Stepping off

Thinkin' about it, dude?

In my youth, in the 70s and 80s, we had a swimming hole.

The Topsy Recreation site is a plot of volcanic rock and Ponderosa pine along the Klamath River, about 10 river miles west of Keno, Oregon. In the summer, teenagers would drive along curvy, 2-lane highways from Klamath Falls to Topsy, to drink beer and smoke dope and go swimming.

There is a particular spot just off Topsy Grade Road where we went. It is a flat spot at the top of lichen-clad lava rock columns, 30 feet above the river. That is where we would go.

The sun blazed in those days, almost every day. (Or that is how it seems now, 30 years later.) In the heat, the ripples on the water tantalized and invited. When you'd cooked long enough, there was a point on the rocks where you could stand and, if you worked up the nerve, you could take the plunge.

To do so, you had to steel your nerves. The river runs slow at the point (it is just above the dam). You can't see far into the murky water. And the jump itself, required commitment and follow-through. Once forward momentum had started, you had to keep going. You had to push off hard to clear the rocks below.

Lunge, plant, launch.

It was an act of faith. Thirty feet is a long way down. 

When you started the jump, when the thing in your brain tripped and started moving your body forward, there was a magical feeling that came over you. Even before your launching foot had lost contact with the scaly rock, there was a heart-stopping "no turning back now" moment. Determination and fear, exhilaration and resignation all at once.

For good or ill, the act was underway.

Today --now --as Maty and I spend our last weekend at home, that same sensation stirs itself from my memory. Forward momentum has commenced. A journey is upon me.

From Manhattan to Lisbon, thence across Spain and France. A Eurail pass and a vague itinerary. Five weeks. I'm looking for a muse. A once faithful friend who has become a stranger.

The act is underway.

Citoyen des États-Unis

Citoyen des États-Unis

Maty hit a big milestone today. Today, 228 years to the very day since the Constitution of the United States became the law of the land, Maty took the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance, administered by a federal judge in the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse. She is now a citizen of the United States of America.

Federal Courthouse, courtesy of Senator Hatfield

When I step back and examine the long journey this woman has undertaken, at how far she has come, I can only shake my head in amazement. Consider:

At 24 years of age, Maty left her family and home in the dusty African city of Ouagadougou, half a world away, to make a new life for herself in the far away dreamland they call America. She came here to serve as a nanny for a young family in Portland. The year was 2004 and the father of that family had been called to serve in the Iraq war. The mother, an immigrant from Africa herself, needed help caring for her two children. The baby boy, Matthew, was a special needs child.

At that time, Maty commanded a mere handful of badly pronounced English words and phrases. She was (and is) an excellent cook and a coiffure and she had (and has) a beautiful capacity for empathy and compassion, but beyond those, she had no "marketable" skills.

Nadia reassures Maty, who waits nervously to take her seat in the well of the courtroom

In the ensuing eleven years, Maty has:

• learned to read, write, and speak English;
• earned state certification as a nursing assistant;
• learned to drive a car and obtained an Oregon State Driver's License;
• joined a union and worked as a health care professional;
• and now, become a citizen of the United States of America.

Naturalization oath administered 

She has also traveled, by herself, across the world and the United States and has surrounded herself with an entire community of people for whom she is family. (She also got married, somewhere in there.)

Thoughtful, when it was over

On the drive from the courthouse, Nadia and I quizzed her about her plans for the future. "I want to learn to swim," she said. "And I want to go back to school for more English studies."

So, although she's very proud to be a citizen of this country, she's not resting on her laurels.

Lady of the day and her proud hubby

Perhaps the most amazing quality of this woman, in my mind, is her humility. When I told her I planned to write a blog post about her Big Day, she told me, "Make sure to write that I say 'thank you' to God.'" She is devout, my woman.

"And say thank you to Matthew, too. He's the reason I came here."

Maty and Matthew

Maty. So full of love and compassion. And so determined and strong. America and I are lucky to have her.

Book review: All the Light We Cannot See

As near as I can tell, Anthony Doerr's latest novel, All the Light We Cannot See, is the current favorite of book clubs all across America. I learned of the book because my mother had read it as the selection for her book club. And fellow book club member Jim Kidwell's mother had also read the novel because it was the choice for her book club. It stands to reason, considering that the novel was this year awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And judging from the reception the novel has received from the literary press, Anthony Doerr has set his feet firmly on the path toward that most elusive of states: "successful novelist."

