Tag: Arts & Letters

THE STIGMA OF RELIGION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Intolerance, scorn, and judgmental stereotyping are hard enough to behold in public discourse, but they’re especially painful when they come from my side of the spectrum – people who proclaim themselves to be open-minded and smart. Yet the contempt is there, and nowhere more so than at the mention of religion, as Madeleine L’Engle has already pointedly observed. Even so, the fact remains that we do find individuals for whom belief and wisdom are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, even mutually enhancing. Let me suggest Bill Moyers’ Genesis: A Living Conversation, a Doubleday book based on the PBS series, as a demonstration of intelligence and faith in joint action. (Also available in audio or video, if you prefer.)

Admittedly, much of what we see and hear from the religious front can be superficial thought, convoluted logic, or emotional manipulation – quite simply, bad theology that too often goes unchallenged. (Not that we don’t encounter these in advertising, politics, entertainment, or professional athletics.) Curiously, when I listen to the reasons given by many who turn away from religion altogether, I often hear equally shallow arguments. Those who accuse religion of being the cause of all war, for example, blithely ignore Karl Marx’ insistence that it’s economic injustice instead – even as they invoke his axiom of religion as the opiate of the people. Or the way Sigmund Freud’s atheism is touted, while ignoring the degree to which his two key disciples, Karl Jung and Otto Rank, each turned to unique aspects of religion to advance their depth of human insight. I’m of the camp that contends that good theology is the only cure for bad theology, and is essential for progressing social justice. Rabbi Michael Lerner’s The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right offers a fine line of reasoning in this direction. (As for advertising, politics, entertainment, professional athletics …?)

And, yes, the best reply to hypocrisy comes from the discipline of faith itself. Whatever happened to corrective rebuke and redirection, within the faithful group? (What old Quakers used to call “close labor.”)

Oh, my, and here I’d started out to reflect on the unfortunate state of religious fiction and poetry in our time, especially from Christian writers. With little support from my side of the spectrum, what appears is typically constrained by an orthodoxy that inhibits candor and rigorous exploration, and what emerges sounds saccharine, hollow, or even a false note altogether. That’s before we get to that matter of being preachy.

Still, I can point to the growing popularity of Rumi, a Sufi mystic of the 13th century, or to Zen-influenced Americans or Jewish novelists and a few obliquely Christian poets as signs of hope.

Care to add to the list?

THE INSPIRATION OF PICASSO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

There it was on a public television broadcast, a curator proclaiming that no other artist had made as many bad lithographs (and maybe other kinds of prints) as Picasso. But, came the rejoinder, no other artist had made so many of genius, either. The freedom of one was necessary to open the other.

I took the message to heart. Genius, of course, is another matter.

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.

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.

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?

RAT-TAT OSCAR

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The title of a chapter in Bill Adler Jr.’s Outwitting Squirrels says everything: “Know the Enemy.” (My copy was a Christmas present, one of many squirrel-related items the family wraps and presents me, in their own vein of humor.) While Adler’s focus is on the difficulties squirrels cause bird feeders, including me, the bush-tailed mammals can be a homeowner’ nemesis – “tree-climbing rats,” as one friend insists – causing a number of fires as they gnaw through wiring and insulation. Ditto for the electrical utility.

In combat, however, one side can begin to resemble the other: their actions and thoughts parallel and overlap. A canny devil may even earn respect.

Many of the poems in a series I call Rat-Tat Oscar poems originate in my encounters with squirrels as part of my second marriage – evicting them from the walls of the house, from their raids on the bird feeders and garden, and eventually from the haunts in the barn – and are spurred by my wife’s quip, watching me transport them away in a Have-a-Heart trap, that I was operating a squirrel taxi. They can drive a man to madness or violence.

The poems also draw on annual Christmas letters to friends and family over two-and-a-half decades, turning the encounters to a would-be squirrel’s perspective. Of course, my wife and children will also insist I’m often more than a tad squirrelly.

Surprisingly, there’s not a lot about squirrels in mythology. Maybe the most prominent one is the Norse Ratatoskr, along with a handful of Native American stories. Maybe they had as much trouble making sense of squirrels in the universe as I do.

GETTING FREE OF GUILT EDGES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

A renewed compulsion had me rethinking, reworking, pruning, and punching up much of my earlier writing – the dozen unpublished novels; the genealogy research and narrative; several hundred poems, many of which had been published in literary quarterlies; and varied essays and journal entries. It hit with a vengeance, and was given extra clout at New England Yearly Meeting one August when, in a prayer circle, it was made clear to me that these labors are an exercise of talent, a gift, rather than a self-indulgence that had too often before stirred feelings of guilt.

For the first time in my life, I felt free to undertake this labor, the writing that does not pay the bills but somehow keeps me intellectually and artistically alive. What a blessing! (Never underestimate the power of prayer!)

Again, cleaning up these works and seeing them published may be one more way of bringing some closure to what too often seems a honeycombed life! Writing pulls so many of these threads together.

I began trying to set aside one free day each week as a no-automobile day, a kind of sabbath for writing, reading, or reflection; even with my usual three days off at the time (Sunday News worked a double shift every Saturday), achieving this goal became surprisingly difficult – but wonderfully rewarding when it did.

In some rich ways, it became a kind of retirement, even while being employed elsewhere full-time.