August 2026

Summer Joy.

Are the Mardi Gras Indians best defined as a community, a tradition, a brotherhood and sisterhood, or an example of living history? “All of the above!” – Big Chief Derrick Hulin, in a 2023 interview with the Smithsonian magazine.

***

“Today is a happy day!”yelled the woman in front of me last Thursday, wildly swinging her hula hoops. My sentiment, exactly.

Anne McEnerny-Ogle, the Mayor of Vancouver, WA, seemingly agreed. She joyfully greeted a large crowd settling in at the Waterfront Park last Thursday, celebrating the end of a successful free concert series offered by the city this summer.

Mayor Anne (right) Ruth J. Wikler in background.

A mild summer evening, not a cloud in the sky, people picnicking, mingling, parading interesting sartorial choices.

Not a thought about the upcoming divisive Clark Council Primary race, not a single confrontation about the rebuilding of the structurally unsound I5 bridge connecting Portland and Vancouver, with hotly debated light rail addition or refusal thereof.

A break from worrying about wildfires or how to pay for the next tank of gas. Just a Mayor, recently re-elected for yet another term by wide margins, warmly welcoming young and old to a thriving waterfront and a very special concert ahead. Friendly city staff helping out, handing out earplugs for those who needed them, answering questions. Community at its best,

That sense of inclusivity was echoed by the opening remarks of the group of people who had helped the city’s programming add a spectacular act: the two-time GRAMMY-nominated New Orleans band, Cha Wa.

The Clark College Foundation, represented by Director of Arts Programming, Partnerships, & Philanthropy, Ruth J. Wikler, provided the talent and helped bring Cha Wa to the Vancouver Waterfront – and this is just the beginning.

“This concert launched the second-ever season of the Clark College Foundation Presents performance series with what is quickly becoming a hallmark of this regionally unique program: culturally and artistically one-of-a-kind performing artists from around the country and the world bring their extraordinary expressions to Clark County audiences in special ways that uplift and spotlight both Clark College’s talented students and wide-ranging academic programs,” Wikler said.

Clark College Vice President of Instruction, William (Terry) Brown, praised the ongoing collaboration with the city.

Don Romesburg, Dean of Social Sciences and Fine Arts (right), and Doug Harris, Chair of the Music Department (left) talked about what the college has to offer, proudly presenting the opening act for the concert as well: students from the Music Department playing traditional jazz.

“They’re killing it”, someone in the crowd erupted, loud applause echoing that sentiment. Talented young men, all.

***

Cha Wa managed to rouse the crowd to its feet, once they started playing. They are part of a New Orleans tradition of Mardi Gras Indians, combining historic chants with jazz, R&B, hip-hop, rock, soul and African-inspired music.

Many of New Orleans’ Blacks have celebrated Mardi Gras for over a century, creating and wearing Native American-inspired costumes, hand-stitched and adorned with beads and feathers in the most intricate fashion, embracing extensive labor (and often cost) for these suits. The suits usually consist of a crown, a dickie (tuxedo front) and an apron, handcrafted over a period of six months to a year. They draw inspiration from both Native American and African ceremonial dress.

Dozens of “tribes” parade during Mardi Gras, chanting and singing call-and-response songs, playing tambourines, cowbells, drums and other percussion instruments. Sometimes they are staging friendly competitions with rival “tribes,” alerted to them by a traditional “spy boy,” who walks in advance of each social group. “Cha Wa,” they call, ” We’re coming for you!”

A distinctly African-American tradition, it is believed to have originated in the 19th century to pay homage to the Indigenous people who helped slaves to escape and survive in the wild, on land once belonging to the Chitimacha Tribe. Some escaped slaves tried to make it in maroon camps (makeshift settlements in Louisiana’s swamps and bayous), while others sought shelter with Native communities, which then assimilated the Africans into their tribes. Choctaw, Seminole and Chickasaw and mixed-race people of Black and Indian heritage knew the fate of the enslaved. They constituted some 20 percent of the state’s enslaved population during the antebellum period, when New Orleans was a hub for the colonial slave trade.

There have been some discussions around the issue of cultural appropriation by one social group using the adornment of another. The 2021 documentary Big Chief, Black Hawk addressed the issue, generally approving of a hybrid of Native and West African Cultures. If two marginalized group are willing to support each other, can that be called cultural appropriation?

