This site contains a variety of short and longer poems, along with some essays and travel narratives. Some were written for a specific occasion or about a specific person or place. Others were intended to be more general and to have a longer shelf life. I hope an entry here or there may resonate with your experiences. Enjoy!
Who Benefits (Cui Bono) and for How Long?
As a long-time consumer of murder mysteries and courtroom dramas,
I’ve absorbed the notion that, when searching for a perpetrator
Of some crime or aberration, it’s smart to ponder the question,
“Who benefits?” or, in Latin legalese, “cui bono?”
Immersed too often in our vociferous media stream,
I wonder, “Cui bono?” about pressing issues of the day.
Who benefits from spreading fear about immigrants?
Maybe it’s not the migratory humans who benefit from a
Much-touted “crisis at the U.S. border.” New arrivals
Anywhere rarely fare well at first in their next environments,
Whether having fled famines, or political or domestic violence.
Instead, they are often harassed, crowded, derided, treated as pawns.
Could it be that it’s the human predators–the “coyotes” with sky-high fees,
The purveyors of sub-wage work, some opportunistic politicians–
Who trade on everyone’s fears to their benefit? Perhaps they’re
The ones who make a killing, sometimes literally. “Cui bono?”
Who benefits from restrictive reproductive health options?
Maybe it’s not the human infants born into impoverished or dysfunctional
Families. Maybe it’s not the mothers whose health is damaged,
Sometimes beyond repair, through dangerous pregnancies.
Maybe it’s not the badly deformed babies who die just after birth.
Maybe it’s not the single mothers who struggle daily to provide, either.
While I can respect those who believe that life before birth is sacred,
What about life after birth? Could it be that regulating childbearing without due
Consideration of the rights of mothers-to-be is, for some, a strategy for dividing us?
Could it be that some would, for political or economic gain,
Pit women against each other because of our nearly unique ability
To carry life within us? Could it serve to absolve fathers-to-be of
Nearly all responsibility? Perhaps we need to shift focus. “Cui bono?”
We live in an age when much attention is paid to quick results.
Benefits may be measured in “likes” or “shares” according to
Some arbitrary algorithm that changes rankings nearly instantaneously.
Are there benefits that last longer–hours, perhaps, or months, or years,
Or the length of a political term, a decade, even a lifetime? Could it be that
The longer-term consequences of distortions, half-truths, and outright lies
Are harmful to all life? Could it be that unselfish love
Provides the only enduring benefit for all? “Cui bono?”
Life Plans A to Z
According to an essay I wrote in eighth grade, I wanted to grow up to become an airline stewardess or a simultaneous translator for the United Nations or a circus trapeze artist. As I got older, I began to realize that these initial dreams were unlikely to get fulfilled, at least not in the way my thirteen-year-old self had imagined. I might need to create alternatives.
For starters, stewardesses (the profession then was almost entirely women) were required to have 20/20 vision without eyeglasses. In those days before the availability of contact lenses, my severe myopia would disqualify me as a prospective flight attendant. Later in high school, I began to meet other students who had been raised bilingually. It gradually sank in to me that my simultaneous translation prospects were slim. Regardless of how much I studied, I was unlikely to become as proficient as others who’d learned two languages (or sometimes more) from birth. Finally, although I’d been a “queen of the jungle gym” in elementary school and loved going to the circus, I began to appreciate how much additional training I’d need to reach professional level on a trapeze. I also noticed that over time circus crowds were getting sparser. More and more “big tops” were folding.
So I began formulating “Plan B’s.” Even if I couldn’t become a stewardess, I might be able to arrange other ways to travel widely as an adult. I might not be able to do simultaneous translations, but perhaps I could teach foreign language skills to those with less exposure than I had. I might not ever become a circus entertainer, but I could create verbal sketches and skits to amuse people.
By the time I completed college, I’d had my first international work experience—preparing and selling Belgian waffles at a bilingual snack bar at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, Québec, Canada. I’d enrolled in an advanced program to get a teaching credential for French language instruction. From Montreal, I’d sent a summer’s worth of weekly humorous travel sketches to our small-town Maryland newspaper.
