KEEP ME GUESSING

Just because

they look

alike

doesn’t mean

they are

alike.

You take

the strange

parking lot circles

A mystery

easily solved by

asking somebody

But I like

not knowing who

made them or why. 

So Here’s the Deal:

Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino owner who has pledged already up to $100 million dollars to the Mitt Romney campaign for president, was doing the arithmetic long before President Bill Clinton urged us to figure it out.  If Mitt Romney wins the election, Adelson will realize $2 billion dollars in tax savings.  Adelson is a multi-billionaire already.  One wonders why someone with such resources worries about giving up some of his vast wealth to support his country.  If President Obama is reelected, Adelson and all other millionaires and billionaires will be required to pay their fair share to help their country meet the needs of all people.  Amazing what Greed does to people.

On another subject... It’s also amazing what war does to people.  I was wondering through the San Diego Museum of Art’s exhibition or German Existentialist art in the permanent collection when I came across the startling painting by Otto Dix called Kanonier Lowe.  Dix was a soldier in the German army during World War II.  He tried to show in the face of a gunner what killing does to the person who kills in war.  It’s a disturbing picture.  I suppose the explosion of violence against America by Islamist fundamentalists this week has made me worry that more wars in the world are not only possible but altogether likely to happen.

In the debate season coming up let's listen carefully to what Mitt Romney and President Obama say about funding war. 

A Perfect Day at La Jolla Cove

Sometime when the world seems about to explode, I go over to the San Diego Zoo to check in with a couple of old friends to see how they are doing.  Things are fine at the zoo.  I had an interesting few minutes with an orangutan who was hanging from some ropes near the glass wall that kept us apart.  Her face and mine were less than a foot apart.  We looked directly into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, and she smiled... or I think that’s what the expression meant. I smiled, too.  I moved my hand to her hand separated by only and inch of glass.  When I finally moved away but stayed close to the glass, she moved with me... face to face.  It was clear that some meaningful contact had been made between us.  When I stopped, she stopped.  When I moved, she moved with me.  It was an amazing few minutes.  I don’t have a picture because I knew it wouldn’t have been polite to hold my camera up to the class and point it at her.  My picture here is one I snapped earlier of the big male who sat nearby obviously disinterested.  As I was taking his picture, he glanced at me; but he obviously had no interest in anything more than acknowledgment that he had seen me and that I had seen him. He went back to eating a payapa.  

On another matter, I’ve decided to try not to anticipate what harm the fresh troubles in North Africa and the Middle East may bring to innocent people. I wish it could all have been resolved peacefully before tomorrow, but that isn’t going to happen.  Steve Klein, an ex-marine who founded an organization called Courageous Christians United and lives up in Hemet, California, says he was a script consultant for the movie that is causing all the trouble.  He stages protests outside mosques and abortion clinics. In 2007, Klein sued the city of San Clemente after it ordered him to stop planting anti-illegal immigration fliers on cars.  I don’t know the status of the law suit.  He is host of a weekly program on an Arabic Christian outlet called “The Way TV.”  Klein is well known to the Southern Poverty Law Center folks who monitor activities of right-wing extremists.  When he was interviewed by reporters today, he said the whole affair was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fault for not protecting the embassy staff better in Libya.  He said Secretary Clinton is to blame for the death of the American ambassador and three others.  He went on to say about the Islamists who rioted in Libya and Egypt, “I’m not responsible for the actions that they go out and do.  Why would I be bothered.”  Why indeed?  I wonder if he will sleep well tonight.

It was a hot day here in San Diego, so I went over to check on the polar bears. They didn't seem to be comfortable.  A tree up the road from their enclosure has in its bark an amazing likeness of an owl.  

...and not far from the owl in the tree an ivy frond was unfolding.  Life is good... here where I am... and where that guy Klein will sleep tonight.   I hope it will soon be good for the people in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and the other troubled places in the world.