***

The band Cha Wa was founded by musical director and drummer Joe Gelini a bit over a decade ago. They have amassed awards for their vital and musically integrative albums, a music simultaneously true to its roots and yet inventing its own idiosyncratic style.

My absolute favorite part of their Vancouver performance, other than the wildly talented saxophone playing of front singer Tajh Derosier, was the way the story was told.

Historic facts about the fate of those enslaved in Louisiana, those who tormented them and those who came to help them, were contained in a narrative seamlessly blending with the music. For a representative cross section of their music, I recommend listening to “Spyboy,” one of Cha Wa’s celebrated early albums.

***

Lots going on in Vancouver, WA. Growing collaborations between city and college. Grants gifted by generous individuals and organizations to the Clark College Foundation, supporting the educational value of art in all of its forms. And plenty more enticing events in the offing, next weekend’s Vancouver Arts and Music Festival among them. (Program information found in the link.)

You can find me at Esther Short Park then for sure – betting on another happy day!

Bringing my own chair this time.

Here are the Clark College and Clark College Foundation contributions to the upcoming festival:

(Can’t miss the clowns…!)

FRIDAY August 7th: Performing Arts: Clown Garage/The Waddle Ensemble: 4pm & 6pm (20 minute appearances; 4pm features Clark College Baking & Acting Students)

Visual Art: Exhibit dedicated to Clark College Visual Art student work: 10am-6pm, Esther Short Building.

SATURDAY August 8th: Literary Arts: Clark College Creative Writers read from 11am-12n at Acoustic Stage

Performing Arts: Clown Garage/The Waddle Ensemble: 1pm, 3:30pm, & 5pm (20 minute appearances; 1pm and 3:30pm feature Clark College Baking & Acting Students)

Visual Art: Exhibit dedicated to Clark College Visual Art student work: 10am-6pm, Esther Short Building.

SUNDAY August 9th: Performing Arts: Clown Garage/The Waddle Ensemble: 11am, 3:30pm, & 5pm (20 minute appearances; only 11am and 3:30pm feature Clark College Baking & Acting Students)

Visual Arts: Exhibit dedicated to Clark College Visual Art student work: 10am-2pm, Esther Short Building.

Mermaids, anyone?

Costumes, Culture
Jul 27, 2026
0 Comments

Still on vacation. Just popping my head up for five minutes to bring you some cheer amidst all the frightening news flooding the zone. Just feels like cheer is desperately needed, even if a bit trivial.

I have been watching a new-to-me site out of Lithuania on the net. The Ancient Dog triggers equal amounts of amusement, consternation, wondering and being creeped out. Someone has taken AI to provide lectures by (most often dead, and some fictional to begin with) people, summarizing their philosophy, teachings or world views.

Poet’s Beach in Portland, Oregon on Mermaid Parade Day.

It is weird to see the likes of Hannah Arendt, Lacan, or Camus speaking to an (imaginary) audience about the central tenets of their philosophies as if they were alive. It is even weirder to see generated representations of van Gogh or Jesus do the same. Knowing that the videos do not contain real people, why should we trust that what they are telling us is real, or more precisely true to what their work actually was about?

I have read many of these classics 100 years ago, but I certainly cannot count on my memory to declare what is correctly communicated, or what is manipulated by sleight-of-hand. Are the lectures riddled with errors when artificial intelligence extracts original passages and merges them all together in convenient lecture format digestible to a 10th grader?

Then there is the series’ Professor Bruno Vero, an entirely imaginary prof who teaches us about more philosophers or artists, suspicious if only for his stereotypical outfit of tweed jacket and wool vest, gray beard and unruly curls giving off liberal college vibes. All that’s missing is the leather elbow patches.

Long story short, there is a through-line to many of these 3 minute or so lectures that has to do with how we should approach a life lived right, beyond asking about life’s meaning, or erecting whole philosophical constructs or religions to distract us from the fear that there might be no real meaning to our existence after all. And that is generally a welcome reminder.

It also brings us, finally, to mermaids. I had a chance to see them partying at a small beach along the river yesterday, after they marched in a big parade through town that I skipped. The creativity in costuming and make-up, for mythological figures and marine wildlife alike, made my heart soar.

