Tag: Musings

REGARDING POPULATION AND OVERSIZE POLITICAL SWAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Those suspicious of small-state influence in the early stages of the American presidential race should also be alarmed by the disproportionate clout of the biggest states in the final count. I’m talking about the Electoral College, which has – even in modern times – given the presidency to the second-place winner in the popular vote, possibly even played into fraudulent results. Think of the George W. Bush “victories,” for starters.

For a starker perspective, consider that it’s theoretically possible for a tad over 25 percent of the American voters to elect a president. All it takes is 50 percent of the ballots, plus one vote, in each of the 11 states that hold 50 percent of the Electoral Votes. Yes, that’s 11 states in total: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Jersey.

The only thing that’s spared us so far is that these states haven’t lined up together and seem unlikely to so in the near future. But I still find the possibility scary.

TOO BIG FOR WONDER WOMAN? OR SUPERMAN?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

My thinking on this starts with the lone-ranger or small-time candidates for the White House, some of whom actually have some good ideas about governing or the direction to take on specific issues. But then it expands to the demands of managing the full scope of the job at hand.

You know, even on a single issue, there’s the gap between thought and action. Or more specifically, between having an idea and pushing it through a hostile Congress, on one side, and the layers of bureaucracy assigned the task, on the other. How do you really know what’s happening at street level? Or how it would work there?

We see many policies that look good on paper but when put to the daily test of everyday people just don’t work out. Think of income-tax credits that are still out of range of helping a minimum-wage two-worker household. Go ahead and add to the list.

In other words, something looks one way from the top and quite different at the bottom. It’s a malaise that affects every multilayered organization, too – if you want to survive in your job, you tell the boss what he wants to hear. Add to that the way we bend a report to fit our preconceptions – if you like it, you bend it fully to your side … and if you don’t like it, you reject the entire package. (That’s the theory of cognitive dissonance, if you want more.) If you’ve ever played the game of “telephone,” you see how it works going around a circle. The word or phrase whispered in one ear at the beginning comes out sounding quite different at the end.

Making a good decision requires solid information to begin with, and that means having alternative sources of data to cut through the skewering of upward filtration. But it also requires moving the information down, and that’s where the lone-ranger candidates are most vulnerable.

I’m always amused by those who show up in New Hampshire and plunk their registration fee down thinking they could run a country. Some have never held public office before – not even city council or a school board seat. Some have run a business of some sort, but nothing of a scale of a state government or major city, much less a Cabinet department. And they think they can get an entire cadre of people to move in step together? I want some evidence before we get to any on-the-job training in public administration. Especially when it involves the most demanding job in the world.

The reality is that the presidency is not primarily an ideas-focused position. It’s people oriented.

That’s where I start to look at the candidate’s ability to put a campaign team together. Yes, fundraising’s part of it. But so is recruiting smart, dedicated people. How disciplined are they? How reliable? How mature? What connections have you established?

All of this quickly winnows out the lone rangers.

More and more, though, it’s also making me nervous about those survivors who wind up, however briefly, on the white pedestal. I don’t think a mere human can fill the expectations. Maybe even the expanding requirements.

And unlike Plato, I sense a philosopher-king could never possess the essential knowledge of daily life in arriving at a decision or enacting it. Why do I get the feeling the lone-ranger candidates seem themselves in this role, anyway?

Sometimes daily life itself feels overwhelming – too big for anyone. Even retired folks like me. I wish the White House hopefuls well, all the same. I expect the Executive Mansion has excellent maintenance, run by someone.

WORKING MY UNDERGROUND PATHWAY AFRESH

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I’ve reviewed the counterculture history through the lenses of the out-of-the-way places I inhabited, there are those who ask if I was ever really a hippie.

Usually, I finesse an answer – nobody really fit the stereotype, not on all fronts. And I certainly felt more at home in that circle of identity than any other at the time. Yes, I did live pretty much as a monk for a stretch through there, but that was followed by a return to a college campus and all of its action. Maybe I was in that world but not of it. My music, after all, was mostly classical and opera, along with some folk and jazz. Only now am I coming to more fully appreciate the sounds that identify the era. As for sexuality and caring, well, there’s much more to evolve there. Maybe even some radical political and social activism.

