Island Days

 It’s that time again as we find ourselves in the dog days of summer.  After two long weeks of 90+ humid days here in the Washington, DC area, with excessive heat warnings and a temperature index in the triple digits, plants and people are wilting.  It’s time for a change and this means the annual trip to more northern climes, in our case it’s Monhegan Island, a small four-square mile rocky outcropping some twelve nautical miles off Maine’s mid-coast.

With a permanent population hovering somewhere around 60 – mostly lobstermen and their families and a sprinkling of artists – it is a haven from the hustle and bustle of the mainland.  No cars and only a handful of battered pick-ups used to transport goods and for getting lobster traps down to the wharf come trap day at the beginning of October.  The population increases somewhat come summer when more artists and those like us seeking a quiet place to paint and write arrive to enjoy the island’s rustic ambiance and cooler temperatures. 

So, we are off!  Wishing everyone a restful (and hopefully cooler) summer.  Autumn is not far off.  

How Ironic – The MAGA-GOP in the Cradle of American Socialism

Although my hometown is Chicago where the Democratic National Convention will take place in late August (just as it did in the fateful summer of 1968 . . . my first experience with tear gas), I have long looked to Milwaukee as an adopted second hometown.  When my family was living near that city in the 1950s, I was a diehard Milwaukee Braves fan and I was in the stands in old County Stadium in September 1957 when Hank Aaron hit a two-run walk off homer in the bottom of the 11th inning to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 and give the Braves the National League pennant.  They went on to beat the Yankees in seven games in the World Series that year.  The Braves won the pennant again in 1958, but this time around the Yankees bested them in the Series.  

Something I did not know at the time I lived in and around Milwaukee is the fact that during the latter half of the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century, the city, the largest in Wisconsin, was the center of labor unrest and political corruption.  Milwaukee-based companies and public utilities were crumbling which led to the emergence of a strong socialist presence in the city with a promise to clearance of blighted areas with increased employment opportunities.  Known as "sewer socialists" sometimes called "constructive socialism," for improving utilities, they were a dominant political movement in Milwaukee from around 1892 to 1960. 

Three Socialists served as mayor: Emil Seidel in 1910-1912, Daniel Doan in 1916-1940, and Frank Zeidler in 1948-1960.  Seidel, was elected along with 21 Socialist aldermen, 10 county supervisors and two judges.  He was Eugene Debs’ vice-presidential running mate on the Socialist Party ticket in the 1912 presidential election when it received 6% of the popular vote, the highest ever for a Socialist candidate.  Doan created the country’s first public housing project and the first public transportation system, serving six terms as mayor.  Urban renewal efforts defined the bulk of Zeidler’s 7-term tenure in office.  He was instrumental in the resurgence of the Socialist Party on the national level in the 1970s and was the party’s presidential nominee in 1976.  Historians have long considered Milwaukee's Socialists to be a unique American form of democratic socialism, pragmatic rather than ideological.  Throughout its municipal history since 1846, Milwaukee has had 45 mayors – 31 have been or are Democrats.  Only ten were Republican, the last one leaving office in 1908.  There was also one who served from 1912 to 1916 as a “Republican-Democrat fusion” candidate to defeat Emil Seidel.  Since 1960 Milwaukee has been a predominantly Democratic city supporting progressive politicians and movements, yet the impact and legacy of Milwaukee's Socialist mayors can be found throughout the city.  

Given Milwaukee's status as a Democratic Party stronghold, all but three State Senate and three State Assembly districts in the city are represented by Democrats, with all six Republican seats found in three small districts on the very outer boundary of the city.  It is by far the deepest blue city in and otherwise mostly red Wisconsin.  Since 1988, however, Wisconsin has leaned most towards the Democratic Party in presidential elections, although the Republicans won the state by less 1% in 2016.  Biden won the state in 2020 by an equally slim margin.  In the other four 21st century presidential contests, the state was decided by less than 1% of the vote.

So why would the MAGA-GOP select the cradle of American socialism and a predominantly Democratic city for the site of the 2024 Republican National Convention this week?  Viewed as the largest city in a battleground state, Democrats planned to hold their 2020 convention in the city.  It was first postponed for a month due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and then it was eventually greatly downsized and the city served only as a headquarters for the media broadcasts while most of the convention activities occurred remotely from sites throughout the country.  It makes sense then that the MAGA-GOP hopes to win the state again in November as Wisconsin is among the handful of swing states up for grabs.  The MAGA-GOP candidate has made gains with Wisconsin’s working class, but Joe Biden could still win there.

Still, it is safe to say that Milwaukee, despite the presence of the MAGA-GOP conclave, is hard fast in the Democratic camp.  Biden took 79% of the city’s vote in 2020 after which the MAGA-GOP candidate attempted to disqualify thousands of voters in Milwaukee, falsely portraying late-arriving returns driven by heavy absentee turnout as fraud.  He raised this specter again a month ago when on his first visit to Washington since the January 6, 2021 MAGA insurrection at the Capitol.  Meeting with MAGA-GOP House members in Congress, he referred to Milwaukee as a “horrible” city.  Nothing new, really, as he has long referred to the city as a hotbed of violent crime and voter fraud.

Greta Neubauer, the minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly, took umbrage at this remark, stating that “the people of Milwaukee were not surprised to hear this, adding that “Republicans have been vilifying and attacking the city of Milwaukee for years” as they have any state or city governed by the Democrats.  “The voters of Milwaukee and the voters of Wisconsin are not going to forget that [he] has repeatedly disrespected them, disrespected our state, and demonstrated no commitment to work on behalf of the people of Wisconsin, to improve our lives.” 

