"This Machine Surrounds Hate…

& forces it to surrender."  These are the words emblazoned on Pete Seeger’s banjo.  & today as I thought about how anyone might respond not only to the enormity of 9/11/2001 but also to all the enormities that have come in the wake of that day—including the enormity of those who are using this year's anniversary to further hatred, division & polarization—as I thought about those things, I kept thinking about Pete Seeger’s banjo.

Pete Seeger is a true American hero in my mind—a man of immense moral courage & a patriot in the deepest sense of the word.  One of Johnny Cash’s finest moments was when he defied the blacklisting of Seeger & had him as a guest on his show—& stated his opinion for the cameras, in the midst of the late 60s turmoil—that Seeger was one of the most patriotic men he knew.  I agree.

But more important: Seeger’s message.  I’m not a Christian, nor even a “believer” in any religious sense of the word, but I must say I’ve never found the phrase “love your enemies” to be particularly ambiguous. 

Regarding this, I found the following excerpt from Gustave Gilbert’s interview with Herman Göring during the Nuremberg Trials to be both illuminating & chilling:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

We may not all have the fortitude of someone like Pete Seeger, but we can all in small ways try to “surround hate with love & force it to surrender.”

Peace.

Which Side Are You On?

It’s Labor Day weekend—these days a convenient marker as a transition from summer to fall, from vacation to school.  But let’s not forget that Labor Day is to celebrate workers & workers’ rights—& the struggle to gain those rights, which we should be very loathe to see eroded.  In fact, Labor Day began to commemorate the deaths of workers at the hands the US military & US marshalls during during the 1894 Pullman Strike.  These are the ultimate sacrifices that many have had to give for justice; I think it’s important to remember that on this weekend.

As a help in that remembrance, I offer one of the best of the Labor songs, “Which Side Are You On?”  This was written by Florence Reese in 1931.  Mrs Reese was married to a union organizer, & the song was written after an evening in which she & her children were terrorized by deputies hired by mine owners in an attempt to intimidate the family.   This version, with a powerful vocal by Natalie Merchant backed only by a banjo, is a moving rendition.

I’m often reminded of the saying painted as part of the mural on the side of the Anarchist Collective Bookshop in San Francisco: “History remembers two kinds of people, those who murder and those who fight back.”  Please take a moment to contemplate the sacrifices made by those who have come before us. 

Intrepid Prop H8 Reporter Audrey Bilger

Happy Thursday afternoon, everyone!  If you’re interested in staying informed on the California Prop H8 decision, you really should stay tuned to our dear friend & sometime collaborator Audrey Bilger over at the Ms blog.  Although this is ancient news by interweb standards, Audrey has recently blogged about the link between Judge Walker’s ruling on the Proposition & how this is furthers the equal status of women—all women, both straight & lesbian—in marriage.  In a fun but informative post yesterday, Audrey compared the Prop H8 ruling to a gothic novel, complete with sinister villains & happy wedding ending.  They’re both must-reads—not just for our LGBT friends but for everyone.

Because, if you also tune in to hear Dr Bilger participate in a roundtable discussion on PRI’s To The Point program, you’ll find out from the pro-Prop H8 speakers that Prop H8 really isn’t so much about gay couples as about straight ones.  Seems like us straight folks might forget to have children if gay marriage is legal.  Dr Bilger, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick & Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institute provide voices of sanity to these & similar arguments—including the statement by William May, Chairman of Catholics for the Common Good that essentially links feminism to the downfall of civilization as we know it.   Brian Brown, Executive Director of the National Organization for Marriage also speaks in support of Prop H8 & decries Judge walker’s ruling.

Please give Audrey’s informative posts a read (here & here) & give the discussion (which starts about 7:40 into the overall program) a listen!  & have a great day.




Update: this afternoon, Audrey posted about Judge Walker's decision today to lift the stay on gay marriages in California as of next Wednesday, August 18th.  You can read Audrey's latest post here.

A Blow Against H8

Hello folks!  I'm happy to announce - in case you don't know this from any other source - that Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker today overturned California's heinous Proposition 8, AKA Prop H8.  Please check out our dear friend & colleague Audrey Bilger, who also blogs for Ms.  Audrey's post on the ruling is right here.  To anticipate just a tad, part of Judge Walker's ruling reads as follows:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Although Robert Frost's Banjo only occasionally ventures into the political arena, I've made my opinions about Proposition 8 - & by extension, similar measures in other states - clear on this blog since its early days in 2008.


But enough from me - head on over to Audrey's space at Ms.  Don't miss it!

Prop 8 Trial Coverage

Please check out our good friend Audrey Bilger's coverage of the California Proposition 8 gay marriage ban trial on the Ms Blog. Why is this important reading for everyone? Human rights issues aside, it turns out that, according to pro Prop 8 (i.e., anti-gay marriage) lead Attorney Charles Cooper, the real reason why California needs Proposition 8 isn't for gay couples, but for straight couples. Curious how this topsy-turvy logic works? Check out Ms.

