Another "Bridge too far" (for now)

Please don't misunderstand. I believe aspirational goals are valuable; more so when they're acknowledged as such. But, in my opinion, when the context for, and complexity of, attaining an aspirational goal isn't made evident, the effort can, and too often may, become a source of misinformation or even disinformation.

I was around when President Kennedy announced in 1962 a goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Many of my aspirations have been shaped by the picture of our blue marble, Earth, taken by the Apollo 17 crew.

our "Blue Marble"
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

That image brought home just how rare and complex life on our home planet is. And, we didn't, and won't, get from earth to the moon, or to Mars, on an actual bridge. So, we need to be sensitive to what, and how much, we can bring with us or ship ahead if we''re going to survive in / on extraterrestrial environments. The research undertaken so far is interesting.

Eight go mad in Arizona: how a lockdown experiment went horribly wrong

Such constraints don't appear evident in the efforts of the world's first trillionaire to promote a scheme that would probably be highly profitable for one or more of his companies.

SpaceX Mars colonization program

This wouldn't trouble me as much were it not for reports about who has been funding much of the corporate development (and salvaging) of those companies.

Today a Welfare Trillionaire Is Born

President Kennedy's brother, Bobby, was also a politician. In remarks at the University of Kansas, on March 18, 1968, he noted:

..."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."

 In my opinion, we have much more significant efforts to invest in than space colonization and Artificial Intelligence. It is well past time for US to invest in making an escape to Planet B (as if there were such) unnecessary by practicing stewardship of earth and to put more resources into developing, protecting, and using human intelligence.

Kennedy spoke about an "other America." We need, as a priority, to create one America much closer to our long-standing aspirations of freedom, equality, and justice for all.

You Could Never Take a Car to Greenland

by Maggie Smith

my daughter says. Unless the car could float.
Unless by car you mean boat. Unless the ocean
turned to ice and promised not to crack.
Unless Greenland floated over here,
having lifted its anchor. Unless we could row
our country there. Our whole continent
would have to come along, wouldn’t it? Unless
we cut ourselves free. What kind of saw
could we use for that? What kind of oars
could deliver one country to another?
She asks, Why is Greenland called Greenland
if it’s not green? Why is Iceland called
Iceland if it’s greener than Greenland?
Unless it’s a trick, a lie: the name Greenland
is an ad for Greenland. Who would go
promised nothing but ice? Who would cut
her home to pieces and row away for that?

Reading into the season

Winter is approaching, a time for slowing down and storytelling. For some of us that also means more reading, although I suspect the Better Half is dubious that, for me, more reading is possible. She may have a point but I'm now working hard to limit doomscrolling and reading more positive content. You'll see what I mean below when you get to the cluster of links.

some years the deer don't wait 'til after Halloween

Photo by J. Harrington

The pumpkins and jack-o'-lantern have been put in the field behind the house so deer can feed on them. The local firearms season ends today so no one is likely to be accused of hunting over bait. I didn't hunt this year (again) and the Son-In-Law only hunted here one day after we saw a wonderful buck just before dusk one afternoon this past week.

This year I've done a much better job of managing and mulching leaves than I have in years past. We've got lots of bare ground that needs reseeding with shade-tolerant grass. Maybe next year I'll look for shade-tolerant sod. Is there such a thing?

The replacement serviceberry bushes seem to be surviving. Their leaves changed color this past week. I may try to water them once more before the snow sets in. The local weather forecasts have been including showers that never arrive so I've been holding off watering in hope that....

There is a wonderful, thoughtful "featured essay" in The Guardian. I urge you to take some time to read Megan Mayhew Bergman's The last frontier of empathy: why we still struggle to see ourselves as animals. I particularly enjoyed it since I've recently started reading David R. Boyd's The Rights of Nature. I suspect there's a number of folks who might be more comfortable if such themes were reframed as the responsibilities of humans. A long time ago I was taught that having rights incurs corresponding responsibilities, a lesson that seems to have been lost on all too many of our "leaders."