Of course, now the MAGA-GOP candidate claims “I was the one that picked it . . . We all know that.  You’ve got to make sure the election is honest, but I’m the one who picked Milwaukee.”  His nose grows longer every day.  In fact, the convention site was selected long before he was even the presumptive nominee.  Reince Priebus, Host Committee Chair for the 2024 RNC, stated early this year that even though the presumptive Republican nominee will probably be selected in mid-March, whoever it ends up being will not affect Milwaukee hosting the RNC.  “I seriously doubt the candidate had much say in the matter as the city was selected before he was confirmed as the likely candidate.”   Priebus made it clear that the main reasons for selecting Milwaukee was because Wisconsin will once again be a key swing state.  Priebus has also cited how politicians from both parties work together to get things done in the city and county and “to put benefits of the people of Milwaukee and Wisconsin ahead of politics.”   I wish they felt like that across the rest of the country.

In fact, it was Cavalier “Chevy” Johnson, Milwaukee’s current Democratic and first African American mayor, who played a key role in bringing the RNC to his city.  This did not sit well with many local Democratic leaders.  Even before the city was finally selected, Democrats urged Milwaukee to drop out of the running, as Nashville did after Democrats there objected to hosting the RNC.  Johnson persisted citing the economic benefits it would bring to the city.  As early as 2021, when the current MAGA-GOP candidate was complaining how the 2020 election had been stolen from him, Johnson was traveling to Washington, DC as acting mayor to make a final pitch for the RNC site selection committee.  He was elected mayor in his own right two weeks later.  He believes the RNC would help draw focus to his city and show what happens when the two parties work together to help people.  Yes, it may be the RNC rather than the DNC, but regardless such an event will showcase Milwaukee.  But will it be in a good or bad light?

When it is all said and done, regardless of the economic benefits brought to the city by Democratic Mayor Johnson, he and the good people of Milwaukee will have to listen as the MAGA-GOP belittles and chastises them for all that is wrong with this country.  I hope it was worth it.  On a personal note, as someone who spent delightful years in and around Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin, I take offense at this.  Milwaukee deserves better than it will get.

Begging for Money Will Not Resolve This Election

 I am sure many of you are probably receiving the same e-mails and text messages I have been receiving in recent months.  Democratic candidates across the nation are clutching at pearls, asking, pleading, even “begging” for contributions to their campaigns.  Their general message is “all across the country, Republicans are attacking us with ads, and we need Democrats to help us respond if we're going to win this race.”  In many instances they claim their campaigns are beginning to fall short of the fund-raising goals they need to reach in order to “Stay on track” and to be competitive.  And I can never understand these “time sensitive requests” and the “midnight” and “quarterly” deadlines they claim they have to meet to receive matching funds.  From whom??  They rarely say.  No one seems to be discussing issues facing the voters in November.  Just money.

Caveat emptor!  If they are going to buy votes, they need to tell us what they are selling.  Senator Bernie Sanders has stated on numerous occasions that the Democratic Party should be talking issues.  Yet all I seem to hear these days is the need to defeat the Republican candidate.  I agree with this, but how?  What else do the voters get in return for putting their faith and their vote in the Democratic party?  All I am getting are pleas for more money.  And everyday day and several times daily!  There has to be more than this!  Candidates should be articulating their strongest case against the MAGAGOP’s promise of a more undemocratic and authoritarian government.

Should this election hinge on who can raise the most money?  And will just a few dollars really make a difference when this country is so terribly divided?  It sure seems like it from all the messages I am receiving these days.  Following the recent George Stephanopoulos ABC interview with President Biden after his disastrous performance in the presidential debate, there were widespread news reports that top Democratic donors were going public with plans to withhold or redirect their dollars if Biden insisted on staying in the race.  Money, money, money!  

I will grant that the Democratic Party is stuck between a rock and a hard place, largely of its own creation.  The concerns causing so much consternation now existed long before the recent disastrous debate and subsequent interview and pressers which did not seem to mollify the doubters.  Many of these problems existed before the primaries.   All of a sudden new e-mails and text messages began to flood in pleading and begging for more money to keep the President in the race.  The more money we give, the better chance to keep the Republican candidate from reclaiming the White House.  Really?  Is that how it works these days?  And where is this money going?  A great many of these pleas come from unrecognizable websites and e-mail addresses.  Text messages come from phone numbers that keep changing.  Who is really asking for this money and where is it going?  To President Biden or to whomever the Democrats eventually choose to replace him should he decide to step aside? 

Let’s stop talking about money and get back to the issues at stake in this election. 

Program 2025 -- An American Mein Kampf

I have been systematically reading through the Heritage Foundation’s almost 900-page blueprint for a future “conservative” [sic] MAGA-GOP administration.  Pretty scary stuff from start to finish.

Phillip Bump, writing recently in The Washington Post, called this “project” nothing more than a plan to undermine pluralistic democracy in this country.  The presumed MAGA-GOP candidate has claimed he knows nothing about it even though most, if not all, of its authors were employed by his first disastrous administration.  One more instance of this pathological liar speaking and no one calling him on it.  And what a shame that a once respected conservative think tank has drunk the MAGA-GOP kool-aid.  This whole MAGA thing is like a national psychotic episode.  America meets Jonestown.  Make America great again???  But for whom?  And will it really be better?  Not if you read this tripe.

Where do they come up with the idea that the Left has taken over our institutions?   The moderate-centrist Biden White House?  I hardly think so.  The Senate and House where progressives find themselves more and more isolated in their own party?   Not anywhere close.  The Supreme Court?  Are they on drugs?  Where in this country is the Left taking over our institutions?  What I find most troubling is Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, stating that we are in the midst of a second American Revolution “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”  That comes pretty close to pledging a violent civil conflict if the Left has the audacity to get in their way.  You can’t get much more undemocratic than that!!  I am reminded of the scene in the film “Civil War,” where the Jesse Plemmons character is filling in a mass grave of those who got in his way.  Doesn’t the MAGA-GOP folks remember the actual Civil War?  It was in all the papers.  Tons of books.  It is one of the most important benchmarks of our country’s history.  We have not fully healed from it so why would anyone want to foist another one on us?  Over 750,000 Americans - both sides were Americans - died in that conflict.  Does the Heritage Foundation envision mass graves in our future?  I am beginning to wonder.  The former president fiddled while over a million Americans died in the Covid 19 pandemic.  Obviously, life means nothing to him if he gets what he wants.  And Project 2025 wants to deliver it to him on a silver platter.

