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The Disappearing, Re-Appearing Mountain

8/31/2021

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is .
― Donovan, "There Is a Mountain"

For the past two weeks Afghanistan has loomed like a mountain in the American consciousness. But prior to the fall of Kabul on August 15 and the subsequent nonstop images of the storming of the Kabul airport by more than a hundred thousand desperate people trying to escape, when did any of us last give a thought to Afghanistan? A year and a half ago when Donald Trump ceded to the Taliban and promised to remove all American troops from Afghanistan by May of 2021? Last May when one Afghan military post after another began surrendering to Taliban forces, villages and towns along the way falling like dominoes?
Or wasn't the last time Afghanistan was a mountain in our national mentality actually twenty years ago, after our country was attacked by Al Qaeda, which operated out of Afghanistan?
After 9/11 Afghanistan was huge, news of it was constantly in our eyes and ears. We thought about it, we talked about it. Then a year and a half later the United States invaded Iraq and Iraq became the mountain, while Afghanistan disappeared even though our military continued waging a simmering war there for the better part of two decades.
Until two weeks ago. Now Afghanistan is a mountain again, but America's war there ended yesterday and so it may not be long before Afghanistan disappears again.
Oh, and does anyone know where Iraq went?

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The Case Of The Sunflowers And Inattention Blindness

8/28/2021

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THE CASE OF THE SUNFLOWERS AND INATTENTION BLINDNESS

Last week a friend of mine, a dedicated emergency room nurse who spends long, stressful, exhausting days on the COVID-19 front lines in Columbus, Ohio, texted me and a few other friends a photo of a field of sunflowers.

Beneath the picture my friend wrote, "Check out beautiful sunflowers in Gahanna Granville Street. Take a drive and get pics. Share pics. Let's keep up our spirits."
Upon receiving my friend's picture I thought, Wait, what? There's a sunflower field on Granville Street and I didn't know about it?"
Granville Street is the main thoroughfare through my town of Gahanna, Ohio,

...and is also the route from downtown Gahanna to downtown Columbus and other points east, south, north and west where I don't often venture these days. These days I don't often venture much of anywhere beyond the supermarket.
That being said, it's not as if I haven't driven down Granville Street at least a handful of times over the summer. So why did I never notice the sunflower field growing in downtown Gahanna?
I chalked it up to a phenomenon called "inattention blindness," which occurs when something passes before one's eyes which one is not expecting to see, therefore one does not see it. A corollary of this concept was expounded upon in the movie "What the #&*! Do We Know?"

...in the fable of the Native American Indians on Caribbean Islands who did not see Christopher Columbus's ships on the horizon because, supposedly, people can only see what they believe is possible.

Not that I wouldn't believe that a field of sunflowers growing between the buildings in downtown Gahanna is within the realm of possibility. It's just that in all the years I'd been driving up and down that stretch sunflowers had never gown there before and nobody told me there were any growing there now, so I wasn't expecting to see any, and so I didn't see any. I guess.
But, whatever, I decided to take my friend's suggestion and go see the sunflowers.
As I live not far from Granville Street I decided to walk. And notice things along the way. And snap pictures of the things I noticed.
Hamilton Road

Big Walnut Creek

Gatsby's, a popular local watering hole

Some nice clouds over the Dairy Queen.

Rocky Fork Creek

When I reached Granville Street I kept my eyes peeled, though I even worried that, by looking too hard for the sunflowers, I might somehow miss them. Overattenion blindness, perhaps.
But no, probably from my constant scanning for the sunflowers and my firm expectation of seeing them, I caught sight of their yellow heads far off in the distance:

Do you see them?
Look on the left side, just a little beyond that gold car.
Here's a closer shot:

The little sunflower field had been planted between a small strip mall,

...and the parking lot of an abandoned bank building.

But it was nonetheless delightful.

There was a sign naming this sunflower oasis Little Mammoth Meadow, planted, according to the sign, by Start A Seed.