All the Light... is set in the small seaside town of Saint-Malo in France during World War II. A blind French girl, Marie-Laure, huddles in the home of her eccentric uncle, abandoned and alone, the unwitting guardian of a secret treasure. At the same time, a conscripted German soldier, Werner, the orphaned German boy with a talent for understanding radio circuitry, works to find the source of radio signals that have been emitting from within Saint-Malo, relaying information to the French Resistance. Even as the two of them ponder their respective predicaments, pamphlets warning of impending bombardment blow through the streets of the nearly-empty town.

As the novel progresses, we learn the circumstances and events that have led to this situation. Marie-Laure is the daughter of the locksmith at the Paris Museum of Natural History, separated by the tides of war from her father and her Paris home. Werner, because of his technical acumen, has been conscripted into the National Socialist movement, where he is told that cruelty and ruthless efficiency are virtues. As the war grinds forward, these two protagonists, seemingly set upon divergent and opposing paths, are somehow drawn together, somehow presented with an opportunity to bring about the triumph of compassion and humanity over unspeakable evil.

I found Doerr's prose to be compelling and humane. He masterfully sets a mood of dreadful expectation in the opening lines of the novel and that expectation is maintained. He has a knack for inserting descriptive sentences at precise intervals so that the reader never loses a sense of being present in the moment. I found it interesting and perhaps suiting that Doerr does not delve deeply into the specifics of Nazi cruelty, but skirts delicately around the most horrible events.

Consider this excerpt. Werner has come to the sick ward of the Nazi youth training camp to check on his friend, Frederik, who was beaten by bigger, stronger boys in the school:

A single bed with blood in it. Blood on the pillow and on the sheets and even on the enameled metal of the bed frame. Pink rags in a basin. Half-unrolled bandage on the floor. The nurse bustles over and grimaces at Werner. Outside of the kitchens, she is the only woman at the school.
"Why so much blood?" he asks.
She sets four fingers across her lips. Debating perhaps whether to tell him or pretend she does not know. Accusation or resignation or complicity.
"Where is he?
"Leipzig. For surgery." She touches a round white button on her uniform with what might be an inconveniently trembling finger. Otherwise her manner is entirely stern.
"What happened?"
"Shouldn't you be at noontime meal?"
Each time he blinks, he sees the men of his childhood, laid-off miners drifting through back alleys, men with hooks for fingers and vacuums for eyes; he sees Bastian standing over a smoking river, snow falling all around him. Führer, folk, fatherland. Steel your body, steel your soul.
"When will he be back?"
"Oh, she says, a soft enough word. She shakes her head.

So much is said without elaborating on the horrible details of what happened to the boy. Some might call this a cop-out, but I disagree. In much of today's literature, gruesomeness and unsettling details seem to be the trend. (Read any Cormac McCarthy novel for examples.) But I found Doerr's approach more palatable and no less effective. Any book that deals with Nazis and World War II is necessarily going to touch on some nasty subject matter. But this novel is written in such a way that even my delicately sensitive mother could enjoy it. And one can easily argue that by leaving the details to the reader's imagination, the cruelty is more mysterious and terrible.

All the Light We Cannot See is a poignant coming-of-age novel, with well-drawn characters that I genuinely cared about. It successfully depicts the cruelty of war and the corruption of National Socialism, of how it victimizes even its own adherents.

After reading this book, I'm eagerly anticipating Doerr's next novel, whatever it may be. I highly recommend this novel.

Stand calm in the wind

Beautiful, blustery day on Mt. Tabor

Anxiety's been at me for the last several days. Chewing on me like a nasty, evil-tempered old dog gnawing on a bone.

That's the way I've come to think about it --about anxiety. It is something apart from me. Something that prowls around the periphery of my consciousness, lurking, waiting, ready to strike.

I don't know these berries... do you?

What if I fall? What if I fail? What if I am not all that I should be? The rational mind knows that there are no answers for these questions. But anxiety will not let them be dismissed.

So I took pilgrimage to Mount Tabor. 

