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This Most Unexcellent Canopy, The Air

9/16/2020

My daughter lives in Los Angeles, where a on a September morning the sky should have been a clear light cerulean blue, the trees green, the air balmy. Here's a picture I took of her neighborhood last year:

Here's a picture my daughter sent me of her neighborhood the other day at 9:55 am:

The landscape has turned grey with a dull red sun that looks like a dying star. The air is noxious, one can feel it in one's lungs if one stays outside for very long. The children, still schooling at home because of the COVID-19 epidemic, now cannot even go outside to play.

My sister lives in Portland, Oregon. A temperate rain forest, Portland is - was - a beautiful city of parks and pine trees bordered by mountains where plant life grows so abundantly that it springs up through cracks in the sidewalk. And the air in Portland is - was - always so fresh and cool and clean.
Here are some pictures I took while walking around my sister's neighborhood on a September day a few years ago:

Here's a picture my sister took from the parking lot of her neighborhood grocery parking lot a few days ago:

At this moment Portland has the dirtiest, most hazardously caustic air of anywhere on earth. And though my sister has three air purifiers and her air conditioner running, she says the inside of her house smells like an ash tray. In spite of being an avid hiker, swimmer and outdoorswoman, my sister dares not tax her lungs with much physical work, even indoors.

My daughter has lived in Los Angeles for 15 years; my sister has lived in Portland for close to two decades. Neither has experienced air events anything like what they're experiencing now. In fact it's only been within the past few year that the West Coast has been plagued by these episodes of an atmosphere so polluted by fire smoke that the air changes color, consistency, and smell and forces the population to stay indoors. This is because for the past few years - since 2018 - the American West Coast has suffered the worst wildfire seasons in history, with each year the fires progressively deadlier, more destructive, and producing more poisonous - and farther reaching - pollution of the air.
But it's not only the West Coast suffering the atmospheric fallout from the wildfires that have burned more than 5 million acres of land in the past two weeks. The foul smoke released from the wildfires has been picked up on the wind, the jet stream that travels across the continent and around the globe. By yesterday there was a haze over the sun in Chicago, Columbus, Ohio, and Washington D.C. Based on satellite data, by this weekend that smokey air from the West Coast wildfires will be in the atmosphere of Europe .

And so people around the world will all be breathing in a greater or lesser amount of the same pollution born of monster fires born of global climate change that we human beings have caused and are now not doing enough to stop. And all I can think about are the people I love breathing in that terrible air.

References
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/16/wildfire-smoke-reaches-europe/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_wildfires

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Keep On Chuckin' Kamala!

9/10/2020

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You know you need
Something good to read!

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KEEP ON CHUCKIN' KAMALA!

Ah, Kamala Harris, how do I love thee?

I could count the ways, but I, like the rest of the nation, have just recently learned that the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate regularly wears Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers to important public campaign events.

And for that I love Kamala Harris to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. Because if Kamala wears Chuck Taylors, then that means that I can wear them, too, and not just for kicking around in; especially if, thanks to Kamala's example, wearing Chuck Taylors or other sneakers as business or dress attire - and not just what you wear to give you feet a break before you put on and after you take off your uncomfortable dress shoes - becomes the acceptable norm.

  I've long been an advocate of over-throwing old perceptions of required of work and formal footwear, especially for women. To quote myself from a March 12, 2014 post entitled "What Do We Want? Sneakers! When Do We Want Them? Now! (Or At Least I Do!)":
       I've always felt that men were more fortunate than women when it came to footwear. I mean, when a man is dressed in a power suit he stands on solid shoes with firm support. When a woman is dressed in a power suit she teeters on high heels that kill her toes and restrict her movement. So how powerful can you be when your feet are bound? Because when you think about the function and purpose, aren't high heels just a more evolved form of foot-binding?
      And now, out of my dreams and into my news feed steps Kamala Harris, the woman who may be on track to become the understudy for the most powerful position on the planet, striding from her plane and across the airfield like the powerful, important woman she is,

...in sneakers. Chuck Taylors, no less.