The Left is not “apoplectic” because the Far Right, as Roberts claims, is winning.  It’s because it is stunned that so many want to take this country on a belly flop into fascism, a political, social, and cultural system proven false by history, a system which millions of American men and women like our parents and grandparents fought (and hundreds of thousands died) in a war that defeated fascism and left it on the ash heap of history.  Or so we thought.

One does not have to read very far into Project 2025 to come to the quick realization that it is nothing more than a 21st century American Mein Kampf . . . nothing less.  Its underlying message clearly underlines its aggressive intent.  Originally entitled Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit [Four and a Half Years [of Struggle] Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice], Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf [My Struggle] was written while he was serving a prison sentence for fomenting his ill-fated Beer Hall Putsch in Munich (another convicted felon) in November 1923.  First published in 1925, it was a massive two-volume tome containing 12 and 15 chapter each.  Blaming the Left for the failure of Germany’s postwar World War I Weimar Republic, as well as the Jews, Slav and other non-Aryans for Germany’s fate, this book is a German “Project 1925," describing in some detail the process by which Hitler became antisemitic while outlining his political ideology and future plans for a fascist Third Reich and the Holocaust.  

     .

If more people in Germany had read Mein Kampf when it was first published in 1925, perhaps those who opposed Hitler and his National Socialist goons and thug would have taken the necessary steps to ensure that they never came to power.  Oh, if it were only so. It seems to me that most people prefer to live their lives free of concerns for politics save when it comes time to vote.  And even then, they don’t think too much about it.  The German American historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) said it perhaps best in Men in Dark Times (1969).  “More and more people in countries of the Western world, which since the decline of the ancient world have regarded freedom from politics as one of the basic freedoms, make use of this freedom and have retreated from the world and their obligation with in it.”  

This being the case, Arendt, who has warned us of the “banality of evil” of fascism, believed that there should be a community of thinkers responsible for putting politics into their proper context and order; not to accept what we are told, but to fact check it and communicate this to the citizen voters.  Now would be a good time.  One of the major problems is that a vast (VERY vast) majority of people who plan to vote MAGA-GOP in November will not bother to read the Heritage Foundation’s program before they vote.  If they did, they might think twice.  But probably not.  It’s like lemmings jumping off a cliff.  The authors of Project 2025 are counting on people not reading it.   The MAGA-GOP is like the Khmer Rouge in many ways . . . deathly afraid of “intellectuals” who read, think and question.  

I suggest you read as much of Project 2025 as you can stomach.  It should make you think twice . . . more than that I hope . . . before you cast your vote in November.  Is this what you really want for America?  I hardly think so. 

Who's a Good Boy? - Remembering An Old Friend

Where is my treat, Steve?

“It seems that nature has given dog to man for his defense and his pleasure,” Voltaire wrote in his Dictionnaire philosophique (1764).  “Of all the animals it is the most faithful: it is the best friend a man can have.”  Morgan was truly that and so much more.

Today would have been his 17th birthday.  Morgan was a wonderfully intelligent and equally goofy black lab who passed away last year shortly after turning 16.  He did not belong to us, but rather to our oldest friends in the area.  We knew him since he was a puppy and we always enjoyed him when we visited our friends.  He loved everybody and Morgan became a dear friend for life. 

When one of our friends passed away much too soon in 2015, Morgan lost his best friend, and since his mom worked, he was often left home by himself.  Not long thereafter I developed some mobility issues and so I began to visit Morgan, spending some time with him and keeping him company.  He afforded me unconditional love and companionship when I needed it the most.  The bond was sealed forever.

Morgan frequently visited our house and quickly made himself completely at home.  He would spend several weeks at a time with us, including two Christmas holidays, when his mom was visiting family out of state.  He was true blue loyal and followed me everywhere I went although I often suspected he was hoping something tasty might fall on the floor, or that I would give him a treat if he is a good boy (he was always a good boy!).  He had me completely wrapped around that constantly wagging tail.  

Morgan remained a frequent visitor throughout the long months of sheltering at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, and his presence was particularly soothing.  There was nothing better than to have him at my side when I was working in my study, or at my feet when reading in my easy chair in the den.  But he was beginning to show his own age and we both hobbled about and commiserated with each other. 

He lived a long life, a good life, and it was hard to watch as he grew older and more infirm.   But the time came like it does for all of us, and it was so hard to say good-bye to an old friend.  But his spirit lives on in all those who came to know and love him as much as I did, if such a thing was even possible. 

He was always a good boy.  I miss you old friend! 

 

Happy July 4th? - Are You Feeling Particularly Patriotic These Days?

For several years I joined members of a local historical society, townspeople, and visitors each July 4th for a public reading of the Declaration of Independence.  What better way to celebrate the independence of our republic?

This year we commemorate the 248th anniversary of the ratification and announcement of that most eloquent of documents which gave birth to the United States of America.  I had forgotten how long it is - 1,336 words not counting all the signatures – and contemplating their full meaning and intent, I quickly realized that there is more to the 4th of July than fireworks, parades, family picnics, and a day off from work.  The Declaration of Independence is America 101; it expresses what we as Americans feel we deserve and why.  It is a refreshing of our recollections as we read and listened to those words symbolizing the American people standing up for what they believe in.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.