The air was both muggy and blustery, a rare combination in these parts. Heavy clouds blew south to north across the sky like chastened sheep, fat for the slaughter. As we ascended the mountain, we passed through invisible pockets of calm, folds in Tabor's skirts where the wind did not reach. There, the air was calm as death and not a blade of grass stirred. It was strange to stand quiet in these areas and listen to the sighing boughs of Douglas-firs higher up or lower down. Maples flapped shredded leaves at the wind as it passed.

The giant sequoia that stands watch over Reservoir #6 was in one such pocket. A solemn, tall figure of peace in the middle of a raging battlefield. We guessed that it might be 150 years old. Giant sequoias may stand 1200 years or more, so it is still the morning of life for this tree.

Giant Sequoia overlooking Reservoir #6

It was calming to think that this tree, some 5 or 6 hundred years from now, might recall this time. This time when the reservoir lay at its feet. (It seems certain that the tree will outlast the reservoir, no?) This time when the wind would howl. And it might even remember the other trees that grew here, all those centuries before. And maybe the great tree might even remember the man that would now and then pass by, worrying and muttering, and flailing his hands. Flapping them like the maples do with their leaves when the wind blows hard.

Arbor-grown watermelons

On the way home, we saw a watermelon garden. The gardener had trained the vines to scale an arbor. The melons hung like huge, green grapes, unmoved by the wind.

When I got home, I stood for a moment and listened to the wind howling outside. Rage as it might, it couldn't reach me where I stood, in the living room of the home I share with my wife.

Peace.

Reasons for God

I'm agnostic. I don't believe human beings can conceive of God. I don't believe people can know what God might want. In my experience, people who claim such things are trying to manipulate other people. Manipulate them with fear and and anger.

They tell us that God will reward us with an afterlife. But I don't need God to comfort me. I do not fear death.

They tell us that God will make us whole, will address all our grievances. But I don't need God to bless me. I am not aggrieved or bitter.

I don't need the God that those people offer. And yet, as an agnostic, I see how God, the concept if not the fact, can help me to lead a better life.

Atheists will often concede that holy writings, the wisdom of humanity accumulated over thousands of years, reveal extemporaneous truth. 

And if scripture teaches anything, it warns against the deadly sin of Pride.

So, I ask God to keep me humble. I thank God --whatever that may be --for confronting me with the stark fact that I am at the mercy of entities and forces that I can never understand.

And I ask God to receive my gratitude. For all I've been given. For all the beauty and joy in my life.

Mostly, I thank God for releasing me from the fear that I might one day have to pass judgement.

That would be beyond me.

Portland feels the Bern!

Bernie takes the stage

Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders came to the Rose City last night packing Portland's  Moda Center to capacity.

“Whoa. This is an unbelievable turnout,” Bernie said. "You've done it better than anyone else."

Indeed. As as I confidently predicted two days before the event, "Little Beirut" (as George Bush the Elder named us), brought together the biggest crowd for any candidate anywhere at any time so far this election season.

Some 28,000 people showed up at the Moda Center to hear Senator Sanders speak. The crowd overwhelmed the venue's 20,000 seating capacity and dwarfed the 15,000 person turnout in Seattle the day before. Eight to 9 thousand people were turned away at the door. (They didn't get completely shut out, however. Screens in the plaza outside Moda displayed a live video feed.)

Comrade Hauth and I, waiting for Bernie

Fellow left-wing freak David Hauth and myself walked the ~5 miles from my home to Moda Center, arriving 10 minutes before the doors were scheduled to open and over an hour before Bernie was to speak. But even at that early hour a torrent of Bernie supporters was already flooding into the arena. We were lucky enough to snag seats in the 200 level, behind the stage.

The general mood was upbeat and hopeful. These rallies always lift people's spirits. When Bernie took the stage, the crowd roared.

And the roaring continued, as Bernie talked about comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, universal healthcare, affordable college education, civil rights, raising the federal minimum wage, and the need to overturn Citizens United.

Yes, we've got the guts to take you on, robber barons!

I shouted myself hoarse early on during the nearly hour-long speech. Bernie's remarks played like music to this progressive. But I honestly believe that if working- and middle-class conservatives are open-minded enough to listen, they might hear a lot that they like as well.

That's what makes the king-makers in both political parties nervous. Bernie's message is not partisan.

Twenty-eight thousand  in and around Moda Center. The biggest turnout of any campaign event anywhere, by any candidate, so far this election season

The conventional wisdom (at least among the national political punditry) is that Bernie can never win the nomination, that the hoopla and enthusiasm are all for naught. Maybe so. But like the 28,000 folks who came to the Moda Center last night, I'm on board with Bernie. Let's see how far we can take this thing.

