Tag: Musings

MORE THAN SNOW IN THE AIR, AT LAST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Just as the first snowstorm of the season has finally hit New Hampshire, the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary is beginning to show some flickering flames. The kind that produce both heat and light. Up till now, it’s been only smoke, mostly on the Republican side. (The Democrats have been politely, though passionately, lined up behind Hillary or Bernie, recognizing the battle they’ll share together after the national convention.) The Granite State’s winnowing function has worked best when some unanticipated turn reveals a candidate’s true character for the public to see, either with devastating consequences for the campaign or its big breakthrough moment.

To be candid, I’m surprised we got through the autumn without seeing one or two of these. Yes, Trump came close when he attacked a St. Anselm college student as a “Bush plant” after she asked him a question, but the story never gained traction. The rest of the pack of candidates never picked up on the theme or any other, for that matter. The race to date has been pretty bland, all too predictable, little to set one apart from the other. Where’s the genuine courage or bold intelligence been? Talk all you want about the Trump-Carson-Fiorina outsider role, the pros in the lineup have been notable mostly in their failure to connect as seasoned campaigners rather than slick packaging alone. We’ll probably see some fascinating postmortems when it’s all over, but for now the scene’s been pretty befuddling.

We did awaken to an unexpected surprise November 28 when Joseph W. McQuaid, publisher of the state’s largest newspaper, endorsed Chris Christie. While the Union Leader and its New Hampshire Sunday News hold staunchly conservative editorial pages, there are Republicans in the state who insist these are liberal media. Ahem. True, McQuaid has often marched out of step with many of the state’s right-wing voters – anyone remember Malcom Forbes, for instance? – but you can assume Joe’s never, ever voted for a Democrat.

Yesterday morning, though, came the startling headline across the top of the front page: “Trump campaign insults NH voters’ intelligence,” an editorial by McQuaid noting Trump’s resemblance to bully “Biff” in the “Back to the Future” series. As McQuaid wrote, “Trump has shown himself to be a crude blowhard with no clear philosophy and no deeper understanding of the important and serious role of President of the United States than one of the goons he lets rough up protesters in his crowds.”

You get the idea.

And Trump’s response?

As this morning’s top of the front page headline announces, “Trump calls McQuaid ‘lowlife.'”

Of the many things you might accuse the publisher, “lowlife” is not one that springs to my mind, especially when coming from the lips of someone like Trump. The inaccurate retort carries the air of desperation – and flailing.

We’re still six weeks away from the voting booths, and Trump’s starting to show his central weakness. Am I wrong in seeing him as thin-skinned, someone who can’t take criticism or a well-aimed insult? Who can’t take what he routinely dishes out? Is this a wakeup call to his rivals to get their punches in, too, now that they see he’s not invincible? For that matter, what will their responses reveal about them?

Sure looks like it’s about to get interesting. Maybe even exciting. But first, I need to shovel some snow.

HOW MANY FAVORITES?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Looking at a volume and realizing it’s one of my “keepers,” meaning the ones I keep close at hand, had me wondering if I could name a Top Ten list of books.

Nope, definitely not.

How about Top Hundred?

I turned to my mostly Quaker bookshelf and realized it has more than that alone.

So nope, definitely not.

Five hundred? Maybe, but it would be tough.

NOT EXACTLY BIGALOW?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

 

The more I listen, the more I perceive the Tea Party agenda is ultimately an attack on democracy in America. Unlike the Founding Fathers, they have no respect for the necessity of government.

And a position of no compromise is the essence of tyrannical dictatorship.

What’s left would be brutal and cruel. Especially, for many of them, without their Social Security, in the aftermath.

And they’re afraid of socialism as an attack on the nation and its values? Think again.

WHAT A GANG

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Some of us of a certain age remember a weird black-and-white Saturday morning children’s show starring Andy Devine, a rotund, raspy-voiced former cowboy movie sidekick. I never knew quite what to make of the show back then, but each week essentially had three individual adventures bridged by the host and an audience of screaming kids. The same ones, in the close-ups, each week.

When the topic of Andy’s Gang comes up – along with a singing of its theme song, “I’ve got a gang, you’ve got a gang, everybody’s got a gang – ANDY’S GANG!” – what I’ve noticed is the utterly perplexed look on the faces of those who’ve never seen it. In short, nobody can describe it in a way that comes across. The cartoons came on afterward and ran till noon or so.