Ada Limón captures many themes related to nature and rights in her wonderful poem Startlement, from her new collection of the same title. See what you think as you read the version printed in a recent interview with her.

Startlement. It is a forgotten pleasure. The pleasure of the unexpected blue-bellied lizard skittering off his sunspot rock, the flicker of an unknown bird by the bus stop. To think, perhaps we are not distinguishable, and therefore, no loneliness can exist here. Species to species in the same blue air, smoke, wing flutter buzzing, a car horn coming, so many unknown languages to think we have only honored this strange human tongue. If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination of all things upstream. We know now we were never at the circle's center. Instead, all around us, something is living or trying to live. The world says what we are becoming, we are becoming together. The world says one type of dream has ended, and another has just begun. The world says once we were separate, and now we must move in unison.

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Allee allee in free?!!

Today’s weather, and the state of the country’s and world’s politics, have me waxing nostalgic for times that at least seemed simpler and more sensible. It’s been raining and pouring intermittently all day. Dog walks have been scheduled between downpours but the dogs would prefer to wait until it’s dry so they can sniff better. Today’s “poem” takes me back to high school and college days, and before. I hope you enjoy it.

rain clouds overhead, and on the horizon?

Photo by J. Harrington

Our governor is reported to be one of the two remaining candidates for Madame President’s VP pick. I have mixed feelings about that. Minnesota’s loss being the nation’s gain, etc. The reality is it will be interesting to see what happens if he’s selected and we end up with a Native American woman as governor. I’ve just about reached a point where I believe we can survive almost anything but #45 becoming #47, or would that be #45a and b?

The last line in the lyrics below is how I remember ending hide and go seek games when I was a kid in Dorchester, a Boston neighborhood. My mother used to claim she could tell whose back yard I’d been playing in by the way I smelled. The phrasing differs from the Kingston Trio’s Ally Ally Oxen Free. I have no idea what may be the real etymology of the phrase. Do you?

It's Raining

Song by Peter, Paul and Mary

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Bumped his head and he went to bed

And he couldn't get up in the mornin'

Rain rain, go away, come again some other day.

 

"hey I got an idea ... we could all play hide and go seek inside,

Now everybody hide and I'll be it!"

 

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight,

Wish I may, wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.

 

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Bumped his head and he went to bed

And he couldn't get up in the mornin'

Rain rain, go away, come again some other day.

 

Five ten fifteen twenty.

Twenty-five thirty. thirty-five forty.

 

Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home.

Your house is on fire, and your children,

They will burn, they will burn.

 

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Bumped his head and he went to bed

And he couldn't get up in the mornin'

Rain rain, go away, come again some other day.

 

Forty-five fifty. fifty-five sixty.

Sixty-five seventy. seventy-five eighty.

 

Won't be my father's jack,

No I won't be my mother's jill,

I'll be a fiddler's wife and fiddle when I will.

 

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Bumped his head and he went to bed

And he couldn't get up in the mornin'

Rain rain, go away, come again some other day.

 

Eighty-five, ninety. ninety-five, a hundred.

 

anyone round my base is it! ready or not, here I come!

allee allee in free!

Songwriters: Allen Toussaint / Naomi Neville 

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For what it’s worth, again

have severe storms become perpetual?

Photo by J. Harrington

It appears a large hatch of dragonflies is starting to feed on a disgustingly large hatch of mosquitos that occurred a week or ten days ago. This morning’s thunderstorms appear over and clouds are beginning to break up. One of the continuing questions these days, however, is whether appearances are deceiving. I think that question is related to the increasing difficulty of getting more than one person to agree about much of anything. Remember former President Clinton’s somewhat infamous quotation:

It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. If the – if he – if "is" means is and never has been that is not – that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.

Having a lawyer split hairs is to be expected, but splitting curly hairs was never on my bingo card. The abuse of the English language and common sense has only gotten worse in recent decades. All the evidence I’ve read about indicates the 2020 election wasn’t stolen but that doesn’t seem to have quieted those who assert it was. Today’s SCOTUS may or may not be corrupt, but it is certainly worthy of contempt.