Thanks for the fine coverage, Audrey. You're a blogging star!

“Korea”

Happy Wednesday, all. I’ve been looking for the perfect time to feature today’s video—a story from folksinger / raconteur / anarchist Utah Phillips with musical backing by Ani DiFranco—for some time. At a certain point, I realized there might not be a perfect time—so I’m taking this opportunity to share it with you.

I can’t add much to what Utah Phillips has to say; this is an extremely powerful & moving testimony. There are many memorable moments, but the final line always sticks with me: “It was all wrong & it all had to change, & that change had to start with me.”

Hope you find this moving & inspiring, too. Oh, yes: Adams County Makes the News will be returning on June 23rd, & will continue every other Wednesday from then on until the series is completed.

FEMINIST HULK SMASH!!!

What do Marvel Comics & feminist theorist Judith Butler have in common? Quite a bit if you're one of the 11,641 (& counting) who follow Twitter phenomenon Feminist Hulk! If you’re not aware of the Feminist Hulk, you should most definitely check out our own SoCal Special Correspondent, Audrey Bilger over at the Ms. Magazine Blog where she presides these days—her post today is an exclusive interview with Feminist Hulk!

Smash patriarchal hegemony—oh my!

Deportees, part 2

Good afternoon, folks! Thanks to everybody who's stopped by to comment on this morning's post & thanks to Raquelle, Lizzy & Scotty for re-posting or otherwise responding to the post on Facebook & Twitter. For instance, Lizzy posted a link to an interesting article about how GOP fears that Hispanic voters will turn certain swing states to the Democrats have been a factor in this law - not to mention 11 others currently under contemplation in 10 other states: Utah, Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas (two separate initiatives), Missouri, Oklahoma & Nebraska. I know there are some Robert Frost's Banjo regulars from at least a few of those states, so hope this can be a heads up.

Some points came up in the discussion on the morning's post that I felt merited an airing beyond the comments section. A couple of people brought up the activities of Mexican drug cartels along the Arizona border. A good friend, who's a sincere & thoughtful man, suggested that Arizona was forced to take this action because of drug violence, & because of the federal government's unwillingness to confront this (I believe he meant with military force, but this wasn't specifcally stated). I can understand the feeling behind the argument - the violence associated with the big drug business is horrific & appalling. But I do question whether this law is going to have much affect on that in the long term (assuming it's not repealed). I suspect that the drug cartels will find ways around this, just as organized crime found ways around police & FBI activities during Prohibition, & just as various crime organizations have continued to find ways around all the other "crackdowns" of the prolonged "drug war." Do I think the ultimate answer is legalization - yes, but that's a topic for another time. I can tell you that I favor legalization as a non-user; I'm a recovering alcoholic & drug addict who has not had a drink or drug since the spring of 1980, so I don't believe I'd be lining up waiting for the state marijuana store to open.

I do think the federal government should take a role in the problem of undocumented workers. However, I believe the most effective role the government could take would be to address the impact of big agribusiness on small farmers both in the U.S. & globally - Russell Means, one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, & a man with complicated politics, but a man who is definitely not a leftist by any stretch of the imagination (he was recruited to run for nomination as Libertarian presidential candidate in the 1980s) states: "With people no longer needed on the land, food production has been taken over by corporate agribusiness, the beneficiary of enormous government subsidies that place them among America's biggest welfare recipients" (I'll be writing more on Means' autobiography in a future post). I also believe it's past time for the government to seriously consider the impact of NAFTA on economies in Central & South America.

But I'm a liberal sort - of course I'd oppose the law. Let's look at what some noted conservatives are saying:

Virginia Governor Republican Bob McDonnell: "I'm concerned about the whole idea of carrying papers and always having to be able to prove your citizenship. That brings up some shades of some other regimes that weren't necessarily helpful to democracy."

Karl Rove (!?!): “I think there is going to be some constitutional problems with the bill. I wished they hadn’t passed it, in a way.”

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (Bush appointee) says he's "uncomfortable" with Arizona's new immigration law, because it allows police to question people without probable cause.

Florida Republican candidate Marco Rubio has major “concerns.”

Lindsey Graham & Tom Tancredo (Republicans both) question whether the law is constitutional.

The legislation also was opposed by the The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, tho they have pledged to uphold it now that it's passed.

It's also worth pondering that a man with very conservative credentials - Barry Goldwater himself - believed the problem needed to be attacked at its source. As quoted in the article linked to above:

But significantly, Goldwater realized that at the root, the U.S. needed "increased cooperation with the countries that are sending illegal aliens." He believed that U.S. businesses should work with those abroad to "[h]elp providing economic incentives to encourage residents to remain in their native lands."

This all moves away from my main point in the morning post - & what I want to remain my main point - that we need to humanize this debate. But I believe it's necessary to look for truly effective, rather than expedient means to address such large problems.

Deportees

Happy Thursday, folks—a day to turn to another of the more serious topics I’ve written about lately.