Highlights from Bernie's speech:

Ranking the Republicans from bad to worst

Well, here we go. Another political primary season underway. It'll be a fascinating show, if you've got the stomach to watch it.

Last night, Fox News hosted the first Republican debate of the campaign.

(Actually, they hosted two debates. There are 17 major candidates vying for the Republican nomination. Too many to crowd onto a stage. So, with typical Fox News chicanery, Roger Ailes and his organization divvied up the debaters into two groups based on how they polled. Those candidates that polled in the top 10 got to appear in the "main" debate, which occurred in the evening and was watched by 1 in 6 American households. Those who didn't make the cut got to participate in the kiddie debate, which occurred in the non-prime time afternoon.)

I didn't get to watch either debate but, being the political junkie that I am, I'm well-acquainted with the candidates. (Sadly.)

And so, discounting the candidates in the kiddie debate whose support is down at the "white noise" level, I present here my ranking of the GOP field, rated from least bad to absolute worst.

 #10 John Kasich

I despised John Kasich when he was a loud-mouthed congressman from Ohio's 12th district back in the 90s and even more when he was a crazy-eyed Fox News host. His contempt for women's rights is deplorable, but that hardly makes him unique in this field of misogynists. And give him credit: when, as a first term governor of the Buckeye state, the voters rejected the union-busting centerpiece of his legislative agenda (by a 62-38 margin), he learned his lesson and took a more moderate approach. Honestly, Kasich is the GOP candidate I fear the most. He can appear reasonable at times. He voted in favor of the famous assault weapons ban that passed during President Clinton's first term and he expanded Medicaid in Ohio in order to receive the benefits afforded by the Affordable Care Act. Neither of those facts will sit well with the rabid GOP base.

#9 Rand Paul

Rand Paul claims to be a libertarian, whatever that may mean. He recognizes the futility and injustice of the "War on Drugs," and he has expressed legitimate concerns about the growing Big Brother state that has come in the wake of 911. On the other hand, his supposedly deeply held beliefs about personal liberty seem to evaporate when it comes to women's rights. And he's an Ayn Rand acolyte. Rand's world is not a world I want to live in.

#8 Chris Christie

Chris Christie missed his Big Chance^TM in 2012. Back then, he was riding high as a popular Republican governor in a sapphire-blue state. Republicans were desperate for a winner, and if they hadn't settled for hapless Mitt Romney, Christie might have fit the bill. But now that the bloom has come off his rose (with the Bridgegate scandal, with his embrace of President Obama), his time is gone. But don't take it too hard, Chris. You probably would have lost to President Obama in the general anyway...

#7 Ted Cruz

I used to think Ted Cruz was utterly despicable. The very sight of him would make my skin crawl. But now that I've learned a little more about him, I find him less odious than I had previously believed. Why? Because he's a showman. His antics (the pseudo-filibuster during which he read "The Cat in the Hat," his vow to "throw [him]self in front of a moving train to stop Obamacare," and so on) are delivered with a wink and a nod. The man is no fool. He clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was a debate champion at Yale University. Fools don't do things like that. (And how badly can you dislike anyone who is willing to call Mitch McConnell a liar to his face?) Cruz knows that to succeed in the GOP, he will have to appeal to the Tea Partiers and the Know-Nothings. He needs to make them believe he is the Real Deal^TM. I doubt he'll succeed, though. He's been Trumped.

#6 Marco Rubio

Nasty, morally adrift, and ambitious. That's how I describe Marco Rubio. He's an opportunist, which makes him not at all unique in politics, but he's banking his entire campaign on his youth, his ethnicity, and his ability to speak Spanish. Remember back in 2013, when Rubio was part of the so-called "Gang of Eight?" You know, that bipartisan group of senators who were tasked with writing a comprehensive immigration reform bill? When the product of that endeavor became known to the general public, Tea Partiers freaked out! "It's amnesty! It's rewarding law-breakers!" Etcetera, etcetera. So, how did Rubio react to the criticism? Did he demonstrate bold leadership and stand by the Gang of Eight plan in the interests of the country? Did he insist that the GOP get in line as part of a necessary outreach to Hispanics? Hell, no! He dropped the plan like a hot potato and jumped on the Tea Party's anti-immigration bandwagon. That's the kind of leader we would get with Marco Rubio.