Dress-up and masking was exquisite, and the joy that people exhibited when showing off the costume details to me, or standing proudly for a portrait, was infectious. Celebrating a kind of mysterious beauty, reveling in the childhood remnants of fascination with fairy tales, extending love to the many endangered species in our oceans by fancy representation – humanity at its creative best. Humans living the right life by acknowledging that beauty, whimsey, creativity are all necessary to counterbalance the horrors happening in our world right now, and to keep us sane. Certainly made me happy for a full Saturday afternoon, before more news of the fires across the globe landed.

___

Not that I forget that we have choices, but also obligations. A gentle reminder that the SAVE Act is now incomprehensibly before our Senate. Senator should be told in no uncertain terms that it CANNOT pass. Here are the facts:

Note the very last clause that will come as a surprise to many voters…. when it is too late to jump through the administrative hoops. Best to call or email your senators.

Back to my lawn chair in the garden. Enjoy your week and this lyrical symphonic Mermaid music.

The otherworldliness of dragonflies.

Poetry
Jul 21, 2026
2 Comments

My break is not quite over, but I wanted to share a few thoughts and images, before I hibernate again.

I have been driving South to spend time with family, taking occasional photographs when nature allowed – between the heat and hazardous smoke everywhere, it was not easy to find solace in nature.

I have been mourning the rather sudden death of a close friend, and I have been pouring energy into creating and editing new montage work that is (re)imagining our world past, present and future.

As chance would have it, I came across a poem that embraces a similar approach, down to the details of using a bit of fantasy or surrealism to get across some of the points.

The poet had dragonfly choppers hovering above Walden Pond. The ones I saw were unusually static, likely as fatigued as I was, with temperatures in the 100s, in dried-out, dusty Sacramento wetlands. Their images will end up in future landscapes envisioned while thinking about what the hell we are doing to our country, our planet, most likely.

If just one of the montages approaches the brilliance of this poem, I will be content.

Why Is We Americans

We is gator teeth hanging from the rear-
view mirror as sickle cells suckle at Big
Momma’s teats. We is dragonfly
choppers hovering above Walden Pond.
We is spinal cords shedding like the skin
of a cottonmouth. We is Psalm 23 and
the Pastor’s chattering chicklets. We is
a good problem to have. We is throats
constricting and the grape juice
of Jesus. We is Roach and Mingus in
Birdland. We is body electric, eyes
watering with moonshine, glossy lips
sticky with lard. We is half brothers in
headlock, arm-wrestling in the dirt.
We is Vaseline rubbed into knocked
knees and cracked elbows. We is ham
hocks making love to kidney beans. We
is Orpheus, lute in hand, asking do we
have a problem? We is the backstory
of myth. We is sitting horse and crazy
bull. We is brown paper bags and
gurgled belches. We is hooded ghosts
and holy shadows roaming Mississippi
goddamned. We is downbeats and
syncopation’s cousin. We is mouths
washed out with the blood of the lamb.
We is witch-hazel-coated backs sucking
on peppermint wrappers. We is the
spiked antennas of a triangle face
praying mantis. We is barefoot
tongue-tied hogs with slit throats and
twitching bellies. We is sun tea and
brewed bitches. We is the crying
pussies that stand down when told to
man up. We is Radio Raheem and Zoot
Suit Malcolm. We is spit-slick low cuts
and fades. We is scrappy black-masked
coons and turkey-necked bullfrogs. We
is the pits of arms at stake, the clouds
frothing at the mouth. We is swimmers
naked, private parts allegedly fondled
by Whitman beneath the water. We is
late lurkers and castrated tree limbs
on the Sunday before last. We is red-
veined pupils and piss-stained knickers,
slack-jawed and slumped in the
bathroom doorway. We is whiplash
and backhanded ways of settling grief.
We is clubbin’ woolly mammoths
upside the head, jammin’ fingers in
Darwin’s white beard. We is comin’
round yonder, pigeon-toed and
bowlegged, laughin’ our heads off.
We is lassoed cowboys swingin’ in
the sweet summer breeze.

BY ALISON C. ROLLINS

Music appropriate for dragon flies and otherworldly scenery in general can be found today here.

Time for a Break.

Nature
Jul 7, 2026
3 Comments

I am taking a bit of time off. See you all next week, or so.