Recent news articles have tried to bring to our attention such issues as:

• ‘Kitty cat’ storms hitting US heartland are growing threat to home insurance


• Microplastics found in every human testicle in study


• Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ ubiquitous in Great Lakes basin, study finds

I've not seen much of a real push to eliminate single use plastics, nor PFAS, and the track record of our (failed) worldwide reduction of greenhouse gases is a disgrace for all to see. Is the term “wishful thinking” the one we’re looking for here?

I grew up with the idea that the current adult generation is supposed to provide their descendants a world in which that can at least survive and, preferably, thrive. That seems to have disappeared along with any concept of being guided by what’s right, not just what’s legal. The frictions of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protests, and the environmental movement seem to be growing and spreading. I suppose one way to settle a fight is to ensure there’s nothing left worth fighting for. That seems the way we’re headed, again.

"For What It's Worth"

There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly saying, "hooray for our side"

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

We better stop
Now, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

We better stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

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Nature's rights are human rights!

I haven’t yet had my fill of watermelon or ripe peaches. I have reached my limit on humidity, temperatures of more than 89℉, drought, and cloudy days. Sounds like we’re in a late August phase and matching mood. Tired of summer, not quite ready for autumn. The good news is we hadn’t retired to Maui or southern California or British Columbia. Meanwhile, the foot-dragging and minimal response to reducing greenhouse gas emissions continues. There are too many folks engage in magical thinking and that’s dangerous for the rest of us. There is an alternative to magical thinking.

Minnesota isn’t immune from wildfires

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier today I was pondering which might be a better approach: advocating for the adoption of a green amendment to Minnesota’s constitution, along the lines being followed by members of the NCEL, or advocating for the legal establishment of nature’s rights and personhood. It didn’t take too long for me to realize that the question isn’t an either / or choice, it’s a both / and effort. States, including nation states, that wish to demonstrate environmental leadership need to incorporate into their Bill of Rights language that guarantees a healthy environment. They also need to establish legal personhood for their ecosystems. There are no markets on a dead planet. Our entire gross domestic product can’t be “health care.” We’re better off making our environment healthy than repairing all the damage an unhealthy environment does to our bodies, minds and souls.

At a local level, and a more immediate time frame, you might want to consider adding your voice in favor of the removal of both dams on the Kinnickinnic River in River Falls. The Kiap-Tu-Wish chapter of Trout Unlimited has on their web site a nice summary of the recent open house held by the Corps of Engineers and the city of River Falls. Take a look and share your thoughts. If you have questions, feel free to drop them in the comments and I’ll do my best to post an answer.

Remember, all of this is done--

For the Children

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

Gary Snyder
From: Turtle Island

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Ethics -- wuzzat?

Six months ago it was mid-January and I was complaining about snow and cold. These days I’m complaining about heat, humidity, deer flies and thunderstorms. Does that make me a chronic malcontent, or a realist? But complaints don’t change anything so why bother to complain? I could take the same approach to snow shoveling, it’s just going to snow again; vacuuming, the dogs will keep shedding; window washing, they’ll just get dirty again; or eating, I’ll just get hungry again. The answers all seem to come down to priorities and how each of us chooses to live. If you never dust, vacuum or clean, you probably qualify as a slob. If you spend most of your time dusting, vacuuming and cleaning, you probably qualify as a boring person with obsessive-compulsive disorder. And what of those who have been known to rake the wall to wall carpeting after vacuuming? Let’s not even go there.

ethics: more than rules

Photo by J. Harrington

What prompted all this reflection? This morning I came across an article complaining about the inappropriate behavior of many recently "enjoying" the outdoors: Paradise Trashed. It started me thinking about where, how, and from whom folks learn their outdoors manners. I know I didn’t learn mine from my parents, neither of whom was much of an outdoors enthusiast. In school? Not really. The ethics I was taught in school seemed to have limited relevance to hunting, fishing, camping, foraging, etc. I picked up my behaviors from reading writers in "hook and bullet" magazines, from those I spent time with in the outdoors, and from experience.