Thus, when a recent Google search turned up some Andy’s Gang videos from the ’50s, we started watching. Let’s just say the show hasn’t aged well. After a few shots of the host, the mother in the room said she’d never allow her kids around that character. Ahem. And that was before his classic “Pluck your magic twang-er, Froggie,” which she declared had obviously Freudian meaning. (She was, in fact, more graphic.) And then we got a mini-episode with two bare-chested boys in India, who were rescuing monkeys. Another friend points out the blatantly racist undertone of the stories in Africa. Do your own analysis there, if you want.

I think the third regular adventure had a goat-cart in Ireland.

And then there’s an ad where Andy’s telling a friend he has a big date lined up. He gets all spiffed up for the event. Let’s just say, when she shows up (to eat cereal with him), she’s not age-appropriate.

It’s supposed to be cute, I know, but these days it’s just creepy. The word, in fact, just kept returning.

At least each week’s show ended with a reminder to be good boys and girls and go to Sunday school the next morning.

 

THEY’RE THERE, ALL THE SAME

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

How difficult it is to see fish in the water, especially when looking in from above. They’re so perfectly camouflaged.

It’s another of the things I’ve observed living along a river and near the ocean. Or even looking into the large tank at the New England Aquarium for the divers doing maintenance below, where only their bubbles give them away.

We look and still miss so many things right in front of us. As for me, I like to think I behold everything. Now what were the color of the bank teller’s eyes just a minute ago? I’m clueless. What what make and model was the car that ran the stop sign and nearing collided with us just moments before that? I was caught breathless. And you want to talk about God?

Of course, it helps to know where to start looking. If you can.

ARE YOU SAFER?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

That’s what the big red headline said on the large card we got in the mail. The headline was underscored by the line, “Are you safer now than you were just one year ago?”

Before answering, note that the lines were accompanied by a large photo of masked men waving Arabic flags from a parade of pickup trucks. No way to tell where the photo was taken, by the way – it could have been from the movement that toppled dictators across northern Africa for all we know.

The mailing, from the self-proclaimed Conservative Solutions Project, is attempting to restore excessive national security measures many conservatives successfully clamored to remove. And now? They want it back. Or some of them do. Or maybe a group of retired intelligence officers, now living in Florida, are trying to stir something up.

The text on the back includes the misleading statement, “Conservatives know that we can never preserve the American Dream if we can not first preserve our National Security.” No, that’s a pathway to dictatorship and its police-state terror. Wasn’t that what both Iraq wars were supposed to obliterate?

The American Dream rests on civil liberties and economic opportunity. That’s what needs to be protected, first and foremost.

What truly annoys me about this bombastic mailing is its blatant fear-mongering. I can answer that I don’t feel safer than I did a year ago, but it’s not because of the 2015 USA Freedom Act. It’s because too many nutty Americans are carrying guns they can obtain all too easily, and attempts to limit that keep getting rolled back. I’m concerned that some kid stealing quarters out of unlocked cars in our generally quiet neighborhood is going to get blasted away by a self-appointed vigilante walking his dog in the night. Or that the bullet will fly off to unintended mischief.

Look, I’m not against gun ownership – I’ve lived in rural areas where hunting puts food on the table. But let’s get real. How many of the 12,413 firearm deaths so far this year involve national security issues, anyway? How many of the 312 mass shooting incidents? How many of the 650 children and 2,452 teens killed? (These statistics do not include suicides — 21,175 in 2013). Talk all you want about radicalized Muslims, they’re not the big problem.

So, to the political groups, let’s just say this. Don’t play the “safer than a year ago” card unless you have some concrete proposals for dealing with rampant gun violence in this country. Something that makes sense without undermining our trust.

WHAT ARE THE QUALITIES FOR GOOD LEADERSHIP?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Comments on earlier posts regarding the emerging U.S. presidential race have touched on a topic that ought to be more sharply examined: just what qualities are needed in a good leader?

I’ve seen charts executive head-hunting firms use for corporate hires, which see different quality requirements to match a company’s situation. A small, fast-growing firm, for example, needs a much different kind of person than does a behemoth in a shrinking market. The compensation packages can vary widely, too, especially when considering the likely tenure of the hire. Somebody hired to shake things up might be expected to have a short and stormy span at the helm, unlike a more comforting presence for a smoothly functioning organization.

