8.6.2022 – OUR libraries – place

OUR libraries – place
to read, gather, learn – our heart
how can you lose that

Those people, for reasons known but to them, who read this blog from time to time will be aware that I read the Guardian, a newspaper the originates in Manchester, UK, for my online news.

As the Guardian covers all the issues of today, I was not surprised by the headline, US library defunded after refusing to censor LGBTQ authors: ‘We will not ban the books’.

I clicked on the headline and that is when the surprise set in.

In less than one week, this was the second time that there was worldwide news from where I grew up West Michigan.

The first time was when the local congressman, the geographic and (mostly) repulican consertive heir to Gerald Ford’s old seat in Congress, was thrown out by local voters as this congressman agreed that the former president had failed to uphold his oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The 2nd time was had to do with this US library being defunded after refusing to censor LGBTQ authors.

Turns out that the article was about the Jamestown Township Public Library locate in Ottawa County, Michigan.

Way to go West Michigan!

(UPDATE 5:30pm – my wife wondered if my sarcastic wit wasn’t entirely apparent unless you read the entire post – to be transparent and remove the guess work, reading this story made me want to barf in anger dismay and frustration with those of narrow mind)

Jamestown Township in Ottawa County is where my family settled and set up farming when they arrived in this country back in 1870.

If you turn right out of this library and drive about 5 miles and you will arrive at the Vriesland Cemetery where my Great Grandparents are buried.

My Great Grandparents, who I understand, never learned to speak English.

People who made the effort to leave their homes and come to a land where it was proclaimed in its birth certificate, that it was self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I don’t want to get into the issue beyond banning books.

Banning books in a public library.

When did we get so scared?

When did we get so scared that so many people feel the need to carry a machine gun with them to church?

When did we so scared that some people feel the only way to protect ourselves and our children is to ban books?

The article in the Guardian quotes Deborah Mikula, executive director of the Michigan Library Association.

Our libraries are places to read, places to gather, places to socialize, places to study, places to learn. I mean, they’re the heart of every community, so how can you lose that?”

So how can you lose that?

The heart of every community.

HOW CAN YOU LOSE THAT?

I don’t understand.

I feel this can’t last, that this can’t go on.

Actually I know it can’t last.

And I know, as its says in the Bible, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

When everything is new then maybe, just maybe, we won’t be so scared.

That passage is from the book of Revelation, Chapter 21, verses 4 and 5.

You remember the book of Revelation?

The book written by John while living on the Island of Patmos.

By the way, did I mention the name of the library?

The Patmos Library of Jamestown Township.

Also here is link to the library gofundme page.

8.4.2022 – how beautiful to

how beautiful to
sight those beams of morning play
up from eastern sea

Adapted from Horace’s ode Diffugere nives (XVI) by A. E. Housman published in More Poems, Alfred A. Knopf. 1936.

How clear, how lovely bright
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Thought about this as I was driving to work.

And, as always, I was thinking, there sure could be worse morning drives (and I have made some of them.)

8.1.2022 – ask yourselves, have we

ask yourselves, have we
each of us, done all we could?
have we done enough?

Such was the question asked by President Lyndon Johnson in a an address at Johns Hopkins University, titled “Peace Without Conquest” on April 07, 1965.

It, sad to say, was a speech in defense of the ongoing war in Vietnam.

LBJ laid out his reasons for being in a war in South East Asia and he laid out his post war plans for the region.

When he closed, LBJ said this:

Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep I ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can do to unite this country? Have I done everything I can to help unite the world, to try to bring peace and hope to all the peoples of the world? Have I done enough?

Ask yourselves that question in your homes–and in this hall tonight. Have we, each of us, all done all we could? Have we done enough?

Many consider the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era as one of the most divisive times in the history of the United States.

The end of the United States as we knew it, was coming.

On the one hand, the United States did NOT come to end.

On the other hand, the Untied States, as we knew it at that time, did.

Maybe the country came out of that era better.

At the funeral for Rosa Parks, Former President Bill Clinton said that Ms. Parks made America better.

Later in the funeral eulogies, Louis Farrakhan challenged this, saying that while Ms. Parks DID make America better, she did not make America good. And at that, GOOD AMERICA was a long way from GREAT AMERICA.

What can a person do?

Since she is on my mind, consider Rosa Parks.

She sat down so others could stand up.

What am I doing?

Can I, like LBJ, every night before I turn out the lights to sleep, ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can do to unite this country?

Not what have I done to further a political thought or agenda.

Not what have I done to further a specific point of view or action.