An angler in a hurry, splashing through trout pools I hoped to fish, spooked the fish before I could cast to them. If I cared about what others thought of me, I wouldn’t act that way. Why bother to be considerate of someone you don't know? While in a duck blind, I learned that “skybusters,” those shooting at out of range ducks, spoiled it for everyone else hunting that marsh. The only apparent solution was to skybust first, and that was neither fun nor productive, but maybe it taught the original skybusters a lesson?

Aldo Leopold, in A Sand County Almanac, writes about a land ethic being the product of a thinking community. From what I can see, these days we have too little of either thinking or community. That's part of the problem we face in a culture and economy that overemphasizes individualism and individual success.

All is not hopeless though. There’s the 

• Federation of Fly Fishers Code of Angling Ethics
• Boone and Crockett Club's Fair Chase
• Trout Unlimited has a broad Code of Ethics ranging from conservation to personal integrity
• Leave No Trace has Seven Principles

No doubt there are other organizations with comparable codes. Would it make sense to try to get some version of such ethical principles included in our national curriculum? I believe we would see fewer ethical lapses in our politicians and police if the recognition that ethics exist and should be adhered to were more widespread. Maybe we could start with fishing and hunting and progress to Elinor Ostrum's 8 Principles for Managing a Commons. It would be a more productive and rewarding use of our time than hearing more about Hilary's emails or Hunter's laptop.

The Enigma

By Anne Stevenson

Falling to sleep last night in a deep crevasse

between one rough dream and another, I seemed,

still awake, to be stranded on a stony path,

and there the familiar enigma presented itself

in the shape of a little trembling lamb.

It was lying like a pearl in the trough between

one Welsh slab and another, and it was crying.

I looked around, as anyone would, for its mother.

Nothing was there. What did I know about lambs?

Should I pick it up? Carry it . . . where?

What would I do if it were dying? The hand

of my conscience fought with the claw of my fear.

It wasn't so easy to imitate the Good Shepherd

in that faded, framed Sunday School picture

filtering now through the dream's daguerreotype.

With the wind fallen and the moon swollen to the full,

small, white doubles of the creature at my feet

flared like candles in the creases of the night

until it looked to be alive with newborn lambs.

Where could they all have come from?

A second look, and the bleating lambs were birds—

kittiwakes nesting, clustered on a cliff face,

fixing on me their dark accusing eyes.

There was a kind of imperative not to touch them,

yet to be of them, whatever they were—

now lambs, now birds, now floating points of light—

fireflies signaling how many lost New England summers?

One form, now another; one configuration, now another.

Like fossils locked deep in the folds of my brain,

outliving a time by telling its story. Like stars.

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Time for a different approach?

 I grew up reading Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and similar magazines. Some of my all-time favorite writing and writers arrived in those pages. Robert Ruark, The Old Man and the Boy, Gene Hill, Tailfeathers, Corey Ford, The Lower Forty, helped shape both my desires for outdoor adventures and the values by which I judged a successful day afield or a stream. There was, and still is, a great deal of wisdom and ethics embedded in that writing. Later, I became a lifetime subscriber to Gray’s Sporting Journal, which I still enjoy but preferred back in the days Ed Gray himself was in charge.

These days I’m really happy to see somewhat of a return to the kind of writing I grew up thriving on. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle has just [as of this writing] published an article on Connecting with conscience: Simms launches fishing movement centered on stewardship, responsibility. Trout Unlimited recently devoted an issue of TROUT magazine to the question of What are you really fishing for? Patagonia has a section of its web site devoted to fly-fishing and activism.

trout stream: a fine place to spend a July day

Photo by J. Harrington

It doesn’t matter if your preferred outdoor recreation is gardening, surfing, fishing, biking, hiking, hunting, boating, foraging, or .... We all depend on earth’s resources for food, shelter, recreation, clean air to breathe and water to drink. So will our descendants. I doubt that there will ever be enough laws and law enforcers to protect the resources on which we all depend. Take a look a how “well” we’re doing with the Clean Water Act goals.