Read them, speak them, share them, and more importantly, remember them and don’t let anyone tell you they are no longer relevant.  The Declaration of Independence was a litany of complaints against King George III designed to explain why the colonists were declaring themselves free of kings.  Many Americans have forgotten what wonderful and beautiful music these words can be.  Raise up your voices and be free!

The centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence occurred in 1876, just eleven years after the end of the Civil War that divided the nation our Founding Fathers struggled to bring together.  Many of the issues that divided the original signers gave rise to that great conflict, and states that seceded from the Union beginning in 1860 to form the Confederate States of America, including four of the original thirteen colonies.  The nation was licking its wounds in 1876, some of them still fresh a decade after that momentous conflict.  There was little interest in celebrating the centennial. 

The bicentennial in 1976 was certainly more festive. I recall watching the celebrations across the country on TV as we packed our small apartment in Tucson in preparation for our move cross country to the outskirts of Washington, DC, our current home.  That evening, with an apartment full of boxes and expecting the movers first thing the following day, we walked to the University of Arizona campus where we watched the local fireworks.  Upon our arrival in suburban Maryland later that August, we spent a great deal of time wandering our nation’s capital in the throes of its big national birthday gala.  It was an exciting time to explore our new home.

But I will have to be honest with you.  The 4th of July this year doesn’t ring very true.  It is supposed to be a day when we show our patriotism for the founding of the United States and the principles on which it was established.  It’s hard to feel very “patriotic” at a time when men and women who participated in an open insurrection against the US government of January 6, 2021 are called “true patriots” by so many Americans, including a man who wants to be President again . . . those who stormed and occupied the US Capitol carrying Confederate and Nazi flags and openly calling for the execution of the Vice President for doing his duty under the provisions of the US Constitution to which he swore an oath.  If that is what constitutes patriotism today, then I want none of it.  

Just a few days ago I watched a film clip showing the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.  I have seen this impressive ceremony in person a number of times and it never fails to remind me of the ultimate sacrifice so many American men and women have made in defense of this country and what it has long represented.  And yet today there are broad sweeps of Americans who have forgotten their sacrifices while supporting a presidential candidate who openly wants to alter the historic path of this country away from freedom and democracy, a candidate who is a convicted felon, a sexual predator, a misogynist, a thief and a cheat, a pathological liar, an nescient narcissist, a domestic and international bully who makes fun of people with physical and mental issues, and to be absolutely frank, a fascist traitor who has openly defied the Constitution he swore and oath to protect and defend while giving aid and comfort to our enemies.  A man who wants to be a dictator.

The Founding Fathers of our republic, such as it is and has ever been, set out on a noble path despite their faults and their shortcomings.  These were men living under colonial rule in the latter half of the 18th century.  Things were different then and we cannot judge them using a 21st century measuring stick.  Recalling Paul the Apostle’s letter to the Galatians in which he cautioned them to hold on to their freedom under the laws and to never abuse them carelessly, these brave American men, looking to divine providence for protection, gathered to ratify and sign the Declaration of Independence while mutually pledging to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor knowing full well the penalty would be death if they were captured.  These were mostly men of means who had flourished under the tutelage of Great Britain and her King.  Yet they valued liberty more, and many of them endured lasting hardships as a result of their patriotism.  Some were forced to flee with their families.  Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned by the British forces sent to the upstart colonies to put down their rebellion.  Nine took arms against the British and died from their wounds or other hardships during the Revolutionary War.  Five were captured and charged as traitors and were tortured before they died.  Three had sons who were killed or captured during the war.  It was a high price indeed to pay for freedom and liberty.  How soon we seem to forget.  

This past week's Supreme Court decision destroyed one of the principles on which this nation was founded, that all people regardless of who they are, should be equal before the law.  It has cleared the way for a former president, if he's reelected this November – and all future presidents – to act like absolute a monarch free to commit crimes with impunity.   Heather Cox Richardson has noted that this decision is effectively an amendment to the US Constitution without the consent of the governed.  Many thousands of true American patriots fought and died to wrestle the original thirteen colonies from a king who ruled with absolute power.   Now the Supreme Court, forgetting the very basis for the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, has anointed the US president as a modern-day king.  It has betrayed the Founding Fathers and all those who fought for American Independence from Great Britain, the framers of the US Constitution, and everyone who has lived and died protecting our freedom and democracy.  And why, if only to promote “the most corrupt, dangerous, depraved person to disgrace the office of the presidency.”

The parades, family picnics, and fireworks just don’t ring true today. 

Why Won't the Other Guy Step Down?

Like so many in this country, I watched the first presidential debate of this current election cycle on June 27.  I did not really want to watch it given the train wreck four years earlier, but I was assured that this time all precautions had been taken to ensure that this debate would be more orderly and informative.  I also knew that there would be numerous analyses and dissections in the hours and days that followed.  I wanted to make up my own mind.

And so I watched . . . and I wish I hadn’t.  It was a train wreck of a different sort but a train wreck, nevertheless.  President Biden was not at his best, not even close to it.  His age and apparent mental acuity showed through right from the outset.  He seemed confused at times, and not until late in the debate did he begin to respond to the lies and vindictive accusations hurled at him throughout.  His mouth often hung slack-jawed on the spit screen whenever his opponent was speaking.   It was a cringe-worthy spectacle.

I should add that CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash were, in my humble opinion, a disappointment.  I expected better.  They passed over subjects that are important issues on the run up to the election, and in the case of Biden’s opponent, they did not hold him to answering the question presented to him.  Instead, he used his time to level increasingly rancorous allegations and personal attack at President Biden.

