Tag: Despair

Do we dare feel relief yet?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Looking ahead to the November national presidential elections, I had been in deep despair. Joe Biden, a decent man who has managed a respectable administration in the face of Republican obstruction and corruption, was obviously falling short in his campaign to gain a second term. No matter what the data presented in contrast to what he inherited, cosmic forces seemed to be aligned against everything holy.

Right-wing so-called Christians couldn’t realize which side they were really on, Satan’s or the Holy One’s.Yes, it was that dark. Who can stop the tide? From what I saw, the coming Kristallnacht repeatedly broke my sleep. Jews weren’t the only ones who the Orange Man’s zombie legions would be coming after. Just as many non-Jews were gassed in the Nazi concentration camps, millions of them. Remember that.

And then, against all odds, President Biden yielded to the hard labor of reason by Nancy Pelosi. Both of them, I would say, are true patriots in that struggle. The good of the nation and the world come first.

Suddenly, what an incredible and unexpected turnabout! With her Cinderella outbreak, Kamala Harris has been striking all the right notes and moves. The crowds reflect the sense of rescue. The interviews and policy positions can come later.

The unanticipated choice of Tim Walz, from my perspective, was absolutely brilliant. While I had thought Joshua Shapiro was the obvious pick for vice president, Walz suddenly throws the entire center of the continent into play, not just the two progressive coasts. It’s like Tim Lasso has suddenly entered the race.

Better yet, both Kamala and Tim have freed the Democrats from their deadly tone of lecturing the electorate. They’re willing to humorously and boldly tweak their opponents in ways that deflect the earlier nasty blasts from the other side. They boogey, they smile, they’ve comfortable in their own skins, unlike their GOP rivals. So far, it’s been deadly effective. Maybe because their new comedic shots at their foes reflect fact.

The race is no longer about policy, other than the Project 2025. It’s about character and integrity. Period.

My, how things have changed. No wonder the Democrats and others are suddenly charged. Could the bullies finally be on the run?

As a conservative editorial writer once reminded me, he saw too many dead causes rise up again. I hope that warning holds for the center and left, too.

Complacency can be deadly.

So that’s what I see from where I am as so much boils up.

Domestic pestilences

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Let’s go alphabetically. Shudder or cringe as you will.

  1. Ants.
  2. Cockroaches.
  3. Deer, where I live. Doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy viewing them, but we know how much they devour. Even the flowers.
  4. Fruit flies.
  5. Houseflies. Even more than mosquitoes.
  6. Maggots.
  7. Mice.
  8. Rats.
  9. Spiders.
  10. Squirrels. And chipmunks. They may be cute, but when they get in the walls, watch out.

What are we overlooking?

How are you feeling about the trial’s revelations?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know the one I’m talking about. Even before getting to the others just ahead.

Let’s just say I’ve been watching this building up, step by step, for decades. The corruption by big money and trickery, the erosion of the middle class, the polarization, the sleaze, the breakdown of the checks and balances or a loyal opposition.

Working in the newsroom, I was bound to give both sides their voice, though one was doing everything it could to discredit us and those distortions went unchallenged. There was more, of course, going on in the dark, things we sensed but couldn’t prove outright.

Let’s just say I was outraged but had to keep it bottled up. But then, after retiring, I let it out by indulging in a stream of poetry I usually steered clear of – the polemic rant akin to Dr. Bronner’s Moral ABC or Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America collection or Phil Ochs’ protest folksongs.

The result is Trumpet of the Coming Storm.

While the pieces that spewed forth in my collection may look like history from the Reagan years through the Bushes, they do reflect the origins of what’s coming to a head today. Even the poems that can be considered sophomoric seem prescient.

There are good reasons I subtitled it Blasts of Alarm and Rage, 1976-2008.

Do take a look.

It’s available in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain it.

Oh, grunt

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I’ve said it before and I know I’m not the only one.

Changing our clocks back an hour is the real beginning of winter. Everyone will be out of sorts for the next week and have no idea why. It really takes us that long, internally, to readjust.

Even those of us who are officially “retired.”

Now for our storm door out front

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Are you ever caught up when you own an old house? Or is it like a personal sailboat, where you pour copious amount of money into a hole in the ground or the water?

The latest item to join our home maintenance to-do list is the front storm door, which detached from the frame a few weeks ago. It was too heavy and awkward to go back in, and apparently some shifting had warped the angles. It hadn’t been closing completely, and the last time I tried, bingo! We were in trouble.

It wound up, as I said, coming off altogether.

Oops!

We do want to get that fixed before winter hits, though. The front door itself is rather leaky.

Yet part of me is thinking maybe that can wait till I’m dead.

Damn, I do miss being able to call maintenance back when I was living on Yuppieville on the Hill. Back before I so deliriously remarried.

Red squirrel jitters

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Squirrels were a pestilence back in Dover, raiding our garden and devouring the crown molding in our barn, in addition to some damage to the house itself.

While deer are a problem here, we haven’t had squirrels.

But the other day, I looked up from my keyboard and saw a small red squirrel scampering across our brush pile.

A few minutes later, my wife, working in another room, called out to say she’d seen a squirrel.

“A red one?”

Yep.

They’re worse than the grays we had, in the opinion of many.

So far, at least, it hasn’t been back.

Cross our fingers. We really no longer see them as cute.

Our old garden has been obliterated

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

People used to walk down our street in Dover just to admire our garden. They told us how much pleasure and peace it gave them. It also attracted a range of wildlife, including hummingbirds, butterflies, or the occasional turkey or fox.

Throughout the year, the garden also led to many photos you can still find here at the Red Barn.

It was, by many standards, funky. The weeds were never completely controlled, but it was prolific and made good use of what we sometimes called the Swamp, after its mucky clay soil in late spring and early summer. Our pet rabbits delighted in much of what we picked there, too.

The new owners, alas, have bulldozed all that. The strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, currants as well as the raised beds and shrubbery screens – gone. Twenty-years of reclaiming the once tired soil and then dining well as a result – gone. Naturally, we’re lamenting, knowing how much more they must be spending on groceries that won’t be as fresh or tasty.

We have to recognize, of course, that we’ve left all that behind and no longer have a say in the matter.

But we still feel sad or even a tad angry. Ahhh!