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A Strong Beginning

“We do not know what will happen. But we can know who we can commit to be in the face of what happens. That is a strong beginning.” – Rebecca Solnit

So who do we want to commit to be in view of being surrounded by voters willing to tolerate or invite fascism, voters manipulated into ignorance about the consequences of their actions, or non-voters indifferent enough to fail to prevent it? (I think it is important to remember how many people did not vote at all.) Who do we want to commit to be in anticipation of the catastrophes brought to our neighborhoods (and the world) by agents of hate, retribution and lust for power?

In my own case, I want to commit to nourish community, in my real as well as my digital life, as expressed here on the blog. I will stand on principle and not make compromises halfway between the truth and lies, as appeasers in the media would like to have us. I will continue to use the tools I have, to stimulate thinking about politics and history, to use my background as a scientist to educate about the domains of psychology, health and climate change. I will also add a new feature once a week, Does this makes sense?, linking to one or two long-form pieces of writing that were particularly thought-provoking in my perusal of the week’s publications (and not necessarily something I agree with), perhaps prompting a community discussion in the comments. I will post reading recommendations from people who are smarter and more organized than I am, geared towards the issues at hand. You’ll find some at the end of today’s blog. Solnit’s encouragements are a good way to start. Mind you, I completely understand if reading is too much now, or ever; it’s just my frantic default option….

I will commit to balancing the reports on the frightening with all that we can still be grateful for, the beauty around us, nature that models resiliency, indigenous wisdom that guides us, art that encourages resistance, poetry that fortifies us. Today’s choice, written during the horrors of the Civil War, describes adaptation as a form of resilience, not defeatism. Let that be the manner in which we tackle our current universe!

We grow accustomed to the Dark-

We grow accustomed to the Dark –
When light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye –

A Moment – We uncertain step
For newness of the night –
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –
And meet the Road – erect –

And so of larger – Darknesses –
Those Evenings of the Brain –
When not a Moon disclose a sign –
Or Star – come out – within –

The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –

Either the Darkness alters –
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight –
And Life steps almost straight.

by Emily Dickinson

I am currently in Southern California, surrounded by nature in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The noisiest birds that visit me are the California acorn woodpeckers. I wrote at length about this fascinating species here two years ago. They are perfect models for what we have to learn: to live in “bushels” of community, tending to our broods and granaries as a cohesive group, rather than fixating on individual success. They are a prime example of the evolutionary benefits of cooperation, across many generations, both with regard to breeding patterns, raising the young and creating, using and restoring granaries for acorns, riddling oak trees with custom-sized holes which provide storage for food during winter. Cannot think of a better symbol for the road ahead.



Music today is Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. Feel it.

Reading Recommendations (some might be of interests to book groups that don’t shy away from difficult conversations):

Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum

Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen

Let This Radicalize You. by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba

Strongmen by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

How to be an AntiRacist by Ibram X. Kendi

Several of these come with work books helpful to guide group discussion or offering further action proposals.

Here is a compilation of analyses of how we got here:

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/ten-articles-explaining-the-2024?ref=organizingmythoughts.org

Here is a road map from Choose Democracy founder Daniel Hunter:

https://therealnews.com/10-ways-to-be-prepared-and-grounded-now-that-trump-has-won

Here are ten currently free e-books around dealing with times of crises.

Yesterday’s sunrise:

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PDX Special

Walk with me along the Promenade, along the Willamette river under an ever changing sky (all photographs from yesterday morning). Friendly taggers on the Steel Bridge reminding us of the important things in life…

…which made me think of voting. Election ballots are on their way to us who vote by mail in Oregon. In addition to the nail biter on the national scene, we have some major changes to the political landscape in Portland. I figured for today’s blog, I’ll make some information accessible that you are likely to dig out for yourselves otherwise, saving you some time. There is, of course, always the Oregon Voter Pamphlet, which provides more information, including the slate of endorsers that might have your trust for having done the relevant research into candidates. (You can access it digitally from the link above, with info specific for your county.)

Bridges in full display, drying out after early showers in a warm October sun.

For those of us in PDX: Two years ago, we voted to change the city’s charter and shift from a commissioner-run government to a collection of four districts, each represented by a group of three council members. A new mayor and an appointed city manager will oversee the 12 city councilors. There are 19 candidates for mayor, and 98 candidates for 12 city councillor positions, all up for rank choice voting, which is also newly introduced.

For starters: if you don’t know which district you live and vote in (given that they have been newly configured) go here https://www.portlandmaps.com and enter your address. A pop-up window will deliver information, including your district number. I live in district # 4, so some of the examples below will relate to that district.

Given the fact that I, like presumably many of you, do not know all of these candidates or their history, I base my choices on what they have to say about the three things that require most action (and changed approaches) in my opinion. These are the housing crisis, transportation alternatives and tackling climate change. (The latter two obviously related.) You might have different targets, of course.