I was about to become a newlywed, at a time when American young men were susceptible to being drafted into the military. Some of them were then sent to participate in a far-off war in Vietnam. A few days before our wedding, my groom-to-be got his notice to report for induction into the army. Rats! Time for “Plan C.”
My only future brother-in-law was already serving in Vietnam. Worst case, my future husband might soon join him. Knowing my tendency to “awfulize,” I figured I could keep my stress level somewhat in check by staying busy. I applied for and got a part-time clerical job in addition to my full-time academic course load.
Several weeks later, a surprise phone call from my now-husband relayed most welcome news: a minor congenital back abnormality had reclassified him as less fit for military service. He could return home and resume his non-military career. “Plan D” found both of us happy to be together, but very, very busy. I made it through a hellish school year of teaching beginning French to 187 rambunctious adolescents, then embarked on “Plan E,” what turned out to be a lengthy career in commercial information systems.
Over the course of the next fifty years or so, I fulfilled additional alternate versions of my adolescent dreams: for a couple of years in my thirties, I was on the staff of the U.N. in a French-speaking African country; in my forties, I created holiday programs spoofing local politics for an area non-profit; in my fifties, I survived a serious health scare partly by becoming more adept at yoga and a graceful Asian exercise practice called “qi gong.” I also traveled widely and spent multiple semesters teaching English as a foreign language in rural China.
At my current life stage, I get much incoming mail either promoting various burial services or suggesting worthy causes I should include in my “estate plans.” As the end of my planning alphabet approaches, I face ongoing uncertainties and anxieties, including pandemics, climate change, massive human migrations, escalating housing costs and homelessness. My coping skills are sometimes challenged. I hope that younger generations will expand newer coping tools and use them wisely.
Should anyone ask, I’d suggest that it’s great both to have dreams and to have some “plan B’s” (and C’s, D’s, etc.). Life is apt to adjust your original plans over and over again.
Complaints of a Reluctant “Prosumer”
It was bound to happen sooner or later. One of the groceries nearest me installed several “self-checkout” stations, replacing a couple of previously staffed grocery check-outs. Unluckily for me, I discovered the change on a recent Sunday morning when, as later became evident, the only in-person checkout clerk was temporarily on break. With some grumbling and some help from another grocery purchaser, I eventually managed to get my substantial order through the self-checkout station, bagged into the reusable cloth bags I’d brought with me, and back into my grocery cart to be wheeled out to my car. On my way out the door, I happened to see someone at the customer service station. I complained about the lack of in-person service.
“We only do that during slow periods,” she told me. “Had you waited ten minutes, there would have been someone to serve you in person.” Not entirely mollified, I wheeled my cart out to the car, loaded my groceries in the trunk, and then replaced the cart in the outdoor cart enclosure.
The next time I did battle with the self-checkout was fairly early on a Saturday morning. This time, my order was much smaller. There was a single in-person clerk helping other customers, but the line to his station was long. A couple of the self-service checkouts were out of service. Still, I lined up to get the next available station, figuring it could be faster than waiting for in-person service. Wrong.
The items I’d purchased were on special, with a substantial discount for buying in quantity. I thought my purchases qualified, but the price shown at the self-checkout station was the “non-quantity” price. Reluctant to pay “extra,” I pushed the “get help” icon, only to learn from the somewhat harried in-person checkout clerk that the only person authorized to help me was on bathroom break. Eventually, this store manager returned and explained the somewhat convoluted programming of self-help pricing, which could only validate quantities once one hit “finish and pay.” It sort of made sense, so I’ll be somewhat better prepared on any further self-checkout encounters.
Of course, staffing and customer service practices have been evolving for a long time. You might need to be beyond retirement age to remember when banks had only in-person tellers, none of the now-ubiquitous automated teller machines (ATMs). You might need to be even older, and an urban dweller, to remember an early experiment in “automated food,” a series of Horn and Hardart restaurants that served both hot and cold fresh meals via a set of coin-operated vending machine windows. The restaurants thrived in the early part of the twentieth century, but went out of business later when changing demographic patterns and widespread moves to the suburbs made much center-city dining obsolete.
