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Politics

Things to be grateful for: Activism

In no particular order I am going to applaud movements carried by young people this year.  Youth has always had a major role in fostering societal change – think the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam Protests, the Arab Spring, Tiananmen Square. Movements that try to tackle the big issues of our time, from climate catastrophe, environmental destruction to the danger from the ubiquity of automatic and other weapons are carried by American youth here and now as well.

There is Sunrise –  a movement to stop climate change. These are kids, basically, pursuing a #greennewdeal.

https://www.sunrisemovement.org/who-we-are/

Then there are the Parkland survivors, who just yesterday received the International Kids’ Peace Award presented by Bishop Desmond Tutu for their organizing the March for our Lives to prevent further gun violence. Independent of how effective they are in fighting gun producers and sellers, their efforts to organize the youth vote have been phenomenally successful. Youth vote in early voting alone surge by 188% over the 2014 midterms.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/417714-desmond-tutu-awards-parkland-survivors-international-childrens

Then there are the many activists (not all of them young, as it turns out) who defend our environment against industrial assault, with leadership from many indigenous people, and with courageous lawyers by their side. I am thinking, as just on example, of the Minnesota Valve turners, a group of people willing to go to prison in order to protest pipelines and all the threats that resource extraction entail for our climate.

https://www.wired.com/story/monkeywrenching-vandals-are-reinventing-climate-activism/

Above is a link to an article that outlines what people have tried to do and what defenses they are trying to use in court regarding their actions: among them the necessity defense, which states that when all legal and political means are exhausted it might be necessary to engage in non-violent illegal action to prevent irreversible harm.

Below is the trailer, close to my heart, to a documentary in the making – Necessity –  that follows some of these activists and the folks from the Climate Defense Project who provide legal support.

To learn more about the film and how it can be supported you can go to the website.

https://www.necessitythemovie.com

Photographs shown today were taken at various industrial sites and at PSU 2 weeks back when Kelsey Skaggs, mentioned in the article above, gave a talk about the CDP (I did a bit of production photography for the documentary.)

Much gratitude, then, for all the folks out there in the front lines, taking enormous risks and exposing themselves to attacks in order to do what’s right. They instill a sense of hope, plain and simple, which is a lot after what 2018 has provided so far….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Things to be grateful for: Science

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Wheat

I am always thankful when there is a scientific explanations for things that I find troubling. And never more so than when the explanation packs a surprise while simultaneously making you slap your head along the lines of “Of course… why didn’t I see that one coming.”

Consider the following, for example. If we took a soil sample from every county in the American South and analyzed it for mineral deposits, which make the soil rich, we would get a map that shows a “black belt.” These stretches of land across the South have dark soil, more fertile than others, and are thus amenable for producing certain nutrient dependent crops, like cotton, tobacco, indigo and rice.

If you superimpose a map of every county election outcome across the South on the soil map, you find that they perfectly overlay – the darker the soil, the more conservative the vote. And that does not go only for the vote per se – if you research attitudes across all those counties, the ones with richer soil have culturally more conservative views and are more (openly and latently) racist, assuming a value differential between white and black people and agreeing with legal, institutional or social measures to prevent the progress of Blacks.

Sun Flowers

Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics is a scientific exploration of this phenomenon. Avidit Acharya, a political scientist at Stanford, Matt Blackwell, a professor of government at Harvard and Maya Sen, a professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, link current conservative attitudes towards gun rights, death penalty and racial resentment in parts of the South directly to a slave holding history, in a book written during the Obama years, no less.

Here is the full argument: https://art19.com/shows/why-is-this-happening-with-chris-hayes/episodes/1c01f809-2331-4d1f-97be-7320c96af997

 

 

 

Corn

And here is my distillation in a nutshell: Cotton and tobacco industries thrived on chattel slavery, since those crops were extremely labor intense. After the Civil War, those regions’ economic survival depended on finding ways to continue to exploit Black labor. Anti-Black laws and practices, from Jim Crow to the undermining of education and participation in the political sphere, served that purpose. What the authors add, though, is a mechanism called behavioral path dependence: Generation after generation passed down and reinforced beliefs about racial inequality and the need to impede progress of those deemed inferior. Children learned from their parents and taught their own children, all the while being backed up by local institutions that echoed the value judgments and created spaces for segregation.