How do I know where the candidates stand? Several local and national news organizations have published interviews (with those who responded) and offer them in the context of their own endorsements.

Here are some of the links from Portland Mercury, Willamette Week and the Oregonian. I have left them assigned to district, when offered, so you don’t have to read all of them, just the one that pertains to you.

Mercury: https://www.portlandmercury.com/election-guide-2024/2024/10/16/47453580/mercury-endorsements-district-1-candidates

https://www.portlandmercury.com/election-guide-2024/2024/10/16/47453598/mercury-endorsements-district-2-candidates

https://www.portlandmercury.com/election-guide-2024/2024/10/16/47453621/mercury-endorsements-district-3-candidates

https://www.portlandmercury.com/election-guide-2024/2024/10/16/47453651/mercury-endorsements-district-4-candidates

https://www.portlandmercury.com/election-guide-2024/2024/10/16/47453547/mercury-endorsements-mayors-race-2024

Willi Week: https://www.wweek.com/tags/fall-endorsements-2024/

Oregonian: https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2024/10/editorial-endorsement-november-2024-our-picks-for-districts-1-and-2-candidates-who-can-lead-portland-city-council-through-historic-change.html

https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2024/10/editorial-endorsement-november-2024-our-picks-for-districts-3-and-4-candidates-who-can-lead-portland-city-council-through-historic-change.html

Precarious action by a person with a tent nearby on top of a drain pipe.

Yahoo interviews: https://www.yahoo.com/news/mitch-green-candidate-questionnaire-portland-235059033.html (I have given one example from my district here, the link allows you to peruse others.)

With regard to the mayoral choice I do know exactly who I do NOT want, and need to be convinced who to vote for as plausible candidates. It is important not to rank the candidate you abhor, so they do not gather points in the ranked choice. Pick the three you think work out, leave the rest options blank.

Here are some interviews with candidates: https://www.streetroots.org/news/2024/10/13/2024-elections-portland-mayor by an organization that I strongly support. The mayor is more of a figure head in the new system, but still has influence and many of the candidates have embraced hard line positions on matters of police and the houseless.

I am not making recommendations for candidates, but I will certainly be voting NO on one particular measure that is fraught with unintended negative consequences: Measure 118.

It proposes to give every single Oregonian (regardless of age or income) an estimated $1,600 per year that would be funded by a new corporate tax on really big businesses. One can debate whether it makes sense to give money to all, regardless of income level or need, wasting sparse resources. But the real problem with the measure derives from tax laws. Oregon state law says that corporations only have to pay the higher of two taxes—the tax on their profits, or the corporate minimum tax. Measure 118 would skyrocket the cost of the corporate minimum tax, so big business would have no choice but to pay that one in order to fund all those $1,600 rebates. That would leave significantly less money paid by corporations into Oregon’s general fund, which provides fundamental services like K-12 public education, health care, child care, and public safety, all of which are already gravely underfunded. The state’s analysis predicts Oregon will lose out on well over $1 billion in future budget cycles that could have funded social needs. It will shaft the ones who need support most.

Below is a detailed review of the measure’s potential impact – note that opposition comes from the left as well as the right, in some rare display of shared rejection.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/10/02/measure-118-universal-basic-income-gives-oregonians-more-money-at-a-cost

Let’s not go there. Vote instead and hopefully:

Here are a few musical thought…. Phil Ochs on Days of Decision, Leonard Cohen on Democracy, Bob Marley’s encouragement, Patti Smith on People Power, Genesis’ Land of Confusion, and never forget Woody Guthrie This land is your land.

Urban geese know where to cross.

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How We Remember.

“But I have found that where there is a spiritual union with other people, the love one feels for them keeps the circle unbroken and the bonds between us and them strong, whether they are dead or alive. Perhaps that is one of the manifestations of heaven on earth.” – Alice Walker, Living by the Word: Selected Writings, 1973- 1987 as cited by Intisar Abioto.

Want to walk with me? I invite you to a place where we have been before, and then some steps beyond it. You will be taken in by the beauty of the landscape, and perhaps taken aback by what I encourage you to read, admittedly difficult, but important fare on the issue of memory politics.

Imagine a strong sun, still air as clear as can be, a deep blue river reflecting a cloudless sky, except for some contrails.

An ochre landscape, summer drought visible, resilient flora still hanging by a thread.

Hexagonal columns of Wanapum basalt flows that were scoured by the Ice Age floods some 10,000 years ago surround the lake, their darkness dissolving into myriads of colors from different species of lichen when you take a closer look.

We are on the Washington side of the Columbia river, a bit east of The Dalles bridge, at Columbia Hills Historical State Park, specifically Horsethief Lake. There is a public trail there, close by the railway, which offers a selection of petroglyphs moved from various places that were destroyed when damming the river began in earnest.

I have written about the history previously here.

Honor the Past, Respect the Present.