Photo Credit: My three-year-old grandchild.

Before the Fourth of July.

Culture
Jul 3, 2026
0 Comments

Last Sunday I visited an annual event that has been a Portland tradition since the mid 1960s. The Milk Carton Boat Races at Westmoreland Park display engineering ingenuity, civic commitment by organizers and sponsors, and above all family togetherness that lasts through many months of learning about watercraft construction, preparation of costumes and paddling practice before the culminating races. In that regard they are a microcosm of what can be good about our nation, a common good, no less, since the events are inclusive, free to visit, and making use of city parks dedicated to the community.

A short history of West Moreland Park and its usage, written by Dana Beck 4 years ago, can be found here. It explains the role of the Royal Rosarians (for non-Portlanders: these are “ambassadors of Goodwill”, a 114-year-old civic organization associated with our famous rose festival) as current sponsors of the races. They know how to put on a party, but more importantly work hard to maintain civic cohesion and draw youths into engagement with our civic institutions. Including instructions to how to build a boat from dairy cartons….

I will let the photographs speak for themselves. They captured some of the joy and excitement, parent-child bonds,

friendship groups,

the fashion quirks as well as smart costumes designed at home,

the ambassadors who organized the event and greeted everyone with warmth and poise,

and some of the volunteers from multiple organizations and businesses who helped make things run smoothly.

Not to mention the canine presence….

It was the perfect on-ramp for thoughts about the 4th of July, and the special birthday this nation is celebrating, seeing the diversity among participants all happily cooperating to provide a joyous moment for Portland’s citizenship. A melting pot of people, paddling on rickety structures, lovingly maintained, cheered on by a large crowd of (mostly) strangers. Groups from all walks of life (and likely political backgrounds) joining in a shared task. No commercial exploitation, or lure to buy stuff to consume – simply the excitement of the competition and the creativity exhibited in the designs and sportsmanship in a civic space. A commonwealth.

There are others who have meaningfully written about the problems and uncertainties we are currently experiencing as a nation, Rebecca Solnit and Jennifer Rubin among them with insightful analysis. I, however, just want to cling to the glimpses of happiness from last Sunday, a reminder what is possible in this country, what we can make possible if we embrace the ideas about equality on which this nation was founded.

Beach Combing

Literature, Poetry
Jun 29, 2026
4 Comments

The Hope I Know

doesn’t come with feathers.
It lives in flip-flops and, in cold weather,
a hooded sweatshirt, like a heavyweight
in training, or a monk who has taken
a half-hearted vow of perseverance.
It only has half a heart, the hope I know.
The other half it flings to every stalking hurt.
It wears a poker face, quietly reciting
the laws of probability, and gladly
takes a back seat to faith and love,
it’s that many times removed
from when it had youth on its side
and beauty. Half the world wishes
to stay as it is, half to become
whatever it can dream,
while the hope I know struggles
to keep its eyes open and its mind
from combing an unpeopled beach.
Congregations sway and croon,
constituents vote across their party line,
rescue parties wait for a break
in the weather. And who goes to sleep
with a prayer on the lips or half a smile
knows some kind of hope.
Though not the hope I know,
which slinks from dream to dream
without ID or ally, traveling best at night,
keeping to the back roads and the shadows,
approaching the radiant city
without ever quite arriving.

BY THOMAS CENTOLELLA

Last week, I set my mind to beach combing, rather than keeping it from the idea. Hope needs sustenance, and it can be found on beaches, unpeopled or otherwise. Although the one I went to seemed to be a world in its own, not a soul in sight. Only traces left via drift wood edifices. Intriguing, but not as beautiful as the drift wood itself.

It was cool, bordering on cold, with intermittent squalls. Not flip-flop weather, a rain coat over the sweatshirt. A welcome break from the heat, though, that had taken a bite out of me.

After so many decades after my arrival in the United States I am still amazed at the frequent experience of being alone in vast spaces, nature easily reached near population centers, all yours, and yours alone, for the taking.

No witnesses to loud singing with a voice cracked by chemo so many years ago, or angry screaming, or crying your eyes out – all the things I phantasize about as possible private acts during solitude. Except, once I’m in nature, those urges completely vanish, my mind and soul entirely focused on the treasures around me, the intricacies of evolutionary design.