You remember Terry Jones, the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, Florida, who got world-wide attention a couple of years ago when he announced that he was going to burn a copy of the Qur’an.  Many Muslims, and many people of other faiths, and many people with no religious affiliation at all were outraged by Pastor Jones’ announcement of a time and place for the burning; but he was persuaded not to do it... by a phone call from President Obama.  I heard that at least one wing-nut fundamentalist Christian Tea Party guy said that the President’s intervention was proof that he is secretly a Muslim.  So Jones didn’t burn the book at the time he had said he would do it.  He apparently got the attention he wanted; so, with the world watching, he went about whatever business a fundamentalist pastor has to do and didn’t burn the Qur'an... on the announced day.  Later he did burn a Qur’an.  Demonstrations occurred in several places in the world.  In Pakistan nine people were killed and several others were wounded. The pastor is not known to have shown remorse or even sadness over his actions that sparked demonstrations which led to the deaths of Pakistanis in 2010.

This wing-nut pastor has once again gained the attention of Muslims around the world.  He was involved in the promotion of a cheaply and privately produced film vilifying Islam.  Clips from the movie were shown on television in Egypt and in Libya where riots broke out that led to the death of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, one of whom was Ambassador Christopher Stevens.  I suppose there is nothing that can be done in any international or American court of law to bring charges against the obviously evil pastor Jones.

My first impulse when I heard about this latest outrage was to think Jones surely must be mentally ill... or ignorant... or stupid.  Then I remember that there are many others who share his beliefs and applaud his behaviors.  Sadly, fundamentalism in any religion can turn easily and quickly to destructive behavior.  History is replete with accounts of people doing evil in the name of religion... and calling it good.  Pastor Terry Jones is obviously a man who is evil by design.  His actions are premeditated.  He is guilty of the deaths of those people in Pakistan and in Libya, and he is responsible for the attacks on the embassy in Cairo. Of course, he didn't coordinate activities, but his actions triggered the riots that caused the death of several people.  He says he is speaking for God.  He is demented  and evil. At the very least, other Christians of good faith should declare that Jones is evil and that his actions are immoral... that he does not represent Christianity.

Remember the comedian Flip Wilson.  We laughed when he said, “The Devil made me do it,” after he had done something silly.  It was funny because everybody in his audience knew it was a joke. Terry Jones is no comedian, and his behavior isn’t funny.  It’s never funny when people claim God tells them to do something.  It’s dangerous and scary.  I have come to believe that when anyone, even pastors and teachers, tell us that God wants us to do something, we should be afraid.

No text necessary...

Nancy, David, David, and Jeremy

yarn  (yärn) n. 1. A continuous strand of twisted threads of natural or synthetic material, such as wool or nylon, used in weaving or knitting. 2. Informal A long, often elaborate narrative of real or fictitious adventures; an entertaining tale. I’m coming up on a birthday in a couple of days, number seventy-seven; and as is almost always the case when I approach another of these milestones (good word, that), I am reminded that life is good. The reminder that life is good comes in different ways under varying circumstances.  When I was teaching I had the marvelous privilege year after year of introducing rooms full of seventeen/eighteen-year-olds to yarns told  by the greatest storytellers who ever lived.  We watched and listened as Homer told of Achilles‘ reaction to the news that his beloved friend Protroclus had been killed by Hector.  We listened to Hamlet thinking out loud as he tried to decide whether to suck it up and go on tolerating a bad situation, or to take aggressive action against an evil uncle, or to get out of the whole mess by killing himself. We listened to Macbeth tell us that “life is a tale told by an idiot-- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  Robert Frost told us about his “lovers quarrel with the world,”  and William Carlos Williams told us so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens."  Wow!  Life really is good... up to and beyond age seventy-seven.

Some things are hard to explain... maybe impossible.  Anybody reading the first sentence in my journal today might expect some philosophical conundrum, but that’s not even close to what was on my mind.  Let’s see if I can string it together... and let the pictures fill in the blanks.

After lunch in North Park at The Davids’ house, the luncheon party went over to South Park for a walk around the shops and cafes.  Lagging behind the group with only my little point-and-shoot camera to help me fill the time, I happened on a fence covered with blooming passion flowers.  I got close... passion is the name of the flower after all... and took some shots of the deep-red blossoms.  Bicycles always get my attention, and in South Park there are more bicycle parking spots on the street than in any other part of San Diego... and the bicycle parking devices are all cleverly designed to look like... bicycles... and smack in the middle of South Park a bicycle-themed mural decorates 30th Street.  