This time around I was invited to a private visit of petroglyphs that are only accessible in the company of a tribal guide. The trail winds through shrub-steppe and in parallel to the river’s shoreline, and brings you to petroglyphs that are still located on their original surfaces of basalt rock. The most famous among them is Tsagaglalal (“She Who Watches”.)

It is said that the trickster-hero Coyote put her there with luminous eyes and a broad face, when she, a chief of the Chinook tribe, worried what would happen to her people when she could no longer look out for them. Before he tricked her, he insisted there would be no longer female chiefs in the future, and then, having put her into rock, he said “…now you shall stay here forever to watch over your people and the river…” According to some sources,  “She Who Watches” they called her. She became a symbol of conscience and of death. “She sees you when you come,” they said, “she sees you when you go.” 

I was thinking of what I had learned earlier about petroglyphs from Lillian Pitt:

“Petroglyphs/pictographs are not art. They are sacred images that represent significant cultural themes, messages, beliefs to a Tribe.  They were not created for aesthetic purposes.  They were created to teach, warn, or record those not yet born.  Even though we may think that they are pretty, beautiful, pleasant to look at, those are not the values inherent in the images you see.  those are the values that you as the viewer are placing on the image. Please stop calling them rock art. “

I was also painfully aware how little historical knowledge we have in general – when my Native American friend and guide did a land acknowledgement by means of unfolding a rope where every millimeter stood for a year of historical Native American existence in these parts, I could only marvel at the numbers expressed in unending length.

We know, of course, only what we are taught, and teaching about Native American History has been overall a sad affair, when you look at general public education. Here is a comprehensive article on the need for reform. Things are changing, slowly, with curricula developed and available from private and public sources, like the Native Knowledge 360º Project initiated by the National Museum of the American Indian. Tribal members themselves have always kept the memory alive and transmitted to next generations. It is no coincidence, that a recent Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) Scholarship was established in 2022 in honor of Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama), who was instrumental in teaching tribal history as an artist, mentor and advocate.

Looking at the landscape, at these sacred images that convey a message, at the spottiness of my understanding of American history, I could not help but think of memory culture from my own, very different background. The immediate source for these thoughts circled around the October 7th anniversary of the Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli war actions. Two very different essays I read around the politics of memory related to the fate of the Jewish and the Palestinian/Arab/Lebanese/Syrian people have me still think long and hard. Written by an anti-Zionist Jewish intellectual and activist, Naomi Klein, and a Zionist Jewish novelist, Dara Horn, respectively, they outline assumptions about appropriation of Holocaust narratives and memory culture that can harm rather than elucidate the complexities of history (links to the essays under the authors’ names). Long and complicated, but truly important work that will open perspectives you might not otherwise come across.

The core that spoke to me was Klein’s analysis of the politics of mourning (and is easily transferable to historical conflicts of all kinds of cultures, our own destruction of Native American tribes included):

“When experts in mass atrocities speak of the importance of “bearing witness”, they are referring to a specific way of seeing. This kind of witnessing, often of crimes that have been long denied or suppressed by powerful states, is an act of refusal – a refusal of that denial. It is also a way to honour the dead, both by keeping their stories alive, and by enlisting their spirits in a project of justice-seeking to prevent a repeat of similar atrocities in the future.

But not all witnessing is done in this spirit. Sometimes witnessing is itself a form of denial, marshalled by savvy states to form the justification for other, far greater atrocities. Narrow and hyper-directed at one’s own in-group, it becomes a way to avoid looking at the harsh realities of those atrocities, or of actively justifying them. This witnessing is more like hiding, and at its most extreme, it can provide rationalizations for genocide.” (Ref.)

Much to contemplate during these days of Teshuvah, the days of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur, our holiest day. A time to contemplate ways of ethical being. Maybe the love one feels for others keeps the circle unbroken, as Alice Walker stated above, but so does true, non-performative mourning – whether they are dead or alive, those victims of hatred and genocidal fury.

Here is Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre. (Unfortunately there is an interruption by advertising at some point, but it can be prompts skipped. I just favor this performance by Argerich enough that I was willing to tolerate it.)

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How to make women not vote again.

***

This Floridian communication came in close to midnight at the start of the weekend. Stepford Wives? Handmaids’ Tales?

Happy lives? Not if the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) returns for vote like a bad penny, having failed to pass once, so far. You might have heard what this Republican-demanded Act is all about: it attempts to add further measures to prevent illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

Except: we already have legislation for that.

The wording of the SAVE act slickly allows to question voter registrations of an entirely different constituency: married women. If a married woman with a name change wants to vote, she will need to show either a passport or other proof of citizenship with her name on it, or must produce both a birth certificate (with the seal of the state where it was issued; no copies allowed) and a current form of identification—both with the exact same name on them.

That could instantly disqualify about 90 percent of all married women without passports or other proof that matches their birth certificates or proof of a legal name change.

Here is a report  by the National Organization for Women on how Republican voter suppression efforts harm women.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage. Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name. 

