are going begging. School Board members are resigning rather than cope with hysteria over masks.

solar farm: growing  electricity?

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, honest laborers earn far less than hedge fund managers. The number of those with secure food supplies and/or housing or access to affordable, honest medical care (surprise bills anyone?) diminishes each year it seems. Concurrently, more and more farms are becoming investments owned by investors who farm them for subsidies while they're operated by former family farmers to produce commodities for industrial feedstock and/or export. Those with money and power (often the same .01% to 10% of the population) have the rest of US at each other’s throats, distracted from storming the castles with torches and pitchforks (if we don’t count January 6, 2021).

Seamus Heaney raises a question, at least in my reading, of whether digging with a pen is a labor as honest as digging sod or potatoes. Looked at another way, what’s a fair exchange rate between poems and potatoes?

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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When "Enough!" becomes too much

[UPDATE: background for the posting below. note esp. the phrase:

"to really see people like Trevor and get at their politics: their clear understanding of the past, their fierce determination to hold on to their class and race advantages, and their equally firm resolve to blow everything up if they don’t win."]

I've been unsubscribing from a number of email lists the past few days. I don't believe signing petitions will change much of anything. I don't accept that each and every time something else goes foul it's a world-ending crisis that can only be solved by making a donation to the organization that sent the email. I absolutely refuse to be in the least impressed by emails or Tweets by Democrats declaring the latest and greatest tRUMP action is an outrage and must be stopped, but the message fails to specify how, specifically, the outraged politician plans to do something, or what that something is.

HOW DO WE MOST EFFECTIVELY RESPOND TO THE PRESENCE AND PROSPECT  OF EVER MORE FEDERAL MERCENARIES (ICE etc.) BEING SENT TO INTIMIDATE DEMOCRATIC CITIES WHILE THE POSTAL SERVICE (vote by mail) GOES BANKRUPT AND COVID-19 RUNS RAMPANT?

I respectfully offer the following: We (sane humans with even a smidgeon of self-respect) should follow up on the May 1, 2020 United States essential workers general strike by calling for a nationwide General Strike of all those who are fed up with the failure of the current regime to respect the rule of law and the norms of civilized society, including unmitigated and continuing failures to implement appropriate responses to either COVID-19 or the breakdown of earth's climate. Perhaps the Industrial Workers of the World [IWW] could take a lead role. Based on recent events and the lack of action by #MoscowMitch, GOP Senate Majority Leader, on critical legislation to help the ordinary workers of this country, I don't believe we can wait until November to bring counter pressure on the political elements currently destroying what's left of our "representative democracy." Too many of our politicians, of both  parties, are either doing evil or doing nothing. What was once our "free press" has become a hoard of click-hungry toadies.

past time for the dawn of a new era

Photo by J. Harrington

No doubt I'd be even more distraught had I not already reached the age of majority when our recently (2016, how ironic) named Nobel laureate foresaw intimations of today's world and portrayed it for us. (He also wisely and kindly provided us with the answer to the "troubles he foresaw.")

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Written by: Bob Dylan 

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

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Some ways to stay Forever Young

Last night we saw and heard Joan Baez perform the song "Joe Hill." It was one of two Phil Ochs songs in her set, the other was "There But for Fortune." Listening to these two songs, and her rendition of a number of the Bob Dylan masterpieces that comprised about 40% of the songs in the show, made us wonder where are the comparable folk songs and songs of social justice and who's singing them today.

[UPDATE: Star Tribune coverage]

Thanks to the internet and search engines, we found a 2016 listing of 12 Powerful Songs that Inspired Social Progress and also Songs About Social Issues, beginning with the 18th century and listing only two in the twenty-first century. We follow @FolkAlley on Twitter and occasionally listen on line, but we haven't been paying close attention to contemporary songs of concern about environmental, labor, social and/or political issues. We think we're probably guilty of being the "no one there to hear it, when a tree falls in the forest." That's relatively easily and enjoyably corrected.