The media reaction to the debate was immediate and not surprising.  In everyone’s eyes it was an unmitigated disaster.  Surprisingly, however, almost all of the concern and criticism was leveled at President and there was an almost immediate call for him the withdraw from the race, even at this late stage of a campaign already lasting for several months.  I can understand this concern; the same crossed my mind midway through the debate.  Was President Biden up for the job at age 81?  Despite a largely positive record during his first term while facing a mostly hostile Congress, it has taken an obvious toll and one had to question whether he was truly up for another four-year term to the age of 86.  

Calls for Biden to step down came almost immediately from across the Democratic spectrum.  He should do what is right for the country and defer to a younger and more favorable candidate.  But who?  Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Witmer of Michigan immediately were mentioned what with their strong record name recognition although they both quickly threw their continued support behind Biden.  Vice President Harris would have been an obvious choice although her popularity is currently lower than Biden’s.  Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and JB Pritzker of Illinois lead battleground states with strong records, but they are not as well known to the general electorate.  But let’s be honest.  Regardless of the choice, Biden’s replacement this late in the game would have created a logistical nightmare.  

So OK, President Biden had a bad night.   A very bad night.  He is old and perhaps not as sharp as he used to be.  He freely admits this while stating categorically that he is still up to the job.  Yet all of a sudden everyone, including myself, is nervous.   But let’s take a look at what he did say whether he said it well or not.  He was telling the truth and defending his record despite the incessant and unfounded verbal assault inflicted on him by his opponent. 

So, what about the other guy in this equation?  Considering age, Biden’s opponent is 78 years old.  No one seems terribly concerned with his age and health.  And they certainly do not seem vexed by his obvious lack of mental acuity.  Almost every word out of his mouth was a lie or an unfounded allegation about the failure of Biden’s “criminal” term in office. He took credits for things he never did and denied facts that are supported by history and witnesses to events in question.   He denied any role in the January 6th insurrection he actively incited, claiming that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had admitted that it was entirely her fault while refusing assistance he claimed he offered.  Lies.  He claimed his New York trial during which he was indicted and convicted on 34 felony counts was a witch hunt although he was convicted by a jury of his peers approved by his own attorneys.  He took responsibility for ending the pandemic during which he is on records numerous times playing down its seriousness.  Over one million in this country died while he lied.   Lies, lies, lies, but what can one expect from a pathological liar?          

A convicted felon cannot serve in the US military.  If elected, he would be Commander-in-Chief.   How is that possible?  Why was he not asked to step down?  He is a sexual predator and misogynist who cheated on his wife and family.  Why was he not asked to step down?  He is a thief having stolen government records – some of them highly classified – instead of turning them over to the National Archives as the law requires.  Why was he not asked to step down?  He is a racist who refers to individuals seeking a better life in the United States rapists, murderers, lunatics, and thieves.  Why was he not asked to step down?  He is a nescient narcissist and a domestic and international bully who makes fun of the physically challenged and others who out of ignorance he does not understand (or even try).  Why was he not asked to step down?  He has called those who have fought and died for their country, and those who were held as prisoners-of-war, “losers” and “suckers” . . . the very men and women he would be called on to send into harm’s way.  Why was he not asked to step down?  On top of it all, he is a fascist traitor who has openly defied the Constitution he swore an oath to protect and defend while giving aid and comfort to our enemies.  Why was he not asked to step down? He faces numerous additional criminal and civil indictments in several jurisdictions.  Why was he not asked to step down?

Why does the Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower, all of whom fought to keep this country free from the type of government now envisioned by this man, continue to support him without question or reservation?  Over 150 presidential historians have voted him the worst president in US history, surpassing even Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, John Tyler, and James Buchanan, all of whom gave rise to the eventual Southern secession and the Civil War.  Or the corrupt, even criminal presidencies of Warren Harding and Richard Nixon, or Herbert Hoover and his Great Depression.  He is the only president to be impeached twice and the only president to be convicted of a felony.  Despite the mounting legal troubles around him – including criminal charges surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the felony conviction tied to his 2016 campaign, the GOP continues to stand by him as he seeks a return to the White House.  If elected, he has stated he would be a “dictator” from day one while targeting those he believes have wronged him in the past.   What about the American people?  He shows no interest in us at all.  Why is he not asked to step down?  It makes absolutely no sense to me and yet here we are.

It is my intention to use this space as a bully pulpit between now and the November election.  This country is facing an existential threat to its very core of democracy and governance.  It would be irresponsible of me not to share my thoughts and take a stand for what I believe in while the freedom of speech is still a guaranteed right in this country.  We should not take it for granted.  I urge everyone to get out and vote in November.  The outcome is too important to stay home.  Despite our concerns and reservations, the choice between the two candidate is abundantly clear.  VOTE!!! 

Remembering the Owl in the Mask of a Dreamer: John Haines at 100

Today would have been John Haines' 100th birthday.  John, who passed away in Alaska in March 2011, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the son of a naval officer. As a boy, Haines attended school here in Washington, D.C., while his father was stationed at the Washington Navy Yard.

After serving on a navy destroyer in the South Pacific during World War II, Haines studied at American University and the National Art School, both in Washington, and the Hans Hoffmann School of Fine Art in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

In 1947, Haines left Washington and eventually homesteaded acreage along the Richardson Highway approximately 68 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.  It was here that he spent much of the next four decades running his trap lines and living off the land while trying to realize his artistic talents.  It was here that he moved from the visual to the literary arts, and his experiences in the Alaskan wilderness were the inspiration for his early poetry collections - Winter News (1966) and The Stone Harp (1971), the essay collection Living Off the Country (1981), and the memoir The Stars, the Snow, the Fire (1989).

Haines came back to Washington in 1991-92 as Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at the George Washington University and visited Washington frequently during the last two decades of his life. He also taught at several other colleges and universities; his last academic appointment was as an instructor in the Honors Program at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.