I’m sure most of our U.S. friends are familiar with the recent Arizona immigration law—if not, you can read about it here on the Huffington Post. Closer to home, at least in terms of blog community, I’d also recommend two recent posts by Citizen K on this topic, which you can read here & here. As is always the case with this redoubtable blogger, K has done his homework on the issue & he provides a great perspective.

I’d like to take a moment to look at the issue from a somewhat different point of view, however, one that's not about party politics & policy, but simply about basic human values. It seems there’s a lot of talk these days about “illegal aliens” & “illegals.” Is it that hard to understand these terms as de-humanizing? These are human beings who are crossing the border—they have families, & they’re looking for work—in fact, migrant workers are subject to probably the worst wage slavery in this country, since not only do they work at very difficult jobs for menial pay, but they’re always subject to arrest & deportation—a chilling grip on any man or woman in the hands of an unscrupulous employer.

As an illustration of the type of work done by migrant farm workers, I’m reminded of a time when I was around 20 years old. I was down on my luck, battling a bad drug/alcohol problem & flat broke. I knew a fellow my age whose family owned an apple orchard in northern Vermont. Besides being tapped out, I was also under the spell of John Steinbeck (without the necessary knowledge to really understand his writing) & decided maybe I’d just chuck it all & become a migrant worker. I remember what my friend told me—he said that sometimes locals applied for work at the orchards but they invariably quit within a couple of days—the work was simply too hard unless you were doing it because everything depended on it. I’ve never forgotten that.

Woody Guthrie recognized this—the tragic humanity of the situation, & the role that these workers were & are playing in a larger (at this point, global) economy. He wrote a song about it—actually, a set of lyrics that were found in his papers after his death. The music was added later by Marty Hoffman. If you’d like to read more about Guthrie’s “Deportees,” I’d refer you to Citizen K’s other blog project, Just a Song. But in the meantime, please take a couple of minutes to listen to Arlo Guthrie sing his father’s words, & ponder their deep meaning. This song's full of the kind of truth that’s so simple & obvious it ought to smack us in the face, but how often we choose to neglect it!

Sepia Saturday 4/24/10

Happy Sepia Saturday, folks! This may be the last of the CCC themed posts, as I seem to have culled the best of those images from my Dad’s album. But never fear: I have lots more old family photos to share on upcoming Sepia Saturdays.


As the last in the CCC series, I thought I’d offer a little background information about the Civilian Conservation Corps. It’s almost 70 years since the program was disbanded, so its history has faded—& I’ve been pleased to see that blogmates from other countries have expressed interest in knowing more about the CCC. The information in this post comes from Wikipedia.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program for unemployed men, providing vocational training through the performance of useful work related to conservation and development of natural resources in the United States from 1933 to 1942. As part of the New Deal legislation proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC was designed to aid relief of the unemployment resulting from the Great Depression while implementing a general natural resource conservation program on federal, state, county and municipal lands in every U.S. state, including the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The CCC became one of the more popular New Deal programs among the general public, providing economic relief, rehabilitation and training for a total of 3 million men. The CCC also provided a comprehensive work program that combined conservation, renewal, awareness and appreciation of the nation's natural resources. The CCC was never considered a permanent program and depended on emergency and temporary legislation for its existence. On June 30, 1942 Congress voted to eliminate funding for the CCC, formally ceasing active operation of the program.

During the time of the CCC, volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide that would become the start of most state parks, forest fire fighting methods were developed and a network of thousands of miles of public roadways and buildings were constructed connecting the nation's public lands.

Hope you enjoy the pictures & the background info on the CCC. Please be sure to visit other Sepia Saturday participants. You can find links to all participating blogs here.

Info on the photos:

• Shorty Gentile [R]; John Barbosa [L]; John E Hayes [m]; July 1935, Townsend, Vermont [in my Dad’s handwriting on the back—he would have been 21 at that time]
• The completed stone house
• Walter Mack; Stephan Danko; John E Hayes; Victor Burnett – Hayes’ crew – masonry 1935-36 [again, in my Dad’s writing. I don’t know if this was supposed to read from L to R or R to L, but I can tell you my Dad is second from the left]

“Natural Resources”

Happy Thursday, everybody. Today, as most know, is also Earth Day, & in honor of that I’m posting a piece by Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco that really connects the dots about how environmental issues connect to other important matters. As many know, I’m a huge fan of the late Utah Phillips, & his unlikely pairing with folk-punker DiFranco produced a truly beautiful album, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere.

In other news: Eberle & I are enjoying a visit from our good friend Margot K & her daughter Iris, out here in the Wild West all the way from Concord, Massachusetts! We’re having a wonderful time, but it has cut into blogging time & especially on time for blog visits. But I’ll be catching up soon!

Finally, I want to quote a simple line posted by Bay Area friend Scott H. on his Facebook profile today:

“if you don't make every day earth day, it doesn't really count. grab a new habit!”

You said a mouthful there, Scott!