A focused mind, until it drifts to things I’ve read about the beach and ocean when I was young and completely impressionable. Now old, and intermittently impressionable, I shudder to think about how I was moved by Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s meditations on grief adjacent to emerging environmental concerns, A Gift from the Sea.

Little did I know, beyond her tragic loss of a child to kidnapping and murder, that she was a not-so-closeted admirer of fascism and Hitler in particular, arguing that totalitarian regimes were “manifestations of an inevitable historical wave of the future.” (Will she have the last laugh, after all?) Being married to a serial cheater, sympathizer and fascist-adjacent Charles Lindbergh, and bearing him 6 children, was nowhere on my teenage horizon. I was simply eager to embrace female role models that excelled in flying air planes and being a successful writer simultaneously.

Role models that embraced science and poetry in one fell swoop, like – the political impeccable – Rachel Carson, who wrote about the oceans with a conservationist’s mind even before I was born. I devoured The Sea around Us.

Hope, at the time, was not about approaching a radiant city, like Thomas Centolella describes in his poem above, but about finding an independent place in the world to explore who I was. Self-centered, in other words, but aware of threats to nature even then.

Carson had it right:

“I wonder if we have not too long been looking through the wrong end of the telescope. We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.”

Like the poet, I know many types of hope. Mine, as well, struggles to keep its eyes open. And it occasionally centers on the young being able to find all kinds of books and be educated, not censored; to read and comprehend early, with patience and the ability to analyze; to tolerate the hard parts of learning, because the acquired knowledge will sustain you through many decades of your life. In other words, not let their minds rot through the use of AI.

If we’re lucky, they will be able to fight the planned destruction, enabled by knowledge and critical thinking! The destruction of the radiant city, the shining symbol on the hill, for one. Before Reagan used this biblical phrase to celebrate American exceptionalism, it was meant to remind us that morality was the cornerstone of this symbol of hope.

Speaking of which (a moral approach to bolstering democracy, that is): if you are in favor of vote by mail, now is the time window to send your comments to the Postmaster regarding the plan to refuse vote mail delivery/absentee ballots in States that will not hand over their voter rolls to the Trump Administration. Here is the link for easy commenting, offered by the League of Women’s Voters. It takes two minute, max.

Music is happy today. In celebration of the (unexpected) majority decision of the Supreme Court to allow counting of mailed ballots that arrive after election day, but were post marked in time. A win for democracy and voters.

The Impact of Data Centers.

Before the heat got to me, I went on a joint adventure with my friend Jan to photograph multiple data processing centers that have sprung up in the vicinity of Portland. Her insightful take, as a psychologist and a documentarian, on how these AI molochs are sold to the public, can be found here.

Basically, these buildings house computers that train AI language models. There are thousands of them across the country, with many more thousands planned, including in our own backyard. Communities are told to hand over land, electricity and water with the promise that they will benefit in turn. Vision of tax revenues and job- and future business opportunities are floated.

The reality? Tax revenues are usurped by tax breaks granted to the centers. That money goes back to the investors rather than the communities. Job opportunities might happen during the construction phase, but that only lasts for a year or two. And even there, often labor is assigned to trade professionals from out of state. A staff of only 20-50 people is needed, once the center is running, tending to the servers (note that many of these behemoth buildings sport no more than 2 toilets – a clear indication of the planned number of staff). No ripple effects either – you don’t get cheaper or faster access to these technologies, just because you live close by. No thousands of workers buying lunch at the local markets, or added medical facilities that could serve a rural community.(Ref.)

The immediate benefits to communities are small to non-existent. The costs are real. The massive expansion of fuel and water demands depletes communal resources, increases costs for individuals, and interferes with our agreed climate goals because it keeps fossil fuel plants open for longer instead of moving towards renewable energy sources. It is predicted that center demand will be up to 15% of our nation’s total electricity volume in the near future. (In Wyoming, for example, a planned Meta data center will require more electricity than every household in the state, combined. To meet demand for power-hungry data centers, utilities are adding capacity to the grid. But although that added capacity may benefit tech companies, the cost is shared by local consumers. )

There is also physical harm if you live near these centers. Air pollution is the largest concern. But the unending noise pollution from HVAC cooling systems, diesel generators and fans also stresses people out, interrupts their sleep and gives them headaches. There is economic harm since the resale value of your homes drops like a stone. Agencies tasked with overseeing noise pollution have no handle, since local governments selling out to AI firms can simply change zoning rules that favor the centers.