These musing were further triggered today when we came across a reference to The Weavers, a "folk group" which Pete Seeger helped found. The Wikipedia article on the group helps provide some perspective on today's political scene:

During the Red Scare, however, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were identified as Communist Party members by FBI informant Harvey Matusow (who later recanted) and ended up being called up to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955. Hays took the Fifth Amendment. Seeger refused to answer, however, claiming First Amendment grounds, the first to do so after the conviction of the Hollywood Ten in 1950. Seeger was found guilty of contempt and placed under restrictions by the court pending appeal, but in 1961 his conviction was overturned on technical grounds.^[4] Because Seeger was among those listed in the entertainment industry blacklist publication, Red Channels, all of the Weavers were placed under FBI surveillance and not allowed to perform on television or radio during the McCarthy era. Decca Records terminated their recording contract and deleted their records from its catalog in 1953.^[5] Their recordings were denied airplay, which curtailed their income from royalties. Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested at their performances and harassed promoters. As a result, the group's economic viability diminished rapidly and in 1952 it disbanded. After this, Pete Seeger continued his solo career, although as with all of them, he continued to suffer from the effects of blacklisting.

Joan Baez 2016 concert

Photo by J. Harrington

Lurking somewhere in our stacks of CDs, we believe we have a recording of Utah Phillips (and Ani DiFranco?) singing "Which Side Are You On?" DiFranco also has released an album by that title, it  includes the song. She is a contemporary folk/social justice singer. Maybe our memory is even more faulty than we think. Our point, before we close to look for the CD in question, is that social media seems to be full of gloom these days. We think the progressive movement would be better served if we had more inclusion of singer-songwriter-musicians to help ease us over the inevitable rough spots and help keep us "Forever Young." Baez sang this Dylan work last night and it was, for me, the bittersweet high point of an evening for which we here and now publicly thank our Better Half for getting the tickets.

Forever Young

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young 

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Returning to our roots?

Yesterday we mentioned Utah Phillips in our posting. I'm embarrassed to admit that, until I "discovered" him through the efforts of Ani DiFranco, I knew nothing about him. Then I learned that he was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World [IWW] (the Wobblies). That got my curiosity going and I found out the the IWW hadn't just faded away. It has offices in Minneapolis and seems active in other Minnesota locations and world wide.

renewable energy construction jobs

Photo by J. Harrington

In light of the (political) events of recent days, as the mainstream media like to say, I think some folks these days might want to consider becoming a Wobblie. Here's one reason I think so. It's from a key statement on the Twin Cities IWW web site:

The IWW seeks to be "One Big Union" for all workers. We recognize that unionism is not about government certification or employer recognition, but about rank-and-file workers coming together around common interests. Because of this, we have often stood out for organizing workers that the "business-style" unions of the old AFL, and to a large extent today's AFL-CIO and other mainstream unions, were/are either unwilling or unable to organize due to racist, sexist or "craft" prejudices, bureaucratic practices and harmful "jurisdictional" divisions, over-reliance on labor law, or simply because a certain group of workers may be seen as "un-organizable." As a result, the IWW has often been ahead of the times within the labor movement. (emphasis added)

rural solar farm

Photo by J. Harrington

Ani DiFranco and Utah Phillips collaborated on several albums including Fellow Workers and The Past Didn't Go Anywhere. Maybe it's time to rejuvenate unions like the IWW, in case the Democrats don't manage to remember in the immediate future that two of their greatest constituencies have historically been labor and environmentalists. Those two groups, working together on creative, win-win solutions offer the best hope I think we have for a desirable future. It would be nice, but not essential, to do so as Democrats, or, in Minnesota, as members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. Remember, "We all do better when we all do better!" How could Democrats have forgotten something that basic? And wouldn't it be wonderful if recent elections resulted in a massive strengthening of an anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-prejudice labor union?

Solidarity Forever, written by Ralph Chaplin, is perhaps the most famous IWW song. It's sung to the tune of John Brown's Body.

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run

There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun

Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one

But the union makes us strong

 

Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever

Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong!

 

It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they trade

Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid

Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made

But the union makes us strong

 

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn

But without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel can turn

We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn

That the union makes us strong

 

And of course, more verses have been added:

 

It is we that wash the dishes, scrub the floors and chase the dirt

Feed the kids and send them off to school and then we go to work

Where we work for half wages for a boss that likes to flirt

But the union makes us strong. 

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