A while ago, I ran across the term “prosumer” in an article in a popular magazine. The article’s author contended that much of what we used to expect as “consumers” of services had now been built into automated processes. The “consumer” was now expected to do parts of the work previously performed by a live person, a “producer”—perhaps a grocery store clerk, a bank teller, or a mail carrier. As I read, it occurred to me that the “people in your neighborhood” sung about in an earlier children’s television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, might no longer exist for contemporary children.
I’m realistic enough to know that any sort of imagined personal service utopia is just that—a situation that never totally existed. In the “old days,” you might be likely to encounter a crabby or clueless clerk or server in person. Having to “do battle” with some of our overly impersonal “automated service providers” now is only a difference in degree. Still, I relish the encounters I have with our neighborhood’s in-person providers—the mail carrier who knows my name and habits and watches out for me, the bank clerk who walks me through a complex transaction, the grocery checkout staffer who chats with each customer when time allows, and always sends us off with his signature, “Have a grateful day!” Yes!
Fearing Fear Itself
It sometimes seems to me that the media environment surrounding me is getting increasingly fear inducing. Should our American predilection for gun violence have me quaking in my shoes? Is another deadly pandemic inevitable? Should I be afraid of the overwhelming consequences of irreversible climate change? Is our political system broken beyond repair? To help provide context and retain some sense of balance, I look for historical parallels and trends rather than just following the headlines or lead story:
—Colonial America had more endemic violence than we see now. Dueling with pistols was then considered a socially acceptable means of “settling” disputes. Unfortunately, firearm deaths remain among major causes of death in the U.S., with the majority of those deaths being suicides. Rates vary considerably by locality and over time. After a U.S. low of under 29,000 fatalities in 1999 and 2000, the death toll again began to climb. Starting in 2015, it increased significantly, by 2021 exceeding 48,000. However, because of population growth, the gun death rate of 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 was still below the prior peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 1974.
—During the 2020-2023 covid pandemic, losses were immense, but the global death toll, estimated at 5 to 6 million, was just over 10% of the estimated toll of the prior 1918-1920 influenza pandemic. Both pandemics fell far short of the catastrophic losses from bubonic plague outbreaks that wiped out about a third of Europe’s human population during the 14th century.
—Erratic weather events seem to have become more frequent, yet warning systems, preparation, and remediation resources have also improved. In 1900, a hurricane all but obliterated Galveston, Texas. The storm killed an estimated 10,000 people, primarily because there were inadequate weather warnings.
—We certainly have a current crop of crooked politicians and political shenanigans, but the respective eras of “Boss Tweed” of NYC’s Tammany Hall and later “Kingfish” Huey Long of Louisiana could run contemporary political machinations a close second.
In our current round of political theater, have we allowed ourselves too often, though, to be frightened by our supposed differences, be they political party, ethnicity, gender, or any other category? It may now sadly be a somewhat realistic fear to fear those who for political gain try to incite us to fear each other.
Our most famous U.S. political quote about the toxicity of fear comes from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address in March, 1933. Then, the nation’s economy was reeling after a 1929 stock market crash and several years of deepening economic dysfunction. FDR was a seasoned politician and also someone who had made an arduous recovery from the paralyzing polio he’d contracted in 1921. Without downplaying the dire state of the economy, he spoke to rally our citizenry by beginning with the need to reduce fear:
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
He then went on to outline actions for restoring trust (there’s a reason many banks have “trust” as part of their names) and for minimizing further panic (there’s also a reason that financial panics are called “panics.”)
A recent explanation of the importance of not succumbing to fear comes from a 2018 book that helped get me through covid isolation: Factfulness. Authored by former Sweden-based global health researcher, professor and statistician Hans Rosling, the book evaluates a whole set of instinctual responses that can distort our human reactions to situations and events. Fear is one of the most insidious.