My Hippie Trails novels reflect the times, even though I keep wondering how much of the story I could recast as ongoing today – especially when it comes to physical desire and fulfillment or the simple matter of earning a living.

What I am experiencing as I dig through the encounters, though, is a sense of release – these are events that have been entrusted to me, and now that they’re published, I can move on. No matter how mundane and minor they might appear, contrasted to Haight-Asbury, say, or the Black Panther and Weathermen struggles, they were what many of us experienced, pro and con – and much of what we left unfinished. It’s no longer in my hands but rather in the wind.

This release, I’ll admit, is accompanied by an anticipation of a new phase, one adding disciplined faith to the path of renewed personal growth and service. So much of the dream awaits fulfillment.

FOR THE STORYTELLER, A SCANDALOUS ZIPPER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, not me …

“I’ll have to explain,” the woman said as she insisted on placing a garland around my neck. It wasn’t a garland, exactly, but a lanyard-like ring of cream-colored lace. “You see, this was a zipper from a favorite aunt’s sewing box. She was very fond of her fabrics.”

I was baffled, but she obviously appreciated my performance that night and the relationship between an artist – and someone who has been touched by the work cannot be slighted. So a mixture of gratitude, humility, and pride flowed through me as I bent slightly to accept her admittedly eccentric token.

On awakening the next morning after an uncommonly deep sleep, nothing in my room was in its place. To my horror, my closet was empty, as were the dresser drawers. At least I still had a selection of shoes. Mystified as to what might have transpired, I noticed an envelope addressed to me on my dressing table. I lifted it, inhaled gardenia, and carefully slit the fold. No one could have been here while I slept, could they? My husband was away on a business trip. The kids were off at camp. This was supposed to be time for myself, and appearing on stage was my one indulgence in celebrating myself.

The note reminded me of the garland and instructed me to once again place it around my neck. The front came down to my navel. The guidelines informed me I could zip it as low as I wanted, should I desire to be open to inspiration, or close it as tight if I desired more privacy. How strange, I thought, the flowery handwriting was telling me I did not need to wear anything else, the zipper would be more than sufficient. Actually, the words were more specific. They said I dare not wear anything else when I set out.

Well, I thought, I’m really in a pickle. I can’t go out like this, I’ll just have to stay put. On the other hand, I was also out of milk and coffee. I was thinking about calling my best friend, but she was on the phone first, saying she was going to be in the neighborhood and hoped to stop by. None of my excuses were working. At least she agreed to pick up a few necessaries.

When she arrived, I was wearing only the garland and a pair of flip-flops. “My, aren’t you being risque today,” she said as gave me a brief hug. “I never wear that so unzipped.”

“You really think so?”

“Oh, yes, you could be a bit more modest, a bit more of a tease.”

“There, that’s better. Why don’t you grab your purse and we’ll head to the mall?”

“But I’d need to get dressed,” I protested.

“Oh, no, you’re fine,” she assured me.

Reluctantly, I headed off with her.

Amazingly, nobody noticed I was totally naked apart from the yoke and my shoes. “My, what a lovely collar,” some murmured with approval.

“You shouldn’t bend over so far when it’s unzipped that far,” another counseled. “People can see a bit too much of your taa-taas.”

I couldn’t believe it, especially how free I felt, even on stage. Did nobody see anything but the collar? Well, they saw the skin within it and above it, but no more.

That, in turn, created its own forms of impropriety …

F*** U-TURNS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Next time you see one of those “No U Turns” signs on someone’s driveway, think about their side of the story and the audacity of some of the public.

We know an old farm in Maine that has a driveway connecting to both the busy highway in front of the house and a country road to the side. It gets plenty of “summer people” congestion at the traffic light, along with drivers who try to beat it by driving taking the driveway – or worse, just driving through the yard.

Recently, during a sudden storm, one SUV dodged in under the tree in the front yard to deflect hail, in the process mowing down hostas and other flowers before then backing hard into the parked pickup truck on the way out, and gunning it down the road.

Later, when one of the residents of the house was turning up the driveway from the side road, another car, crowded with tourists, came the other direction – and gave her the finger when she refused to back out so they could pull on through. Look, it’s her home, not theirs!

Their New York plates did nothing to soften the reputation.

