Tag: Opinion

OF FIREWORKS AND FLOWERS AND MY SHORT FUSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

A well-designed fireworks display can be a thing of beauty. No matter its scale – whether vast as Boston over both banks of the Charles River – or small-scale like Portsmouth, New Hampshire, around its old mill pond or Needham, Massachusetts, assembled on the long lawn of its high school, the intelligent use of an imaginative palette and the use of the sky as a canvas canopy reaching from the ground to its zenith can turn into a piece of breathtaking performance art, a combination of fleeting painting and wordless theater.

What too often turns up, unfortunately, is largely senseless bang-bang-bang without any subtlety of timing and proportion. Think of a standup comic who can’t tell a joke. No pauses, no phrasing.

In contrast, I think instead of the revelation of a single burst of color – perhaps a small tulip, in the terminology of pyrotechnics – followed in the same spot in the sky by another and then another. In the process, the shots run through the color wheel like slivers of rainbow. And then it’s repeated, with two identical bursts side by side – red turning to orange turning to yellow turning to green turning to blue turning to purple. Simple, elegant, commanding.

Do that right and you’ve announced that what follows will be amazing. You’ll lead the eyes all over the sky – up and up, out, back down, just over the crowd, and back up again. Small that expands beyond the ability to take it all in — or the opposite, leading your eyes to a vanishing point. You’ll create movements the way a symphony or sonata does – each one distinct yet playing off the one before. (Well, Boston’s was traditionally designed to fit music – each section, a song or overture or dance. Now that’s impressive! Oh, and we’d listen along with our radios — everywhere, tuned to the classical station.)

Think, too, that many of the traditional fireworks are named for flowers – blooms that open and then fade, often into another. Hyacinths to chrysanthemums to … well, to see how it works the other way, try this link to flowers arranged to look like fireworks by Sarah Illenburger. Pretty amazing. I appreciate her illustration of how fireworks don’t have to be gaudy greens, reds, and yellows. The more sophisticated designers blend colors into dark brooding as well as shimmering pastels. One memorable show consisted largely of silvers and golds. What was I saying about imaginative design?

A pyrotechnics show works in another dimension as well – it’s a time of public gathering and celebration. Apart from whatever’s happening on your blanket in the dark, there’s nothing private about it. (And we’ll assume you’re jammed in with others.) You can’t do it in your house, at least safely. So it’s a time of community spirit. Even pride. And in the United States, that means the Fourth of July. (The northern half of the country’s just too cold during much of the year to assemble outdoors at night, so this one comes at a perfect time of summer. Not that we don’t try.)

For Dover, where I live, though, the event points up one of the geographic shortcomings of my city. We just don’t have the right spot to mount the event, much less to design it to do much more than the old bang-bang-bang honky-tonk.

Some years, it’s launched from the top of Garrison Hill, where the shots can be seen from much of the city – if trees, houses, or other obstacles don’t block your view from below. Some years, it’s at the high school, but that’s not centrally located. Since few people can walk there, that creates a traffic problem and erodes much of a small-town feeling befitting its scale. Dover’s not an unfocused suburb the way this site suggests.

Downtown along the river would be ideal, if there were only a proper spot. The riverfront park is narrow, though, and too near the old mills, the nearest one once the scene of a disastrous fire. One possibility a little downstream is a gravel-strewn lot awaiting development, but it has little easy access. One elementary school that might do is in a residential area that would not welcome a crowd.

So here we are. If I watch the show, I’ll just get angry, knowing what could be done with the resources in the right setting. As I was saying about the single tulip? It needs the right setting to be appreciated.

CHECKOUT EXPRESSION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

The supermarket checkout express lane can trigger some hot buttons for me.

One, of course, is the customer who plops 15 or 20 items on the conveyor belt when there’s a state 12 Items max limit. The poor clerk’s not going to bounce them. It’s simply the rudeness to the rest of us that bugs me.

Another is the use of credit cards, when permitted. It slows everything down.

The other day, though, there was a geezer who cut in front of a girl with a shopping cart. She was, from appearances, a quiet teen.

“Excuse me,” I said, “There’s a girl in front of you.”

“I can’t hear you,” he replied.

So I repeated the situation.

“Mind your own business,” he retorted.

We were all shocked.

“You can go in front of me,” she finally said.

Any suggestions for how to handle this?

He’s an embarrassment to all geezers, am I not mistaken?

I’m still miffed. Whatever happened to manners?

 

YET ANOTHER SCANDAL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Growing up, many of us were instructed that the Fourth Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain,” was a prohibition against using certain curse words, not all of them confined to four letters.

But that misses a much larger situation: those who arrogantly claim to know or do what God wants, even when that harms others or runs counter to Scripture.

Faithful action, from all I’ve seen, requires humility and compassion. As humans, any of us can be wrong or fail, especially when we mistake our egos for divine guidance.

Newer translations of Exodus 20:7, I sense, capture this difference by using “misuse” instead: “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who misuses his name” (New Jerusalem Bible). The New International version, meanwhile, finishes the line with “not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”

Everett Fox, in his close-to-the-grain rendering, presents the passage this way: “You are not to take up the name of YHWH your God for emptiness, for YHWH will not clear him that takes up his name for emptiness.” In a footnote, Fox explains “take up … for emptiness” as “Use for a false purpose.”