Anecdotally, Rosling describes his initial reaction while coping as a young emergency room physician with his first trauma event, a downed, incoherent pilot. Temporarily short of more seasoned backup, Rosling’s initial reaction was fear-driven:
“…(M)y head quickly generated a worst-case scenario. … I saw what I was afraid of seeing [a Russian intruder signaling the start of World War III]. Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”
Fortunately for Rosling and for his patient, an experienced nurse soon returned from her lunch break and identified the real problem [a Swedish pilot whose training mission had ended with a ditched plane and resulted in hypothermia]. She reclaimed the situation before the young doctor’s fear response resulted in serious errors.
Rosling also provides statistical evidence contrasting what we find frightening and what our actual risks may be: “This chapter has touched on terrifying events: natural disasters (0.1 percent of all deaths), plane crashes (0.001 percent), murders (0.7 percent), nuclear leaks (0 percent) and terrorism (0.05 percent). None of them kills more than 1 percent of the people who die each year, and still they get enormous media attention.”
Per Rosling, we all need to become better at distinguishing between what we find frightening and what is truly dangerous. He elaborates: “The world seems scarier than it is because what you hear about it has been selected—by your own attention filter or by the media—precisely because it is scary.” We need to evaluate situations based both on the actual danger and on our level of exposure to that danger.
In conclusion, he offers this suggestion: “Get calm(er) before you carry on.” Good advice for troubling times.
Recentering
I have a somewhat strained relationship with mobile phone directions apps. On the one hand, they can be helpful in navigating in unfamiliar locations. On the other hand, they can be infuriatingly obtuse at honoring my preferences for places I mostly know how to get to (limited or no freeway use, as few left turns as possible, a generally direct route toward my destination). The most aggravating circumstances of all are when I lack just a little knowledge at either end of the trip. I’ll be in dense traffic in the right lane when the annoying app voice tells me “in 800 feet, turn left.” Not going to happen.
Sometimes I’m able to adjust quickly enough to resume following the app’s instructions. Say, for example, there’s an almost miraculous break in traffic. At other times, there seems to be no way to adjust my driving to match the app. So I tootle along semi-lost, somewhat relieved that I’ve allowed extra time to reach any appointments with a set schedule. After a while, the app will display a message, “recentering,” then attempt to find me an alternate route to my destination based on where I currently am.
Given the present political and media climates, both in the U.S. and globally, I need to practice “recentering” often in other aspects of my life. This can involve insulating myself temporarily from most external distractions of our too often noisy lives. It can be hard to get away from the noises of airplanes overhead, leaf blowers nearby, or a neighbor’s next home improvement project. (I need to remember to be grateful that the noises surrounding me are generally benign—not bombs, not bullets, not blaring sirens.) It’s nearly always possible, though, with some effort, to find a time/place for quiet contemplation.
Both Christian and Buddhist faith traditions have evolved forms of centering. Christianity focuses on our communication with what we call God. Buddhism stresses non-attachment to external stimuli. I doubt that I’ll ever become totally adept at either practice. Still, I’ve found that taking a breather (sometimes literally focusing on my breath) can help me be less overwhelmed by what’s going on around me.
Perhaps the phone directions apps are onto something.
Posted in Spiritual musings, travel, Uncategorized
Tagged cell phone apps, contemplation, meditation, mindfulness, partial knowledge, recentering, travel
A Gentle “Consurrection”
This January 6, I want to remember the date as my sister-in-law’s birthday, or maybe the Christian festival of Epiphany. I’ll do my best to tune out an overdose of analysis and commentary about U.S. events of January 6, 2021.
This year’s January 6 falls on a Saturday, when many of us will be experiencing a weekend, free from most work obligations and ready for a change of pace. As an inveterate player with words, I want to propose a widening “consurrection.” Taking the prefix “con,” typically meaning “with,” to replace the “in” of “insurrection,” we can create a “rising up with,” rather than the “rising up against” that occurred a few years ago. Just as “conspiring” at its root represents “breathing together,” so might “consurrecting” come to mean something like “working together to create a more humane, welcoming society.”
