WHAT BUT THE MUSIC, an evocative new anthology of personal essays and poems about “the soundtrack of our lives.” The collection includes work by Judy Dykstra-Brown, Bill Frayer, Sandi Gelles-Cole, Janice Kimball, Rachel McMillen, Tom Nussbaum, Herbert W. Piekow, and Kenneth Salzmann.
Anthropologist Wade Davis, of the University of BC, wrote an amazing piece in Rolling Stone a couple months ago called “The Unraveling of America”. I hope you’ll read the full article HERE. Here is my paraphrased summary.
No empire long endures, even if few anticipate their demise. Every kingdom is born to die.
The 15th century belonged to the Portuguese, the 16th to Spain, 17th to the Dutch. France dominated the 18th and Britain the 19th.
Bled white and left bankrupt by the Great War, the British maintained a pretense of domination as late as 1935, when the empire reached its greatest geographical extent. By then, of course, the torch had long passed into the hands of America.
The United States never stood down in the wake of WWII victory. To this day, American troops are deployed in 150 countries. Since the 1970’s, China has not once gone to war; the US has not spent a day at peace. President Jimmy Carter has noted that in its 242-year history, America has enjoyed only 16 years of peace, making it, as he wrote, “the most warlike nation in the history of the world.”
Since 2001, the US has spent over $6 trillion on military operations and war, money that might have been invested in the infrastructure of home. China, meanwhile, built its nation, pouring more cement every three years than America did in the entire 20th century.
With the COVID crisis, 40 million Americans have lost their jobs, and 33 million businesses have shut down, including 41 percent of all black-owned enterprises.
COVID-19 has not laid America low; it has simply revealed what has long been forsaken. As the crisis unfolds, with another American dying every minute of every day, a country that once turned out fighter planes by the hour could not manage to produce the paper masks or cotton swabs essential for tracking the disease. The nation that defeated smallpox and polio, and led the world for generations in medical innovation and discovery, has been reduced to a laughing stock as a buffoon of a president advocates the use of household disinfectants as a treatment for a disease that intellectually he can not begin to understand.
Trump’s performance and America’s crisis deflected attention from China’s own mishandling of the initial outbreak in Wuhan, not to mention its move to crush democracy in Hong Kong.
Odious as he may be, Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent. As they stare into the mirror and perceive only the myth of their exceptionalism, Americans remain almost bizarrely incapable of seeing what has actually become of their country. The republic that defined the free flow of information as the life blood of democracy, today ranks 45th among nations when it comes to press freedom.
How can the rest of the world expect America to lead on global threats — climate change, the extinction crisis, pandemics — when the country no longer has a sense of benign purpose, or collective well-being, even within its own national community?
Asked what he thought of Western civilization Mahatma Gandhi famously replied, “I think that would be a good idea.” Such a remark may seem cruel, but it accurately reflects the view of America today as seen from the perspective of any modern social democracy.
Oscar Wilde once quipped that the United States was the only country to go from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilization.
Evidence of such terminal decadence is the choice that so many Americans made in 2016 to prioritize their personal indignation, placing their own resentments above any concerns for the fate of the country and the world, as they rushed to elect a man whose only credential for the job was his willingness to give voice to their hatreds, validate their anger, and target their enemies, real or imagined.
One shudders to think of what it will mean to the world if Americans in November, knowing all that they do, elect to keep such a man in political power. But even should Trump be resoundingly defeated, it’s not at all clear that such a profoundly polarized nation will be able to find a way forward. For better or for worse, America has had its time.
The end of the American era and the passing of the torch to Asia is no occasion for celebration, no time to gloat. If and when the Chinese are ascendant, with their concentration camps for the Uighur, the ruthless reach of their military, their 200 million surveillance cameras watching every move and gesture of their people, we will surely long for the best years of the American century.
If that’s not sad enough, perhaps you’d like to hear what Don Henley says in a song originally written on the ascendance of Ronald Reagan. It is even more sadly true today.
Cat and Mouse
My cat is feeling obdurate and that is no surprise.
I see it in extended claws. I see it in his eyes.
His back is hunched into an arc. His hair all stands on end.
His lips are stretched back in a hiss, his teeth ready to rend.
When he lets go a loud remark, it sounds more like a chatter.