Rape seed

When slavery was abolished and with it Ante Bellum Laws, the subjugation of Blacks now relied increasingly on cultural mechanisms:

MAYA SEN: I think things like racialized rhetoric from the top down can have really, really damaging and long-term impacts. So things like talking about people in dehumanizing language, institutionalizing policies that treat people as less than human. Those things can really create attitudes that then persist for a long time.

.. to be able to kind of preserve the same structure, economic structure that we had  with slavery it required a lot more kind of local vigilance to kind of enact these policies. So you had a kind of creation of a culture, a maintenance of a culture that required things like extrajudicial violence, it required basically training and indoctrinating young children into thinking about the world in certain ways.

And this culture is incredibly resistant to change, proceeding at a glacial pace. In other words, federal interventions, like the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act (what’s left of it…,) can address behavioral discrimination, but they do nothing with regard to attitudes. Children who are indoctrinated from an early age will carry their parents’ attitudes to the next generation.

Grapes

Berries and fruit trees

Here is the full introductory chapter to their book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=zKtADwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=maya+sen+soil&source=bl&ots=d6EGFYepGL&sig=MSHEo1H07y9bSAicq6AWPPwEWT4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjAuvuI59zeAhXKilQKHe1FBrE4ChDoATAIegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=maya%20sen%20soil&f=false

It has nothing to do with what is happening in the present, or how you could rationally argue about economic interests in the present. It is about pervasive prejudiced beliefs instilled through generations, not likely to be eradicated by external education unless they are systemically tackled over the long haul.

Photographs are of crops grown in my immediate vicinity….

Cabbage

And last but not least: hazel nuts and tulips!

 

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The Day After

I went to bed last night with a heavy heart, thinking how racism sells and how the efforts to suppress the vote, from gerrymandering to relocation and limiting of polling places to defunct scanners to rob calls pay off. Every single time, which is why those practices are continued with a vengeance. Or proactiveness, as the case may be.  The way it works has even majority votes turn into a win for the other side. (NYT: Voters cast 44.7 million votes for Democratic Senate candidates and 32.9 million votes for Republican Senate candidates — in other words 57 percent of Senate votes went for Democrats. But given how states and cities and stuff work, and which of the former happened to be up for election this year, this gap translated into at least a two-seat gain for Republicans. Republicans will have a majority in the upper chamber, and are currently sitting on 51 senators with several races yet to be called.)

 

I woke up defiant this morning, and much more upbeat. The Republicans picked up 2 Senate seats, yes, and that will go their way with judiciary and Supreme Court decisions. But look at what the Democrats accomplished, against all the structural obstacles thrown into their way.

Taking House, 333 state legislature seats, added at least 7 new governors, 6 trifectas in states, passed 100+ progressive ballot initiatives. The 25 house seats will allow congress to return to its constitutional obligation of providing checks and balances. You now have two Muslim, tow Naive American women in congress, and the first Black woman from MA, despite the most racist campaign ever run by a President.  More than 90 women won house seats. Tennessee elected the first woman senator, Maine its first woman governor. More NRA backed politicians lost their seats than ever before ( thank you Parkland kids!)

Heller, Rohrabacher gone.

And ballot measures passed that can potentially change the political landscape, as well as those that improve justice or people’s existence.

The former include the restoring of voting rights to felons in Florida and the redrawing of districts by independent commissions in Colorado. The latter includes Louisiana’s decision to require unanimous jury decisions in stead of the racially biased 10/2 outcome (ironically Oregon is now the only state that still sits on this perverse regulation.) Voting registration systems have been improved in several states, Michigan and Nevada among them (although Arkansa and North Carolina passed ballot measures to require photo ID which is believed to disenfranchise minority voters.) And WA tackled a bit of gun control, upping the age for purchase and requirements for secure storage. MA passed protection for transgender rights.

Clearly ballot initiatives are a tool that needs to be explored more by progressives hoping to turn things around locally.

And speaking of local: Oregon has a supermajority in the Senate, defeated a Republican gubernatorial candidate showered with riches by Phil Knight, passed ballot initiatives that help affordable housing and failed, happily, those dealing with immigration restrictions, grocery tax, and several more.

