sky white cumulus
like friendly piles of ice cream
high September sky
Adapted from then line: “He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky.” in the novel, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952.
is subject to the
accumulated capital
power incentives
Referencing Karl Marx, Ben Mathis-Lilley wrote that, “Karl Marx held that alienation is the condition people experience when they have no autonomy over something personally or socially meaningful to them because it is subject to the power and incentives of accumulated capital.”
Mr. Mathis-Lilley’s reference was, of course, referring to the world of college football on TV.
In the article, Does Watching College Football on TV Have to Be So Miserable?, Mr. Mathis-Lilley writes, “I believe I embody the concept, as so defined by Marx, when I am watching five to eight consecutive commercials 16 times during a college football broadcast so that Disney shareholders and Rupert Murdoch might benefit.”
Mr. Mathis-Lilley does ask that most important question, “Is this a silly thing to worry about?“
And he answers, “Yes and No.”
“On the one hand,” he writes, “college football is not as materially crucial of an issue as, to take two examples, climate change and cancer. On the other, like all cultural narratives, highbrow and low, it has an intangible but foundational importance to the lives of those who use it to define their social communities and to explain their personal origins and values — to understand how life works, basically.“
The CEO of the major communications company where I used to work once said 30% of Americans are rabid sports fans. 100% of rabid sports fans think all American’s are rabid sports fans.
My wife is one of those American’s who could care less about sports.
Somehow, after over 30 years of marriage, she cannot remember when the Michigan-Ohio State game is played every year.
Yet last night as we flipped around the channels on TV, when a promo for the Notre Dame – Ohio State game came on she looked at me and said, “The evil empire versus the bad guys … who do want to win?”
(For the record, while for most of my life I have wanted OSU to be undefeated when Michigan beats so it hurts more and for the most part, I am happy whenever ND loses at anything, I (maybe I am getting old or something) but I wouldn’t mind seeing this new coach at ND succeed and I have a growing concern over OSUs lifetime win total which thanks to Rich Rodriguez, the Morgantown Miracle Worker – no one in any sport ended one team list of accomplishments as fast as he did (consecutive bowl games, winning seasons, Top 25 Rankings etc) ((For crying out loud, at one point in Rich Rod’s career, Jim Tressel of that team down south had more BIG TEN wins in Michigan Stadium than Rich Rod did – But I digress)) and the one thing I want out of sports is that Michigan has wore total victories that that other team in my lifetime).
College football like all cultural narratives, highbrow and low, it has an intangible but foundational importance to the lives of those who use it to define their social communities and to explain their personal origins and values — to understand how life works, basically.
For me, when Michigan wins, the world just makes a little more sense.
And I have to say – watching some college football over the past couple of days … it just felt … normal.
It just felt fun and even good.
A step back or maybe beyond all the Covid/Political/News industrial complex that seems to have taken over.
I have to say I enjoyed it.
But why do I have to watch sooooooooooooooo many commercials!
BTW – For those who haven’t figured out that most public libraries offer access to New York Times, I have uploaded a PDF of this article that you can read here.
while I am I, and
you are you, so long as the
world contains us both
Adapted from Life in a Love by Robert Browning.
Hard to forget that the first time I asked my future wife on a date she was at a loss for the many words and ways someone can say drop dead.
Well, in a nice way though.
Her lips couldn’t mouth the sounds but the words were there and her eyes said read my lips.
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
Dried my eyes and laugh at a fall.
And, baffled, get up and begin again.
So the chase took up my life, that’s all.
Here is the complete poem from Mr. Browning.
Escape me?
Never –
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,—
So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me –
Ever
Removed!
acknowledges with
nothing enormity of
calamity ahead
In an article discussing the next Prime Minister of Great Britain, Polly Toynbee wrote:
But next week we face the appointment of a leader with nothing to say that acknowledges the enormity of the calamity ahead.
In writing about on the loser in the race to meet the Queen and ‘kiss hands’, Ms. Tonybee wrote:
Rishi Sunak pitching to Tory party members in leafy Hertfordshire this week faced not one question – not a single one – concerning the cost of living crisis. From this twilight zone of unreality emerges a leader unfit to grapple with the worst crisis of our lifetime, with a typical 10% fall in disposable income predicted by 2024, according to the Resolution Foundation, which would be worse than during the 1970s oil shock, the worst in a century.
New perils come daily. Corner shops and pubs will close. Libraries and museums can’t be warm hubs for cold people as they shut to save fuel bills. Schools, hospitals, nurseries and colleges can’t pay. Credit card borrowing will soar, and food banks are already running out of food.
Ms. Tonybee is writing about Great Britain.
It was John Adams who said of Great Britain, that he wished. “… to restore the old good nature and the old good humor between people who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood.”
The beginning as it were, of the ‘special relationship’ between GB and the USA.
A relationship so special that we here in the USA seem to have all the same problems, just 5 hours later.
When it is said that over there that new perils come daily.
Corner shops and pubs will close.
Libraries and museums can’t be warm hubs for cold people as they shut to save fuel bills.
Schools, hospitals, nurseries and colleges can’t pay.
Credit card borrowing will soar, and food banks are already running out of food.
You can bet, it is on the way here.
Sadly the same problem with leadership is already here.
Our leaders have nothing to say that acknowledges the enormity of the calamity ahead.