As an alternative to depending on an insufficient legal framework, we could try being more reliant on an approach Aldo Leopold writes about in A Sand County Almanac, shaping a land ethic that has evolved “in the minds of a thinking community.” As we consider protecting resources, we must take account of another nonrenewable resource we often fail to value enough. This quote from Gene Hill may hit home.

Remember when time was cheap? The songs we sang about it told us that we had time on our hands, that time stood still, that tomorrow would be time enough. And now we find it was not. Suddenly times to come have become times past, and we must hoard it and spend it cautiously as the tag ends of a small inheritance . . . which is what it really was all along—except no one told us.

Hunting Manual

By Eleanor Wilner

The unicorn is an easy prey: its horn

in the maiden’s lap is an obvious

twist, a tamed figure—like the hawk

that once roamed free, but sits now, fat and hooded,

squawking on the hunter’s wrist. It’s easy

to catch what no longer captures

the mind, long since woven in,

a faded tapestry on a crumbling wall

made by the women who wore keys

at their waists and in their sleep came

hot dreams of wounded knights left bleeding

in their care, who would wake the next morning

groaning from the leftover lance in the groin,

look up into the round blond face beaming down

at them thinking "mine," and say: "angel."

Such beasts are easy to catch; their dreams

betray them. But the hard prey is the one

that won’t come bidden.

By these signs you will know it:

when you lift your lure

out of the water, the long plastic line

will be missing its end: the lure and the hook

will be gone, and the line will swing free

in the air, so light it will be without

bait or its cunning

sharp curl of silver. Or when you pull

your net from the stream, it will be eaten

as if by acid, its fine mesh sodden shreds.

Or when you go at dawn to check your traps,

their great metal jaws will be wrenched

open, the teeth blunt with rust

as if they had lain for years in the rain.

Or when the thunderstorm suddenly breaks

in the summer, next morning

the computer’s memory will be blank.

Look then for the blank card, the sprung trap,

the net’s dissolve, the unburdened

line that swings free in the air.

There. By day, go empty-handed to the hunt

and come home the same way

in the dark.

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All Bonus, no Onus? (All the good without work?)

A male Baltimore oriole appeared at the feeder this morning. That seems to confirm our suspicion that they’ve been too busy parenting hatchlings to visit the feeder. As we’re writing this, a female has arrived to help herself to the nectar feeder. We've also been enjoying red-winged blackbirds, rose-breasted grosbeaks, goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches and an occasional unrecognized bird.

Baltimore oriole at nectar feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s a really pretty cluster of pink phlox plants next to one of the  oak trees behind the house. I would have taken pictures today but my hands were full of the poison ivy killer sprayer. Maybe later, or tomorrow, if the thunderstorms cooperate.

Social media, at least mine, has been full of complaints about Democrats, push back about why Democrats are our only hope, wails that “we voted for them, why won’t they deliver for us?” I’ve been reminded of a story about one of our greatest presidents, FDR. The story supposedly goes:

"You know, Mr. Randolph, I've heard everything you've said tonight, and I couldn't agree with you more. I agree with everything that you've said, including my capacity to be able to right many of these wrongs and to use my power and the bully pulpit. ... But I would ask one thing of you, Mr. Randolph, and that is go out and make me do it."

I don’t think politics should be an avocation or even a time-consuming hobby. I’d rather be fly-fishing. I do, however, believe that far too many of US have taken way too much for granted when it comes to participation in a democracy. It should, I believe, take way more than name recognition to prompt receiving someone's vote. Several years ago I tried to get some background information on a local school board candidate. I couldn’t find a web site or any real information about the candidate’s beliefs, values and approach to education. In fact, that’s true of many candidates, isn’t it? As of 3:30 pm today, our Minnesota senate district supposedly has a DFL endorsed candidate for state senate but her candidacy isn’t listed on the local DFL organization’s web site. That certainly doesn’t help me maintain any enthusiasm for the Democratic party. Our political system, regardless of party, could stand some significant improvements.