But, what have I done to unite this country.

The very next thing after asking ‘have we done enough?’, LBJ delivered this warning.

We may well be living in the time foretold many years ago when it was said: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

This generation of the world must choose: destroy or build, kill or aid, hate or understand.

7.30.2022 – acting normal is

acting normal is
crazy enough be average
we think that is good

I grew up in West Michigan.

I grew up in West Michigan because most of my ancestors immigrated from the Netherlands to West Michigan in the 1870’s.

One branch of the family came over from England in 1842 which is where my Civil War Soldier Great Great Grandfather came from but the rest were wearing wooden shoes and saying Hoe is het met je? while farming in Ottawa County.

Climb up my family tree and you meet Hofman’s, Hendrickson’s, Van Noord’s, De Young’s, Pell’s and other such folks.

That isn’t a typo for Hofman.

See, my Grandfather thought Hofman looked a little lopsided so added an extra ‘f’ to the name.

If you check that Ellis Island registry, you have to search for Hofman.

According to family lore, on Grandpa’s first day of school, the teacher called the role and when he came to Roloef Hofman (son of Kope … or was it Koop Hofman), the teacher said from now on I am going to call you Robert.

Robert liked that so much, changing the last name must have made sense as well.

Grandpa like his new first name so much, he also chose a middle name, an American idea as this is not a Dutch custom.

And he became Robert Karl.

Karl with a k.

To round it all off, he named his son, Robert.

My Grandma’s name was Pauline.

Pauline De Young.

Their son got her name in the middle.

Robert Paul Hoffman to be exact.

My Dad.

My Dad liked Robert Paul so much he named his son, Paul Robert.

But he liked his father’s name so much he named his third son, Robert Karl Hoffman.

My older brother Bobby.

To this, American’s added the fashionable title of Junior or Jr. to my brother’s name and he went down in history as Robert Hoffman, Jr.

Though to be correct, as we liked to point out, he should have been known as Robert K. Hoffman II.

Readers of this blog will remember that my name, Michael, was taken out of the box and tried out on my brother Tim for 2 or 3 days before my Dad decided that the new baby was NOT a Mike and filled out the birth certificate with the name Tim.

I was born 4 years later and got the slightly used name of Michael.

My Dad and Mom have to get a bit of grace on this as they did have to choose names for 8 boys along with 3 girls.

11 sets of names might present a challenge to some folks.

I might have seen it as a opportunity (if you know my kids names).

But my folks came through with some good, average names.

And it all started with being Dutch.

I recently came across the New York Times article, The Country That Wants to ‘Be Average’ vs. Jeff Bezos and His $500 Million Yacht By David Segal (July 29, 2022).

The article tells the story how a multi billionaire had a multi million dollar boat built in a shipyard separated from the sea by an old bridge in Rotterdam.

To get the boat out, the billionaire asked the city if he could have the old bridge taken down.

Not to worry, the old bridge would be put back, just the way it was, and the billionaire would pay for it all so no harm no foul.

But the Dutch said nope, nothing doing.

Mr. Segal writes:

“The Dutch like to say, ‘Acting normal is crazy enough,’” said Ellen Verkoelen, a City Council member and Rotterdam leader of the 50Plus Party, which works on behalf of pensioners. “And we think that rich people are not acting normal. Here in Holland, we don’t believe that everybody can be rich the way people do in America, where the sky is the limit. We think ‘Be average.’ That’s good enough.”

Acting normal is crazy enough.

Boy, Howdy ain’t that the truth.

Be average.

That’s good enough.

7.27.2022 – leaving unimpaired

leaving unimpaired
though doing nothing really
is doing something

In an article in the New York Times, At Yosemite, a Preservation Plan That Calls for Chain Saws, by Thomas Fuller and Livia Albeck-Ripka, July 27, 2022, the words in this paragraph caught my eye.

And what about leaving the park “unimpaired” for future generations?

“It’s a tricky word,” she said. In the early years of the park service, Ms. Muldoon said, unimpaired would have meant “leave it exactly as it is out there, don’t touch anything.”

“But if we’ve learned anything it’s that we have been touching these lands forever — humanity has — and doing nothing is really doing something.”

It struck me how that while the article was about the National Forest Service almost any of the problems of today, inflation, covid, social media, gun control, can be addressed saying doing nothing is doing something.

Don’t just do something, STAND THERE!

Doing nothing and working hard at it.

I voted today by not voting.

Participatory democracy without participation.

Good to remember that you get what you pay for.