I look up from my magazine to see what is the matter.
The prism on the windowsill reflects a flashing gleam
and he springs into action to try to catch its beam.
Like an arrow, straight and sure, he shoots across the room,
but when he does, his target’s gone. Vanished in the gloom.
It seems his prey has vanished. It’s nowhere to be found.
He’s wasted all his energy: his speed, his stealth, his bound.
The cat door closes with a swish. He’s off to other pleasures.
Out in the sultry cloud-swathed world, he’ll resort to other measures.
He saunters by the hen house, hungry, but it’s no use
He still bears the scars of the rooster’s last abuse.
While the men are busy milking, he’ll crouch there in the dirt
hoping if he’s lucky to receive a friendly squirt.
He’ll troll the barn for mice and rats, then comb the prairie grass
for game that’s more digestible than prey that’s made of glass.
Prompt words for today are prism, scream, sultry, obdurate, letting go and cat.
I’ve just raided the garden of my neighbors Brad and Dave (with their permission, and accompanied by their gardener) and filled in some spaces in these two little planters by my Studio. Those spaces, formerly occupied by interesting spiral seashells, were harvested by the dogs who removed them all and made an arrangement out of them on the lawn! Nope, not bones, boys, but it didn’t stop them from their larcenous ways.
Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.
For Cee’s FOTD
Click on images to increase size.
For Becky’s Square Challenge, Kinda Square: Two of a Kind
In case you aren’t already following her blog, here is Andrea Huelsenbeck’s second (and last) installment of her interview with me regarding both my art and writing and that of my husband, Bob. Bob’s work as well as my work before coming to Mexico 19 years ago was covered in Installment 1. This installment covers my present work.
Here is a project I did with friends last year. Go Here to see the post.
I think it works for Friday Fun’s “artificial” prompt.
I had friends over to make these recycled flowers yesterday. We still have at least one more day to go, but these are the ones I stayed up all night last night finishing…Fun.
Click on any photo to enlarge all:
If you are curious about the process, this is what we did. You need egg cartons or dividers for the flowers, toilet paper rolls or other thin cardboard for leaves and stems and vines, large sharp scissors, a glue gun or white glue, paint, paper towels and patience.
For Cee’s FOTD. An addendum: https://ceenphotography.com/2019/01/11/fotd-january-12-2019-daffodil/
We’ve been asked to reblog a post from this date in a previous year. Here is a post of October 9, 2014.
My water-themed pictures were taken at la Manzanilla beach, the Amazon River in Peru, Candelabra Island in Peru and my own pool/terrace overlooking Lake Chapala in Mexico. Obviously, I couldn’t choose and actually could have posted hundreds more. Water seems to be my “thing.”
The Littlest Zombie
Three small travelers, each attired in a different disguise
observe the lambent candlelight filling the pumpkin’s eyes.
Its outside is a Jack-o-Lantern, while all its insides
were scooped out for the candle, and then turned into pies.
A lurching small cadaver reaches out a hand,
intent on trick-and-treating, though he can barely stand.
He’s had a whiff of candy, which has made him come alive.
He’s seen the tiny Hershey bars. He hopes they’ll give him five!
Leaving, he now remembers to walk with legs unbent.
He breathes hard through his mask where his sister cut a vent.
He imitates the groans and huffs of the walking dead,
though if he’d had his druthers, he’d have been a dog instead.
But brother said a dog just barks and never moans and groans
and that barking trick-or-treaters are only given bones!
And so he screws his face up and puffs on down the block,
scaring all the littler kids with his zombie walk!
Prompt words for today are whiff, imitate, cadaver, lambent and candy and also for OctPoWriMo.
Hard to believe that this is a bud from the same hibiscus plant that I published a photo of yesterday–that time a fully opened bloom. This is the picture of the bud I took yesterday.
Below is what this bud looks like today. Just a bit more unfurled and less yellow in the petals. perhaps because that yellow is just on the edges and now that it has unfurled a bit, less of it shows as it isn’t so tightly packed.
What a difference a day makes.
And below is yesterday’s hibiscus today. It is from the same plant as the bud above. Please click on first photo to enlarge all.
Once the petals are spread, they look nearly white. most of the color is on the back of the petals and only shows through when lit from behind. An intriguing flower.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 