It was a breakthrough image, a moment of epiphany and a call for foot fashion liberation for me and, hopefully, all women.
And so I pray that Kamala will keep on wearing her Chuck Taylors everywhere she goes. I hope that from now on she wears them to every important public event she attends.
I especially hope she wears those power sneakers to her debate with Mike Pence.

(The better to walk all over him with).

I hope wearing Chuck Taylors subsequently catches on like wildfire not just for the younger set but for women of all ages. Even my age. I say this because today, in a moment of hopeful exuberance I ordered myself a pair of teal (because that was the clearance color) Chuck Taylors.

I'll wear them in solidarity with Kamala and all women who, thanks to her example, decide that real power is born of daring to wear comfortable shoes. And clothes.

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A Mask Thing

9/4/2020

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A MASK THING

Since my last post four days ago, signs of kindness, as I call them, have sprung up in two more yards in my neighborhood (See previous post, "Signs Of Kindness And Other Things").

But along with the signs of kindness there's something else I've been noticing as I take my daily (or twice daily or thrice daily) walk/runs around my neighborhood. Apparently there's a new thing - at least in my neighborhood - in rear view mirror ornaments:

Some have his 'n hers (or maybe his 'n his or hers 'n hers),

And some opt for the old dash board toss:

Which for me begs the question: is the mask mirror ornament a bonafide thing? Or do my neighbors happen to be on the hip cutting edge?
In any case, if it's a new wave, I'm riding the crest.

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Signs Of Kindness And Other Things

8/31/2020

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Like the blog?

you'll love the books!

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SIGNS OF KINDNESS AND OTHER THINGS

Five months into the COVID-19 epidemic, and other than a weekly errand or two to the supermarket to keep the larder stocked, my only outing these days continues to be my daily run/walk around the block.
Every day, often twice a day (three times a day is not unheard of), I run and/or walk through the neighborhood. I usually go at around 9:30 am, though sometimes I go at 6:45 am and other times at 8:30 pm because I like seeing the changes in the light from sunrise to mid-morning to sunset. When one is travelling the same route day after day one starts noticing and appreciating things like variations of light and color in the landscape.

And one starts noticing and having more of an appreciation of other things, too, such as the decorative flora that one's neighbors have so considerately planted in their yards for the visual enjoyment of the passers-by,

..and the equally enjoyable yard art.

I've especially become an afficionado of yard flamingos in all their variety and ubiquity.

And then there are the signs that have been popping up in yards in support of the Presidential candidates, one always inducing a flutter of optimism the other a shudder of gloom.

But lately there have been other kinds of signs appearing in the yards of my neighbors. One day I saw this one on a front lawn,

...then another day on another lawn this one appeared,

...then sometime later on yet a different lawn I noticed this one.

Day by day, yard by yard, I'm seeing these signs multiplying throughout my neighborhood.

And I wonder if my neighbors have any idea of how much, every time I pass by, their signs fill my heart with hope.

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The Mime And The Nazi

8/27/2020

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Things are seldom what they seem.

"Hail Mary" by Patti Liszkay
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THE MIME AND THE NAZI

...Continued from yesterday:
Years before Marcel Marceau achieved fame in the art of silence he was a member of the French Resistance during World War II who was fluent in French, German and English. After the Americans landed in France in 1944 he was recruited by the French army for his linguistic skills and assigned to the position of liaison officer with General George Patton's army.
If the Americans were impressed with the young French liaison officer's talent for languages, they also took note of his genius for acting, and after the liberation of Paris Marceau was asked to entertain the troops. He gave his first major pantomime performance in an army tent before an audience of 3,000 U.S. soldiers. And so Marcel Marceau, who would go on to become the world's most famous mime, was first discovered by the United States army .
As it turned out, there was someone else who was also discovered around that same time by the American Army.
After the war, among the Nazi war criminals being hunted by the French government was German SS officer Klaus Barbie, known as "The Butcher of Lyons" because of his cruel torture of Jewish adults and children and suspected members of the Resistance during the German occupation of France. (See previous post, "Silent Hero").