LISTENING FOR REAL WHEN IT COMES TO IDEOLOGUES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Back in high school, I remember hearing the Young Americans for Freedom and other Goldwater supporters claiming that African-Americans would flock to their side.

Talk about blind faith! Just who were they talking to? Where were they spending their time?

I could see ways that wasn’t grounded in any reality.

No wonder I started backing away.

It was a sensation I also felt as the Vietnam war began building up.

Or as a homemade sign on the Antioch College campus boldly warned: Help Goldwater and LBJ nuke Vietnam.

At the time, all eyes and ears were cast on the conservative’s sword-and-bomb rattling. The president, we were assured, was more reasonable and reasoned. And then, once elected by a landslide, LBJ, to our horror, ramped up the American involvement. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? As we learned later, it wasn’t grounded in any reality.

The promise, of course, was One More Year. Talk about blind faith! Just who were they talking to? Where were they spending their time?

Are we, as a people, ready for some uncomfortable true statements? We need to get grounded in reality rather than unsupported ideology. Just who are we talking to? And where are we spending our time? Let’s run some numbers, for starters.

STILL LOOKING FOR A BETTER PARTY FIT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The possibilities of a viable third party or even a fourth in the American political system have long intrigued me. The two-party model in its either/or delimitation has rarely seemed to offer a good fit for my leanings and convictions, especially when we’re trying to reconcile ourselves with a full slate of conflicting issues, and I’m sure I’m not alone here. (Where, for instance, is the fiscal conservative who’s willing to slash the military budget? Even before we ask about abortion rights or education support or environmental stands?)

Sometimes, the lines have been drawn along religious, economic, racial, or similar lines: Protestant/Catholic, white-collar/working class, WASP/people of color, and so on. Or east versus west of the river, those on the hill versus those in the valley, or even two corners of a state or its big city versus everywhere else. And it’s not always that clear, especially when lines – and identities – muddle.

In practice, many parts of the country find themselves having a single-party system by default. One side or the other dominates the elections, year after year. It has the money, influence, and power to override challenges or to simply bully everyone into line. Or else.

Add to that the ways local offices can go begging for candidates. School board? City counselor? Town selectman? How many people are willing to put in the long hours – often at no pay – and often at the end of much verbal abuse? Not that all in public service are entirely altruistic, mind you, but let’s give many of them their due respect and gratitude.

What it comes down to is the importance of alternatives at the local level. (Yes, we’re back to the dictum, All politics is local.) Does a second party in a community necessarily have to line up with a second one at the state or national level? Or can it instead connect with that third or fourth party and then wield some influence?

Let’s ask, for instance, what working models of Libertarian policy and administration at local levels can we look to? Without such community-level organization and practice, dreams of a viable third or fourth party influencing state and national affairs remain only notions. So it’s back to ground level, for real change.

WALNUT ASSAULT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Among the mature trees surrounding our house are several black walnuts, including one that hangs over the 1928 one-story addition where our kitchen sits. Its open ceiling allows us to hang pots, pans, and stemware from the joists – shall we just call it a rustic look? – and I’ve sometimes considered installing a skylight or two.

On the other side of that roof, squirrels strip the nuts from the trees early in the season of a typical year. Watching their frantic action can be quite amusing, first as the leaves on a branch shake furiously and then as a squirrel bounds away with a large ball in its mouth.

A few nuts might actually survive into autumn. More likely, we find them buried the next spring as we prepare the new garden and sift compost. Having lived here for a decade-and-a-half, we think we know what to anticipate as the seasons advance.

Not this year, to our surprise, at least as far as the walnuts go.

Our awareness that something was amiss began in the middle of the night. Was somebody trying to break into the house?

The next morning, though, as wind whipped around the house, the noise really picked up. Imagine someone hitting the kitchen roof with a baseball bat. Repeatedly, sometimes three or four a minute. The whack was enough to make us jump.

I moved one car further from the house – we’d seen what large hail did to a friend’s pickup truck and the damage wasn’t pretty. These nuts were larger and heavier, after all, and ones that fell on that side of the roof were bouncing into the driveway.

The tree still has a few nuts left on the branches, but the racket has slowed considerably. Instead, some of the pathways leading to the garden are now covered in walnuts. As my wife observed, it’s like trying to walk on marbles.

Between that and the noise, it’s enough to drive anyone nuts.

Or squirrelly.