Sepia Saturday 4/17/10

Happy Sepia Saturday folks! This time around I’m only posting one photo, but I believe it’s an interesting one. The photo shows what I assume to be all the men in my dad’s CCC unit—145 Company. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, 145 Company was assigned to build a stone house in the Townsend, VT state park.

According to blog friend Jacqueline T. Lynch, whose post on the CCC in western Massachusetts should be required reading for anyone interested in the corps, a “class photo” of this type may be somewhat unusual. I had the opportunity of sharing this photo album with Jacqueline when we had a chance to meet for lunch in Chicopee, Massachusetts during my recent cross-country trip.

The photo has faded with age, as have quite a number of images in the album. Still, it shows the men generally in what appear to be high spirits. There are also a few interesting nicknames—“Homebrew,” “Pirate” (yes, that’s my dad), “Cop” & “Black Jal” (or should that be “Black Jack”—I don’t suppose we’ll ever know). I suspect the man called “Needham” was nicknamed after his home town (Needham, Massachusetts), but it could be a surname.

I’d love to see a contemporary version of the CCC employed to work on public infrastucture projects—the condition of many roads & bridges in the U.S. are really quite woeful—but sadly, in our current political climate any such “radical” idea would probably have very little chance of success. I do know that the people I’ve known who were working class young adults under the Roosevelt administration all believed very much in his programs & credited him with pulling the U.S. out of the Depression. I also know that some folks from that time who were from wealthier backgrounds despised Roosevelt. These days I hear from some conservative folks that Roosevelt prolonged the Depression—I’m not an economic historian, but I can say this was not the belief of the working class folks who actually lived thru it.

There is a CCC legacy in several programs, mostly serving teens & people in their early 20s. Those who are interested can read more about them on Wikipedia’s CCC page (toward the bottom) or at Wikipedia’s National Civilian Community Corps page. I’m pleased to say that my home state utilizes one of those organizations, the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps.

Please be sure to check out other Sepia Saturday participants at this link!

National Day of Silence

Happy Friday, folks. I wanted to take a moment to draw your attention to Audrey's latest post on the Ms Blog: the post is titled "“Day of Silence” Protests Anti-LGBT Bullying." As Audrey's post explains:

On April 16, hundreds of thousands will choose silence as a way to “speak out” for a good cause. Around the country, students from middle schools, junior highs, high schools, colleges and universities will take part in the 15th Annual Day of Silence, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). By remaining silent for all or part of the day, participating students will symbolically call attention to the silence surrounding anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.

The rhetoric of anger & intolerance is most certainly heating up in this country, & the atmosphere it creates brings with it a sense of foreboding. Perhaps if young people can find a way toward more tolerance & acceptance, we can have some hope for a future where anger & hatred aren't the national political norm. It will be a long struggle to reach a tolerable level of live & let live. William S. Burroughs once characterized the U.S. as a country "where nobody minds their own business." This characteristic hasn't diminished in the years since Burroughs made that statement.

To my mind, the national mood of intolerance & the phenomenon of schoolhouse bullying about sexual orientation are cut from the same cloth. It should be noted also that such bullying often expands it field to include all sorts of "otherness." On the National Day of Silence website, there's a story about an 11-year-old boy who took his own life after being harrassed about his sexual orientation despite the fact that he didn't identify himself as gay. An isolated incident? I don't know from statistics, but I can tell you I suffered the same harrassment - both verbal & physical - in grade school & early high school years & I myself am straight. But I didn't fit the "mold." So this Day of Silence is about accepting our brothers & sisters who are gay, but it's also about accepting those who don't "fit."

One small thing we can do is spread the word. If you're on Twitter, please consider tweeting a link to Audrey's Ms. Blog piece and start your tweet #ff @dayofsilence. It would be great if the National Day of Silence could be #1 on Twitter's "follow Friday." Why would this be important? Anyone who watches or listens to any form of news in this country knows that politicians are mad for statistics. A show of support for the National Day of Silence on Twitter would send a message.

Thanks for your time!

From the Black Hills to Bozeman

Silent pines—granite rock face—the ice on Horsethief Lake—endless billboards for roadside attractions & an obsession with gold mining—a sacred place transformed to a rough & ready Disneyland—an obsession with natural resources “going to waste” by not being “used”—i.e., extracted—the sky is very sincerely blue tho as only in the west—four presidents carved into a mountain—the audacity & hubris of this—still, at least 3 of the 4 held positions now hated by the uber-patriotic conservatives—this country in a sad time, same as it ever was—the massive face of Crazy Horse emerging from another mountain & a solitary crow flying—

Brick buildings in Deadwood—the old Northwestern line depot transformed to a tourist info center—I’m wobbling around the cobblestone streets with a camera, dazed with fatigue & jittery from roadside coffee—a bust of Wild Bill Hickock, gambler & killer & lawman—the Anglo west with its lust for gold & land—