Klaus Barbie was directly responsible for the deaths of 14,000 people during World War II.
Barbie was found in 1947, not by the French, but by the American army. However rather than turn Klaus Barbie over to the French government, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps decided to sign him on as an informer. Barbie was clandestinely put up in a hotel in Germany and paid $1700 a month by the American Government to help gather information on Communist activity in Europe. In 1947 $1700 a month was a small fortune.
In 1950, after the French learned that that The Butcher of Lyons was being protected and paid by the Americans in Germany, the U.S. intelligence services, likely out of embarrassment, arranged with the help of the Vatican for Klaus Barbie to flee to Bolivia. There he went on to live and prosper greatly for 33 years, living a country club existence, traveling freely and occasionally visiting the United States, and doing business with drug cartels, dealing in arms, and serving as a collaborator with Bolivian government paramilitaries on how to most effectively use torture.
For years France tried to extradite Klaus Barbie but the Bolivian government protected him, and it wasn't until 1983, by which time Barbie was well into old age, that he was returned to France to stand trial in Lyons for his crimes.
Barbie was finally sentenced in 1987 to life in prison and four years later he died of cancer at age 77 in prison in Lyons. Klaus Barbie never repented and until the day he died remained a proud Nazi and supporter of Adolph Hitler. “I am proud to have been a commanding officer of the best military outfit in the Third Reich," he said, "and if I had to be born a thousand times again, I would be a thousand times what I’ve been.”

As for Marcel Marceau, who spent his life bringing joy and laughter to adults and children around the world.

...he had this to say about the choices he'd made in his life:
"The people who came back from the [concentration] camps were never able to talk about it. My name is Mangel. I am Jewish. Perhaps that, unconsciously, contributed towards my choice of silence.
"Among those kids (who were killed by the Nazis) was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug. That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another."

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Marceau

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mime-who-saved-kids-holocaust-180962533/

https://www.history.com/news/marcel-marceau-wwii-french-resistance-georges-loinger

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/26/world/klaus-barbie-77-lyons-gestapo-chief.html

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nikolaus-klaus-barbie-the-butcher-of-lyon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie

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Silent Hero

8/25/2020

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Silent Hero

Everybody knows Marcel Marceau, the world's most famous mime.

Even those who might not know his name are familiar with the signature white face and graceful balletic moves of the silent actor who had a gift, as he described it, for creating objects where there were none, making the invisible visible.

But who knew that Marcel Marceau was a World War II hero who fought with the French resistance and saved hundreds of Jewish children from the Nazis?
Not me until last Friday night when I watched on Amazon Prime the movie "Resistance,"

...which starred Jesse Eisenberg as the French Jewish butcher's son,

...who took on the mission of shepherding orphans whose parents had been murdered or taken away by the Nazi occupiers over the alps from France to Switzerland and safety.

As for the movie, critics generally panned it, not because it wasn't in and of itself a good movie, but because there was too much fictional drama dressing up the factual events.
Apparently the hairpin escapes and heart-thumping rescues in the movie were mostly made up,

(though one would think there must have been a considerable degree of danger in belonging to the Resistance in Nazi-occupied France and smuggling children over the Swiss border);
... and there was actually no romance between Marcel and a fellow French Resistance fighter (played by Clémence Poésy).

Marcel didn't have a teen-aged orphan side kick (Played by Bella Ramsey),

...and apparently his path never actually crossed that of Klaus Barbie (played to a terrifying tee by Matthias Schweighöfer ‎), the sadistic German Gestapo officer known as "The Butcher of Lyons."