#5 Ben Carson

I don't know a lot about Ben Carson. But here's all I really need to know about him: "Our military needs to know that they're not going to be prosecuted when they come back because somebody has said you did something that was politically incorrect," he said in an interview on Fox News. "There is no such thing as a politically correct war. We need to grow up. We need to mature." This is from a physician! Sorry, Ben, but torture and war crimes are more than just being "politically incorrect." They are gaping pits that descend into hell. They debase and dehumanize both the victims and the perpetrators. I know Tea Party folks eat that sh*t up with a spoon, but playing to it makes you weak and sycophantic.

#4 Donald Trump

The Donald is getting more media attention than any of the others on this list. And most of it is due to the vile and obnoxious spew that comes out of his mouth hole. He would make a a truly sh*tty president. In fact, were he to be elected (which will never happen) he would be a bigger disaster than any of these other men. But I just can't take him seriously. You see, despite his being a billionaire, I don't think the man is very bright. He's a megalomaniac who has captured the imagination of all the little would-be authoritarians that comprise the GOP base. He's a fad. He's a Tea Party cri de guerre.. Recall the 2012 primary season, when Republicans went through an entire slate of "anti-Establishment" candidates (Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, even Newt Gingrich, for Christ's sake!) before settling on Mitt. Trump is that. Trump is their what-might-have-been dream. When the 2016 election is past, after they nominate Jeb Bush or Scott Walker and lose another national election, they will look back at the Donald and get all misty. Can't you just hear them now? "If we had nominated Donald Trump, we'd be in the White House right now!"

#3 Jeb Bush

Bush has got to be the odds-on favorite to win the nomination. This despite trailing Donald Trump by double digits in all the polls. (It's very early, people.) And, call me crazy, but I'm willing to bet that his campaign is very glad to have Donald Trump in the race. Trump is the lightning rod that draws away all the destruction and negative attention that might otherwise have come crashing down on Jeb. That's got to be a welcome reprieve given that Jeb hasn't proven himself to be a particularly effective campaigner. He's made several gaffes that are, frankly, pretty surprising. A few weeks ago he fumbled an obvious question about his idiot brother's Iraq adventure and, more recently, undid any women's outreach the GOP might have been developing by claiming that the federal government spends too much on women's health. But with a whopping $100 million war chest, Jeb is going to be in the race for a while. His positions are entirely malleable. The Tea Party folks don't like him, but they'll get in line. The GOP establishment knows that. And they know Jeb. He's part of the Old Boys' network. And the Old Boys have the money to make Jeb happen. For my part, his ape of a brother has precluded the possibility of me considering him as anything more than a stooge for the corporate elite. 

#2 Scott Walker

The union-busting governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, is about as low as they come. Smug, self-righteous, and unflappable, his demeanor alone is enough to make me change the station whenever I see him on the telly. Although he's certainly not a patrician, like Jeb, or a demogogue like Trump or Ted Cruz, he's something even worse. He's rejected the Medicaid expansion that would allow access to health care to low-income Wisconsinites. He's curtailed labor rights. He's thwarted any attempts in his state to combat global warming. He signed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. The fact that he has only a high school education completes the profile. He's a real Tea Partier, people. He actually believes that sh*t. 

 

#1 Mike Huckabee

And finally, we've reached the bottom of the Republican barrel. This man is the worst possible choice for President of the United States. A moralizing hypocrite, a would-be dictator, and a religious zealot. He's all of those, dressed in an "ah, shucks" demeanor. While governor of Arkansas, Huckabee agressively pushed for the early release of serial rapist Wayne Dumond as a means of embarrassing his political nemesis, President Clinton. Then, when Dumond raped and murdered a woman in Missouri, Huckabee whitewashed his involvement in the affair. Huckabee's rhetoric is full of righteousness and fire and brimstone. He's a perfect encapsulation of the most ugly segment of the rightwing demographic: A pseudo-Christian hypocrite, a witch-hunter, a stone-caster. 

And there you have it

 

Well, that's it, folks. That's how I rank the current GOP field. Not that they care. None of these guys is worried about getting my vote. There are plenty of people who will buy their bunkum.

Besides, I'm a Bernie Sanders man.