Wyoming: herds of pronghorns grazing near the pumpjacks & looking up to see the Burlington Northern hauling open containers of coal east—fiestaware cups in a Moorcroft diner—road workers eating chicken fingers & fries amongst the scattered high chairs & Sponge Bob Square Pants on the tube—the workers in work boots & ball caps all have an edge & everyone looks straight ahead—a boy refuses to let a girl sit on a plastic seat in the play area, keeping his feet firmly planted on it—same as it ever was—so she decides to play with an abacus—

Montana: the truss railroad bridges crossing the Little Big Horn—horses grazing on either side of a roughly paved highway that runs parallel to the interstate—a school bus flashing red lights—the battlefield itself unnaturally quiet & a waxing half moon rising above the battle ridge—nearby a gift shop & teepees in fiestaware colors—in Billings the refineries are smoking & flashing & a Holiday Inn is festooned with fake palm trees in an array of fiestaware colors—the truss bridges crossing the Yellowstone River & its sandbars—snow in the hills & rain along the highway—home is the one thing on my mind but I only make Bozeman, not Butte—home today—

“The Orange Bears”

On the surface, Kenneth Patchen’s poetry contains seemingly contradictory elements—while he was a truly great love poet & someone who could evoke great tenderness & compassion with his words, he had a savage & brutally matter-of-fact side. Just consider some of these poem titles: “I don’t want to startle you, but they are going to kill most of us”; “Eve of St. Agony or the Middle Class was Sitting on its Fat,” “Nice Day for a Lynching” or “"May I Ask You A Question, Mr. Youngstown Sheet & Tube?" Of course, the visceral outrage expressed in these & other poems goes hand in hand with the compassion—Patchen saw a world torn apart by war & ravaged by cruelty & the worst forms of injustice. When he saw these things, he expressed his outrage, openly & directly in his poetry.

Today’s poem, “The Orange Bears,” is an example of this outrage. Patchen grew up in Niles, Ohio, & his father worked in a steel mill in nearby Youngstown. This provides the poems context. In those days, the strikes were broken up by the National Guard—now it’s all done with much less physical violence—management taking photos of the workers on the picket line (I’ve seen this myself in San Francisco when the hotel workers went on strike) so they can identify employees for reprisal, or simply having the President of the United States fire all the members of the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

I thought Dominic Rivron made an astute comment on the first Patchen poem this month, saying that Patchen walks the line of being corny, but never falls off. It’s a big artistic risk to speak plainly & emotionally. Patchen is an example to us because he didn’t shirk that.

The Orange Bears


The Orange bears with soft friendly eyes
Who played with me when I was ten,
Christ, before I'd left home they'd had
Their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs
Seared by hot slag, their soft trusting
Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped
Out, and I went down through the woods
To the smelly crick with Whitman
In the Haldeman-Julius edition,
And I just sat there worrying my thumbnail
Into the cover—What did he know about
Orange bears with their coats all stunk up with soft coal
And the National Guard coming over
From Wheeling to stand in front of the millgates
With drawn bayonets jeering at the strikers?

I remember you would put daisies
On the windowsill at night and in
The morning they'd be so covered with soot
You couldn't tell what they were anymore.

A hell of a fat chance my orange bears had!

Kenneth Patchen

Snowbound Sugar Cookies

When you last saw Eberle & I in our kitchen, we were snowbound & preparing her delicious pumpkin stew. However, that wasn’t the end of our cooking adventures on that snowy Tuesday—of course not, because as delicious & hearty as that pumpkin stew assuredly is, it doesn’t cover the most important course, which is dessert of course.

I’ll start out by saying that our cookie baking is a humble recipe, taken from an old & well-beloved copy of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook—also the source of my macaroni & cheese recipe (& its attendant white sauce), my gravy recipe & several of Eberle’s more elaborate baking recipes. What makes these cookies stand out is the freshness of the ingredients. If you recall, we have a couple of students who pay for music lessons in commodities like milk, butter & eggs—you can see that right there we’re already on the way to some fresh & tasty cookies!

The ingredients are simple:

½ cup of butter
1 cup of sugar
1 Tbsp of cream or milk—we used a half & half mix, all from Sonia, our favorite Jersey cow
½ tsp of vanilla—real, please
Sometimes we add a ¼ tsp of lemon or lime juice; we didn’t this time simply because we didn’t have any. The cookies are good either way.
1 ½ cups of flour—unbleached if you have it
¼ tsp of salt
1 tsp of baking powder

That’s it. Pre-heat your oven to 375. Then you cream the butter—now just check out that farm fresh butter from Sonia the cow in the pic!—& following that beat in ¼ cup of sugar. I have to make a bit of an aside her. Last summer our friends Sally & Erich & Anna Lu came to visit us from SoCal. Eberle was baking something—I forget what now, tho whatever she bakes is great—& it fell upon yours truly to cream the butter. At this point in time we didn’t have a mixer of any sort beyond a fork & elbow grease; I’d asked Eberle if she wanted a mixer, but she’d always said she didn’t. I can tell you, friends, after that experience of creaming the butter with a fork, I bought a mixer the very next day at the local supermarket—you can see me wielding it right here.