But in spite of - or maybe because of - dramatic liberties taken, I thought "Resistance" was a terrific movie, engaging, exciting, heart-gripping. And in spite of the embellishments, it told a remarkable story of a remarkably good man - and a remarkably evil one.
Juxtaposed in the film with Marcel Marceau was Klaus Barbie,

...who took up residence with his lovely young wife and adorable baby daughter in a luxury hotel in Lyons, France, where he had a space converted into a sort of operating room where he personally tortured to death both adults and children.
The story of of Klaus Barbie's reign of terror in Lyons as told in the movie was accurate. The story of Marcel Marceau as a rescuer of children (in real life of men and women as well) was also true. What was not true in the movie was that the two carried out their missions of good and evil in the same locale.
"Resistance," however, took both their stories, Marcel Marceau's and Klaus Barbie's, and interwove them into an engaging and thought-provoking fable of good vs. evil and a film well worth watching.
In real life, as it turned out, the story took an incredible turn beyond what was told in the movie.
To be continued...

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Request Your Absentee Ballot Now! (But When You Get It Don't Mail It In!)

8/16/2020

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REQUEST YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT NOW! (BUT WHEN YOU GET IT DON'T MAIL IT IN!)

The United States Post Office was created by George Washington in 1792.

It's being destroyed by Donald Trump in 2020,

...in order to keep Americans from voting by mail in the midst of a raging epidemic.
The COVID-19 epidemic, which shows no signs of fading out any time soon, will keep many people from venturing to the polls to vote on election day. But Trump fears that if everyone can vote by mail then everyone will vote by mail, and they'll vote him out of office. He himself has said that if all voting in the United States was done by mail,

...“you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

And so Trump's decimation of the United States Postal Service is his attempt at suppressing the American vote and throwing the election in his favor.
Bear in mind, COVID -19 epidemic aside, ever since Donald Trump came into power there has hung over the United States a concern for the possibility of an unfair 2020 Presidential election; of there being some degree of chaos whirling around the election process; of interference by foreign countries whose interests lie in having Trump re-elected; of Donald Trump or his allies causing national turmoil by disrupting, interfering with, or contesting the election results; of Trump refusing to leave the Oval Office if defeated. All of those outcomes seem well within the realm of possibility, even to those supporters of Donald Trump who would not object to any outcome that resulted in him being re-elected.
Which nonetheless begs the question: When, in the history of our democracy, have Americans ever had to worry that our Presidential election might be high jacked? When has there ever been such a degree of national anxiety over an election, not that one's candidate of choice might be defeated, but that the President of the United States is abusing the power of his office in an attempt to stay in power? And that he might succeed?
Which brings us back to voting by mail during the pandemic. Of course don't plan on voting in person on election day. It's too risky health-wise, not to mention that there may be a lack of able or willing poll workers on that day. But don't risk sending your ballot in the mail, either. Rather :
1. Go online - TODAY - and download and print off an absentee ballot request application for your state. (Unless you live in a state in which all citizens are automatically sent an absentee ballot, in which case, skip to #3).
2. Fill in the absentee ballot request application form - TODAY - and mail it to your county board of elections or county clerk or registrar. (Or follow the instructions per your state for returning the form to wherever it should be returned).
3. HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: After you've received your absentee ballot and filled it out, DO NOT mail it in; rather, TAKE IT IN PERSON TO YOUR COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS OR COUNTY CLERK OR REGISTRAR OR WHEREVER IT GOES AND DROP IT OFF IN PERSON BEFORE ELECTION DAY.
Look online to find out where the county board of elections or ballot drop-off location is in your county. Don't fret if there's only one ballot drop-off location in your county and it's an hour or two hours or three hours from your house. Don't fret if you have to travel all day to get there. Of course you won't have to travel all day to get there - probably - but even if you do it will be worth the effort - whatever effort it takes - to have your vote counted.
In the meantime, what a crime that Donald Trump is destroying the United States Postal Service and dragging our election to the level of a third-world dictatorship. But of course the good news is that We the People still have the power to save our postal service and our country - so long as we vote and do what we have to do to make sure our vote is counted.