Meanwhile, I’m spending time these days raking small rocks out of our front yard grass. Last year the township reinforced the road shoulder with a gravel mix and then last winter the township’s plow scattered many of those rocks out of their ditch easement onto our property beyond the easement. It doesn’t help my mower blades to suck up those rocks when cutting the grass. The township did something similar last year as they were brushing the roadway ditch and ejected much of their wood chip mulch onto our property, in places where we neither needed nor wanted mulch. Even under the best of circumstances, government is too often too much of a pain in the arse. We’re not quite as bad as Russia or Afghanistan yet, but give the fundamentalist right Republicans another election or two and we’ll be able to show the world what a real shithole country looks and acts like.

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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It’s all about US!

 I’ve been paying vague attention to the broadcasts of the January 6 hearings. Today’s testimony remined me of something I think too many of US have lost track of. I’ll quote here:

“Power tends to corrupt,” said Lord Acton, the 19th-century British historian. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” His maxim has been vividly illustrated in psychological studies, notably the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which was halted when one group of students arbitrarily assigned to serve as “prison guards” over another group began to abuse their wards. ...

“In sum, the study found, power doesn’t corrupt; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. Which brings to mind another maxim, from Abraham Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” 

I’m deeply troubled but what the preceding implies about those who voted for Donald Trump and continue to vote for the likes of Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz. Then again, when Bill Clinton, who brought US NAFTA and Welfare Reform, was the Democratic candidate, I probably voted for him, much to my later regret. Too much of our politics comes down to a dilemma akin to “Which eye do we want the sharp stick in?” My (our?) conundrum is enhanced when one looks at Britain and their parliamentary system and notes that they’re not doing much better. Brexit, anyone?

One of my pet theories is that we have become too dependent on politics and law. Lawyers are noted for their ability to split hairs and distort plain meaning. Politics is noted for causing hair pulling and obfuscating meaning. There are alternatives. One alternative has been proposed by Elinor Ostrum, who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Ostrom identified eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:^[38][39]

1. Clearly defined the group boundaries (and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties) and the contents of the common pool resource;
2. The appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;
3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;
7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; and
8. In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.

I’d really like to see how we might arrange for one or several blue ribbon commissions to review our current systems of governance, not as theory but as practiced, against those design principles. I fear that failure to undertake such an activity, or something comparable, may leave US with little alternative but to become engaged an a wholesale replacement of our governments in a nonviolent or other process. We’re beyond the stage at which tinkering will work unless we’re determined to rearrange those proverbial deck chairs.

 In case you think I’m engaged in pure fantasy, I know of a couple of organizations and initiatives that allready exist and seem to be moving some parts of our world in a direction I believe necessary. One is the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) and its standard. The other is the ISEAL Alliance and their sustainability standards.

I don’t see any society ever being able or willing to pay for enough police to enforce good behavior defined only in law. And yet we have, it seems, been busy for decades replacing ethics with laws. I expect to return to this topic in the future so we’ll leave it here for now.

I Commit

By Matthew Zapruder

I commit to vote because

I'm pretty sure I grab

whatever I need from the world

and place it in my mind

which is getting incrementally

like the commons

undeniably more toxic and sad

yes I too walk around

considering my intractable problems

complaining it's too late

for more sonatas

everything is already too beautiful

music and anger won't save us

yet I commit to talking

earnestly with Sarah

about the school board

it will be night and we will be sitting

shoulder to shoulder 

at the old table we love

each holding a pencil

like grade school children left alone at last

then in the morning

before our son wakes

I commit to holding

this tiny bit of quicksilver

(quick in the sense of living

in its very molecular nature

it wants to usefully combine with yours)

in my palm and to walking

up to the blue mailbox

I pass most mornings

in that familiar silence

under those nameless little trees

when all things that surround me wait

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In memory of ...