Beat your egg, then add the cream or milk, the vanilla, flour, juice if you’re using it, flour, salt & baking powder. Drop the cookies on a buttered baking sheet & bake until golden (but watch the bottoms lest they get too crispy!)—should be around 8-9 minutes. I think you all can take it from there!

So obviously this is a recipe practically anyone can make—but I think the point here is something in addition to this simple but very effective cookie recipe, & that's the concept of “know your farmer, know your food.” I know this is a kind of rallying cry amongst food activists, & it makes a lot of sense—in terms of food safety, in terms of resources & in terms of flavor, too. This country doesn’t eat well: I think that’s a fact that’s acknowledged by all but the most hidebound amongst us. Not even getting into the scourge of fast food & soda pop, there are a lot of overly processed foods out there, milk that's amped up on hormones, apples covered with wax & pesticides, & high fructose corn syrup anywhere it can be added. The problem with supermarket organics is frankly, they're often prohbitively expensive; & as an aside, have you ever looked at the chart in the supermarket line of how many healthy foods are covered by food stamps?

A couple of practical answers to this: folks can band together & buy healthy food at bulk prices thru a number of health food stores &/or mail order services. But even more to the point: if you're fortunate enough to live in an area where there are still small family farms, please do yourselves & these small farmers a favor & consider patronizing them for whatever staples they have available—buy their produce at farmer's markets & similar outlets. Take advantage of resources like community gardens. Also, grow your own, because that's really know your farmer, know your food.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Today’s musical offering for Christmas Eve is one of my favorites among the traditional carols, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” The melody has so much peace & gentleness to impart, & I’ve played it here on one of my old favorite instruments, a koa Lanikai baritone ukulele. I don’t play the baritone uke much anymore, but it’s hard to beat for a certain soft & melodic sound, with just enough low(ish) end to create some harmony.

This tune is very popular of course, & it seems evocative too. But as I was playing it, I began meditating on what, exactly, this song does evoke. What is the “little town of Bethlehem” we picture when we hear this melody? For those of us brought up in a Christian tradition, even if, as is the case with yours truly, we no longer subscribe to many of the faith’s beliefs, we may well see an image of a Nativity scene divorced from any historical context.

But Bethlehem is a real place, a city on the West Bank in Israel, with a population divided between the Jewish, Christian & Islamic faiths (with a Muslim majority in the population). This is an area of the world that could well use tranquility & peace, but the conflicts there are so deeply rooted that they sometimes seem impossible to resolve. The territory is essentially mythic for three major religions & beyond that, conflicting historical claims spring from various wars fought over thousands of years. By the 20th century, Bethlehem was part of the British Mandate of Palestine & was included in the state of Israel by the United Nations resolution in 1947. The city is the site of Rachel’s Tomb, a very holy site in the Jewish faith; it also is considered the birthplace of King David, as well as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth.

One organization that has a very hands-on approach to resolving these conflicts is Ukuleles for Peace, an organization whose mission is “reating opportunities for Jewish and Arab children to meet & become involved with one another in their daily lives." One way the organization does this is by providing the kids with ukes so they can play music together. Please check them out. Is this the whole answer to the problems in that region? Of course not; but it strikes me as the sort of grassroots movement that could have a real impact, & perhaps spread to other areas.

All the images in the slideshow are from Wiki Commons, & all are in the public domain. They show Bethlehem & its inhabitants from the 19th thru early 20th centuries. Hope you enjoy the music.



Pic at the top of the post:
Main entrance into Bethlehem from Jerusalem, 2005 (photo released into the public domain by Wikipedia user Zero0000)

Weiser River Pillow Book #11

[Here’s the October installment of Eberle’s 2000-2001 Weiser River Pillow Book; as written, this would have been the end of the manuscript—so you should indeed put some stress on the final word of these lists. We began posting the Pillow Book entries last December, so next month’s installment will be the last]

THINGS ORNAMENTING THE WOOD SHED

Drifting sea background, 4 purple diamonds, 1 dawn-pink circle.

4 hubcaps.

Large metal hoop mandala encircling: teapot, trowel, sawblade.


FIRST RAINS, OCTOBER

The smell of the earth, a soft pungent gratitude.

Looking at the roof, trying to remember where the leaks were last year.

Sitting on the porch steps watching the clouds roll down from the mountains.

Summer-hatched guinea hens, who have never seen rain, sounding affronted.


GODS ON THE MARKET

Ajax cleanser.

Mercury automobiles.

Olympic stain and paint.

Toyota Cressida.

Argo cornstarch.


IMPROVISATIONS AT WOMEN’S FANTASY PERFORMANCE NIGHT

Being in a dance routine with bathing beauties.

Being coronated pope.

Running a school board meeting with a hammer for a gavel.

Witnessing one’s own funeral.

Flying.


I DREAMED I WAS WRITING MUSIC

I dreamed I was writing music, and when the hoot owls started outside, I dreamed I had written music for hoot owls, who then came in, right on cue, at intervals of a perfect fourth.


MARKETING THE WAR

America on Alert!