Here is a sample of the noise neighbors have to deal with.

People are no fools. The absence of gains and presence of harm (particularly when it comes to water depletion caused by the infinite thirst of these centers) is well noted and has lead to a opposition that runs across the political divide, a divide otherwise so unsurmountable in this country. A recent Gallup poll found that 7 in 10 Americans oppose these schemes that produce suffering for the communities while the companies profit.

What is needed for opposition? Transparency, for one. Often the negotiations for land sale, water rights and tax credits are done under the veil of secrecy and non-disclosure requirements. That alone should make one think: why should there be secret deals if everything is a-ok? Particularly around water usage? Google, for example, consumed 40% of all water in The Dalles, OR in 2025. The city won’t say how much of the rising demand comes from Google, citing a promise to keep the numbers secret and confidentiality provisions in Oregon public records law. (Ref.)

Local engagement by citizens flooding the relevant local officials with demands and calls for rejection is another factor. Calls for legislation or communal bans that imposes moratoria on new buildings until we know the actual costs, have multiplied. Lawsuits, if necessary, letting the courts decide about false or broken promises, harm assessment, or legal loopholes.

Then there are workers. On the one hand, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has argued that union workers are powering the AI industry. “Meta recently announced a skilled trade academy program, and Google committed $50 million to help train people in skilled trades.” But, as reported here, some electricians are starting to wonder about the ethics of the job and refuse to work for AI companies.

The bi-partisan pushback has already affected the trade – and is expected to become a flashpoint for both the primaries and the actual mid-term elections (lots of candidates in favor of data centers lost their primaries, for both parties.) For example, residents in Los Angeles County’s Monterey Park becoming the first to vote to permanently ban data centers earlier this month. Virginia’s Democratic-controlled state legislature and Democratic governor ended a budget standoff over the state’s data center tax breaks on Monday, agreeing on a new tax on data centers for their energy consumption. (Ref.) Closer to home, we have seen real resistance in La Pine, Prineville, and now Hillsboro. Hillsboro, where I photographed, has an estimated 125 data centers and is currently exploring its options to pause further development. 1000 friends of Oregon have filed a lawsuit just last week, to stop giving public dollars to data centers, with tax rebates locked in for potentially decades.

So far, some $64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed by local opposition around the country. Details per state can be found here. Clearly, when people overcome their alignment to party only, and get together to fight for the common good, they can be successful.

Optimists are already speculating: When these data centers become debt traps in a few years at most, the next Dem president should offer to wipe out those debts if they’re sold for a dollar back to cities for community centers, mutual aid hubs, YMCA-style temporary housing services. Try to salvage anything out of this mess. (Ref.) (Sometimes doesn’t pay to be an optimist – the million responses to this post from last week were pointing out why none of those suggestions was feasible (often for toxic pollution left over by the centers. Poor Ben Collins, the author.)

Here is a friendly reminder (by Hitchhikers of the Galaxy) about the future of computers. And some visual examples of what is (about to be) out there….

Microsoft/Wisconsin

Switch/Nevada

Dupont/Virginia

OpenAI Stargate/Arizona

Meta – Plans/Arizona

Here.

Poetry
Jun 18, 2026
2 Comments

It is transition season in the garden, before the hot colors and voluptuous forms of the true summer flowers arrive.

There are feverfew, wild geraniums, hedge roses and coral bells, all sporting their pastels. This year, there is also a profusion of early fuchsia blossoms, which remind me of ballerinas, with their tutus and a general dainty flair.

Today a friend of mine enters another year in her 8th decade of life. Interested in all things ballet, accomplished critic of and writer about the art form. Published in journals like New York City’s Dance Magazine, the New York Times, encyclopedias and periodicals, or local press here in the PNW, the Oregonian, Willamette Week and Oregon ArtsWatch, among others. She wrote a deeply researched and fiercely argued book about Todd Bolender, Janet Reed and the Making of American Dance that came out in 2021.