That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents. And since this is a proposed federal law, states cannot protect against a Presidential effort to purge the voter rolls from women.(Ref.)

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980, with the turnout gap between women and men growing slightly larger with each successive presidential election. They also tend to lean more liberal than their male cohort. And that was before their right to bodily autonomy and healthcare decisions was taken away by radical Republicans.

Some extremist voices even question the 19th Amendment, having given women the right to vote some 100 years ago, but our participation can obviously be curtailed by administrative, political tricks rather than a change to the Constitution.

What will come next?

Music about women marching. Not backwards, either.

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Cat Propaganda.

Two days ago I mentioned that I would write about the spread of falsehoods regarding the consumption of stolen pets by Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Little did I know that everybody and their uncle would jump onto the lie after it was uttered by a former President during the Trump/Harris debate (and is now repeated during campaign rallies as we speak.) Whether you read the NYT, The Washington Post, the Atlantic, Vox, Politico, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, or countless essays on Substack, people express horror, disgust and step deep into analysis, why this kind of lie is spread, believed, and exceedingly dangerous.

What can I possibly add? Maybe a basic primer on the function and use of memes? A check on historical sources that understood the value of propaganda? Lucky for me, all of that is spelled out in detail in the teaching materials of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, which I will summarize, applied to the case in point.

Here is where we stand right now: the rumor started in late August during a march staged by the nearby neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe and a diatribe in front of the Springfield city commission about the savagery of the Haitian immigrants. It was posted on Facebook.

A flood of memes followed (created by Republicans and their wing men), many indirectly alerting to the issue by making Trump the heroic rescuer of barnyard menagerie. J.D. Vance then spread the lie via tweets, careful to insert an “if rumors are true” in the margins, not so the House Judiciary GOP, and Elon Musk tweeting to his million of followers. Trump locked onto it, publicly disseminating it during the debate. He was fact checked, at the debate, (and again during the last two days when he continued to utter the claim during rallies), by multiple official sources from Springfield, including city hall and the police, that the rumors are not true.

(I have consciously left out the memes that depict Blacks in the background in more savage fashion than the one above. They are horrifying in their attempt to ride on stereotypes of black violence.)

Meanwhile, Vance insists on keeping the memes coming.

And wouldn’t you know it, threats of violence against multiple actors in Springfield have multiplied as of today. Bomb threats against administrative offices (the one who denied the veracity of the claims), the media, threats against schools, now sending kids home early. Fear is spreading among the Haitian population, called on keeping their kids inside and not expose themselves to potential harm at night.

Rightwing extremists are stoking the potential for violence by announcing bounties.

NONE OF THIS IS NEW.

“Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert.—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1924).

And the more cruel and politically expedient, the more it is employed. By definition, it is biased or untrue information intended to shape people’s beliefs and behavior. In racist societies propaganda plays a major role in establishing who is included and who either belongs to the margin, or should be irrevocably excluded. The means by which propaganda is applied, and the receptivity of the audience are both factors that shape how successfully the manipulation proceeds. For the Nazis, rallies, print material, the radio and film were all used to spread the message.

These days, we also have so-called memes that are disseminated across the internet. Like all propaganda, memes simplify complex issues, and speak to emotions. Moreover, they help to construct collective identity, give us a feeling we belong because we “get the joke.” They grab attention, they establish or prolong a cultural discourse. (In fact, the term was coined by Richard Dawkins some 50 years ago; he believed that cultural ideas, like genes, can spread and mutate, fostered by a surge of dopamine when we recognize what is expressed and emotionally react to it.)

In societies as divided as our’s, these seemingly humorous images act both as a formation for in-group belonging (remember the meme of Bernie sitting with his hand in mittens, transported into all sorts of weird situation, and we smiled every time?) and as a jab at the other side, which is ridiculed for its ignorance or negative reaction.

Memes are not inherently bad, depending on content. But memes breed partisanship, and when they gleefully ignore the absence or distortion of facts, in fact are passionately indifferent to truth, and open the gate wide to racism, they do harm. Trump himself posted this today.

They fall on fertile ground, since the slander that immigrants have unacceptable dietary habits is as old as this country. Across the ages, Asian immigrants have been accused of eating dogs. Jews, of course, have been accused of eating something altogether different and more heinous.

Haitian immigrants are particularly vulnerable, however. They immigrated en masse in the 1980s, and were treated as economic migrants despite fleeing the repressive rule of the Duvaliers. In the 90s they were stashed in a camp at Guantanamo to process asylum claims. David Duke and Pat Buchanan railed against the immigration of non-Whites, and reports on high numbers of HIV infections among the Haitian refugees elicited panic in the American public. Extremists had picked a definable out-group and today’s heirs to this thinking pursue it without remorse.