I would like more and more of us to spend part of January 6 each year in the sort of voluntary public service that’s become more closely associated with the MLK holiday later in January—let this Saturday be the start. Thanks to a faith community teamed with a local non-profit, I’ll have a chance on Saturday to sort produce for an area food bank’s weekly distribution, “consurrecting” on January 6 with an eclectic range of folks who work to reduce food insecurity in San Diego County.
May you find a worthwhile and fulfilling path toward “consurrection” as well.
Posted in holidays, Spiritual musings, Uncategorized
Tagged a gentle consurrection, consurrection, food, food banks, January 6, San Diego
Layered Allegiances
It’s nearly the end of 2023, a time for looking back and for looking ahead. I’m grateful to have made it through another year with most of my faculties intact. I’m blessed to have a warm, supportive network of family and friends. Over the holidays, I’ve managed to spend some extended family time in person and to avoid an excess of media. I’ve (mostly) avoided discussing politics, but still have heard the word “polarization” more times than I care to count.
I like to think that many of us, despite all the rhetoric and doom-saying, are more centrist than otherwise, with overlapping multi-layered allegiances—to family, to work group, to neighborhood, to profession, to age-mates, to craft groups. To varying degrees, many of us also affiliate with politically oriented groups at various levels. I think it does us a disservice to try to reduce anyone to a single level of allegiance, politically or otherwise.
Nonetheless, our current “in between” media environment, an evolving mix of broadcast, print, and internet-driven content, is surfeited with polling that purports to pigeonhole us by political allegiance and/or some aspect of our demographics. I could make a bonfire with all the pieces of campaign literature I’ve received warning of the end of the world if “the other side” wins. Though checking boxes on surveys may relieve a few of my frustrations, it does little to create or reinforce connections. Indulging my anger may feel righteous for a time, but it likewise does little toward solving problems. Nuanced discussions and concerted actions are needed and seem in short supply.
Many years ago, I applied to the United States Peace Corps. Once accepted, I was offered a two-year assignment with a United Nations agency, providing technical assistance in an economically struggling country. Over the course of the recruitment process, I was asked to affirm my allegiance both to the U.S. government and to the principles of the U.N. This was at a time during the 1980’s when there was serious talk of cutting off U.S. support for many international organizations. (Echoes of the same tendency are again current.)
I crossed my fingers that there would not be a serious conflict between the stated purposes of the U.S. and those of the U.N. I wondered where my allegiance would lie if such a breach occurred. Luckily, it was a choice I did not have to make. I think my assignment helped persuade some of my in-country coworkers that there was more to Americans than bellicosity or arrogance. The work done by our multi-national staff made a small but positive impact on the lives of the mostly peasant families we interacted with. Once my assignment was over and I returned to the U.S., I bought two flags—a U.S. flag and an “earth flag,” showing our blue-green planet as viewed from space. On holidays, I gladly flew both. (An image of the earth flag is on Wikimedia Commons as File:Earth flag PD.jpg)
Unless our lives have been exceptionally tranquil, we’ve sometimes been faced with potentially conflicting allegiances. What seems dangerous to me about our current era is that much of our public sphere seems intent on collapsing the many overlapping layers of allegiances of healthy societies into strictly “us versus them” categories.
I draw some solace from a recent experience of our soccer playing granddaughter. The school league in which she plays consists of several smallish secondary schools. At a recent game, the opposing team was short a couple of players at the start of play. It would have been perfectly acceptable, per the league’s rules, for our granddaughter’s team to claim a win by forfeit. Instead, our granddaughter and another player with friends on both teams added a layer of soccer jersey and played for the “opposing” team until enough of their players arrived to complete the rest of the game “normally.” I doubt anyone kept very close track of who “won.”
So here’s a wish that your 2024 will be multi-layered and nourishing, that you’ll have chances to experience some of the “win-win” results that can come from recognizing how multi-faceted and interconnected all of us are.