That said, back to political leadership. What qualities would you list as essential?

The ability to recognize talent and draw out others into a common cause has been suggested. Vision, compassion, intelligence, integrity, willingness to listen to critical perspectives and weight alternative actions are others. And then?

Maybe we’ve been overlooking the most obvious all along. What would you name?

A DARK CLOUD OVER THE HIGH-TECH ERA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Back in college, I encountered the argument that the more people were engaged in long-range planning, the less possible long-range planning became. In other words, as they put their assumptions into action, the entire field shifted.

Or, put another way, the fewer givens could be counted on ahead. That farm where you wanted to build a mall may already be a housing development or the interest rates may have soared out of sight or malls themselves may have given way to Amazon.

It was also all part of a recognition of the rapidly changing social world ahead, as we’re seeing in our high-tech era. Just where do people get together nowadays, anyway? As for dating?

Over the summer, I sat in on a workshop trying to look at some of the ethical issues we Quakers face in adapting to the use of Internet/social media in maintaining our faith communities, including the possibilities of online committee meetings rather than sitting down in one space together.

There are other issues the greater society faces, such as the rewiring of the human brain as a consequence of early-childhood online time or our “multitasking” activities. The ability to sit down and read complicated, nuanced long works is no doubt in jeopardy. As is, likely, the time for moral reflection. (Does that explain some of the latest developments in the presidential primary posturing?)

We didn’t get far in that direction, though, apart from looking at some of the pros and cons of our own Internet use. As an avid blogger and the author of ebooks, I had my own list.

The part I keep returning to, however, has to do with something at the core at what we’re using. Our screens, laptops, smart-phones, networks, and so on are all dependent on rare-earth elements, which – as their name reflects – are scarce commodities. Not just because they’re hard to find, either, but because they occur in low concentrations where they exist. It’s ecologically costly to extract them. Add to that, they’re mostly found in China – and the known sources are running out. (As the saying goes, the Mideast has oil, China has the rare earth supply.)

Remember, too, high-tech equipment is obsolete the day it’s produced – the next generation is already on the way.

Now you can add this to my neo-Luddite concerns.

I’ve long harbored suspicions about who’s paying for all of our “free” online usage. (Well, Firefox and Wikipedia are now pleading for donations after spoiling us into getting used to having something for nothing. I’ll assume most folks won’t contribute until they have to. Leave the voluntary donations to others.)

I remember the joys of hitchhiking, as well as how quickly it all ceased.

So here we are, all the same. Let’s see what’s around the corner.

MARKING THOSE CALENDARS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Universally among Friends, you will find a roomful of calendars whipped out during announcements. (Or at least we did – these days it’s more likely to be Smartphones and the like, even for those in the retirement years.)

We need help keeping all of our activities in order, after all.

Religions also have their seasonal schedules, something known as a liturgical calendar. We chance upon it when we hear of saints’ days, Advent, Lent, or, of course, Christmas and Easter. Historically, Quakers rejected all of that – even birthdays or anniversaries went unobserved. That’s not to say we didn’t have our own kind of liturgical calendar. Quarterly and Yearly Meeting sessions were much more important than they are now, times of family reunions and courtship as much as religious business. Feasting, too, would be part of the celebration, as I can testify from one such gathering in a Wilburite Quarter in North Carolina – “It looked like the first Thanksgiving,” is how my traveling companion described it to his wife afterward. Fifth Month always reminds me of Salem Quarter in Ohio, the annual time when rhubarb was added to the ever-present applesauce. (For the record, the associations also run the other way; show me rhubarb, and I’m suddenly thinking of Salem.)
When it comes to celebrating, we’re not nearly as strident these days. Our Quaker calendars are overlaid with birthdays, anniversaries, secular holidays, Christmas, Easter, maybe even Super Bowl Sunday (where I live, depending on how the Pats are doing). It’s enough to make me wonder what we’ve lost along the way, as well as what we’ve gained. The many ways our focus has changed. In the meantime, don’t forget to pick out your calendars for the coming year – whatever size and style you find most fitting. The Tract Association of Friends has the one that keeps the old-style naming of the months and the days of the week, along with pithy quips from Scripture and historic Quakers.

And here we go again.