America’s New War!

America Strikes Back!

Now More Than Ever.


BEFORE YOU GO TO BED WITH THE FLU

Cellophane rattles like distant thunder, echoing with all the flimsy disposable flotsam of the last century.

Dead leaves look like mice.

It seems overwhelmingly tragic that the chickens have no scraps to eat that day.


HOW ENGROSSING CUTTING LABELS

How engrossing cutting labels from computer print-outs my companion designed for the feed containers: turkey grower, scratch, crumble, and rolled oats.

I remember how intent I was, years ago, cutting out place cards for my mother’s formal dinner parties—cards that would be inserted into the mouths of the golden metal insects that served as place-card holders.

How lovely to have animals instead of formal dinner parties.


ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Knowing that all lives are equally valuable. Consistent action based on this knowledge would eradicate hierarchy, elitism, war, oppression, and car commercials.

Not having children.

Making art instead of money.


THINGS THAT ABOUND

Listerine beetles.

Duckweed.

Hawthorn.


THE PURPOSE OF ART

The purpose of art is not so much even a question of product, but of commitment to a process that takes you away from the life proscribed by the agents of greed. It returns you to what is sacred, it ritualizes connection.


FAST FOOD, FAST CULTURE

Strange sight, a fast food roadside shrine, children of a superpower lining up quietly to eat what will kill them.

Putting down money for it too, the hush at the altar of the cash registers, the softly spoken orders. Many people have the verses memorized, don’t need to read the phrases posted in the place where, in church, the hymns would be posted.

Strange method of ritual suicide, within earshot of the roar of another monster to whom we make regular voluntary human sacrifices—the freeway.

Fast food is pseudo-sustenance based on omission: communicants participate in the omission of connection to its production—the land where it came from, the people involved in growing it, making it—the omission of making it, sharing it.

Fast culture works on the same premise—the cult of celebritism substituting for human connection—no involvement in its production, buying it, not making it: the whole business is just another death cult. Of course, death cults are not an illogical response to life in this country.


VACUUM CLEANER MODELS DESIGNED TO FIT TYPE A

Hoover Concept.

Decade.

Elite.

Innovation.

Legacy.

Power Max.


THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION

At best, education provides for an ability to entertain oneself without having to pay for it and feed the beast of consumer culture. Like learning to make love instead of supporting a sex industry. Learning to get ideas for free instead of supporting the non-information industry. In this country, recreation without consumption is a radical act, and leads naturally to freedom of thought.

BREEDER'S CUP CLASSIC HORSES

Orientate.

Include.

Galileo.

Freedom Crest.

Gander.

Albert the Great.

Aptitude.


SAVING GRACES

On the lawn, among the browning leaves the occasional underside of a cottonwood leaf bright and silvery as a coin winking up at you.

The internal voice, that laughs at itself. A friend, who echoes it.

Coming home on a cloudy night, past Mesa Hill, the scattered lights of houses around the post office and the store down in the valley.


INVINCIBLE SECRETS

The beating of your heart.

The stories you use to make up the world.

Joy.

Eberle Umbach © 2000-2009

Behind the Scenes

[Here's the latest installment in the Women's Work is Women's Art series, this time by Eberle. By the way, for you Googlers, the woman Eberle's writing about, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly sometimes has her last named spelled Keckley]

Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave, and four years in the White House was written by Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly in 1868. In this memoir, Elizabeth stated that President Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln often discussed matters of state in her presence, and she gives the gist of some of these conversations in ways that could easily be construed as presenting her own political opinions as well as her personal judgments. Not surprisingly, the fact that Elizabeth seemed to be placing herself on the same level as the white family in the White House created a scandal—the book was extremely controversial and efforts were made to suppress it. Elizabeth’s remarkable journey from slavery to the White House would probably have gone completely invisible in recorded history if she had not published this book.

Born as a slave in Virginia in 1818, Elizabeth purchased her freedom in 1855. She achieved her legal freedom and her position in the White House as personal modiste to Mary Todd Lincoln through her genius for dressmaking as well as for social interaction. Fashion in upper class American circles denoted many layers of meaning in the struggle for social power, and the competition for a celebrated dressmaker was a tooth-and-claw affair. Elizabeth obtained her introduction to Mary Todd Lincoln as a bribe from a would-be client whom Elizabeth had turned down. At the first meeting with Elizabeth, Mary asked her to become her personal dresser and dressmaker. A close and complicated friendship arose from this intimate connection.

As an aside, “dressmaker” was a term created in the early nineteenth century, when the practice of having customers select dress designs from sketches rather than from completed clothing became common. Before the availability of off-the-rack clothing, women who did not make their own clothing at home employed a local dressmaker who adapted designs from printed fashion plates. Dressmakers were also called modistes or mantua-makers. The term modiste carried a desirable Parisian whiff of elegance.