Posted in Everyday Wonders, holidays, travel, Uncategorized
Tagged interconnections, layered allegiances, New Year, pigeonhole, US/UN, win-win
Friendly Beasts
The local church whose “back lot” has for over a decade served as a community garden also engages with the wider community in other ways. Recently, on a trip to tend my garden plot, I saw posters for a “live Nativity.” I’d not yet seen one, supposedly initiated by Saint Francis in central Italy during the 12th century as a way of teaching about Christ’s birth. The poster for the local event prominently featured a camel.
“Where would anybody find a camel around here?” I wondered. “At the zoo?” Intrigued, I showed up at the church’s front lawn just before sunset on a balmy Saturday evening to see for myself. Sure enough, there was a regal-looking camel, festooned with a decorated blanket and tassels and bells. Standing beside the camel, holding its halter, was a swarthy bearded man in a long embroidered robe. He represented one of the three kings bringing gifts for the baby Jesus. The nativity also included a couple of sheep, some goats, and a donkey, in addition to the three humans representing the Holy Family.
It was a supremely kid-friendly event. Lots of families with children were taking part—looking at the animals, petting the goats, decorating Christmas cookies, sipping cider or cocoa. I stayed long enough to chat briefly with some of the animal handlers. Turns out, the camel was from the “Oasis Camel Dairy” in a nearby farming area. She’d been rented out for the occasion.
In most years, the town of Bethlehem in Palestine, site of the original Nativity, sees a huge influx of religiously oriented tourists around Christmas. Pilgrims come from all over the world to see the Basilica of the Nativity and to visit its grotto, the oldest continuously used site of Christian worship. Many suppose it to be the place of Jesus’ birth. This year, though, according to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, nearly all tourists have canceled, further depressing the local economy. The locality’s struggles to support itself are also complicated by a full-scale war being waged in nearby Gaza.
Even amid sadness and outrage at the ongoing carnage in the Mideast, I’m reminded by the live nativity here of one of my favorite Christmas songs, variously titled “The Gifts They Gave,” or “The Friendly Beasts.” Sung by many different soloists, one of the most popular versions is by Harry Belafonte. Listening to his mellow rendition helps calm and inspire me. In the song, a donkey, a sheep, and a dove in turn explain the gifts they brought for the Christ child: the donkey, transport for Jesus’ mother Mary to Bethlehem; the sheep, a warm blanket for the new baby; the dove, a lullaby. In current news, if we see donkeys at all, they are likely pulling carts of Palestinians fleeing in search of some area of safety.
At this holy season, may we remember the Christmas song’s friendly beasts and their simple gifts. May we imitate such wise animals more often.
Posted in holidays, Spiritual musings, Uncategorized
Tagged advent, Bethlehem, Christmas, faith, friendly beasts, Harry Belafonte, live nativity, nativity, Palestine
Gratitude over Resentment
Most days, I remember at some point to be grateful:
—for life
—for breathable air, for water that’s safe to drink
—for access to food, clothing, and shelter
—for health
—for family and friends both near and far
—for sunrises and sunsets, for clear days and for rainy ones.
It seems totally appropriate to me that we celebrate an autumn holiday in honor of gratitude, “Thanksgiving.”
Depending on what traditions we’ve been exposed to, we may think that the Thanksgiving holiday in the current territory of the U.S. originated in 1541 in Texas with Spanish explorer Coronado and the Teya Indians. We might suppose that Thanksgiving started in 1619 in eastern Virginia when some British colonists gave thanks for their safe arrival on American shores. Lots of us were taught as primary school students about the 1621 Massachusetts feast when Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians celebrated together after the immigrants’ first successful harvest. In multiple places in the colonies and then in the U. S., Thanksgiving was celebrated locally or intermittently for a long time, but it only became fixed as a national holiday in 1863. That year, then-President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation making the last Thursday of November (later tweaked by Congress to the 4th Thursday) a national celebration of Thanksgiving.