Too many lives have been prematurely ended. Too many wars have been fought, some declared, many not. Our politics are again (still?) matters of life and death. I would suggest, as strongly as possible, that, in memory of those who have given their all to defend our freedoms, and those who mourn because of freedoms abused, we are well past the time when we need to stress responsibility more than rights. Exercising the latter while evading the former is wrong and not how we should be, or wish to be, remembered.

rest in peace

Photo by J. Harrington

When I was young, I would join my family on Memorial Day at the cemetery in which some of our predecessors were buried. That place is now half a country away. I wonder, from time to time, if our restless, often relocating society is undermining our sense of responsibility to each other. If you don’t have relatives in a local cemetery, does that diminish a sense of belonging? Do family graves help nourish our roots?

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae - 1872-1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
        In Flanders fields.

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Advice for the birds

 I think that this weekend we’ll reinstall the bird feeders. We’ve read the advice from the Raptor Center and also from the Cornell Ornithology Lab. As of the most recent data, our county has identified only domestic birds as being infected. We have no reason to suspect misinformation or disinformation from any of the organizations cited, but there are, we suspect, different priorities. The Raptor Center is focused on raptors. Cornell appears to place more emphasis on song birds. Raptors appear to be more susceptible, possibly from eating waterfowl?

We have no domestic poultry nor, to the best of our knowledge, do nearby neighbors. Although it appears to be a fairly limited risk, feeding birds on our deck is not without risk, but then life itself is not without risk, n'est-ce pas?

an occasional May visitor at the feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ll probably ponder this question over the weekend and see if we can gain any additional insight or information. We’d be less inclined to think about this if the storms of this week hadn’t also brought about a notable rise in local trout streams we’re familiar with, thereby presenting us with additional risks to ourselves if we were to go wading. All told, we seem to have done a remarkably good job of screwing up both the climate and what used to be normal spring weather. The advice and guidance available about bird flu and feeders is less confusing than that from federal and state governmental entities regarding cautions to be followed to protect US from COVID. All in all, we seem to have created a number of systems that don’t function as well as they should and, what’s at least as bad, we seem as a society unable and unwilling to consider alternatives for fear it may give someone with whom we don’t fully agree and advantage. I don’t think this is a sustainable culture / society / political system, do you? I think what we have now is strictly “for the birds.” Aren’t we supposed to be a different taxonomic class (Mammalia vs. Aves)?

If you have a different perspective, please share it in the comments.

Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly risking absurdity

                                             and death

            whenever he performs

                                        above the heads

                                                            of his audience

   the poet like an acrobat

                                 climbs on rime

                                          to a high wire of his own making

and balancing on eyebeams

                                     above a sea of faces

             paces his way

                               to the other side of day

    performing entrechats

                               and sleight-of-foot tricks

and other high theatrics

                               and all without mistaking

                     any thing

                               for what it may not be

       For he's the super realist

                                     who must perforce perceive

                   taut truth

                                 before the taking of each stance or step

in his supposed advance

                                  toward that still higher perch

where Beauty stands and waits

                                     with gravity

                                                to start her death-defying leap

      And he

             a little charleychaplin man

                                           who may or may not catch

               her fair eternal form

                                     spreadeagled in the empty air

                  of existence

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Democracy? Without politics? Can politics be made better?

The first list below, with black background, is copied from a Tweet on Twitter. The title item (first line) is a link to the entire Tweet. The second linked item is the abstract from the journal article that prompted the Tweet that precedes it.

Are you ready to VOTE?

Photo by J. Harrington

Should this signal an end to our current two-party system? How do we revise politics so it's less not toxic to participants? Or should we go along with the current transformation to an autocracy, run by our oligarchs, and hope for benign dictators. Is it now time to seriously study Elinor Ostrum's work or should we return to more of the techniques of the Iroquois Confederation? Think about it and decide before picking candidates for November!

