Tag: America

A LOGICAL CONCLUSION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

As far back as three decades, when I was selling editorial-page columnists and cartoonists to newspapers, even openly liberal editors had become shy of picking up anything except conservative voices.

As a consequence, we’ve had no new voices to speak from the left, especially not in general syndication. Think about it.

Meanwhile, newspaper circulation has been plummeting.

Could it be those conservative voices are deadly dull? (At least, when they’re not shrill?)

Think about it.

A bird with only a right wing won’t fly far.

Yes, think about it.

REALITY CHECK

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Not long after arriving in town, I was walking past the managing editor’s office, which was crowded with three heavyset men accusing the Union Leader of being liberal media.

This was the same paper the Boston Globe’s news columns always called “the archconservative Union Leader,” never mind that by this time the political expressions stayed in the editorials and opinion page.

Still, it made me realize how far to the right some of the criticism originates or how isolated from the mainstream it exists. Or even how far it deviates from commonly accepted definitions.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Once, as I was being escorted around the Detroit Free Press newsroom, we bumped into a nationally syndicated columnist who was being given the VIP treatment.

Since I, too, was a guest, I had to bite my tongue.

A few weeks before, he’d ripped off the opening paragraph of our copyrighted lead story in the Yakima Herald Republic and opened his own column with it, nearly verbatim, without attribution.

As you know, that’s plagiarism – intellectual theft.

Despite heightened efforts to stem it, I suspect it’s long been part of the public information stream, to one degree or another.

Once, for instance, a small-town radio personality read my published concert review word for word over the air as if he had been there. Again, no attribution.

Or a Monday TV newscast read a photo page, without the photos, as if it was theirs.

More recently, we’ve had to shake our heads each time a certain television station says “W*** has learned,” because we know it’s code for “W*** read in this morning’s Union Leader.” At least they’d rewrite the story.

And then there were all of the charges and countercharges between the wire services and the big city papers, each accusing the other of taking stories and putting new bylines at the top.

But that could lead me to tell of my experience as a cub reporter at the Cop Shop (police station), where the rival newspaper ran my piece as its lead the next day. The reporter whose name appeared at its beginning had taken my carbon paper draft from the waste can.

So that’s how you learn.

WASHINGTON, THE STATE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I know, as I said at the time, it was all done with the best of intentions, naming such a pristine state after our first president. And then they went and picked out all the Indian names that would resonate with it … like Seattle, Tacoma, Yakima, Wenatchee, Wapato, Spokane, and so on.

The problem is, outside of the Far West, everybody thinks of the smaller Washington, the nation’s capital, rather than that sprawling and varied land of whales and volcanoes. It makes for a real identity problem.

Of course, some of the natives (not to be confused with Natives) prefer it that way. After all, if nobody can remember it’s there, maybe they’ll all stay away and keep the place, well, just as natural as ever. I mean, the only reason for living so far away from the rest of the nation … living way up there in that isolated corner of the country  … is to live away from everybody else.

But there are some holes in that argument of a fortress empire. For one thing, the migrant workers have certainly discovered the orchards, and they’ve discovered the state is clean pickings when it comes to job opportunity. If those mighty native-born and all the newcomers who consider themselves native, which is almost the same thing, don’t wake up soon and let the rest of the United States know they exist, why they’ll soon be required to take Spanish lessons. Quien sabe?

Worse yet, Californians know about the Evergreen State and, realizing what they’ve already done to the Golden State, they’re now anxious to do the same to the north. Before folks say, why, yes, I know, but there’s a barrier between us and them … the whole state of Oregon … let me reply, Just wake up and smell the coffee, buster. Why, everybody says Seattle’s just like San Francisco was before it became too big. And we know southern California wants to get its tubes into the Columbia River to pump real water all the way down the continent. I mean, that’s like Boston having to go to Minneapolis for its water, just about the same distance. And the mountains between Minneapolis and Boston would be far less of an obstacle, believe me.

No, sir. That Columbia River water ought to be generating electricity for the Pacific Northwest and nurturing the endangered salmon stock and watering orchards in the deserts of Oregon and Washington State before it goes on some movie star’s lawn in Brentwood. Sooner or later, southern California is going to have to learn to do without water. I say, the sooner, the better. They can buy icebergs from Alaska, for all I care.

So, if Washington State is going to save itself and keep everyone but the California congressional delegation from thinking it was giving away Potomac River water to its water greedy constituents, it’s going to have to come up with a new name.

