Celebrating release by Our Native Daughters

We have been a fan of Rhiannon Giddens for quite some time now and were mightily impressed when we saw her in person at the O'Shaughnessy a year and a half ago. Now she's recorded a new album with a different group, Our Native Daughters, which also features Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell and Leyla McCalla. We suspect that it's not a coincidence that the album is scheduled for release in about a week, on February 22, near the midst of Black History Month. But, perhaps that's just a coincidence, if you believe in coincidence. [The first link in this paragraph will take you to npr's write up on the album, including the ability to listen to the full album or any of the individual tracks. We're listening as we write this.]

the calm before the concert

Photo by J. Harrington

There's been a growing number of folks trying to make the case that "we're better than this" as more and more xenophobic, racist, hateful crap pours out of the White House these days. All we can say to that is those folks need to go back and do a better job studying American History 101. The "we" some of us claim we're better than are also citizens and/or residents of a country founded by adventuring religious dissidents who built a nation on the backs of those suffering from land appropriation, slavery and/or genocide, at a minimum. It looks unfortunately clear to us that the struggle for civil rights and equality is far from over. In fact, we behave like we're presently backsliding from the values and principles hashed out in many of our country's founding documents. [No, we're not including the 3/5 of a person provision. Maybe, though, we should apply that concept to corporate persons.]

Please don't misinterpret what we're claiming here. We CAN BE BETTER than the way too many of us are behaving these days but, to accomplish that, we have to change our ways and work at being better. It don't just come naturally. We've developed excessive hubris and and an overweening sense of entitlement. There is insufficient truth to the claim that "It can't happen here." Read about the Trail of Tears. Study the Dred Scott decision. Think about Citizens United and how we've fared since that SCOTUS decision. We continue to wonder why, if corporations really are to be considered "persons," they aren't subject to any form of the death penalty.

We could go on, and undoubtedly will some day soon. For today, we're gleeful that we live in a society that has a culture varied enough to include Our Native Daughters, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robert Zimmerman, and Richie Valens. Perhaps we can be better than we've been if we let our native music's charms help soothe our savage breast, soften our hardened hearts, and bend our notted minds. Those who study them note that "Ecosystems with a lot of biodiversity are generally stronger and more resistant to disaster than those with fewer species." To that we would add that they're also more fun.

I, Too

By Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

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

Counting the days

Today is February 15. When we awoke this morning, the temperature was -5℉. Local windchills are in the -20℉ range and colder to the West of us. After today (that is, not counting February 15), in seven days (February 23) the normal daytime high should reach 32℉. After today there are 13 days until March 1, the first day of meteorological Spring. After today there are22 days until Daylight Savings time starts on March 10. After today, there are 32 days until the Vernal Equinox on March 20, the start of astronomical Spring. Unfortunately, Shakespeare's Hamlet had it all too correct when he spoke the lines:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

He might well have been describing the pace at which Winter departs and Spring arrives in our North Country.  The weather app on our "smartphone" extends out nine days past today. It includes no temperatures forecast to warm to 32℉. Snow is included in the forecast for five of those nine days. It's not exactly that we don't like Winter (although we don't). Even if we liked snow and cold and freezing rain and ice, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing, and about this time each year, that's what we've had when it comes to Winter, too much of it.

amaryllis from Christmas 2017 to Valentine's 2019

Photo by J. Harrington

Unless something radically untoward and unforeseen happens, today's posting will be our last Winter's rant for this season. We will, henceforth, celebrate signs of Spring's arrival or preparations thereof. The sun is now warm enough to trigger melting around the edges of the few streaks of blacktop showing on our road. The Christmas amaryllis from 2017 have become Valentine's amaryllis this year. It's great to see flowers blooming. Slowly, snow will be blown from or melt off of tree branches, revealing leaf buds awaiting warmer days. Perhaps, one day soon, even the whitetail deer will start feeding on Spring's new growth and leave our sunflower seed feeder alone?

four-hoofed bird seed snitchers

Photo by J. Harrington

As an aside, we haven't lost track of our ongoing research for Native American place-names in the St. Croix Valley. In fact, yesterday we read something we believe and want to share. It's from the book Ojibwe: Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions. It's a quotation from the late Walt Bressette:

So I think our rights, indigenous rights, treaty rights, will become a vital tool in the role in the restabilization of this economy. In addition I think the indigenous knowledge that we have with our elders will become a tool that will be used. (p. 62)

The recognition and honoring of "indigenous rights, treaty rights" has become more critical during the past several years as the rights of more and more of us have been threatened. It's been said the we are "a government of laws, not of men." We don't see any way that can be true if the same laws don't apply equally to all peoples and if a dominant culture claiming to be a democracy refuses to respect and reflect the bedrock beliefs and values on which it is supposedly formed.

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