Moon in Your Eye like a Proverbial Pizza Pie

     Did you rise up early last Wednesday a.m. for the eclipse? I did, and was freshly grateful for my new eyes, installed to replace the cataracts in the old ones late summer. I not only saw the shadow pass across the moon, making it yellow orange, after it had cast a startling white light the previous evening. More startling even, the number of stars visible. In spite of the light spill from the Coohey trail across the river.
     That evening I went to my front door and watched the big pizza pie rise up through the trees across the park be dramatically overtaken by a low-hanging cloud, which it lit magnificently from behind. 
     When that dissipated, I turned on Netflix and found a documentary called The City Dark which describes the extent of light pollution now that almost half the world's people live in cities. It is worth a look-see because shows how we have affected the night, how lack of it affects and the animals around us. Too, it gives valuable suggestions on how protect the dark.

A critical eye can see that animal or natural phenomenon humans find disturbing, dangerous, ugly, unnecessary, worthless, superfluous, or inconvenient is endangered and probably needs to be reconsidered.

Fondly Recalling the Cascade Interpreter

            A couple weeks ago, which would have been the 25^th anniversary of the Cascade Interpreter I wrote a letter to the editor of the Cascade Pioneer, a young woman I like respect and I sense the feeling is mutual: at least she respects my ability to express myself incisively in 300 words, and courage in saying what I see.

            So I was shocked when I sent the text of yesterday’s blog post to her. She never ran it, and when I called to ask why, she said, “We have policy against attacking children.” I pointed out I had not identified anyone by name.”

            Implying I was being racist, she replied, “No, but you identified them by skin color.”

            “No, I identified them by behavior which is inappropriate in the public space we, the taxpayers of this town, provide.”

            Critical Eye can only fondly recall The Interpreter, which everybody knew had far more courage than the Pioneer then and now.

Sat. morning in CPL

Saturday morning I was in the library, trying to wring information on John Yates Beall, Cascade’s Civil War “spy” (commando is far better) out of a couple volumes of Carl Sandburg’s biography Abraham Lincoln.

The library was full, as usual, of pre-teen Hispanic boys jockeying to play computer games. A tiff ensued and the exasperated librarian had to referee. One of the losers, loudly bouncing a soccer ball, as if he didn’t realize what gives in a library, assembled other losers and disappeared. The boy, who had been playing with a mobile device while two others looked over his shoulder, was one of the “winners.”

Kudos to Librarian Melissa Kane and her staff who must cater to this amazing range: a researcher looking for esoteric texts on Civil War privateers, a legion of fiction readers, a raft of young parents with toddlers in tow, a coffee klatch, and on-going spat mediation.

While national leaders squabble over unaccompanied minors and immigration, we local taxpayers provide services, without much say in the matter.  While I am never rude, as being poor in this country no picnic whatever your ethnicity, I feel like a patsy.

Make no mistake minimum wage has remained at $7.25 because of this endless parade of indigents, likewise depressing the local “prevailing wage.” This is the magic formula that has dismantled the American Middle class and gorgeously enriched the 1%.

What I don’t see among the Hispanic boys in the library is equally problematic: girls. Feminists have fought a hard/long for equal treatment and this guarantees we will have to fight the same battles over again.

I quizzed the librarian about what these boys read—“Nothing!” “Abs-solutely nothing!!!”

So here is a policy solution that will aid everybody:  To earn computer time: kids must write a book report at or near grade level, typed and illustrated.

Pickled American Individuality?

Pickled Individuality?

Hardly surprising that the University of Iowa landing in a top spot on a party school list is causing consternation in has official circles. U. of I. isn’t our only drinking problem—the new head of the U. of Northern Iowa discontinued Veesha as a near occasion of bingeing, rowdiness, property destruction, even death. Universities nationwide on the hot seat because of the problem of rape that has grown out of drinking. Last week, a U. of I. official was listing the “tools” he had to deal with the problem: 1) organizing alternative activities, 2) manipulating the hours/policies of bars around campuses, 3) alcohol education.

            Whenever I see these silly machinations, I can’t help thinking of my Paris friends’ little boy, age 11 then. We were walking down the street in Montparnasse one time and I said to him, “Pierre, Let’s get a glass of wine.” He ordered hot chocolate, and when I asked him, he confided he had drunk a bottle of champagne at his sister’s wedding. “But I didn’t get drunk,” he emphasized forcefully. Now, his boy had already internalized the French alcohol ethic: drink as much as you can or want, but do not lose your dignity.

            Someone with a more critical eye than mine is going to have to explain how in this the ostensible land of the individual we have surrendered individual volition to officials rather than teaching young people to manage themselves and protect their own dignity.

           

Testing, Testing, Testing 1-2-3

Testing, Testing, Testing 1-2-3

Best thanks to my niece B, who has been helping me get pix from my camera onto this blog. Earlier in the summer I took a great pic of a Dutch windmill, which has been imported to Fulton, Illinois and actually functions. However, it has taken me most of the summer to intersect with B and figure out how to reliably post it here.  Not that I have that much use for pix, most of these posts are ideas, but an occasional cat is nice, so here's Mutt, the sickly runt of a wild litter, who is doing so much better than he can harass me by crawling up and into a frond basket.

Summer Pride

      The other morning a school called me to sub for the day. I bathed, changed and made myself a lunch of potato salad with with onions, potatoes and banana peppers, all of which I grew. While I did not make the mayonnaise or lay the egg in it, the cucumbers and red peppers in the hot dog relish in it were from last year's garden.

      Likewise, the carrots in second salad—a Turkish thing with sliced carrots in vinegar and oil dressing--a multicolor carrot variety that flourished  this year. And though I did not grow the olive oil, I did press and make the apple cider vinegar.

Though the carrots are a bit of too much of good thing, I got a critical eye on a carrot cake.

The Consolations of Fall

      Summer's almost gone, winter's coming on, and it feels like fall. A time of nostalgia for the people who are gone—Mom, Dad, Funky Uncle Francis, Outrageous Aunt Delores, and Patrician Uncle Walter. Or are so far away I too seldom see them—Frau Welters in Berlin, my friends in Paris.

     Fall arrived early this year with the death of someone I didn't know well and could by no stretch of the imagination be considered close to. Au contraire, there was a touch of immortality about him, a twinge invincibility that is also gone. I suspect, precisely the lesson of fall: remind us of our immortality. So we are left to find our minor consolations—a good onion crop and a funny runty kitten.