Now we need to work harder, to consolidate the movement on the ground and to change the conditions that made it so difficult for candidates in FL and GA. And take bets when Beto will travel to Iowa……

Pics are of screenshots I took yesterday as they rolled in across the day.

 

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Would-be Revolutionaries

Today is Guy Fawkes Day – or night, as the case may be. The annual commemoration of the gun powder plot is a strange celebration of historic hatred. Guy Fawkes and his buddies had planned to blow up the House of Lord, King James I included, with a goal of ridding England of Catholicism. Fawkes was betrayed by an anonymous tip and arrested on November 5, 1605, while guarding the explosives that the plotters had stored beneath the building.

People celebrated King James’ I survival of this attempt with bonfires; across the years repeated celebrations took on an increasingly religious, anti-Catholic bend, with effigies burnt not only of Guy Fawkes but also the Pope and these days despised political figures, not necessarily only British ones.

Guy Fawkes was supposed to be hanged, drawn and quartered for treason, but managed to fall of the scaffold and painlessly die by breaking his neck. James I, a complex monarch often described as a drinking fool and rumored to be bi-sexual, died of disease in his mid-50s. Under his reign, with England and Scotland united, the people lived in a somewhat golden age – he was intent on avoiding wars, particularly with Spain. But he also imbued the monarchy with a sense of absolutism, a belief in the divine rights of kings, that his son Charles inherited. It did not end well for him – or the country that slid into civil war.

Why the Occupy movement took on a stylized Guy Fawkes mask is a mystery to me. Many see Fawkes’ role in history as that of a terrorist, killing anyone in a large radius to instill fear at the heart of a nation. But even if you see him as a freedom fighter, a symbol of revolt against those in power, think about what was at the root of his plans: religion. He wanted to strike in favor of Catholicism, and replace one elite with another, namely instate Jame’s I daughter Elizabeth on the throne and generate a new government overnight. In this sense it was like a failed military coup.

And in an ironic footnote: Occupy’s adoption of the mask had led to it becoming the top-selling mask on Amazon.com, selling hundreds of thousands a year. Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world, owns the rights to the image and is paid a fee with the sale of each official mask. So much for showing it to the man…..  Then again, some funny protest songs tell it as it is.

Here is to overcoming dark times by educating ourselves (if necessary by the light of the moon) instead of dwelling in senseless symbolism, lighting bon fires to celebrate schisms….

 

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Cautionary Words, Illustrated

These Christmas ornaments were for sale at a gun show at the Louisville, Kentucky, Expo Center on the same day that an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue.


We are surrounded by that stuff – as some of the other illustrations below will confirm. And yet, for a variety of reasons, wishful thinking among them, we manage to deny how deeply fascist ideology is woven into the fabric of US life. A thoughtful analysis by Zoltan Grossman, a son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, explains why: (it really is worth to read the whole thing)

  1. One form of Fascism Denial is to conflate far-right militancy with other forms of violence. Minorities are not random targets, exposed to crazy lone gun men, but targeted for isolation and fear.
  2. They’re not your grandparents’ fascists.  They come in all guises beyond our traditional stereotypes of clans men and goose steppers.
  3. The are more diverse than you’d think.  It’s not only about white supremacy. In the US we don’t just have one generic racist history, but three distinct racist histories rooted in slavery (for African American labor), genocide (for Native American land), and xenophobia (to justify foreign conquest and depict immigrants as a cultural threat).
  4. A fourth form of Fascism Denial is to loosely use terminology so that it loses its real meaning. 
  5. A fifth form of Fascism Denial is to chalk up far-right beliefs to generic “hatred” or “incivility” that can be overcome if we just discuss our differences, and equates fascist anger with anti-fascist anger. This tendency overlooks the main tool of fascist ideology, which is not anger, but cold, calculating conspiracy theories that totally explain a complex world to gullible followers
  6. We can do something about it: below Grossman explains in clear and simple words what the necessary steps should look like.https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/30/fascism-denial-ignores-some-inconvenient-truths/

 

The following images are all from the last few months:

Here is one that appeared two days after the Pittsburgh massacre

.https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-state-sen-candidate-mailer-anti-semitic

Here is one that appeared on college campuses during the Kavanaugh debacle.

Here are cartoons depicting Soros as the billionaire Jew running the government,

and this one by ex presidential candidate Ron Paul using dogwhistle terms for international Jewry.