References:
https://www.usa.gov/absentee-voting

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-nyt-mail-voting-ballots-20200410-qfnxhakicve3ndpxz64lcsqzr4-story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-usps-mail-delays.html

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/two-weeks-no-mail-in-southeast-dc-neighborhood/65-31535798-3c83-45f8-b0e4-775ce6d6e8f8

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Now We Know: It Had To Be You, Kamala

8/14/2020

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"Hail Mary" by Patti Liszkay
"A hilarious, bizarre, sometimes ribald tale." -R. Bruce Logan, author of As The Lotus Blooms

"Liszkay continues to dazzle with fresh and funny characters from beginning to end." -Daniel B. Oliver, author of The Long Road

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Now We Know: It Had To Be You, Kamala

Tell me, am I the only person who, up until three days ago, had no idea that they loved Kamala Harris?
Which isn't to say that I never loved Kamala. I actually did love her during the first Democratic debate back in June 2019 (See post form 6/28/2019, "The Air Is Hummin'").

I still remember the moment during that first debate when all the candidates started talking at once and she broke it up, putting up her hands and saying, "Hey, guys, you know what? America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we're going to put food on their table." Touché, thought I, and at that moment I could absolutely see Kamala Harris as President. She had new ideas, she was energetic, passionate and exciting. She had sparkle.
But then, in truth, by the end of that first two-part debate I liked almost every one of the twenty candidates. Each of them brought new energy, excitement, passion and sparkle. At that time I could see any one of them as President,

...except for two of them: Marian Williamson whom I - along with most of the rest of the civilized world - thought was a bit, as the French would say, de trop;

...and Joe Biden, who I thought came across as a tad old and subdued.

Which only goes to show what I knew. Turned out that after three years under the chaotic, unpredictable, tilt-a-whirl Presidency of Donald Trump, new, exciting and sparkly wasn't what the majority of Americans were longing for.
And though Kamala Harris rocketed in the polls after that first debate, during which she'd gotten medieval on old Joe for racial policy sins from his past,

...over time and amidst the tremendous competition from the numerous other candidates her lead steadily fell, and by December she'd dropped out of the Presidential race. And Joe Biden, if short on the sparkle, continued on an upward path to his ascendancy as the Democratic Presidential Candidate.
       And I, for one, forgot that I'd once loved Kamala Harris.
     Of course Harris's name still appeared to be floating somewhere in the pool of potential candidates under consideration by Biden for his VP pick, but, one assumed, would hardly be under any serious consideration, not after the clocking she'd given him during the debate.
      More interesting and discussion-worthy were the other women whose names we were hearing and wondering about: What about Staci Abrams? Val Demmings? Elizabeth Warren? Gretchen Whitmer? Susan Rice? Karen Bass? Which one would be the best choice for Biden for a winning ticket? Which would be the best choice for President should it come to that?
     (As for me, I was on team Tammy Duckworth for a while).

Little did any of us know that while we all wondered, waited, opined and worried over who Joe Biden would chose for his running mate, behind closed doors it was Harris who was rising up, checked box by checked box, as the top choice for that position.
And yet when it was announced this past Tuesday that Kamala Harris would be Joe Biden's running mate the news was greeted by Biden's supporters with elation. It was as if the joining of two seemingly incompatible elements had produced some wonderful chemical reaction that fired us up and suddenly made it abundantly clear to us all that Harris was the best of all possible choices as the other half of a Biden ticket, the only choice all along.

And all of a sudden I love Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden for choosing her.

References
https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-air-is-hummin

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/harris-biden-takeaways.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/biden-harris.html

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The Return Of The Puzzle Puzzle

8/7/2020

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Spice up your reading.