Elizabeth was no stranger to power struggles and the abusive complexities of interracial dynamics of the time. She lived in a household where the father of the white family was also her father, and her presence in the family was a powerful one though she suffered much abuse from the legitimate relatives of her father. Her only son was the result of a sexual relationship forced on her. That son was white enough to enlist in the army before it became legal for black men to enlist— she was not white enough, however, to receive the pension for which she was eligible after his death on the battlefield, and went through a long process involving a statement that she had been legally married to a white man before she did receive her pension.

Both Elizabeth and her mother learned to read and write although doing so was explicitly illegal at the time. Sewing for the family made part of their duties, and Elizabeth began gaining some reknown for her dressmaking while still in slavery. After obtaining her legal freedom, she moved to Washington and successfully navigated the social circles of the wives of the leading men of the times as part of her dressmaking business. Her book as well as her life shows a keen understanding of the dynamics of power struggles.

Dress symbolized a great deal on the female side of these political struggles. Mary Todd Lincoln, for example, enjoyed the notoriety of the fashions she chose to wear which included off-the-shoulder dresses and low necklines. Her behavior too was criticized for being insufficiently demure—she did not hide her political opinions.

Elizabeth used her celebrity status to start the Contraband Relief Association, which provided aid to former slaves who fled to Washington for safety. She received frequent donations for this fund from the President and the First Lady. After the scandal following publication of Behind the Scenes, Elizabeth’s dressmaking business declined. She died at the Home for Destitute Women and Children in Washington—an institution she had helped to establish.


Eberle Umbach
© Eberle Umbach 2007-2009

Pix from Top
Elizabeth Keckly
Title Page from Behind the Scenes
Portrait of Keckly from an early edition of Behind the Scenes
A dress designed by Keckly for Mary Tood Lincoln, now on display at the Smithsonian

What Does a Bleeding Heart Liberal Look Like?

I’m not ashamed—for reasons you’ll soon learn—to have that moniker applied to me—so you can see one of those holding a banjo in the little thumbnail to the left. But you might ask: John, you grew up in a working class home in the country—certainly your liberal views are a rejection of the values you grew up with? OK, I did reject some values I grew up with, but I can tell you where a lot of my bleeding heart liberal views came from: the man in the Chief Petty Officer’s hat in the photo on the right. My dad: a WWII vet from the Pacific Theater, someone who grew up in a poor immigrant family, & who spent his life as a blue-collar worker: carpenter, cook, millwright, machinist. My father was also an avid outdoor sportsman, both a hunter & a fisherman. He owned a .22 & a 30/30 & a 20-gauge shotgun, & he used them to hunt deer & other game, which he intended for the table.

I remember once when visiting my folks in the 80s & something about a fight against a possible assault rifle ban came on the news. My father scoffed at the "right" to own assault rifles: though he certainly believed in the right to own guns for legitimate purposes, he was a hunter, & he knew there’s only one legitimate use for an assault rifle: killing people. We can talk all we want about Second Amendment rights, but let’s be clear about this. Some guns can be used for sport, whether it’s hunting or trap-shooting; some are designed with one purpose. Killing people. Do people who believe in the right to bear arms think they should have the right to store an atomic bomb on their property, or at least park a working tank in their backyard? Why not? If you were going to form a militia wouldn’t you want up-to-date weaponry?

Would my father have thought it was simply a misguided assertion of rights for people to show up at Presidential rallies packing heat? I can guarantee you he would not have. It seems that in the health care debate one argument from the right wing has to do with how public health care would abrogate personal responsibility (I don’t follow this, & wonder what our Canadian friends think about that—but then the longevity in the country is way better than in the U.S.—kinda odd, since they are saddled with what we’re told is a horrible healthcare system). Seems like someone forgot to get that memo to the gun-toting folks. Is it their “right” to have those guns where they do? Apparently so, since they’ve been allowed to do it. Perhaps we should also have folks going to church or the local grocery store with a 30/06 under their arm—I mean, it is their right, & God forbid anyone in this country have his rights taken away.

What about the right to a civil society? Do we have that right anymore? The “political discourse” in this country has appalled me for almost 30 years (by the way, I don’t exempt Bill Clinton from criticism on this score). I somehow hoped that electing a President who had statesman-like qualities & an agenda to actually try & fix some deep-seated problems might turn the discourse around. If anything, it has gotten worse—much more ugly, especially in the past couple of months. I’m very discouraged, & angry, & I hate to say it, but I’m relieved my father isn’t around to see this. I'm also beginning to have the sinking feeling that Mr Obama may share the one-term fate of the one other decent president we've had in my adult life, Jimmy Carter.

My father learned one principle in his life, & he learned it in a genuine way: “the rich get richer & the poor get poorer.” People can say what they will about the health care debate or the gun debate: money is fueling these; health insurance & arms manufacture are big business. The renowned liberal President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the power of the “military-industrial complex”—hey, folks, those are the guys making the guns. As far as the insurance companies go: how about this one: please be sure to get pre-approval on the hospital you go to before you have your heart attack. Probably a few days notice will be sufficient!

OK, I’m getting off the soapbox. Tomorrow—Dad’s Photos: without political commentary.