SmokeSound

At the F.D.R. Memorial "Jah, they are so kind of restless. . . ." That is how Joseph Langland described the wave of immigrants that came from Norway, beginning in about 1815. It might have been that poem--"Norwegian Rivers"-- that created an urge within me to write a poem of my own for the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents: "Where the Winds Blow West". Our father was one of those immigrants in that river of folk who crossed the Atlantic like an irresistible El Nino, like a prevailing wind, like hunger and desire, following our mother's parents and grandparents. Joseph Langland, himself, a native of Minnesota, had a name that identified him and the place from where his family had come; our parents to Washington State, into the west wind. There is not a human being in the world, anywhere, except in Africa, who does not live in a place to which they or their ancestors have immigrated. The most a few of us can do--and I am not ...

Not the Cat of Santa Lena, but close enough I am easily astounded. That is another way of saying that I am ignorant of almost everything. It astounds me, for instance, that having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, of good, wormy Norwegian stock, reeking still of cod fish and boiled potatoes, that I love the Sonoran Desert as much as I do, and that having been nurtured on a diet in which the most common spices were sugar and salt and butter, with a holiday hint of cardamom, I like really spicy food. How did that happen? There are mountains in this desert. One of them--Mt. Lemmon--stands on the north edge of Tucson. It is by no means the tallest mountain in the neighborhood, but it measures up respectably well. The little mountain range in which it is the tallest is named the Santa Catalina. For reasons that probably have to do with Norwegian spice and cardamom, or perhaps because of a steady diet of Hola and Lena jokes, I hear myself calling it the...

Through a Glass Darkly I wish I knew what was going on in that bear's head, other than lunch.  I know  what Daniel was thinking, and I am sorry to say that he had not found the first--the really first--philosophical bear. He might have found--I am sorry to say--one of the ordinary emergency room surgeons from Kodiak Island. About five years ago, the perverts who run a zoo in Minnesota decided to give their Grizzly bears a 500 pound pumpkin as a kind of Halloween treat.  It took the bears ten minutes to demonstrate that emergency surgery could not save the pumpkin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYjO3QHUEmY I am no expert on Grizzly facial expressions, but I am as serene as Daniel is pretending to be in saying that bear is giving a much more profound meaning then the sainted Paul of Tarsus did to the phrase, "seeing through a glass darkly".  

Had he thought of it—had he been able to think about it—he’d have mentioned that she had a new wristwatch, too, that never needed winding.  Or batteries.   He had gone through the basic list—a new body, no arthritis, as young as a doe in springtime at the side of the woods, never to become old again, in her new mansion in the sky looking down on us—but he did not say anything about her new wristwatch.   Anyway, it wasn’t his place to think of everything.  How could he think of everything!  He was just a faithful reporter of things he had read and heard a thousand times, standing straight and strong among the grieving.   He said it out loud.  He said he really did not understand it.  He couldn’t!  How could he!  He was just a believer, called to be a bearer of the good news who, when it came right down to it, really did not understand how any of this worked, but that he believed it, as all of us were called to do, and ...

There is more  good news coming from the Difficult Wing of the Republican Party.  (I prefer not to call them the Hard Right, particularly when dealing with sexual subjects such as salary and wages.) I know that many of you had supposed that Phyllis Schlafly had died and gone to her eternal reward, but that is not so, and may never be so.  Ms. Schlafly who, now that I think of it, may prefer not to be called Ms., but now it is too late--it is down in print--says that equal pay for equal work will deter women's chances to find suitable mates, and what does that mean?  It means that there will be a lot more talented and capable women, with money of their own, on the market!  Leave it to Ms. Schlafly to find good news in all of this ugliness about discrimination against women, and unfair advantage for men, and hard right pay scales!  There will be more women loose on the sidewalks, walking around in better clothes, unable to marry the kind of men they want t...

Republicans are having a nightmare about Obamacare, and trying to scare the rest of us about their nightmares.  It is a scary sight.  I do not understand why a little more health care insurance for a few more people is such a scary sight, but maybe I do not understand how pleasant it is to know that the fewer people it is who have health care how much better it is for all of us. I cannot be the last dolt to think that, when it comes to health care, the more who are insured, the better it is for all of us.  Republicans are running against that platform!  They believe that "the fewer the merrier" will win them the presidency, the Senate, and maybe even the House, where control seems to lie now, with the Last of the Mohicans. (I did not mean to say, "the Mohicans".  I have no reason to bad-mouth the Mohicans.  I meant to say, "the Last of the Heroes of the Losing Side of the American Civil War, Except that they Do Not Call Themselves Southern Democrats, A...

Oh, Sweet Jesus, what a sight that must have been:  all those gods gathered in New York, all those flying reptiles from long before there were any gods at all, and even a chance to dunk Jesus, if you didn't get body slammed by an Easter bunny! That was quite a day they had in New York!  Those of us who live out toward the edge of things, or in the middle of things, have to admit that New York is an exciting place, occasionally, if you can afford a few days there, or can find a flat to live in, even one that long since has been tilting toward the tracks, with or without heat. In a single section of the New York Times newspaper--which those of us who live out toward the edge or the center of things shall have to be quick to admit is one of the finest newspapers in the world--they reported that New York is hosting a Gathering of Gods From Places Long Forgotten, a Rebirth of Flying Reptiles, and an Easter Carnival called Full Bunny Contact where you can "Shoot the Peep",...

There is a man in Minnesota who wants to be a member of Congress.  There are probably a lot of people in Minnesota who want to be elected to Congress, but Aaron Miller wants to be elected to Congress so that he can protect his daughter.  His daughter is being forced to learn about evolution, and since Aaron Miller has not evolved, he does not think his daughter should have to learn about what has not happened to him. Mr. Miller went to his daughter's school to talk to the teacher about it.  The teacher said not to blame him.  He himself did not believe in evolution, but that the Minnesota State Board of Education required him to teach about it. Wow, wow, and what is the world coming to?  Innocent, harmless, impressionable children are being taught things like evolution!  Everyone with more than three or four synapses knows that evolution is just a description of what has been happening for billions of years, but now children are being taught it! Mr...

John T. once told me about a friend who said that he had spent twenty years climbing the corporate ladder before he discovered that it was leaning against the wrong wall. I know why that came to mind. I was reminded, this week, that I have climbed a couple of ladders, myself. Mari and I attended a celebration of the founding of the U. of Arizona M.I.S. (computer information system) department.  We were not there at the founding:  it just seems like it. Mari came to Tucson to get a degree. I came here because Mari came here. I was on sabbatical, as a visiting fellow in the Philosophy Department, to learn more about Social and Political philosophy. I had already climbed the ladder leaning against the door of The Castle Church in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther had nailed his 95 theses; not the actual door, but a figurative one. Step by step, through the theological seminary in Berkeley, and the parish in California, and The University of Chicago....