Legal immigrants have massively contributed to the American economy ever since. Temporary Protected Status Holders from Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador contribute a combined $4.5 billion annually to our GDP. Some 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved to Springfield, helping revitalize the local economy and filling the pews of local churches.  They came legally and are doing all the right things, but are the perfect target for dishonorable smears, however far fetched.

It is hard to deny that once again things boil down to the color of skin, and gleeful racism amuses those who found what looks like an easy target. As Ken White, a first amendment litigator and criminal attorney points out:

Engaging on the same level cannot be the answer. How can you reach across the divide, though, when it all boils down to beliefs and emotions, rather than on a willingness to establish facts?

What should the answer be? You tell me.

Music today from Haiti.

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Killer instincts

Nope, not talking about the absurd claims that Haitians are feasting on neighbors’ cats and dogs. That will be discussed in the next round.

I’ll report instead on a walk the morning before the Presidential Debate, trying to shed irritated thoughts. It was actually quite serene in the wetlands, with a hint of fall, cooler temperatures and sparks of coloration pointing towards the blazing beauty to come.

Various pieces of news have combined to trigger thoughts about violence. You will read this after the debate has happened, with no current prediction from my end of what will be or won’t be said.

I still reel from the fact that during the most recent campaign stop, Florida man uttered the words, with glee, that the planned rounding up and deportation of 20 million immigrants “will be a bloody story.” At an earlier rally in Ohio, the former President stated that “there will be a bloodbath” if he does not win the election. It is all couched in terms of righteous violence, including his persecution of political adversaries that are suggested more and more frequently, setting a stage with thinly veiled stochastic terrorism.

With that topic hanging in the air, some data mavens at the Washington Post had nothing better to do than analyzing data from Google searches across two decades about what Americans want to kill. How to kill time, wouldn’t you know it, is a favorite search question on the internet.

As it turns out, searches about how to kill ants score high, closely followed by fleas and flies, with mosquitoes surprisingly low on the list. However, they are shockingly topped by searches about how to kill cats or dogs. Crabgrass, mold, and ivy, amongst other invasive species, are the most frequently searched organisms beyond fauna. Horrifyingly, on top of the pyramid used to be searches for means of suicide, but the search for how to kill another human being has now merged to that level (we are talking peek month of searches in the graph.)

We know, of course, what factors promote violence in a political context and how desensitization contributes to disinhibition towards harming others. Re-summarizing from my many previous musings: when societies are politically divided, particularly with an emphasis on identity, the potential for violence goes up. If we don’t interact with people who are different from us or hold different beliefs, and instead stay in partisan bubbles (aided by geography here), vilifying and dehumanizing the unfamiliar others is easy. That becomes, in turn, a gateway to accepting that they deserve harm, righteously meted out by us. What we are seeing is a call for partisan violence in these rallies, really. This is particularly the case when we fear loss of status, rights, or access to resources (realistically or just imagined, won’t make a difference), while political radicalization is touted by the politicians we align with or by the in-group that surrounds us. Planned or condoned state violence interacts with individual political violence, mutually reinforcing each others’ belief that it is all justified.

“Righteous” violence is, alas, not exclusive for the political arena. The Pacific Northwest is now on route to killing close to half a million barred owls across the next 3 decades. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has approved that plan in order to protect spotted owls, threatened by territorial take-over from their larger cousins.

“The shooting will be conducted in forest habitats spanning 24 million acres, including six national parks, 17 national forests, and thousands of pockets of private lands. It will, as planned, be the largest massacre of birds of prey ever attempted by any government.” (Ref.)

Scores of wildlife protection groups are protesting the decision, claiming that the plan makes no sense. For one, barred owls are being punished for human actions (climate change, deforestation, urbanization etc.) that pushed them, as well as the spotted owls, into new territories. Expanding their range, as a species native to North America, is a normal survival strategy, and will not be stopped by culling. The surviving owls will just return to the territories that sustain them under new climate conditions, with the competing spotted owls ultimately having little chance. That is what ecological systems are all about, with our interference perhaps just changing the allotted time for a single species (a species that we put into harm’s way in the first place….) Barred owls are also notoriously difficult to hunt and easily mistaken for other species that could be hurt.

Here is the detailed list of complaints and suggestions by the wildlife organizations.

The government argues that the cull, by licensed hunters only, ” will remove less than 1% of barred owls’ predicted U.S. population during the proposed time frame, resulting in fewer casualties than other, more aggressive management options proposed by the FWS, which suggested culling almost twice as many of the birds. The cull will also be limited to around half the areas where barred and spotted owls overlap, and intends to safeguard California spotted owls as well.”

“It’s not about one owl versus another,” Kessina Lee, an FWS state supervisor in Oregon, said in a statement.

It sure is about a lot of dead birds, if you ask me, killed with the righteous justification of protection of an endangered species. Now where have we heard that argument before? They shall not replace us?

Yes, I am sarcastic and you don’t have to tell me that these are two very different cases. Just soooo much violence in the air. Locally, nationally, world wide. How can we take a step back?