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The Return Of The Puzzle Puzzle

    It's been years, but once again, I find myself trying to solve the puzzle puzzle.
   You know what I'm talking about, right? The dilemma of what to do with a jigsaw puzzle after you've finished putting it together.
    Being myself a reformed jigsaw puzzle addict (see post from 2/7/2017, "Crocheting A Kitty Hat And A Tom Cat Hat"), the puzzle of what to do with a put-together puzzle used to be much more relevant for me back when I was puzzling and over-puzzling. (I haven't had a relapse since the time Tom and I were at the Columbus Art Museum and around the museum there were jigsaw puzzles of some of the paintings that patrons could stop and work on. See post from 2/22/2017: "The Big Four-Oh, Part 3: the Green Bean anniversary").

       Anyway, years ago there used to be quite a lot of jigsaw puzzling going on at my house, thanks in no small part to myself. There was a large piece of cardboard perennially on our family room floor upon which the puzzles were constructed. It always seemed a shame, after all the work involved in the construction of a puzzle, especially a beautiful one, to quickly deconstruct it. I always puzzled over what next to do with the puzzle. Eventually I'd break the puzzle apart and put it back into its box, but what to do with it then? There's no fizz in reassembling a puzzle that one has previously assembled. On the other hand, it felt wasteful to throw out a perfectly good puzzle. And so the boxes of once-done puzzles sat on a shelf in the basement. For years.
     Then I heard about puzzle glue, an adhesive that one spreads over the puzzle that causes the pieces to stick together. I saw this as a satisfying solution to the puzzle puzzle: the beautiful puzzles could now be preserved as a permanent picture.
     But then, instead of boxes of used puzzles, I now had a stack of puzzle pictures. I tried framing and hanging a few, but how many puzzles does one need hanging on one's walls? Besides, the puzzles never really fit the standard sizes of poster frames.
    I eventually swore off jigsaw puzzles and threw out all the old boxes of puzzles and the puzzle pictures, except for this one which my daughter did that still hangs in the basement:

And then the COVID-19 epidemic hit and here we go again.

So tell me, friends, all of you who've turned to jigsaw puzzles while sheltering place: What do you do with the puzzles after you've put them together? How do you solve the puzzle puzzle?

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The Happy Birthday Dilemma

8/3/2020

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You can't read one without the other.

The Happy Birthday Dilemma

Yesterday we celebrated my daughter Theresa's birthday.
We kept the guest list small and the attire was face mask, social distancing required.

We wanted to eat out in the backyard, but as the weather was damp and overcast we were forced inside. The menu was my version of bibibop-buffet,

...each tribe taking turns at the food stations,

...and sitting on opposite sides of the dining room table and making the effort not to breath on each other.
When it was time for dessert we brought out the cakes. (We'd decided to make this a go-big-or-go-home event and so I bought two Costco cakes,

...the kind with the mousse filling, one vanilla and one chocolate).

      Of course blowing out candles on a cake was out of the question; eating something upon which someone had sprayed droplets, aerosol, and, who knows, maybe even some escaped slobber, is totally unthinkable these days.
    Which, when you think about it, begs the question: Why, even before COVID, did such an unsanitary, unsavory custom ever take hold in the first place?
       This was a question we all found ourselves pondering at last night's birthday party, and our eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that something that the human race has been doing since time immemorial, something not even the most fastidious among us ever gave a thought to is actually...disgusting. Seriously, even when COVID is as forgotten as the Spanish Flu was up until a few months ago, can you see yourself ever again eating cake that someone has - ugh - blown on?
         Anyway, that matter having been settled - that blowing out candles on a cake actually is now, has always been, and will always be gross - we then wondered, what about singing "Happy Birthday?" After all, we've been warned that singing is among the most effective ways of propelling those potentially dangerous aerosol droplets through the air.
        We discussed the matter, and decided that rather than forgoing "Happy Birthday" altogether, we would sing very, very softly in our masks. Which we did.