Ron Paul, former presidential candidate, tweets racist and anti-Semitic cartoon

 

This was found smeared on a Seattle Synagogue.

 

But also:

This was posted by the good guys in response to claims by Trump that the caravan of poor people approaching the US border will bring us small pox (eradicated in 1980 according to the WHO) and leprosy.

 

And this was posted by the Pittsburgh Ice Hockey Team:

And here is a link to a wonderful clip of Carl Reiners, 96-year old comedian:

96-year-old Carl Reiner hopes to live at least 2 more years to see a president who’s a ‘decent, moral, law-abiding citizen’

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The Words of Others

Hudson River Birdstrike

I was struck by the force of some voices I read yesterday and thought I’d let them speak here today.

Here is Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who saved all on board during an emergency landing in the Hudson river when his plane’s engines where incapacitated by birds. A lifelong republican, he implores us to vote differently this time:

“Today, tragically, too many people in power are projecting the worst. Many are cowardly, complicit enablers, acting against the interests of the United States, our allies and democracy; encouraging extremists at home and emboldening our adversaries abroad; and threatening the livability of our planet. Many do not respect the offices they hold; they lack — or disregard — a basic knowledge of history, science and leadership; and they act impulsively, worsening a toxic political environment.

As a result, we are in a struggle for who and what we are as a people.”…. “We cannot wait for someone to save us. We must do it ourselves. This Election Day is a crucial opportunity to again demonstrate the best in each of us by doing our duty and voting for leaders who are committed to the values that will unite and protect us.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-saved-155-lives-on-the-hudson-now-lets-vote-for-leaders-wholl-protect-us-all/2018/10/29/554fd0e6-d87c-11e8-a10f-b51546b10756_story.html?utm_term=.4ec87f719d88

(Photomontages today are of airplane disasters, the one above of the Sully Hudson rescue from my 2015 series Free Fall.)

Charles de Gaulle (CDG)

And here is Batya Ungar-Sagon, writing in The Forward”

“We are not, of course, embattled the way people of color are; no Jew can credibly claim that our situation is anywhere near as precarious as that of black and Latino and Muslim communities. And some Jews, of course, support Trump. His popularity among the Orthodox has skyrocketed since he took office.But what Trump has done more than anything else is reveal — and heighten — the already existing contradictions in Jewish American life. ….. 

We are a racial minority in America – but one for whom the police will throw themselves in the line of fire. We are the brothers and sisters of George Soros – but also Sheldon Adelson. We are Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. We are Jews of no religion. It’s these contradictions inherent in Jewish life that Trump has augmented, just as he has for American life overall.

Trump has made the difference between left and right, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative into an existential one. He has exacerbated and intensified the already-existing fault lines, turning them into deep and impassable craters.”

Read more: https://forward.com/opinion/413045/what-the-pittsburgh-massacre-taught-me-about-jews-in-the-age-of-trump/

Lower Manhattan

And this from Pharell Williams in a cease and desist letter to Trump:

“On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged ‘nationalist,’ you played his song ‘Happy’ to a crowd at a political event in Indiana,” Williams’ attorney Howard E. King wrote in the letter. “There was nothing ‘happy’ about the tragedy inflicted upon our country on Saturday and no permission was granted for your use of this song for this purpose.”

https://pitchfork.com/news/pharrell-sends-trump-cease-and-desist-for-playing-happy-on-day-of-synagogue-shooting/

South China Sea

And then there was “Rabbi” Loren Jacobs, praying with Pence at a rally in Michigan, a Jews for Jesus type, a movement condemned by Jewish leaders as faux Judaism that wants to promote Christian evangelism and has proselytizing as its goal. The major Jewish denominations view followers of Messianic Judaism as Christian, not Jewish.

His words included the mention of Jesus the Savior, and an appeal to the Almighty to favor the Republican Party in the midterm elections next month. They also included the names of four Republican candidates.

NOT included in his words were these:

-Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland, City of Pittsburgh
-Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township
-Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh
-Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood Borough
-Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh
-David Rosenthal, 54, (brother of Cecil), of Squirrel Hill
-Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg
-Sylvan Simon, 86, (husband of Bernice), of Wilkinsburg
-Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh
-Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh
-Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington, City of Pittsburgh

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/30/honoring-pittsburgh-synagogue-victims-mike-pence-appears-with-rabbi-who-preaches-jesus-is-messiah/?utm_term=.891f6307d701

 

Ukraine

 

 

 

 

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When Words Fail: Retreating to Numbers

Recent statistics from the Anti-Defamation-League: (before Pittsburgh)

Number of anti-Semitic incidents was nearly 60 percent higher in 2017 than 2016, the largest single-year increase on record.