I don't know who the individuals behind Start A Seed are, but I would like to thank them, and also to thank my friend for opening my eyes to the sunflowers growing on Granville Street. And, as my heroic friend requested, I'm sharing my pics. May we all keep our spirits up.

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The Fog Of War

8/24/2021

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THE FOG OF WAR

The United States could have treated the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as criminal acts masterminded by Osama Bin Laden and put our resources into capturing him and his accomplices instead of plunging into what turned out to be a decades-long war with Afghanistan that is ending in a costly, dreadful defeat that has degenerated into a terrible human rights crisis.

But on the other hand, if the U.S. had not invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 that country might have subsequently turned into a haven for emboldened Al Qaeda terrorists who might have launched more deadly attacks.
After the defeat of the Taliban regime by U.S. forces in November 2001 Taliban leaders offered to surrender peacefully in exchange for amnesty. Had the United States accepted the terms of the Taliban's surrender instead of insisting, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, "We don't negotiate surrender," and demanding Taliban members be captured, imprisoned or put to death,

...then the Taliban wouldn't have fled for their lives to hide out, regroup, recruit, grow, and keep fighting.
Unless the Taliban opted to flout the terms of their surrender and continued to hide out, regroup, recruit, grow, and keep fighting anyway.
Spending twenty years and $300 million dollars a day trying to transform a tribal, disparate, geographically rugged country like Afghanistan into a modern, Western-style democracy now looks like a fool's errand. Except that in those twenty years of American occupation of Afghanistan the citizens of that country gained access to internet, iPhones, social media and news outlets. A whole generation of young Afghans grew up in a society with some degree of civil liberties, especially women and girls,

...who under Taliban rule had been forbidden to go to school, to work, to appear in public with their faces uncovered and, in some areas, to leave their homes unaccompanied by a male relative.
Is Afghanistan's past under Taliban rule to be its future under Taliban rule? Or will the modernization and liberation of Afghan society that was achieved by twenty years of American protection and defense ultimately force the Taliban to bend? And what presence, if any, will terrorist groups have under the new Taliban regime?
How long after that day in October of 2001 when U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan did it become clear to those with knowledge of such matters that withdrawing those troops would be disastrous? Was it clear after five years? Ten years? Was it clear soon after the day George W. Bush started the war? Or just two weeks ago when Joe Biden ended it? Did Obama know, and is that why he avoided bringing American troops home after their mission of killing Osama Bin Laden was accomplished? Did Donald Trump know, and is that why he and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo negotiated with Taliban leaders (but not with the leaders of the Afghan government) a withdrawal, the terms of which required the United States to concede everything but required nothing of the Taliban in return - not the continuation of Afghan women's rights, not safe passage out of the country for citizens, not the return of American military equipment - nothing, except the Taliban allowing the retreat of U.S. troops from Afghanistan?

And did Joe Biden know, and is that why he has toed the letter of the Taliban's terms that were agreed to by his predecessor Donald Trump? Even as Biden learned that Taliban fighters were capturing Afghan military posts along with the American weapons provided for the Afghan army, did he not dare to send in more American troops to retrieve our equipment because he knew such action would be the equivalent of kicking a hornet's nest? Did he know that facilitating a mass exodus of Afghan civilians in advance of the American pullout - something Biden had been warned against doing by Afghan President for fear of Taliban reprisals - would likewise enrage the Taliban?
Did Joe Biden lie awake at night knowing that his decision to be the one to bring American troops home from Afghanistan and finally end this forever war could be politically disastrous for him? What voice told him that it fell to him to accomplish this mission?

And, bad as the situation is in Kabul is at this moment, how do we know that, with the Talban holding all the cards and calling all the shots, a different plan of action, a more aggressive evacuation plan, might not have caused the situation to play out even worse than it is now playing out?
Today there are only two things that are unequivocally true about Afghanistan.
The first is that there was no way the United States could have saved this country single-handedly, and the abandonment of the Afghan people by both their government and their military guaranteed that the evacuations would play out at least as badly as they are at this moment, if not worse. On the other hand, if it were the Afghan army surrounding Kabul airport instead of the Taliban soldiers, the scenes we would be seeing from that place would be much different.
And the second thing is that twenty years later it is the Taliban who now have the option of saying to the United States, "We don't negotiate surrender."