November 2023 has so far often lacked for gratitude—wars and conflicts dominate our headlines; fiscal and military brinksmanship abounds; in many places there’s a general feeling of malaise and discouragement. Resentment often fills our airwaves and screens. It’s so pervasive that it can seem to poison the very air. Few of us will ever let go of our resentments entirely, be they of long-ago childhood slights or traumas, of former lovers who jilted us, or of perceived business or professional snubs. The rich and powerful are not immune, either. Some can seem resentful that they’ve not obtained even more wealth and/or power. So, especially in this fraught season, it’s important to make time for gratitude.
Fortunately, it’s nearly impossible to be resentful and grateful at exactly the same time. Thanksgiving reminds us to rearrange our lives to expand our proportion of gratitude and to diminish our corresponding “resentment quotient.” We need Thanksgivings, more than we usually admit.
Coronado’s party and the long-ago Virginians and Pilgrims had lives filled with deprivation and danger. Back then, there might have seemed little reason to be grateful. At the first national November Thanksgiving in 1863, the American Civil War raged. Though the tide of battle seemed to have turned in favor of preserving the Union, the outcome was far from sure. Deaths and injuries had touched many families both North and South. In many places, basic goods were either in short supply or totally unavailable. The ill will and resentment that had helped spark the war lingered. Even now, it sometimes darkens our politics.
Happily, for most of us in the U.S. in 2023, Thanksgiving does not equate with privation. It’s sobering, though, that over a tenth of our population fell below the official poverty line in calendar 2022. Moreover, during the period 2020-2022, there were about a million and a half excess deaths, either directly from the covid pandemic, or from other health complications. Many Thanksgiving tables this year are missing one or more previous guests.
Still, it’s my hope that this Thanksgiving many of us will have things to be grateful for. I hope that most of us will resist temptations either to settle old scores or to prefigure the next election cycle. May we, for at least the better part of a day, let gratitude overtake any resentments.
Toward a Healthier Discontent
This Tuesday is the first Tuesday of November, Election Day. Though 2023’s choices are for local and/or state contests, a fair number of eligible voters will show up. They will vote for some candidates or measures, against others, expressing both preferences and discontent. Some voters will show their discontent by refusing to participate, by staying home.
Next year on the first Tuesday of November, we’ll have national elections, choosing a legislature and a president and vice president, among other contests. Much ink has been spilled about the character and prospects of the man who became our nation’s chief executive from 2017 through the early part of 2021. He is now campaigning to resume that office in early 2025.
Those of us not enamored of Mr. Trump wonder what combination of factors may motivate those who support him. I’m not a huge fan, but I’m persuaded that the ways I and some others express our discontent could be healthier. I doubt that all “MAGA voters” are without merit. Some may even share some of my own concerns. So I went looking for guidance, for precedents, for wisdom from authors wiser than I am.
Last week, I revisited an extended quote by a woman of Polish descent who for many years represented my birth state of Maryland in politics. Before Ms. Mikulski ran for political office, she was a social worker and a lay leader at her church. At a 1970 religious conference on activism, she took up the cause of members of her community:
“America is not a melting pot. It is a sizzling cauldron for the ethnic American who feels that he has been politically courted and legally extorted by both government and private enterprise.
The ethnic American is sick of being stereotyped as a racist and dullard by phony white liberals, pseudo black militants and patronizing bureaucrats… He pays the bill for every major government program and gets nothing or little in the way of return. He himself is the victim of class prejudice…
He has worked hard all his life to become a “good American”; he and his sons have fought on every battlefield—then he is made fun of because he likes the flag.
The ethnic American is overtaxed and underserved at every level of government.
…There is a general decline of community services for his neighborhood, e.g. zoning, libraries, recreation programs, sanitation, etc.
His income … makes him “near poor.” He is the victim of both inflation and anti‐inflationary measures. He is the guy that is hurt by layoffs, (by) tight money that chokes him with high interest rates for installment buying and home improvements.
Manufacturers … are gouging him to death. When he complains about costs, he is told that it is the “high cost of labor” that is to blame. Yet he knows he is the “labor” and that in terms of real dollars he is going backwards.