As Mr. Lincoln said on December 1, 1862, The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
And it was Mr. (FD) Roosevelt who said, “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Fear.
Fear itself.
Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.
Easy right?
Best I can do is point to FDR’s closing line for that speech in 1933.
We humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
Humbly, disenthrall ourselves, and then, maybe, we shall save our country.
ask smoking or non
but wait, where does that seat us
after forty years
I was thinking about my Mom this past week.
Hard to believe that it was 9 years ago at the end of August, 2013, that she died.
It is almost more difficult to believe that she had lived the last 25 years of her life without my Dad.
Difficult to believe because in my mind, my Mom and my Dad were a couple, a couple together in my memory.
My family was lucky enough to have had a summer place on Lake Michigan.
This place played a large part in our family.
Yet when my Dad died, my Mom was ready to sell it.
To her, she told me, that was her place to be with Dad and without Dad …
This place on Lake Michigan was a cottage, or so we called it, that had to be winterized as well and prepped for summer early in the springtime.
I started going along with my Dad to close it as well as open it up so I could take over these chores.
I learned where the well was and how to turn off the pump and drain the pipes in the fall as well as prime the pump and fill the water tank in the spring.
At some point, I started taking a week off in the spring and I would stay out at the lake by myself and get the water turned on, the furnace going and do any painting or other small repairs that might be needed.
What I really did was make a pot of coffee in the morning and sat either by the water or if too cold (this would have been Michigan in May), next to the big picture windows looking out over the water and read all day.
One year in the middle of week, my Mom and Dad drove out from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we lived to drop in on me.
There were also happy to have a cup of coffee and sit and look out over the water as we chatted about eveything and nothing.
Then my Dad suggested lunch.
I knew what that meant.
He wanted to go to local hamburg joint named Russ’.
It was bad English, but everyone called it ‘Russes’.
It had started in Holland, Michigan and we stopped there often when we were out that way and back in the 1980’s it was starting to expand and open locations in Grand Haven and Grand Rapids.
I knew my Dad wanted to order a hamburger they offered called the Big Dutchman.
Somewhere in Grand Haven there was a street sign near a school that said STOP – ALLOW CHILDREN TO CROSS.
Someone had taken a Russ’ bumper sticker and stuck it on the sign so that it read, STOP – ALLOW BIG DUTCHMAN TO CROSS.
My Dad would drive out of his way just to pass that sign and laugh and laugh.
It helps if you grew up Dutch and in West Michigan.
So off I went to Russes with my Mom and Dad.
And so the moment began.
Back in the 1980s, people smoked in public but it was popular if not required by law, that restaurants offer no smoking sections.
It didn’t matter if it was one big room, restaurants would say this side people can smoke and this side people can’t.
They all breathed the same air but there it was.
Russes tried to accommodate non smokers by building on new additions to their restaurants that would at least put smokers and non smokers in separated rooms.
My Mom liked non smoking.
My Dad liked service.
As we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, my Mom mentioned that she would prefer to sit in the non smoking section.
My Dad said that he had no problem with non smokers but that the location of the no smoking section at this location was down, back and around the corner from the kitchen.
“I will not sit back there.” my Dad said.
“Might as well as sit in Death Valley. No waitress goes back there.”
My Mom said that maybe things had changed and the non smoking section might have been moved to the front.
My Dad turned off the car and got out and said, “I am not sitting in Death Valley.”
Russes was the place to have lunch in Grand Haven and it was packed.
We had to wait for a bit and then the hostess called our name.
“HOFFMAN?”
From the name we were in the Dutch Club.
We walked up and the hostess asks, “Smoking or non?”
“Non smoking, please” my Mom answered.
The hostess grabbed three menus and asked to follow her.
My Mom and I walked off but my Dad held back and watched.
We walked down a long aisle between tables to the back of the dining room and turned right to go around the kitchen back to the no smoking section.
“Lorraine!”
“Lorraine!” my Dad YELLED.
We stopped and the hostess looked back.
My Dad was now running up the aisle and waving.
“Lorraine,” he said, at one of those moments where the entire restaurant went silent.
“I am 65 years old and I do not have to sit where I don’t want to sit. I will not sit back there.”
My Mom looked at him and then asked, “Where do you want to sit then?”
My Dad pointed at the first empty booth, still with some dirty dishes, and said, “Right there.”
My Mom looked at the hostess who was quick to say sure we could sit and sat my Dad did.
My Mom and I slid in the other side of the booth and the hostess removed the dirty dishes and handed out the menus.
My Dad picked up the menu and held it up high so he could read it through his bifocals.
I heard he say something about Death Valley then he said, “I think I’ll order a Big Dutchman.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying something about stopping to allow Big Dutchman to sit where they want.
My Mom looked at me and I looked at my Mom.
She caught my glance shrugged with her eyes and held back a laugh as well.
My Mom was known for her hospitality.
My Mom was known for her laugh.
My Mom was known for her smile.
Once in Church when the Pastor was preaching about spiritual gifts and the fact that some folks had certain gifts and said something along the lines of the gift to always be smiling and happy in the way that if you SAT next to that person, you began to smile and feel happy.
Then the Pastor paused and said if you want to know HOW to do this .. go sit next to Mrs. Hoffman … and FIND OUT HOW SHES DOES IT!
My Mom sat across from Dad at Russes.
“Oh Bob,” she said.
They had been married 40 years.
No Haiku For You 