Music today a beauty by Elgar, considering owls…

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The Vixen

· Beyond the Tree Line ·

Two nights ago I heard a fox bark in our garden. There had been sightings according to our neighbor’s gardener, but I was skeptical. With so many coyotes around, maybe they just saw a young one, still small? But this sound was identifiably “fox” when I went to Google to check against my memories.

It felt like an affirmation of my – long debated – decision to include the image of a fox into a montage about The Cunning Little Vixen, an opera by Leo Janàcek. I hesitate to be too literal, but I also have a fascination with plucky characters, and if there ever was one, it is the fox heroine in this piece of music. She does deserve place of honor, or at least some visibility.

Janàcek’s opera is a romp, composed late in life, daringly taking a newspaper serial/comic strip as a basis for the libretto that includes all kinds of animal characters featuring nature’s life cycle and humans’ ties to it, in good and bad ways. The score is gorgeous, influenced by Czech folk music and language, animal sounds that the composer ardently recorded, and the fluidity of the Moravian landscape, its pine forests and lakes. It is also about the lives and interactions of generations, one’s place in a chain alternating between life and death.

Janàcek lost his son at age two, and his wife took his daughter away from him after separating, the girl subsequently died at age 20. The opera can be seen as one way of trying to come to terms with the legacy left through one’s children, literally and symbolically. I got to know the music in intimate detail when I sat through the rehearsals of the Portland Opera Production in 1999. I was no longer doing the super-text calls during actual performances, which also required rehearsal attendance. Instead I was accompanying my then eleven-year old who had been selected for a solo performance of one of the young fox roles, and the chorus of fox cubs. The mix of parental pride and anxiety was intense.

As parents we were intent on not pushing our children into activities, or force them to excel, or make their days endlessly structured outside of school, with little room for exploration and/or boredom (which I consider an important part of creative development, in many ways.) Years of adolescent time spent in front of computer games, without sports or social contacts, were quite worrying, yet we did not change our approach. We offered options, and any time some interest emerged, a passion for theatre camp, a new hobby of rock climbing, or the like, we had the privilege to enable them to participate, schlepp them there, funding equipment and the like. We also had the privilege of school choice – whether we chose the right one, who knows. But the boys did end up, eventually, with an education that suited their interests and talents, now doing meaningful work, these two amazingly cool human beings. With partners the same!

I have been thinking about Michelle Obama’s DNC speech which included a quip about “the affirmative action of generational wealth.” It is not just about parent’s money. It is about the time they are willing and, importantly, able to invest, the education that they themselves received and that now opens doors for their children, whether directly passed on around the dinner table, or linked to networking in academic communities and the like. It is about the willingness and ability to move into a good school district even if it means leaving a neighborhood you love, or stretching your funds beyond comfort level. It is about access.

It is about access to education at all – just look at the mind boggling numbers, newly published, that show how state-provided bikes for girls has impacted the rates of attending and finishing high school in rural areas around the world. Cycling, rather than walking miles on end, empowered female students.

It is about access to the education you wish to receive. In the context of voucher scams and political reemergence of publicly rooting for segregated schools, it becomes a burning issues connected to racism. (Here is an informative essay about school choice published this week in ProPublica.)

It is about access to education that is tailored to the needs of the disability community. We are not just talking about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a conservative administration. It includes the elimination the Department of Education altogether and drastically cuts federal funds for schools. The plan includes proposals to phase out the $16 billion Title I funding program over the next 10 years, convert the $13 billion IDEA program for students with disabilities to block grants or a private school choice offering. This means that students with disabilities no longer have the protections during public school education imposed by law. Vouchers for private schools? Does not include the cost of transportation, schools can throw them out at will, with no oversight, these schools are not accountable for outcomes, and they can reject students whose disabilities are particularly severe. (Ref.) Note that these are not just future possibilities. Last May House Republicans proposed to “Reduce Support for Students with Disabilities.” Under the proposal, as many as 7.5 million children with disabilities would face reduced supports—a cut equivalent to removing more than 48,000 teachers and related services providers from the classroom.

The montage is based on a photograph of a pine forestc like those in Bohemia, reflected in an icy lake, with several pale suns traversing the horizon to indicate the change of seasons. The vixen is peeking through the tree trunks, their pattern of repeated bars reminiscent of a cage (one she escapes in due course in the opera, as kids escape into adulthood.) Whether we continue to erect barriers like this towards equal opportunity education for all remains to be seen. Vote accordingly!

Here is the Orchestral Suite that gives you a glimpse of the music.

Here is the full opera.

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Dramatis Personae

This time of year. Perhaps you were even waiting for them. Another go-around with the main characters of the late summer fields: the sun flowers.

I took the images with one of those obscure settings on my iPhone, called mono stage lighting. It brings out the gorgeous architectural structure and patterns of these plants, but it also seemed fitting given the symbolism of the sunflower for Ukraine – times are dark and not getting any lighter for David defending itself against a Goliath.