There were 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents reported across the United States in 2017, including physical assaults, vandalism, and attacks on Jewish institutions, with every single state included, the one with the largest Jewish populations having the largest share. Anti-Semitic incidents in K-12 schools and college campuses (both non-Jewish and Jewish institutions) in 2017 nearly doubled over 2016. Unclear how many more incidents there are that people did not report for a variety of reasons.

The dark numbers are feared to be large. Over the last decade a total of 71 percent of all hate crime fatalities have been linked to domestic right-wing extremists.

2017:

  • 1,015 incidents of harassment, including 163 bomb threats against Jewish institutions
  • 952 incidents of vandalism
  • 19 physical assaults

And at the Tree of Life now 11 murdered in 2018.

https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/anti-semitic-incidents-surged-nearly-60-in-2017-according-to-new-adl-report

Photographs from European Jewish Cemeteries this summer.

 

And Israeli politicians dare to politicize this as the “results of the left stoking anti-Semitism.” (שאַנד(ע – eine Schande.

And here some history:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/brief-history-anti-semitic-violence-america/574228/

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The Power of Inspiration

Hatred alone won’t do

I want us to go into the weekend contemplating these words:

“Powerful factions, as part of their intimidation tactics, deliberately try to breed a sense of collective and personal impotence: you’re too small and powerless, and they’re too fortified and entrenched, for you to meaningfully challenge them. But human beings, all of us, have the power to move the world even a little tiny bit at a time. And the more that happens, the more the world moves in the direction it’s pushed.

We’re trained to think only grandiose, revolutionary overhauls have meaning. But tiny, isolated actions also matter – convincing a single person to change how they think or behave, helping or saving a single life, being an anonymous, unrecognized part of any campaign or movement. It matters on its own because of its inherent worth, and because of its cumulative effect. But so often your actions can reverberate in ways you would never expect. Impotence and hopelessness are a tactic, a lie told by those who wield power, to foster resignation, passivity, and acceptance.”

This from a report by Glenn Greenwald, a journalist I do not often see eye to eye with, but find him here spot on.

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/25/roger-waters-marielle-franco-and-the-power-of-inspiration-in-the-face-of-darkness-and-danger/

This week’s blog was about change; I tried to find models of inspiration for all kinds of change. This seemed particularly urgent in light of the changes the world is experiencing right now. In this country we see the start of violent actions against political adversaries, the green light from above to act on racism and nationalism, whether by shooting and/or imprisoning black children or rounding up brown ones in internment camps, or by dialing back any protective legal measures afforded to the vulnerable and the environment.

We are, of course, not the only ones. I have frequently written about what’s going on in Europe; now this week all eyes are turned towards Brazil, where undoubtedly a genuine monster is going to win the election.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/25/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-democracy-rights

 

Block the Nazis

Two days ago Roger Waters (remember: Pink Floyd?), warned against the rise of true fascists like Bolsonaro and invited the family of progressive politician Marielle Franco, an openly lesbian human rights activist and champion of the poor, who was murdered, along with her driver, in March of this year, onto the stage. The musician, in his late 70s now, is touring Brazil with his Us+Them show and played in Rio to a full house, despite many cancellations of tickets due to his political outcry. He strongly believes there is no us and them, but we are all us. I fear that is wishful thinking, but understand what message he is trying to give to the hundreds of thousands listening to him.

When I get discouraged, starting to think that our own election will be bought, manipulated, or simply decided by the passivity of a public worried about daily survival and hampered by lack of education, I will read the words posted today at the top.

Onwards.

Today’s photographs are “writing on the wall” – here are the lyrics from Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall

I don’t need no arms around me
And I don’t need no drugs to calm me
I have seen the writing on the wall
Don’t think I’ll need anything at all…

Be the change you want to see in the world

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TseSho – What’s That?