His later books included New Poems 1980-88 (1990), The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer (1993), Where the Twilight Never Ends (1994), Fables and Distances (1996), A Guide to the Four-Chambered Heart (1997), For the Century’s End: Poems 1990-1999 (2001), and Descent (2010).

Haines was honored for his writing, receiving the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Western States Book Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Bellagio Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress, and the Alaska Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, among others. He was also named a fellow of the Academy of American Poets in 1997.

I met John as a Jenny McKean Moore fellow at George Washington University in 1991 and we remained good friends during the final two decades of his life.  He was a guest in my home during his visits to Washington, and I look back with particular fondness on the days he and I spent together in Big  Sky, Montana in the autumn of 2004 following the release of A Gradual Twilight: An Appreciation of John Haines which I edited, and which was published by CavanKerry Press.

So Happy Birthday, John!  I miss you, but I know you are always nearby.

The Man of the Hour Redux – My Dad Would Have Turned 100 Today!

Sadly, Dad passed away in October 2009 at the age of 85 after a few years of declining health.  Yet It seems to me only proper to reflect on his life on the occasion of what would have been his 100th birthday today.

Ralph C. Rogers was born in the small town of Decatur, Michigan on June 24, 1924, and lived there for the first 18 years of his life. He played varsity basketball at Decatur High School and eventually attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  Drafted into military service during World War II, he entered the US Army in April 1943, just a couple months shy of his 19th birthday. He left his native Michigan, having never traveled farther than northern Ohio.

He was first sent to the University of Maine, in Orono, as part of the Army Specialized Training Program.  The ASTP was designed to single out specially qualified soldiers for their exceptional IQs and send them to various college campuses around the United States to learn special wartime skills.  The two-company detachment of over 500 soldiers assigned to the University of Maine in the summer of 1943 was designated as a “pre-radar” group to study electrical and civil engineering and other related disciplines that would be required for the eventual invasion of Japan.  But the realities of war intervened.  

In February 1944, during the third term of the ASTP program at Orono, many of the soldiers enrolled in the basic part of the program, including my dad, were recalled to active combat duty.  Casualties were mounting rapidly in North Africa, and plans were afoot for the eventual invasion of continental Europe.  The Army decided its need for infantry replacements was more pressing than the need for technical specialties.

Dad traveled by train to Tennessee to join the Second Army’s spring field maneuvers before undertaking basic training at Fort Jackson, in Columbia, South Carolina.  He was eventually assigned to the 104th Infantry Regiment, 26th Infantry “Yankee” Division. Originally consisting of personnel from the Massachusetts National Guard, the division was no longer the special pride of New England as its ranks swelled with men from all over the United States.  These new troops were needed to bring the division up to strength before it shipped out of Boston for France in the wake of the D-Day invasion in early June 1944.  There it would join the newly constituted US Third Army under General George Patton. 

Dad would serve in the front ranks as combat infantry riflemen and knew from the outset that the future of an infantryman was grim. Dad remained in the 104th Infantry Regiment throughout the northern European campaign in 1944-1945, including the Battle of the Bulge during which he received the Bronze Star for valor during combat operations.  His regiment was also awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government for its participation in the liberation of that country.  By early May 1945, the 26th Infantry Division had crossed Germany and met up with advanced units of the Soviet Red Army in the vicinity of Ceske-Budejovice, Czechoslovakia when Germany formally surrendered.  Since the autumn of 1944 the 26th Infantry Division had been in combat for 210 days; the 104th for 177 days. But the war was not over; the 26th and the 104th were deployed to the area around Linz, Austria to train for eventual re-deployment to the Pacific.  Luckily that war ended before they had to go and finish the work begun in the forest and hills of northeastern France almost a year earlier.

It is difficult for me to imagine doing what my dad did at the age of 19 and 20, or seeing what he must have seen during those months of combat across Europe.  One grew up fast in those years of peril and hardship not knowing if one would survive.  Dad was a young man from rural Michigan barely 20 years old when called upon to defend his country.  He was lucky to survive, and he pretty much put the war behind him when he returned home when so many did not . . . even when his young son would ask him what he did during the war. I imagine I was like many young boys my age when they first learned that their fathers had served in the military during World War II.

Dad told me a few stories although I was perhaps too young to understand just what he was telling me or how painful these memories must have been for him.  Dad never really went into many details about the war, or exactly what he did, but there were a few stories he shared, and I still remember them as clearly now as the day he first told them to me.  All sons look up to their fathers as heroes.  So I knew the few stories he did tell me, but so many others – how he earned his Bronze Star, or his role in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp – I would not learn about until after he passed away.

I had so many questions and there was no one who could answer them for me.  Dad and his comrades-in-arms were just young American boys who learned very quickly how to become men.  They were all young heroes sent to a dark and desperate place.   It is important that each generation of citizens understands the sacrifices of the generations that came before. There is no way we can ever repay them for what they did, and the price exacted from them.  Those of us who have never experienced the dangers and deprivation of military service, whether it be in wartime or not, must try to better understand what others have endured in the defense of our nation.

After the war, Dad returned home, married Mom, and attended the Michigan Institute of Technology, in Houghton until he eventually transferred to the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta where he earned a bachelor's and master's degree in industrial engineering. Then it was off to Chicago in 1950 to work in the engineering department of Montgomery Ward, the job he held when I was born the following year.  He later worked for the Chicago-based consulting firm Stevenson, Jordan & Harrison for several years, a job which took him, and sometime his family, around the country.  Still, Dad was gone a lot, flying off on Sunday afternoon only to return the following Friday night to spend a couple days at home before he was off again.  In 1958, he took an engineering position with Champion Paper Company, in North Carolina, for almost six years. During that time he served in various professional organizations and taught engineering mathematics at Western Carolina University.  Our home in Asheville, NC was the first house we ever owned, and the four years we lived there was the longest time I spent in any one location until I moved away from home after graduating from high school in 1969.   Dad ended his professional career with J.C. Penney, joining in 1968 as engineering manager for Penney’s catalog division, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He later held that same position at the corporate headquarters in Manhattan until his retirement in 1984.