Dainty she ain’t. Which I consider a compliment. It’s also a way of being that empowers those asked to master complicated and often painful lives, early widowhood included. There is a fiery intellect groomed during a New York childhood closely associated with intensely intellectual and artistic circles, and an education at Barnard. There is a ferocious quality of protecting and defending who and what she loves, at almost any cost. There is scorching rage there against the vicissitudes of aging and bodies no longer willing to comply. There is hot contempt for the unprincipled, the immoral, the compromising and the indifferent ones, in public and private sphere alike.

She has a special gift for friendship, keeping early ones alive, opening herself to the vulnerabilities of new ones, established late in life. We have known each other for some years now, old enough at the start not to waste time on frivolities and chitchat. Instead there are repeat conversations that allow exploration of topics relevant to finding closure without throwing in the towel. Conversations that sometimes venture into the territory of illness, death and dying. Topics that are rarely spoken of openly in this society, issues preferably explored with someone equally non-moribund as I consider myself. Thoughts triggered by accumulating losses in our respective social spheres. Ideas (and tears) better confronted in the company of someone curious and open, rather than alone.

In this spirit I offer one of my favorite poems as a birthday gift: an unflinching, yet positive look at what life holds for us, good or bad; an allusion to belonging to an infinite universe; a profoundly stern but also reassuring reminder that here is still here: no terrifying cracks in the wall sucking us into oblivion just yet.

Let us cherish the day, each day, fatigue, pain, irritations notwithstanding.

Cherish the memories of an extraordinary life (I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Martha!).

Cherish the dance still left in us.

Happy Birthday!

Here

I don’t know about other places,
but here on Earth there’s quite a lot of everything.
Here chairs are made and sadness,
scissors, violins, tenderness, transistors,
water dams, jokes, teacups.

Maybe somewhere else there is more of everything,
only for some reason there are no paintings there,
cathode-ray tubes, dumplings, tissues for tears.
There are plenty of places here with surroundings.
Some you can particularly get to like,
name them your own way
and protect them from evil.

Maybe somewhere else there are similar places,
But no one considers them beautiful.


Maybe like nowhere else, or in few other places,
here you have your own body trunk,
and with it the tools needed,
to add your children to those of others.
Besides that your hands, legs, and the amazed head.

Ignorance here is hard at work,
constantly measuring, comparing, counting,
drawing conclusions and finding square roots.

I know, I know what you’re thinking.
Nothing is permanent here,
for since ever forever in the power of the elements.
But notice—the elements get easily tired
and sometimes they have to take a long rest
before the next time.

And I know what else you’re thinking.
Wars, wars, wars.
But even between them there happen to be breaks.
Attention—people are evil.
At ease—people are good.
At attention we produce wastelands.
At ease by the sweat of our brows we build houses
and quickly live in them.

Life on earth turns out quite cheap.
For dreams for instance you don’t pay a penny.
For illusions—only when they’re lost.
For owning a body—only with the body.

And as if this was not enough,
you spin without a ticket in the carousel of the planets,
and along with it, dodging the fare, in the blizzard of galaxies,
through eras so astounding,
that nothing here on Earth can even twitch on time.

For take a good look:
the table stands where it stood,
on the table the paper, exactly as placed,
through the window ajar just a waft of the air,
and in the walls no terrifying cracks,
through which you could be blown out to nowhere.

by Wislawa Szymborska

Music directed by another redhead – Ballet scores by Mozart.

Versions of Ecocide – second try.

Environmental Protection, History, Psychology
Jun 15, 2026
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“The sociopathic hierarchies our culture has inherited were invented by a people taught that they were separate from, and likely condemned by, the very thing which had created them—and in response to their disenfranchisement they built a ladder, and dominated every rung they perceived as beneath them; because the sense of superiority masked the pain of disconnection. But, like any masked thing, the fact of its existence remains and, whether engaged with or not, pain always finds a way to be expressed. Ecocide, then, is the logical conclusion to this severance—if that which created us will not love us, better to kill it, than feel the pain of its refusal. Ecocide is deicide is suicide. It is our collective response to feeling orphaned, and not knowing how to be with the grief of it. The tragedy, of course—beside the mountains of dead and dying, and the silence where once there was birdsong—is that it was never even true. That we have always belonged, more completely than we could bear, but that we were handed a set of goggles many generations ago, and we’re still wondering around thinking they’re our eyes.” – Chloe Hope

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Before it got too hot last week, I hiked along the Columbia river at Beacon Rock State Park, named after a large rock already mentioned in Lewis&Clark’s diaries in 1805 during their westward expedition. A short drive away from Portland into Skamania County, WA, you can dwell on both nature and history.