When your hope for humanity has reached a pretty low point, there is sometimes art that comes to the rescue. Case in point was Saturday’s rambunctious cabaret TseSho, performed by musically and artistically gifted young people who applied art to politics. The Ukrainian Teatr-Pralnia’s satirical take on current cultural issues and their heart-breaking descriptions of hatred and war were mixed up in an exuberant show using puppets, video art and vibrant music that made your heart sing and your feet dance. TseSho – What’s That? was a romp about urgent contemporary topics.

The show was both fun to watch and listen to, but also deeply thought-provoking. Four young woman on stand-up bass, cello, saxophone and accordion and one male drummer presented songs about love, gender issues, cultural clichés,

 

 

 

 

 

 

the need for affirmation (in a hilarious send-up of Facebook likes) and the desire to forget (alcoholic means included.)

 

Most profoundly, they described a world riddled by hate and destroyed by war through the eyes of a (puppet) child, who with ever increasing levels of fear recited alphabetically ordered words that defined the experience of those who are oppressed, imprisoned, threatened by violence and without means of escape. That takes courage, when thinking about the fate of some politically engaged artists in the Eastern Bloc. Just remember Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in Russia for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks, ended a long hunger strike about 3 weeks ago, with irreversibly damaged health.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/10/ukrainian-prisoner-ends-144-day-hunger-strike.html

Living in a world where political art is not just censored but can be dangerous had me even more impressed with the cabaret performers on hand.

 

 

 

 

The performers used puppets to tell some bits of their stories, stories that had universal appeal, striking the distance between audience and actors from a foreign land. The props and other visuals, like lighting, costuming, and background videography were just as remarkable as the athleticism that accompanied the music. Texts were either in English or Ukrainian, with helpful, projected super-text translations. The one thing I could have done without was a smoke machine – it generated atmospherics that were not needed, given the rest of the theatrical trick bag on display.

 

Most impressive, though, was the sleight of hand (or mind) that led the audience into a happy, funky, slightly agit-prop romp reminiscent of the very early Frank Zappa concerts at the beginning of the show; the message became progressively darker without you quite realizing it until all of a sudden it hit the point where descriptions of conflict and aggressive war entered the room. Musically this was profoundly expressed by the instruments mimicking the war noise to perfection, a kind of musical onomatopoeia.

The show is part of the US State Department’s Center Stage cultural diplomacy initiative, presented by Boom Arts here in PDX.  This year numerous artists from Ukraine and Egypt are invited to present their work during a month-long tour. Government doing good! Who’d thought….

https://exchanges.state.gov/non-us/program/center-stage

The concert will repeat this Friday and Saturday (10/26/27) at the Paris on Burnside & 3rd.

Don’t miss it!

I’ll be there, dancing instead of photographing for the next round! Unless they display additional interesting socks….

Here is 2016 clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B88Q2Ng6oRE

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Leaf Hopping

The leaves are changing color. Uniform green now glows in gold, chartreuse, orange, red and brown. Some of the patterns look almost like expressionist watercolors.

Change is generally in the air, or so we hope. Across the generational divide people are promoting change – look, for one, what young people accomplish. On the heels of Parkland and the political engagement of the shooting survivors, we have seen a surge on youth voter registration. Will the young actually show up at the midterms? Some think it is possible, again the traditional pattern of midterm apathy among the 18-30 years olds.

Young Voters Might Actually Show Up At The Polls This Year

 

 

On the other end of the spectrum is this example of musical exhortation created by friends at the senior residence in Boston.of my 90-year old mother-in-law.

https://youtu.be/IVOycHHr270

 

Walking these last days under ethereally blue skies with leaves seemingly floating in the air even if they were still attached to their branches had a certain feeling of unreality.

 

 

 

There was a world suffused with beauty in front of my eyes, about to change the minute the rains hit, or the storms come in, just as nature proscribes it. We might not be able to escape the changes imposed by nature, but we sure do, as a society, make it hard for other change to happen.  That is true on the individual level – attached is a thought-provoking article from the NYT -click on the picture –

as well as the general level. And no, I am not going to discuss voter suppression, redistricting, closure of voting locales, hacking and so on – you are aware of it all as well as I am. I am just going to hop around in big piles of leaves, camera in hand, wishing that the forces battling the midterm elections are as strong as the forces of nature.

And here are Autumn Leaves from 1924 by Georgia o’Keefe

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