Dad and Mom moved to Florida’s Gulf Coast where they lived until 1994 when they moved to Ohio to be closer to family and friends.  Mine was a family history that followed the trajectory of so many others of my generation.  Mom and Dad provided well for me and my sister; a safe and relatively happy home, opportunity to travel around this country and abroad, and a good college education.  

But it would not last. Things began to come apart after my sister and I had moved on with our own lives.  My parents eventually divorced shortly before their 50th anniversary, in 2006.  Dad moved back to Florida where he eventually remarried, and I did not see him very much after that; certainly not as often as I would have hoped.  His life, for whatever reasons that I will never fully understand, took a new direction.  In some ways I can help but think he was haunted by what he had seen (and perhaps done) during the war. I will never know, and perhaps I don’t really want to.  But I was happy that he was happy, or so he seemed whenever I did have a chance to visit him.  

I missed the time we should have spent together in those final years of his life.  We talked on the telephone occasionally; it just wasn’t enough. I never doubted his love for me, or mine for him.  We just had a difficult time showing it.  With the passing of time, various physical and mental issues began to take their toll.

I did spend more time with him during his final illness, but these were visits to the hospital and the nursing home in Florida where he lived the last couple of years. It was tough to watch him wither away.  During my last visit with him a few months before he passed away, he and I sat in his nursing home room and watched a baseball game together.  At least I thought we did.   I pulled out my notebook and scribble down this poem.

DEMENTIA

My old alien body is a foreigner

Struggling to get into another country

–Jim Harrison (1937-2016)

he draws long and hard on the chocolate shake

I brought him in the hospital & a smile crosses

his face between the final slurps sounding

like a Shop-Vac sucking water off

a flooded basement floor     “Thanks for this”

he says holding up the empty cup still smiling

“Better than the tapioca they feed me here”

his eyes focus on a baseball game on TV

“the Tampa Bay Rays are having a good year”

Detroit is leading 12-0 in the third inning

I ask him about the book on his night table

he thanks me for it but it is not from me

none of this seems to matter to him at all

it will be forgotten by morning if not before

I sometimes wonder if someday I will end

up just like him     my own memory slipping

I see faces but no longer remember names

a favorite song but I can’t remember why

a poem I wrote but can no longer remember

it is becoming a constant reason for concern

will I descend into this mental midnight

we sit quietly and talk about nothing special

& he asks me if maybe I can bring him

a chocolate shake the next time I come to visit

he continues to stare at the TV on the wall

Detroit is now leading 16-0 in the fifth

“Looks like the Rays may go to the Series”

The man of the hour is gone, but I am still blessed to have my mom who is in relatively good health and very sound mind at age 99.  And she just renewed her drivers license for four more years!

April Was a Very Cruel Month . . . But With a Happy Ending

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

– T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

These are the memorable first lines of Eliot’s seminal long poem.  It was the focal point of my senior essay in a modern poetry seminar, in the autumn of 1972, coming as it did on the 50th anniversary of its publication.  Little did I know what resonance it would have a half century later.  

It has been over a year since I posted anything of significance here, but not for the lack of want or thoughts I had hoped to share.  Shortly after that last post on March 26, 2023, I traveled to Ohio to help my mother celebrate her 98th birthday. It was a pleasant visit until the day it was time to return home when I woke up feeling very much under the weather.  We immediately hit the road figuring it would be better to be close to my doctor should something come of it.  What a fortuitous decision on my part!

Two days after returning home I collapsed and could not get up.  SallyAnn called the EMTs and the next thing I knew I was in the back of an ambulance and on my way to the hospital attached to tubes and monitors.  After some time in the emergency room, I was moved to the ICU where I remained for three days. I did not feel terribly bad, but I had a sneaking suspicion it might be serious. It was.  My kidneys were beginning to shut down as the result of a nasty blood infection attributed to my chronic lymphedema in both legs dating back to late 2017.  I would spend the month of April and half of May 2023 in the hospital and rehab, thankfully avoiding dialysis as my health slowly improved.  I eventually returned home to several weeks of additional physical therapy, happy in the thought that my life had been given back to me thanks to the wonderful care afforded by the doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and a dedicated hospital staff.

I had planned to write about this after settling in at home, but I could not steal myself to relive those days of uncertainty.  It was just nice to be home again, sitting up and getting back to a normal routine.  I relished the mundane as I focused on my full recovery while returning to my various projects.  By late July I felt well and strong enough to return to Maine for our annual summer hiatus.  Little did I know at the time what restorative powers emanate from fresh sea breezes.    

We returned to Monhegan Island situated twelve miles off Midcoast Maine. We had been doing this since 2000, and it seemed that two weeks on this small, quiet island was just what I needed.  And SallyAnn, too, after all I put her through that spring.   We spent two delightful weeks on this barely one square mile of paradise, and home to less than 100 souls far removed from the hustle and bustle of the outside world.   Monhegan has long been a destination for artists – the Wyeths, Edward Hopper, Robert Henri, Andrew Winter, Reuben Tam, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, James Fitzgerald, just to name a few – and art lovers, and there are ample opportunities to enjoy all the island has to offer.  SallyAnn enjoyed combing the small beach looking for sea glass for her jewelry creations, and I was always in search of a quiet and out-of-the-way place to read and write while soaking in the dramatic land- and seascapes that have drawn so many artists and writers to the island.