I know, I know it will be an inconvenience. But it’s that or something far more dire.

So what do we have? Ecotopia has been suggested. I see you feel about the same way on that one as I do. Although, to be candid, “Seattle, Ecotopia,” doesn’t sound all that bad. Except that it raises a specter of starving Africans.

We could try renaming the state for another United States president. But Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wilson, and Eisenhower for starters fall flat on their face. I mean, Seattle Roosevelt sounds like a forward for the Lakers, now that the Sonics are gone. Let’s face the facts.

My favorite is Tahoma, which is the Indian name for the tallest mountain in the state. But Seattle, Tahoma; Tacoma, Tahoma; Yakima, Tahoma; Wapato, Tahoma; Walla Walla, Tahoma; Wenatchee, Tahoma; and even Spokane, Tahoma, will never fall easily on the American tongue.

So what’s to be done? Let us consider the obvious choice: Apple. I mean, two of every five apples sold in the United States come from this state. (Remember, we’re talking about fruit, rather than computers, Microsoft notwithstanding.) This would be advertising at its best. Not only that, but the apples come from a generally neglected part of the state, its central desert. Listen to this, now: Seattle, Apple; Tacoma, Apple; Yakima, Apple; Wapato, Apple; Wenatchee, Apple; Walla Walla, Apple; Spokane, Apple . . . and so on. Even Olympia, Apple, rings right.

What? You say it sounds too much like the nickname for a decrepit Eastern port?

Well, then. How about . . . Evergreen? As in Seattle, Evergreen; Tacoma, Evergreen; Yakima, Evergreen . . .

~*~

Now I’m wondering how long ago I wrote this bit found in my files. Many tell me Seattle long ago fell over that tipping point of small-town innocence. There are the tales of terror regarding immigration enforcement. I’m told even the orchards look different, thanks to trellis-based apple trees. Still, I’d opt for a new name, as long as it’s not based on the high-tech upsurge.

OVERLOAD AT THE TOP

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Every election cycle gets me pondering the limitations of any individual’s ability to make well-informed, reasonable decisions. Even with a platonic ideal, in the absence of the give-and-take combat of partisan politics, an executive can handle only so much. Or as Henry Kissinger discovered as Secretary of State, after years in academia, it was much more like being an NFL quarterback on Sunday afternoon than a divine ruler on Olympus. Is this any way to get wise results? How many crises can the White House manage at any one time, even before considering the routine operations?

Here, I lean toward the genius of the Founding Fathers when they established our compound republic, and urge divesting many of the functions to more appropriately sized levels – giving all due respect to localities and states.

But it’s not just government. In any hierarchy, information is distorted as it moves upward through the ranks. You tell the boss what he or she wants to hear. Or it gets distorted as they hear only what they find fits their views best. Rare is the CEO who has learned to circumvent this.

Again, my preference is for flattening the hierarchy and spreading the work out through a multiplicity of smaller enterprises.

Call me old-fashioned if you will. Or just plain human. Or maybe just an idealistic visionary after all.

RIGHT-BRAIN ACTION FROM THE LEFT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Back during the presidential election cycle, I remarked on the failure of the left to apply right-brain thinking to the message. Fortunately, as the season unfolded, a few savvy managers got it right.

Now, as things calm down, I should note one fine practitioner of the weaving the emotional and reasoned lines together: Charles P. Pierce, with his daily blog for Esquire. Yes, he’s acerbic, caustic, witty, righteous, and very well informed, driving news home – major stories most newspapers are tiptoeing around, if they mention them at all. The Tea Party seems to think it has a lock on criticizing Washington, without realizing how much of the current mess comes from their side of the aisle. Now for the corrective blast. And how!

In a short space, Pierce delivers all the content of a good lecture with none of the preachy sermon. He’s delightfully entertaining and uplifting, for the good-hearted believers, or highly annoying, for the philistines and heathens.

Now, back to cranking out bumper stickers.

Amen and hallelujah.

GET OUT OF THE WAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

In newspaper reporting, you try to observe an event as invisibly as you can without intruding into its action. Yes, you may need to interview individuals, but you quote what they say without inserting yourself into the dialogue.

But the appearance of television cameras and their glaring illumination, especially, tips the equation. Too often, they’re not neutrally observing a natural event but rather turning all of the participants into actors and the scene into a stage. Who knows what’s real as a consequence?

I remember one reporter coming back from a county commission meeting and saying that the commissioners had already voted before the TV crew showed up and pressured them for a revote. The second time around, the tally was different.