Now, here’s what’s hard to explain: One of the bicycle devices was painted red, and someone had left a red bicycle chained to it... and I thought how appropriate it is that the bicycle parking device and the bicycle chained to it and the passion flower all happen to be the same color.  It’s as if that part of the world was designed on this particular afternoon for my casual stroll in it.  Life is good.

What perfection in this two- to three-inch cactus!  The Fibonacci spiral and Fibonacci sequence are common in nature.  Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, explained the phenomenon at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century.  He could not have seen one of these little round organic balls in his native Italy, but he wouldn't have been surprised by its symmetry.

Today Jeremy and I attended four lecture/workshop sessions at the Medium Festival of Photography in San Diego.  I was determined to focus my attention on black and white photography... I want to learn more about "painting with light" in digital photography.  I came away with more determination to learn how to get a good black and white image with a digital camera, but how could I not choose this photograph of Jen Jansen working as my photo du jour?  The bright natural light from the window gave me an image that I like... but in color.  When I tried it as a black and white photograph, it didn't work as well; so I kept it with muted color.  Then I turned my attention to the subject she was photographing for a tintype... and I got the man in black and white.

Later when we got home, I tried to paint with light a black and white portrait of Jeremy.  The subject is exactly right... but I'll continuing to work on control of light.

The final stretch to the finish of this election cycle will be agonizing for everybody except truly ignorant citizens (there are more than a few of those) and certifiable masochists.  We have the debates ahead of us.  I dread the rancor.  I am drawn to those debates the way some people are drawn to train wrecks and automobile accidents. 

Those of us who celebrate and support the presidency of Barack Obama are recommitting to responsible citizenship under his leadership.  I am trying hard to assume the people who support the Republican challengers in this election are also good folks who are recommitting to responsible citizenship.  I like very much our President’s emphasis on the importance of cooperation of all Americans in our country’s move forward in an increasingly complicated world. I like his humility.  I like where he has come from to be the President of the United States of America.  It is significant that the President is a person who is both white and black, a man from our country’s economic middle class, a thoroughly educated bright citizen, truly a man for all seasons.  We need him for a second term.

I have no idea what happened to the woman in my picture that brought her to this place without a home.  I don't know who's to blame for her being here with her belongings under a tree instead of in a home with walls and a roof, with doors and windows, with security.  Knowing whom to blame is not my concern.  I want my city and my country to be a place where people don't beg at intersections, where they don't find themselves homeless with all their worldly belongings clustered around them under a tree. I want my country to be a place where people feel responsible for the well-being of all fellow citizens...of the world.

It can happen.

What Crows Know

Where do they come from,

and where do they go...

the crows black as night

flying by the hundreds

above the river valley

always west to east?

Ovid said a crow tattled

that Coronis cheated on Apollo

who adored her and

with a mortal no less

she did it

so Apollo 

in a rage had her killed

just like that 

but he regretted and blamed the bird

and turned all crows from white to black

as punishment,

Ovid said...

What I want to know

is what crows know

that we don’t

about night coming?

Be sure to click on these pictures to see them larger, 

especially the beautiful Maria Jose.

A couple of hours ago I got a picture of my beautiful neighbor, Maria Jose.  She seems to me to be the promise of hope for a confused and confusing world.  M.J. loves the dress she is wearing... which is the perfect sign that she is a person who knows how to dream.  She knows how to smile, whether she happens to be wearing her favorite dream dress or just tolerating my request for a picture.  Some children put on a fake smile, one they undoubted learn from grown-ups who tell them to say cheese or from cheesy characters on television... Not M.J.  What you see with her is what she feels.  It's a Mona Lisa smile, one that leaves us all guessing.  She is wonderful.

I went back into my house from getting Maria Jose's picture in time to listen to Michelle Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention.  Wow!  Another promise of hope for a confused and confusing world.

I'm including three pictures that I got earlier in the day... I had come out from my volunteer job at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, and I decided to go the long way back to my car... around by the reflecting pool that was befouled by some thoughtless revelers a couple of weeks ago... just to check up on how restoration was coming along.  To my delight, a little fellow who lives in the pool had come up out of the water to sun himself.  It tolerated my getting close for the portrait.  So today my pictures are beauty and the beast... and the beast is in his own way, as beasts sometimes are,  with their strange and unlikely combination of parts... beautiful.