I can no longer count the number of text messages and emails I get these days asking for donations towards the Presidential election campaign. The one ask I complied with this week came from a different source and about a different need: Historian Timothy Snyder and actor Mark Hamill are raising funds to provide mine sweeping robots for Ukraines regions that are contaminated with explosive ordinances.

It is not just the danger to life and limb, estimated to last for at least a decade even if the war stopped tomorrow. It is also about food security – if you cannot plant the fields because of the mines, you cannot plant the necessary crops to feed your – and other – people.

Hunger has been a weapon of war or political oppression in that region as much as anywhere else in the world. Stalin’s imposed starvation of Ukrainians in the early 1930s cost the lives of almost 4 million people. And contemporary hunger is not restricted to their own country. Millions of people across the world are dependent on Ukrainian food exports and now lacking. These are often the same people who are experiencing starvation tactics in their own recent or current conflicts in Ethiopia, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and now Gaza.

“In 1998 the International Criminal Court Statute codified starvation methods as a war crime in international armed conflicts. A 2019 amendment expanded this doctrine to cover non-international armed conflicts – conflicts between states and organized armed groups, or between organized armed groups. In addition to food, the legal definition of starvation also includes deprivation of water, shelter and medical care. A few months back, the United Nations’ human rights chief said in an official statement that Israel’s policies regarding aid in Gaza might amount to a war crime.” (Ref.) Russia is believed of doing the same to Ukraine. Investigative reports by international human rights lawyers are right now presented to the International Criminal Court. (Ref.)

Russia is accused of

“… having engaged in an ever-lengthening list of starvation tactics, besieging entrapped populations, attacking grocery stores and agricultural areas and granaries, deploying land mines on agricultural land, blocking wheat-laden ships from leaving Ukrainian harbors and destroying a critical grain export terminal in Mykolaiv. Moreover, although the U.S. and E.U. exempted fertilizers from sanctions (Russia and Belarus are two of the world’s largest producers), Russia has decided to withhold fertilizers from the market.” (Ref.)

And here I thought to escape doom and gloom in the sunflower field…. but there is still hope. I have a cache of color photographs that radiate yellow optimism! Let’s include one.

And here is the Second Piano Rhapsody on Ukrainian themes (1877) by Mykola Lysenko.

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Getting rid of the Junk.

I did not publish a blog on Monday because I spent my entire Sunday on the phone and on text messages, processing the momentous shift in our political landscape, instead of writing about how our brain works – the initial plan. My friends’ comments ranged from “Just resign yourself to a Republican win, the world is going up in flames everywhere, so try to enjoy your last year(s) to “Why are you so pessimistic about the chances of a new candidate to infuse life into a shriveling campaign?” and everything in-between.

I had been squarely in the “It’s safer if Biden stays” contingent, and was emotionally rattled with his withdrawal. My fear had been (and to some extent still is) that abandoning the boat this late in the game would lead to an onslaught of ever more open racist and misogynistic attacks which, in turn, model for those in everyday life to go after people in vulnerable populations, and that we lose the ever important mid-western Independents. I had also worried that there would be no circling of wagons around Harris and thus a danger of losing the Black and women’s vote, fears now allayed.

I had once again forgotten Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano‘s insistence: “Let’s save pessimism for better times.” Was shaken enough, though, that I felt physically ill on Monday. So much at stake, so little margin for error, so many unpredictable variables. Even my go-to soporific Venn-diagram didn’t work.

I feel better today, given the barrage of positive reports on youth engagement, and statistics showing that the millions of $$ sent by small donors were 60% from first time donors (!). 39% of poll respondents said that they are now more likely to vote (and 49% equally as before.) Vote.org saw over 38.000 new voters sign up in the 48 hours since Harris’ announcement.

It will be an uphill battle, nonetheless, but I am willing to concede we have a chance. Particularly if we are able to filter out the junk that is already descending in waves on social media and talk shows, etc. Here is a truly informative piece of research from the Wilson Center that makes it clear how women politician are denigrated and what one can do to identify and confront the accusations. Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized Against Women Online is a valuable read at this very moment.

And speaking of filtering out the junk, let us at last turn to the brain and its mind boggling ways of accomplishing just that, not just metaphorically. (I’ll summarize what I learned here.)

Scientists have figured out the process that allows the brain to push its waste, a byproduct of our 170 billion cells doing their work, from deep within to the surface, where it gets picked up by the bloodstream in a nifty interface, which brings it to kidneys and liver for removal. Slow electrical waves set that process in motion while we’re fast asleep, pushing the debris within some fluid to the brain surface where the bad stuff gets sorted and flushed away.

