8.29.2022 – hopelessness is the

hopelessness is the
enemy of justice – is
a constant struggle

I was born on July 17, 1960.

One month later, unknown to me and unrelated to this event, 11 kids went wading in the Atlantic Ocean at the public beach on Tybee Island on the east coast near Savannah, Georgia.

All 11 kids were arrested.

They were officially charged with Public Disrobing.

The real reason is that the public beaches in Georgia in 1960 were segregated.

And these 11 kids were not ‘allowed’ to use the public beach because they were not white.

1960.

Three of these students, Edna Jackson, Evalena Hoskins, and Mary Gray, were there that day in 1960 and were back on the same beach, the same beach I have been with my children and grand children.

I now know about that day because the State of Georgia just dedicated a historical marker to remember that day and what those 11 kids did.

At the dedication ceremony, Tybee Island Historical Association Vice-President Allen Lewis said, “These students were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

These students were ordinary people.

Ordinary people who did extraordinary things.

They went for a swim on an August day at the beach.

Extraordinary things.

Mr. Lewis also said, “They put their beliefs to the test on Savannah Beach. That God has the divine power, and that the U.S. Constitution was on their side as they fought injustice and evil.”

“Faced with racial terror, the students responded to hate with love. To violence, with forgiveness. We remember these students for their hope. Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. Their courage. Because peace requires bravery. Their persistence. Because justice is a constant struggle. And their faith.”

They went for a swim on an August day at the beach.

Arlo Guthrie once said something along the lines that in a world where everything is going great, you would have to do an awful lot of good to standout, but in a world that sucks, you don’t have to do much to accomplish something good.

They went for a swim on an August day at the beach.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Respond to hate with love.

To violence, with forgiveness.

Because peace requires bravery.

Because justice is a constant struggle.

8.16.2022 – life in low country

life in low country
alligator attacks rare
but not surprising

The body of an 88-year-old woman who was killed by an alligator was discovered on Monday in a pond in a gated community near Hilton Head Island, S.C., officials said. It was at least the fourth deadly alligator attack in the United States so far this year.

The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call at 11:15 a.m. on Monday from a Sun City Hilton Head resident who reported that a large alligator was guarding a human body. “When we got there that’s exactly what we found,” said Maj. Angela Viens, a public information officer with the Beaufort County sheriff’s office.

“Alligator attacks are rare but not surprising,” Major Viens said of the area.

Two more alligator deaths have been recorded this year in Florida. One a 47-year old man apparently searching for a frisbee on May 31 and another an elderly woman, 80, who fell into a pond near a golf course on July 15.

47-year-old Sean Thomas McGuinness’ body was found missing three limbs at the lake at the John S Taylor Park in Largo, Florida.

Investigators now believe he had gone into the 53-acre freshwater lake looking for UFOs when he was attacked.

I am not sure if the alligator attack and the search for UFO’s are connected.

Advice for living near alligators is to:

Never swim at night –

Never feed them –

Keep pets and children away from the water’s edge –

Stay alert when you are in territory where they may live –

I took this photo in a local park last year.

Like the Great White Shark, all they do is sleep, eat and make little alligators.

You get used to it.

Earlier this summer, my wife was up in Michigan visiting.

Seeing the new home of one her sisters and that the property had a large pond, my wife cautioned, “make sure you watch out for alligators!”

It comes with the territory.

As Mr. Tolkien wrote: ‘It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.’

7.13.2022 – pick and choose numbers

pick and choose numbers
that tell you what you want and
glue them together

Adapted from the last paragraph of the article, The Humbug Economy, by Paul Krugman in the New York Times.

Writing about the current economic climate, Mr. Krugamn stated:

Overall, the picture appears consistent with a “soft landing” — a slowdown that falls short of a full-on recession, or involves a mild recession at worst, together with stabilizing inflation.