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The Lesson Of The Toothbrushes

8/22/2021

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THE LESSON OF THE TOOTHBRUSHES

The day before yesterday I was at Target,

...picking up some household provisions.

I happened to be in the toothbrush aisle at the same time as a woman and a little boy who appeared to be around six years old; presumably a young mom and her son.
"We don't want to get an electric toothbrush because the people might not have batteries," I heard the mom say to her son. "Here," she said, "you can pick out five nice toothbrushes from over here." Which the little boy then proceeded to do.
I continued my shopping and I expect they continued theirs.
Now, this short story is, perhaps, not particularly memorable. Chances are the little boy won't even remember the day his mother took him to Target and they bought five toothbrushes. But I got the impression that they were buying the toothbrushes not for themselves but for people who needed toothbrushes. Maybe they were going to donate them to a food pantry, or through their church or some other charitable organization. Or maybe they were buying the toothbrushes for someone they knew who was in need.
And it occurred to me that even if the moment soon fades from the boy's memory, the lesson of that moment will stay with him, for this is the kind of lesson that a child unconsciously absorbs from their parent: in this case a lesson in thoughtfulness, in generosity, in caring for the needs of others.
True, buying a toothbrush for someone who needed a toothbrush was only a small lesson, but it was perhaps just the right size for a child.
So thanks to that mom and her little boy in the Target toothbrush aisle. You thought you were only giving toothbrushes. You also gave a bright spot to my day.

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Little Things Around The House

8/19/2021

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LITTLE THINGS AROUND THE HOUSE

For the almost three weeks that my grandchildren and their parents stayed at our house, every day was Anything Can Happen Day,

...as well as Anything Might Be Found Around The House Day:
A guitar in the family room;

...a soccer ball under the piano,

...a bean on the banana hook;

...bears on chairs;

...and various groupings of objects in unanticipated places, the discovery of which was a reminder, in case one was needed, that there were children in this house.

Most curious was the presence an old toy tank that had been my son's when he was young that tended to pop up in settings inside and outside the house.

And so it went, until the bittersweet day arrived for the girls to return home,

...to continue being about the business of childhood.

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Exploding Kittens

8/18/2021

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EXPLODING KITTENS

Exploding Kittens, as I understand it, is a card game,

...that involves a deck of fairly outré picture cards,

...that are played according to only a few very simple rules and mostly requires using strategy to avoid: 1). losing all one's cards and 2). drawing an Exploding Kitten card at a moment when one is not in possession of a Defuse card,

...both of which predicaments result in one losing and dropping out of the game.
Apparently Exploding Kittens enjoys a large following of aficionados of all ages, my daughter Theresa being among them.

It was Theresa who brought Exploding Kittens into the house and introduced her nieces to the game.

...of which they immediately became super-fans.
My granddaughters changed the proverb about if you save a person's life, you are from then on responsible for their life, to if you teach a person to play Exploding Kittens, you are from then on responsible for playing Exploding Kittens with them. All the time.
Every morning the girls waited expectantly for Theresa to wake up to play a few games of Exploding Kittens with them before she left for work.

Theresa's daily obligation to play Exploding Kittens with them was the hill they planted their flag on.
Even on her birthday.

Even when she was trying to take a nap.

And when Theresa wasn't around, woe to any one else who appeared not to be busy.

(Sitting down for breakfast or lunch didn't count as being busy).

However, Exploding Kittens did turn out to be a splendid ice-breaker the day the girls invited over their Creekside friends (see post from 8/15/2021, "The Places We Went").

The day after my daughter and her family left Columbus for their trip back to Los Angeles I found the box of Exploding Kittens cards that the girls had forgotten to pack. I called my daughter and told her that I would send them their game in the mail.
To which my daughter replied, "Please don't."