When #Politics Are Bad For Your Health: Politics blamed for loss of sleep, depression, relationship issues Puts a strain on relationships and a strain on the individual The costs of politics Friends, relatives, sanity, health #HealthWarning

 

Friends, relatives, sanity, and health: The costs of politics

Abstract

Political scientists have long known that political involvement exacts costs but they have typically defined these costs in relatively narrow, largely economic terms. Though anecdotal evidence suggests that the costs of politics may in fact extend beyond economics to frayed personal relationships, compromised emotional stability, and even physical problems, no systematic evidence on these broader costs exists. We construct and validate batteries of survey items that delineate the physical, social, and emotional costs of political engagement and administer these items to a demographically representative sample of U.S. adults. The results suggest that a large number of Americans believe their physical health has been harmed by their exposure to politics and even more report that politics has resulted in emotional costs and lost friendships.

Is it not once again time to focus on ideals instead of idols? Langston Hughes, many years ago, proposed a solid approach that’s much better than the politics of today.

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes - 1901-1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

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Republicans = Grand Oligarch Party

 Here’s the basic problem as I see it, Sam Rayburn was too correct when he said “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” The Republicans, as the party of oligarchs, have an easier job of kicking down barns. Meanwhile, the Democrats can but wish they were as good carpenters as they think they are. So, if the Grand Oligarch Party does little more than cause chaos and confusion, they’re winning. If Democrats and Independents get so disgusted with the ineptness of the Democratic response to Republican misinformation and disinformation, as well as any outright lies, Republicans win because they want to destroy democracy, the working class, the middle class and leave but oligarchs, peasants and serfs. If you disagree with this assessment, take a look around at the headlines and social media.

Are you ready to VOTE?

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m not the only one with this gloomy outlook. Take a look at this review in The Guardian of the book Last Best Hope review: George Packer on the state we’re in – and how to fix it. It's the last part that has me particularly interested.

Packer offers more hope by using the last part of the book to remind us of the power of extraordinary individuals to bring about positive change.

He gives us brief portraits of Horace Greeley, the abolitionist editor of the New York Herald; Frances Perkins, the extraordinary social warrior who was Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of labor and the author of about half of the New Deal, including social security; A Philip Randolph, who pressured FDR into issuing an executive order banning discrimination in the federal government (though he failed to get the armed forces integrated during the second world war); and his young lieutenant, Bayard Rustin, the great gay civil rights leader who was the mastermind behind Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963.

We will need a dozen new leaders of their caliber to accomplish Packer’s other goals – a reinvigorated anti-trust policy to break up the tech giants, a revival of American unions and a new generation of journalists more like their muckraking predecessors in the 20th century.

For a different perspective, without reading the actual book, take a look at this review in The Washington Post. We’ve already entered the early stages of the 2022 midterm election campaigns. We strongly suggest, nay, implore, you to look for and support “extraordinary individuals,” those who know which end of a hammer to hold; who know to raise both the roof and taxes on the wealthiest 1%; and, most importantly, who aren’t jackasses with no greater ambition than to kick down a barn, as long as it’s not their barn.

Of course, we all know that extraordinary people are that because there aren’t very many of them. One way to compensate is to bring our better selves to the voting booth and everywhere else we go. Together with insisting on exercising our individual rights, we must do better at fulfilling our collective responsibilities to our families, communities, fellow citizens and country, because

We Are of a Tribe

By Alberto Ríos

We plant seeds in the ground

And dreams in the sky,

 

Hoping that, someday, the roots of one

Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other.

 

It has not happened yet.

We share the sky, all of us, the whole world:

 

Together, we are a tribe of eyes that look upward,

Even as we stand on uncertain ground.

 

The earth beneath us moves, quiet and wild,

Its boundaries shifting, its muscles wavering.

 

The dream of sky is indifferent to all this,

Impervious to borders, fences, reservations.

 

The sky is our common home, the place we all live.

There we are in the world together.

 

The dream of sky requires no passport.

Blue will not be fenced. Blue will not be a crime.

 

Look up. Stay awhile. Let your breathing slow.

Know that you always have a home here.

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