So just what was the valid decision? The moral questions multiply.

Equally offensive to me is the canned shot of the TV “reporter” standing in front of the courthouse or floodwaters or crash or fire and talking into the microphone and camera. Look closely and you see the story is more about “we were here” than what really happened. That’s not news, friends – it’s hype, usually accompanied by editorializing rather than just the straight facts.

Here, I had enough trouble about reporters doing interviews over the telephone, rather than face to face. You miss much when you’re not a direct observer, believe me.

So what do we do now about Skype?

OVERLAPPING OR UNCONNECTED CIRCLES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My daughters are quite fond of Venn diagrams as a way of analyzing situations, and lately it’s had me thinking about the Society of Friends, in an abstract sort of way. And from there, it’s had me thinking about a lot of other applications.

Let me explain.

To make a Venn diagram, you begin by drawing a circle to represent something. For example, if we’re looking at a group of people, we could draw a circle to represent families with children living at home. If a large proportion of the members fits this category, we’ll make a relatively large circle. Next we can draw another circle to represent households with children living elsewhere – say off at college or raising children of their own. There might be some overlap to show families who fit both categories, as well as no overlap for others. But a third circle of members who have no children at all would stand entirely apart. Adding another qualifier, such as “members living in Dover” or “households living under the poverty level,” would have us draw a circle that would spread over sections of the other three, and its size would reflect the amount of dual identity; often, we would shade that swath to help it stand out graphically. The emerging diagram begins to give us new perspectives on what had originally been defined by the single matter of membership, and we can begin to adjust our programs and mission to better match its needs.

*    *   *

Ideally, I’d say, Friends have assumed that the local Quaker meeting, as a community of faith, would emerge as a set of concentric rings, like the ripples radiating from a single pebble tossed in a still pond. At the heart of it would be our individual faith experience, surrounded by meeting for worship, meeting for the conduct of business, family, the body of Friends as Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meeting, community, occupation, and larger society. In that, we would be in a state of essential unity or even Gospel Order.

In reality, of course, we’re much more like a handful of stones tossed out, and each of us creates a different set of ripples. They overlap for us, because we’re radiating on the same pond we call Dover Meeting, at least where I am. Conceptually, though, not all of our circles are radiating out across the water. Imagine instead that some are angled out into the air – our jobs or classrooms, for instance, or families where one spouse is active in Meeting and the other is not. This is certainly a much more complex model, leaving us many possibilities for being disconnected with the rest of the surface.

Looking at Meeting itself, and expecting the Meeting for Worship and/or the Meeting for Worship for the Conduct of Business to be our central focus, we might expect to see a host of other circles all converging on that point, to create something resembling a flower. Looking at attendance at Monthly Meeting, however, I would suggest some other model would be more accurate, and maybe some of the circles do not touch each other at all. Indeed, some people observing Friends Meetings have suggested there are circles with no overlap: Christocentric versus universalist, or social activists versus spiritual monastics – or whatever. What moves and motivates one Friend may leave another untouched. Still, where exclusivity is perceived, I would urge us to look closer, to find elements where overlap might actually exist and where the remainder of one circle might energize and support the remainder of another. I believe there we will find the key to a revitalized sense of urgency among Friends, and the ability to shake the earth for miles around.

*    *   *

The reality is that none of us identify ourselves by a single category. We apply many, and some are more important than others. For example, I’m a Quaker and also male, married, stepdad, retired from full-time employment, a published poet and novelist, a so-so baritone in a very fine chorus, a contradancer … well, it becomes a very long list and in my daily actions, some of my interests overlap with those of others I encounter.

My wife and I love those parties that mix three or four circles of very interesting people and then seeing the interaction that ensues. When it works, everyone seems to come away enlivened and enriched.

In a way, that’s part of what I’ve been trying to do with the Red Barn. Yes, I do try to rotate the entries among my 11 categories each month or so – American Affairs, Arts and Letters, Home and Garden, Newspaper Traditions, Personal Journey, Poems, Poetry Footnotes, Personal Journey, Postcards, Quaker Practice, and What’s New. But in reality, there’s a lot of overlap. The Home and Garden projects often stimulate the Poetry, while Newspaper Traditions often reflect American Affairs, yet Arts and Letters may emerge from my Personal Journey or Quaker Practice. And Postcards, meanwhile, reflects whatever shows up in the camera. Hopefully, each reader, initially attracted to one category, may soon be following the others.

See how our circles overlap? Or, for that matter, even enlarge.