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...And The Things We Did At Home

8/17/2021

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...AND THE THINGS WE DID AT HOME

...Continued from yesterday:
And so, with the surge of the Delta variant dictating that our granddaughters' three week vacation with us remain for the most part a "stay-home-cation," they mostly stayed home, with Tom and I in charge of their days while their parents worked from home, "home" for the time being relocated to our dining room table.
And yet, between Tom's and my efforts and, I suppose, the thankfully not-yet-worn-off wonder of childhood, the girls still seemed to find plenty to keep them occupied at their grandparent's house.
In fact, we all did.
The children generally did a daily art activity, sometimes drawing or painting garden scenes.

Projects were sometimes created in the basement,

...or on the driveway,

...though one was liable to come across an art installation of sorts most anywhere around the premises,

We had daily piano lessons.

And, of course, sometimes there were chores to be done,

...including helping Grandpa pick the blueberries and beans,

...harvesting the seeds from the lunaria plants,

...and other general yard work.

...after which it was nice to take a rest.

Now and then the girls visited their parents at work,

...or visited the neighbor's dog, Rocky,

We baked,

...and baked,

...and baked.

On Fridays we made challah. The first week we used my recipe.

However, my grand daughter assured me that the recipe that she and her mother used produced a better bread, and so the second week we used their recipe.

And she was right.

We cooked and prepared meals,

...and every dinner was a daily event with lots of good food,

...and every week Tommy and Emily came for Sunday dinner.

Sunday breakfast was likewise special.

We celebrated Theresa's birthday with a party with Tommy, Emily, and Theresa's friend Jess.

And once we roasted veggie dogs over the fire.

We otherwise passed what time there was to pass playing games,,

...or making music,

...or watching Harry Potter,

...or just sitting and watching the world go by.

Oh, and then there was Exploding Kittens...
To be continued...

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The Places We Went

8/15/2021

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Last Monday, August 8, my grandchildren returned with their parents to Los Angeles after a visit of several weeks with us here in Ohio.

For those weeks while their parents - for whom the visit was more of a "workcation" - set up their offices on the dining room table, the girls went about the business of filling the house with noise, life, and joy.

In the early days of June when the COVID infection rates were on the decline, I had plans for how this year's visit would be: Unlike during their summer visit last year when we were all sheltering in place at home against pandemic (see post from 7/16/2020, "A Month In The Magic Messy Kingdom"), this year I figured we'd go places and do things: A day at the Franklin County Fair, shopping trips, trips to the mall, lunches and dinners out, afternoons at the pool, maybe even trips to the art museum and the plant conservatory.
Alas, by the time the girls and their parents arrived in Ohio on July 20 COVID rates were were on an upward trajectory and the vaccination rate had fallen off a cliff.
Subsequently I had to drop most of my previous plans and afternoons at the small neighborhood pool two walkable blocks from our house ended up being our principal - though far from unpleasant - outing.

However we did venture out a handful of times over the weeks.
One time the girls and I went shopping at Target.

We took a couple of trips to the library.

...and one day, early in their visit, I took the girls out to Easton Town Center - Columbus's major indoor-outdoor shopping center - where we found an isolated spot of our own for some lunch from the food court.

The girls loved Easton and wanted to return again,

...but on the very day of our trip to Easton the news broke of a sudden steep spike in virus cases, and so I didn't feel safe taking them back there.
One time we picked up lunch from MacDonald's which we ate outside picnic-style.

And one day we met some friends - the children of one of my daughter's school mates who happened to be in town visiting her family at the same time as my daughter was visiting us - at Creekside, the park in which the Big Walnut Creek runs through Gahanna.

After playing in the creek for a while we returned to Creekside Plaza,

...for ice cream.
Who needs the County Fair, after all?

To be continued...

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Hooray For The Infrastructure Bill! Boo Hiss For Andrew Cuomo.