But, of course, we don’t know that. In fact, given the wide discrepancies in economic data, economic pundits (including me) have unusual freedom to believe whatever they want to believe. Just pick and choose the numbers that tell you what you want to hear and glue them together.

He also stated:

Are you confused? You should be. I’ve been in this business a long time, and I can’t remember any period when economic numbers were telling such different stories. On the other hand, we’ve never before faced the kind of shocks we’ve gone through in the past few years: Both the pandemic-induced recession and the recovery from that recession were, to use the technical term, weird, and maybe we shouldn’t be surprised the measures we normally use to track the economy aren’t working too well.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Both the pandemic-induced recession and the recovery from that recession were, to use the technical term, weird, and maybe we shouldn’t be surprised the measures we normally use to track the economy aren’t working too well.

Got to love the use of the technical term, weird!

And the warning that we shouldn’t be surprised the measures we normally use to track the economy aren’t working too well?

NO KIDDING!

7.4.2022 – something more abstract

something more abstract
more compelling – America
lost faith in itself

Ms. Goodwin writes that in November, 1963;

The people of America responded to the news of Kennedy’s assassination and the continuing televised reports of every subsequent happening with a state of shock that went beyond mourning to something approaching melancholia, a serious collapse of self-esteem. With the assassination, something more than a man had been lost, something more abstract and more compelling – a part of America’s faith in itself as a good society.

The line, something more than a man had been lost, something more abstract and more compelling – a part of America’s faith in itself as a good society, hit me.

America’s faith in itself as a good society.

I admit much of that faith was a hypocrisy.

But it was a useful hypocrisy.

Recent political turmoil over, well, politics and Covid and any number of other issues of late have ripped the scab off the hypocrisy and left folks, not wondering if we have lost a part of America’s faith in itself as a good society but now QUESTIONING even if America was, is or can be, a good society.

I like to think that Mr. Lincoln was right when he said the United States was, “… the last best hope of earth.”

Maybe Mr. Lincoln is right, its just that the bar to being recognized as the last best hope of earth was a lot lower than I ever thought.

Again, the passage quoted from Ms. Godwin is about the United States after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Lyndon Johnson took over as President.

5 Days after Kennedy was murdered, LBJ spoke to Congress and the Country.

LBJ said this:

America must move forward.

The time has come for Americans of all races and creeds and political beliefs to understand and to respect one another.

So let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence.

Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law, and those who pour venom into our Nation’s bloodstream.

As Mr. Lincoln put it in his December, 1862 Annual Address to Congress, “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May) by Childe Hassam (1859-1935)

7.2.2022 – laughter, singing rang

laughter, singing rang
again, all the sounds of the
earth were like music

Adapted from James Thurber’s Further Fable, “The Bears and the Monkeys.”

I have used this fable of Mr. Thurber’s before.

I will most likely use again and if I don’t use it again, I will read it again and most likely often.

The fable is an analogy on the red scare of the McCarthy era when folks were afraid to think for themselves and wake up to find out they were accused of being a communist.

It was better to let someone else do the thinking for you than risk being labeled being part of the red threat or a pinko commie sympathiser.

So they thinking went according to the monkeys.

When I first read this probably 50 years ago when I was a kid, I think I was able to grasp the meaning that folks do not want anyone telling them what to.

Maybe I was thinking along the lines of Mr. Lincoln’s “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”

I thought the story noble in its’ irony.

I read it today not in with humor but with horror.

I read it today and feel that the irony now goes over most folks heads.

I read the line, “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” and I hear folks yelling, “YESSIR, THAT’S IT!”.

As Mr. Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn, “Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”

BOY Howdy 😦

I still somehow have hope.

Maybe its more I want to refuse to be hope-less.

But I do hope that one day folks will break the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and begin playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And folk’s laughter and gaiety will ring through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing begin singing again, and all the sounds of the earth will be like music.

The Bears and the Monkeys.

In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”

The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.

Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”

So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.

“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”

Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.

MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.

Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber, New York, Harpers, 1940.