The ethnic American also feels unappreciated for the contribution he makes to society. He resents the way the working class is looked down upon. … He is tired of being treated like an object of production. The public and private institutions have made him frustrated by their lack of response to his needs. At present he feels powerless in his daily dealings with and efforts to change them.”
Parallels between Mikulski’s “ethnic American” speech in 1970 and various 2015-plus utterances of campaigner Donald Trump abound. Mr. Trump, despite his unparalleled wealth and media access, identifies with ethnic America’s grievances. By the time he was born in 1946, Trump’s family was wealthy and well-connected. Nevertheless, he portrays himself as a victim, when he has more often been a perpetrator and/or benefactor of unjust policies. It’s easy to agree with Mr. Trump that “the system is rigged.” The follow-up questions we too seldom analyze are “for whom and by whom?”
A more recent analysis of our discontent, our tendency to fall prey to demagoguery, regardless of its source, came from a book I found at our local library: Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (2022). Author Azar Nafisi grew up in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. She came to the U.S. temporarily for study during the 1970’s, then returned to Tehran as a young adult. She lived and worked there through the tumultuous Iranian revolution of 1979. Later stripped of her university teaching post for refusing to wear a head covering, Nafisi worked at multiple jobs in Iran and abroad, eventually settling in the U.S. in the late 1990’s. She writes:
“The most seductive aspect of a totalitarian state is the security it offers. The truth is uncomfortable, and a dictator promises an abdication of responsibility from it. In America, I think it’s safe to say that most of Trump’s supporters are with him not because they respect Trump, or think that he is an honorable man, or are impressed with his vast knowledge of foreign policy. Instead, they feel secure in his promise to run the country like a business (financial comfort) and are consoled by the idea that he will “Make America Great Again” (spiritual comfort).”
A final touchstone for understanding our discontent and Mr. Trump’s appeal comes from rural America. Long-time small scale farmer, writer, activist, and promoter of “agrarianism,” Wendell Barry writes in The Art of Loading Brush(2017):
“For me, the ascent of Mr. Trump, a man who indulges his worst impulses and encourages the worst impulses of others, was … less a surprise than a clarification. His election … expose(s) beyond doubt the nearly absolute ownership of our public life by the excessively wealthy, who are dedicated to freeing themselves and their corporate and of-course-Christian peers from any obligation to the natural and human commonwealth. …
(A)grarianism … is the way of what I am obliged to call economic realism, indissolubly mated to ecology, to local ecosystems, and to the traditions of good husbandry and good neighborhood, starting at home and from the ground up. …
The order of loving care is of human making. It varies as it must from place to place, time to time, worker to worker, never definitive or final. It is measurable by the health, the happiness too, of the association of land and people. It is partly an ideal, … partly a quest, always and inescapably a practice.”
The quandaries we face as we try to make wise choices, both in our personal lives and in our elected leadership, cannot be solved by “going back.” Whether during the peak of U.S. manufacturing in the 1950’s that Trump romanticizes, or the peak of “family farming” Berry alludes to before the advent of mechanized agribusiness, our country has moved on. Meanwhile, as localities and as a nation, we have sometimes succumbed to the sorts of rigid religiosity Nafisi has described in post-revolutionary Iran. We in the U.S. have thrashed around as we confront issues of responsible stewardship, of equity, of rights and concomitant responsibilities. Some of the wisdom of a Mikulski, a Nafisi, or a Berry can be helpful in framing our ongoing national (and local) conversations.
Each of these authors emphasizes that we are participants—we cannot sit on the sidelines. We can engage in deep disagreements and still cohere. However, we must do our best to honor the heritage we’ve been gifted with, including the not-so-good parts. From time to time, we will make bad choices. The worst choice of all, though, is to abdicate responsibility for choosing, as Ms. Nafisi so aptly points out. So let’s disagree but continue to function, let’s vote with our ballots and our voices, not with our apathy, disjointed anger, or absence. Let’s use our discontent, rather than letting it use us.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 