Life is Good!

At Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where in three days of battle 51,000 Americans killed each other, President Abraham Lincoln spoke about the importance of government. The year was 1863.  The American nation was at war with itself... largely over whether or not the federal government should address regional and local problems. Of course, every school child knows that the issue associated most with the Civil War was slavery.  Some Americans believed slavery, the ownership of people as property, was an economic necessity. They pointed out that the Bible affirms slavery as a social and economic reality and gives instruction about how to treat slaves.  The very idea was repugnant to them that the government should intrude on a personal, business practice.  Many other American citizens were equally repulsed by the idea that people could own other people.  A whole bunch of other people simply didn’t want to get involved in the argument. Most white people didn’t have the money to buy slaves, so lots of them said it’s probably a good idea to do what the Bible says to do.  The opinions of people who were not white were thought to be of no importance, whether or not their ideas were affirmed by Holy Scripture.

For awhile compromises were considered that might allow people who needed cheap labor to buy and sell slaves and to keep them as property. People who didn’t like the practice didn’t have to participate. If it bothered them too much, they could move from a state where slavery was allowed and go live in another state where slavery was illegal. One of the ideas most frequently and enthusiastically supported was to allow the individual states to make their own laws without regard to the federal government.  Even today American laws are like a patch-work quilt spread across fifty states.  Gun laws are different from state to state.  Death is the penalty for capital murder in some states, and in others the death penalty, like slavery, has been abolished.  In my own state of California the issue will once again be on ballot in the next election. Two persons of the same gender are allowed to be married in New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, but not in most other states.  In California a group of same gender couples, my son and my son-in-law were among them, who were married in a short period when such marriages were legal have been permitted to remain married even after voters in the state voted to forbid such unions.  The driving speed limit may be different from state to state.  Taxes, school funding, police protection and dozens of other matters are decided state by state and sometime city by city within a state. The state of Arizona is trying to establish its own immigration laws.  Every now and again Texas talks about breaking out and not being part of the United States; but mostly when somebody like a whacko-governor suggests secession, most people just look away embarrassed. 

And every now and then a movement gets started around the idea that natural law is altogether better than government... Just let people do what is to their advantage to do, and everything will be all right.  Let everything be done by individuals and groups of individuals who can find a way to sell “in the market place” the services that people need, and competition “in the market place” will keep the prices of everything affordable.  If somebody can’t afford something it just means he or she isn’t trying hard enough to get it.

I don’t have to go on with this argument... mainly because everybody who knows me knows on which side of it I will come down.  Everybody who knows me knows that I like the ideas of President Abraham Lincoln.  He was a Republican and I am a Democrat, but he was my kind of guy.  He believed in government, just as the people who founded the American nation believed in government.  He saw first hand the result of anarchy. Over 600,000 people died during the Civil War when Lincoln was president.  Leaving everything to individuals or even to individual sections of the country simply can’t make a strong nation.  America is strong because of a commitment by good people to maintain the kind of government promoted by Abraham Lincoln who said that government of the people, by the people, for the people is so important that it must not be allowed to perish from the earth. 

LABOR DAY WEEKEND

IN SAN DIEGO

Wor

k is

whatev

er

the boss

says it is.

A

job is

another

thing.

A

nd

not

having one

a

nd

having no

hope

of

getting

one

is

yet

an

other

thing.

Political Convention Blues:  I admit to feeling discouraged, blue... O.K...  O.K...  DEPRESSED!  In my ride-around/walk-about today the images I found to bring back to my BLOG writing didn't make much sense, but I include them here anyway.  I'll just post the images and you can make whatever sense you can of them.

Maybe we can pretend this is an assignment for a class in the art of developing poetry around ordinary things.  The chain/lock image is easy.  Let that guide the development of the first stanza. What is almost surely piss on a wall that has run down to a puddle, now dried on the pavement, behind a theater (call it a theatre if it seems more poetic) is harder, but altogether possible if you remember that the exercise started with thoughts about the implications of a political convention, any political convention for any party.  Don't think for a minute that I have a particular political convention in mind. Good luck with the upside-down cross in the graffiti on the same wall with the piss. That's as much help as I'm going to offer.