We spent another week back on the mainland at dear friends’ small cottage in Harpswell, on Bailey Island, with a wonderful view of Casco Bay.  We enjoyed the local lobster and oysters and all the sea has to offer while visiting so many old haunts and friendly faces from our many summers spent in Maine over the past four decades.  We briefly hosted a dear friend from home taking a break from his transit of the Appalachian Trail.  This provided an opportunity to spend some time in the mountains of western Maine, and to make a detour to my favorite lodge in far northern New Hampshire for a couple of days in the Great North Woods along the Canadian border.

Our travels also took us to Down East Maine which we had not visited in a number of years.  It has a completely different ambiance than other regions of the state.  It is hardscrabble country and sparsely populated, yet it afforded us wonderful opportunities to spend some quiet time along the shores of the Bay of Fundy with its highest tides in the world.  During the long pandemic and my illness, I had allowed my passport to expire so we were not able to cross the border into Canada for a return visit to Campobello Island and Deer Isle, but we were afforded nice views of these lovely coastal islands from Lubec and Eastport, the easternmost towns in the continental United States.

We returned to New Hampshire to revisit the lovely Shaker village at Canterbury, followed by some time on the beaches at Hampton and Portsmouth with a day trip to Gloucester and Rockport on Massachusetts’s picturesque Cape Ann.  The summer was made all the more perfect with a return visit to Newport, Rhode Island to visit with dear friends and to explore the local environs (and enjoy the local clams and other seafood).  Then there was an exploration of nearby Fall River, Massachusetts and various sites connected with the case of Lizzie Borden, including the house (now a bed and breakfast) where she offed her parents with 29 whacks of an ax.  This had long been on SallyAnn’s bucket list.  

After several weeks in northern New England, we returned home healthy and in a good frame of mind.  Even with my somewhat limited mobility, we both immensely enjoyed our summer escape from the heat and humidity of Washington, DC as we looked forward to the onset of autumn and cooler weather.  In October we returned to Ohio to help a dear college chum celebrate her 70th birthday, followed by a return visit with my mother and sister and her family.  Thankfully, that visit ended on a much better note than the previous one.  Then came the holidays during which I tried very hard to get into the spirit of the season knowing I had so much to be thankful for.  2023 didn’t turn out too bad after all things considered.

We spent January and February in Florida with some side trips into Georgia to visit family and friends.  It began with two lovely weeks at an oceanfront condo on Crescent Beach, south of St. Augustine.  I have never spent that much time in this area of the state, although SallyAnn has, and so we discovered and re-discovered all that it has to offer – a wondrous variety of local seafood, the ability to cruise the wide beach expanse in one’s automobile and staying just a few hundred feet from Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ beach cottage where she wrote many of her stories.  There was also the former colonial Spanish Fort Mantanzas, as well as the colonial sites in and around historic St. Augustine, one of the earliest European settlements in North America.  It was a relaxing visit, and I had an opportunity to finally begin assembling the manuscript for Aspiring to a Full Consent: New & Selected Poems, 1971-2024, which I hope to see in print by the end of the year.

After our time on the Atlantic coast, we headed inland to spend a month in a quaint cottage in Evinston.  This tiny hamlet on the western shore of Orange Lake is situated on the edge of Paynes Prairie and the Great Alachua Savanna just south of Gainesville.  The English naturalist William Bartram visited this region in the 1770s when the main inhabitants were bands of Seminoles.  He recorded his observations in The Travels of William Bartram (1791): "how the mind is agitated and bewildered, at being thus, as it were, placed on the borders of a new world.  On the first view of such an amazing display of the wisdom and power of the supreme author of nature, the mind for a moment seems suspended, and impressed with awe."  I find it difficult to argue with his impressions over two centuries later.  Once a center of Florida’s citrus industry, this region is now known for it cattle and horse farms.  My late her-in-law ran cattle on Paynes Prairie when he was young and continued to work at several cattle ranches throughout central and north Florida.  The largest cattle operation in Spanish Florida, Hacienda De La Chua, operated here in the late 1600s.        

It was a very relaxing month exploring the many back roads in this region in addition to outings to the Gulf Coast and Florida’s Great Bend country, reliving memories of time spent here in years gone by.  Ms. Rawlings’ farm at Cross Creek, the inspiration for her novel The Yearling (1929), was only eight miles from the cottage . . . half that as the crow flies.  We visited the Alachua Sink on the southern edge of Gainesville.  It is the deepest of Paynes Prairie’s sinkholes and acts as a conduit for water entering the Florida aquifer at a rate of up to 6 million gallons per day.  Upon visiting the Alachua Sink, Bartram was amazed by the number and size of the alligators, "so abundant that, if permitted by them, I could walk over any part of the basin and the river upon their heads."  You can almost say that even today.  The gators share the sink with a rich variety of bird life – egrets, Blue Herons, Sandhill Cranes, various hawks and vultures only to mention a very few.  

We returned home to Maryland in early March, visiting friends in Atlanta along the way.  We spent time examining the museum at the Carter Center and the nearby historical sites associated with the life and career of Martin Luther King.  We also wandered the downtown campus of Georgia Tech where my father received his degrees in engineering after the war.  He and my mother moved to Chicago in 1951 shortly before I was born and so I have always felt a kindred spirit with this dynamic southern city.  Our very satisfying winter adventure concluded with a visit to Asheville, North Carolina where I lived for a few years when I was a boy.   I always enjoy a return to my old stomping grounds.   

The spring passed without serious incident or illness.  A year after my hospitalization and recovery, I remain healthy, and I continue to move forward with what I can only hope will remain a life well-lived (save a brief Covid relapse a couple weeks ago . . . nothing quite as bad as the first bout in late 2022).  And now we are preparing for yet another summer hiatus on Maine’s Monhegan Island and elsewhere in northern New England during which I plan to finally complete my first novel, The Skunk Compass of Compass of the Big Magalloway.  Wish me luck!

In return, I wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous summer 2024.