I can’t help but think of this in light of the continuing news reports involving the cablevision series 19 Kids and Counting.

We’ve heard their lines of argument.

Now listen for the “will not leave unpunished” part of the commandment. Who’s standing up for the alleged victims? And where’s the true, full submission in place of arrogance? Let the tables turn rightly.

For now, the words fly. And fly. Can we ask how many are empty?

ANOTHER REPRESENTATIVE SCANDAL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Even his own mother and sister are rejecting his claims about the money.

Frank Guinta, who represents half of New Hampshire in the U.S. House of Representatives, is in hot water over $355,000 an investigation by the Federal Election Commission has documented as campaign finance violations.

How serious is this? His explanations from 2010 on have been tangled, leading to Tuesday’s damning FEC report.

As for serious, the right-wing editorial page of the Union Leader, the statewide newspaper based in Manchester, came to the conclusion yesterday: “For the New Hampshire Republican Party, there also remains no choice. It must call for Guinta’s resignation and sever its ties.”

Quite simply, he “received illegal campaign contributions … for the purpose of stealing a Republican primary and a general election, then repeatedly lied to the people of New Hampshire to cover it up.”

In other words, it’s about maintaining the viability of democracy. Both sides of the aisle. And it’s about serving the voting public, regardless of their identity. Without that, we’re left with raw power — and its abuse.

The editorial emphasizes, “The party cannot stand by a politician who has revealed himself to be wholly unworthy of the public trust. Political parties are supposed to stand for ideals, not merely tribal connections. … The party can either lead by integrity or it can stand by Frank Guinta. It cannot do both.”

This is a small state where you often get to meet or question your public representatives. Even when you don’t agree with them, they’re not from another planet, as it can feel elsewhere.

In this case, Guinta serves from my House district. And it hurts.

OH, FOR HONEST VIRTUE IN PUBLIC PLACES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

No, not all politicians are like that. Let’s get that clear. I’m tired of that line of defense from people who vote for the kind of people we wind up with in Dennis Hastert.

The fact is we’ve had virtuous people – and still do – who devote their lives to public service rather than private gain. Frequently, at a high personal price – and often as the targets of vicious character smears, which too often attack the innocent family as well. And, to be candid, these principled individuals can be found on both sides of the political aisle.

Still, after decades of hearing the Republican Party portray itself as upholding “family values” and other high Godly virtues, here we go again. For that matter, of hearing the party that’s pressed vigorously to defeat monogamy among gays – you know, the “marriage issue” – now shown in more light.

Yes, I’m referring to Dennis Hastert of Illinois, being indicted on diverting millions from his banking accounts in transactions calculated would avoid money-laundering scrutiny. That, in itself, is a very serious charge for someone who’s supposed to be keeping the system clean and accountable. Think of shady accounting or the ways secrecy feeds into lies.

As disturbing for me is the fact that a former high-school wrestling coach could have that kind of money sitting around. As for making it in real estate investments, let me point you to Plunkett of Tammany Hall, a classic of American politics, where George W. Plunkett offers his definition of “honest graft” as buying land you know is going to be quickly repurchased at a much higher price for a public project. The strategy made him very wealthy. You might also say it was crooked. And, essentially, it traded on secrecy.

Of course, in the Hastert case, the plot thickens with the allegations of homosexual pedophilia involving a former high school student.

Remember, Hastert became Speaker of the House in the debacle of thrice-married, twice-divorced Newt Gingrich. Family values?

Remember, Hastert became Speaker of the House of Representatives in part because Gingrich’s intended successor, Rep. Robert L. Livingston, had to step aside amid revelations of extramarital affairs. Oops!

And Hastert’s been outspoken in his opposition to what? Those other folks … never, of course, what he might be doing in private.

The charges and allegations against him retain the caveat that they remain to be proven in court.

Still, we could construct of a long list of false public voices contrasted to private realities in recent American history. (Bloggers in other parts of the world can add their own, for our edification.)

For me, the biggest scandal is the falsehood of pontificating self-righteousness. Yes, that’s what angers me the most. We’re back to secrecy, of course. And the ways it’s been used to intensify partisanship in public decision-making, rather than admit diversity and wisdom to the process.

And to think, this man was second in line to the presidency. Right after the vice president.

Now that’s scary!

STILL SMELLS FISHY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I’m still wondering why my little city’s police department needs a $240,000 armored truck.

Is it to defend the gundalow that will be docked along the river?

Protect the historic boat from pirates?

And then, what about a getaway on the water – with a heavy truck in hot pursuit? Stuck in the mud or sinking.

IT AIN’T HAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’m still trying to figure out why my little city’s police department needs a $240,000 armored truck, courtesy of Homeland Security.

A better use? Sell it to buy hay for the mounted patrol’s horses.

I can personally attest the horses blocked a speeding car that was about to hit me as I stepped out in a crosswalk. Let’s see that armored truck do that!