8/11/2021

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HOORAY FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL! BOO HISS FOR ANDREW CUOMO.

After a steady diet of dreary news these days, COVID-19 spreading like the wild fires burning up the West, climate change broiling the planet, another tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean, finally, finally, finally some good news, and this man-made: The United States Congress came together, Republicans and Democrats kissed and made up - if only for a moment - and passed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.
All right, so maybe $1 trillion isn't enough to tackle the vastness of our infrastructure woes. But it's a start. Billions will be spent to repair bridges and roads, to modernized those of our airports that have fallen into disrepair, to update and functionalize our electrical grid for renewable energy sources. There's funding for rail travel, broadband internet expansion, and the restoration of lakes and waterways from sea to shining sea.
What's not to celebrate?
And what's not to celebrate that for the first time since who can remember when, Democrats and Republicans - even Mitch McConnell, for crying out loud - got on board together, worked together, to get something done for our country?
True, this was only a one-time event. But who knows? Maybe they'll find that they actually liked working together, liked all those productive meetings, constructive phone calls, dynamic late-night dinners. Maybe the satisfaction of being part of a historic accomplishment will induce them to try working together again sometime. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.
In any case, the at long last infrastructure plan is today's good-news headline.
Or should have been today's good-news headline. And would have been if not for Andrew Cuomo, the governor who threw away a career of great accomplishment with both hands when he used those hands to grope and otherwise sexually harass the women who worked in his his office. Such is the stupid behavior that goeth before a fall.
I'm not unhappy that Andrew Cuomo resigned, as he should have. But, really, did he have to do it on the same day as the infrastructure bill was passed?! I mean, what got the headlines this morning?

So, couldn't Cuomo have waited until Wednesday or Thursday to resign? Did he have to do it on Tuesday and suck all the oxygen out of the big infrastructure news? Or was this maybe his way of getting back at Joe Biden in Biden's moment of victory, since Biden, rather than taking Cuomo's part, suggested that he resign?
On the other hand, I suppose there are almost a dozen women out there for whom this morning's headline couldn't arrive fast enough.

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Milo Arts

8/8/2021

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MILO ARTS

...Continued from yesterday:

This past Friday night Theresa and I were at 934 Gallery, part of the arts campus known as Milo Arts located in the downtown Columbus Milo-Grogan neighborhood for the opening night of "Gridlock," the installation of artist Elizabeth Nelson (See previous post, "Gridlock" by Elizabeth Nelson: "The Only True Thing About Art Is That It's Deception.")

During the course of the evening I got into a conversation with a couple of members of the friendly gallery staff, Liz, President of the Milo Arts Board of Directors, and Susan, a volunteer and mother of one of the the Milo Arts artists..
Susan, left, and Liz, right.

Though I already knew that there was an artists' community in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood, I wasn't familiar with the scope of the campus. Liz and Susan, however, were my cordial guides to all things Milo Arts.
Liz enlightened me on the provenance of the ubiquitous wall murals, a current exhibit of the winners of a juried competition.

The murals will be painted over when the time comes for the next 934 Gallery exhibit, "Home."

However the Milo community is currently in the midst of preparations for the upcoming 934 Fest, the gallery's annual outdoor arts and music festival and fundraiser.

Liz gave me a tour of the Milo grounds and the showed me the buildings, used for exhibits, classes, recording, and storage,

Canvases for an up-coming mural-painting class.

She gave me a run-down of some the features of 934 Fest, which will include artists, among whom will be thirty-seven muralists who will turn the walls of these buildings into "Mural Alley."

There will also be musicians, comedians, word performers, yoga, a high school mural class, food trucks, and a giant sculpture erected between these two buildings.

After my tour with Liz, Susan took me across the way to have a look at the building where the Milo artists live.

The Milo artists' community house is a former school built in the 1800's for the children of the Milo-Grogan neighborhood. In the 1980's the building was transformed into an artists' colony, an affordable space for artists to live and work in community.