Understanding this process has been of great interest to researchers concerned with Alzheimer disease. A lot of the debris that needs to get disposed of is amyloid, a substance known to form plaques in the brain associated with that form of dementia. There are reasons to believe that a malfunctioning waste removal system could be at the root of the disease. Thus, understanding how stuff gets removed might be a valuable step towards figuring out where things go wrong with this glymphatic system and how to fix it.

We know that our bodies get rid of problematic substances with the help of the lymphatic system, where tubes transport the waste to the bloodstream. Th brain, however, lacks these tubes. Here is what scientists discovered:

“By measuring the wave, we are also measuring the flow of interstitial fluid, the liquid found in the spaces around cells. It turned out that the waves were acting as a signal, synchronizing the activity of neurons and transforming them into tiny pumps that push fluid toward the brain’s surface.”…. Tests showed that the waves increased the flow of clean cerebrospinal fluid into the brain and the flow of dirty fluid out of the brain. They also showed that the fluid was carrying amyloid, the substance that builds up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.” (Ref.)

Let sleep find us and the dance of electrical waves begin! Maybe a junk-free brain has more time to remember the important stuff:

Here is to joyful candidates, and power regained. Here is to having a brain fit enough to learn about youth culture, brats, coconut trees and other memes associated with our new nominee. We’ll go there some other time. For now, we understand our assignment.

Today, 7/24, is a virtual meeting organized by Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) at 4pm Pacific time (7 EDT) for White women to learn how to show up for the moment. You can sign up for the zoom call here or follow on FB livestream if they reach capacity.

Music today was sent to me by my dear friend Leila – and it’s perfect.

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Deep Breath

Too hot to use what’s left of my brain, still in shock over the developments of the last days. I said to my guy across the dinner table that one of these days I will buy that we all live in a simulation, with some scientists watching us carefully to figure out when we finally learn from history. A simulation that has to go to extremes to have us stare at the fact that the bad players seem to get away with everything and have serendipity at their side when it comes to a playing hand, ever. Expecting us to sink into passivity and despair amid the chaos, as we have been known to do too many times. Maybe this time we’ll learn.

Instead of my own commentary and analysis, I leave you with the words of two people who I regularly read. Many of you are familiar with Heather Cox Richardson, who I admire greatly, for learnedness, insight, clarity and speed of writing, and all around levelheaded sensibility. Her comment on the 7/13 events:

As Maine writer E. B. White famously wrote to a man who said he had lost faith in humanity: “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

The other writer is John Ganz from Unpopularfront.news. He can be pompous at times, but is often witty and very sharp about putting things into perspective. His latest commentary can be found here. As a non-paying subscriber I have only access to parts of his essays, but I thought what I read here was a good pointer towards how we can make it through the next days without hysteric break-downs or permanent depression:

“Today, of course, is Bastille Day, so I’d intended to focus today’s newsletter on France and the recent election, but history has intervened and I feel I should comment on the terrifying events of the 13th. I don’t think I can possibly be first to deliver this news to anybody in the world, but, just in case, there was an assassination attempt on former president Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. The shooter and a bystander were killed. This is obviously a grave development. It takes no sentimental regard for Trump to feel relief that he was not more seriously injured or killed: the consequences for the country would have been dire. Now there is a great deal of speculation about what will happen next, some of it guided more by emotion than reason, some of it irresponsible, and some of it deliberately designed to mislead, inflame, and enrage. People have predicted everything from an a blowout Trump victory now to a national descent into violence. Both have degrees of plausibility, but I’m not certain of either. The same Trump who had the presence of mind to make this a propaganda coup can also fritter away his gains quickly. The fact is neither I nor anybody else know what will happen next. No matter what anybody tries to tell you about their hunches or premonitions, nobody knew that this would happen. That’s the nature of history: it’s highly contingent and unpredictable; events always outstrip our capacity to imagine or reason them out. In situations when dire predictions are being made, I think of this passage from Hannah Arendt’s 1954 essay Understanding and Politics: 

“Just as in our personal lives our worst fears and best hopes will never adequately prepare us for what actually happens-because the moment even a foreseen event takes place, everything changes, and we can never be prepared for the inexhaustible literalness of this “everything”-so each event in human history reveals an unexpected landscape of human deeds, sufferings, and new possibilities which together transcend the sum total of all willed intentions and the significance of all origins. It is the task of the historian to detect this unexpected new with all its implications in any given period and to bring out the full power of its significance. He must know that, though his story has a beginning and an end, it occurs within a larger frame, history itself. And history is a story which has many beginnings but no end. The end in any strict and final sense of the word could only be the disappearance of man from the earth. For whatever the historian calls an end, the end of a period or a tradition or a whole civilization, is a new beginning for those who are alive. The fallacy of all prophecies of doom lies in the disregard of this simple but fundamental fact.”

ONWARDS! say I. While we are still able to vote.

Mozart to the rescue today: a shining sonata full of energy and hope, with interim passages of contemplation. This was written shortly before his death during a period in his life that saw him with severe financial difficulties, illness and other personal challenges. He could still “hear” the beauty.

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