The nature is gorgeous, the history rotten, what else is new.

The Yakima Treaty of Camp Stevens in 1855 forced the tribal owners of the land – the Sahaptian and Coast Salish Indigenous people – to cede their land. In 1865 the land passed into private ownership, with frontage on the Columbia River, including the Indigenous village below Beacon Rock, claimed under the terms of the Donation Land Claim Act, which codified land claims for the earliest American migrants into the area.

Various private investors across the decades bought and and often defaulted on land and timber parcels or tax loads. In 1929, Spencer Biddle and Rebecca Biddle Wood, then private owners of Beacon Rock, offered it as a land donation to the State of Washington for a State Park. Governor Roland H. Hartle refused the donation. Only when the Superintendent of Oregon State Parks tried to acquire the land, did public opinion force a shift of the Washington State administration which finally agreed to a state park in 1935. (Ref.)

The meadows were filled with daisies, the air full of birdsong, small tributaries gurgling into the larger river. The breeze had the aspen and alder leaves turn, shimmering silvery in the early afternoon light. It was quiet, few hikers out and the rock climbing side of the rock closed to protect nesting falcons.

Across the river you could see the burnt forests of the Gorge, making me think about current administration attempts to dismantle the US Forest Service—shuttering 57 research labs, relocating HQ, and forcing out thousands of federal workers, including woodland firefighters. (Congress could, of course, stop this sabotage.)

How can one possibly explain the rationale for curtailing protection for our lands (and the workers and citizens tied to it? Is it as simple as for-profit motives, or anti-science bent? Refusing to acknowledge the reality of climate change which will increase the need for fire fighting, among others, and more rather than less forest management geared towards meeting the changing needs, to extract the very last penny from the land, acquiescing to certain eventual collapse?

What happened, considering that previous Republican administrations were instrumental in helping science along, now actively in the process of being dismantled not just for forests and agriculture, but weather research, ocean monitoring, food safety, and of course issues related to disease, from prevention to treatment, vaccination to the availability of new drugs. After all, the National Academy of Sciences was founded in the Lincoln administration; NASA in the Eisenhower administration, and PEPFAR (U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), PMI (President’s Malaria Initiative) and the NTDs (neglected tropical diseases) program were launched in the George W. Bush Administration.

Some trace the adoption of anti-science stance as a major platform of the GOP to the year 2015 when the antivaccine movement pivoted to political extremism on the right. It continued massively during the Covid pandemic and the perceived curtailing of “freedom” with mask mandates, public closures, social distancing and vaccination requirements. These days the anti-science sentiment has reached a fever pitch, not just nationally. It’s going global risking hundreds of thousands of lives.

A lot of it, alas, has to do with religion. The evangelical hard right claims that science is not only anathema to faith, but actively trying to undermine it. It can’t be trusted (Science is a hoax! Just look at how it changes its finding all the time!). Worse, it is a secular tool to lure people away from the “right” Christian path.

There are additional factors at work, though. One, if you are a member of a group (or a child raised there) that has certain attitudes, you will adopt them for group cohesion and a sense of belonging. And secondly, it is always hard to engage with some new facts or insights that very much contradict your current thinking. (True for all of us.) That is particularly true for people who were raised with or have personalities favoring rigid belief systems rather than flexible openness to the new and different. In other words, it’s hard to get scientific information to stick when it raises the possibility of conflict within a person’s assumptions about the world as it is and SHOULD be.

All the more so, when you think of your world as a hierarchical system where you perceive “elites” associated with science/scientists as looking down on you or pulling the wool over your eyes. If the world is perceived to be a ladder, not only does it help your sense of worth mistreating those on rungs beneath you. Just think how great it’ll make you feel if you can punish those who you assume are above, ready to stomp.

“Let’s burn it all down. That’ll show them who has the power…”

Well, burn it will, and everyone, no exemption, will be harmed by level 3 evacuations or the loss of public lands that have sustained Americans for centuries, and the Native tribes for millennia before that. All in the wake of climate change denial and anti-science rage. Never mind greed.