Joy is not a reward for success, but a way of living

Kos of Daily Kos discussed Latino culture and how it compares to American conservatism. Latino communities still put the church at the religious, social, and moral center. It is where they participate in community. Family is a lived reality and cultural expectation is a deep obligation to parents. There are still strong traditional gender roles (so stop with that “Latinx” nonsense). That is a part of why the nasty guy got 46% of the Latino vote in 2024. There was cultural alignment and many could assume his bigotry was aimed elsewhere and not at them. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show depicted sugar cane fields to demonstrate Latinos are hard workers. The several small businesses showed their hustle culture. It showed extended families with children everywhere – when they party they don’t leave their children at home. Many images were highly masculine and highly feminine, but they were not sexualized. This was the only halftime show to feature an actual wedding. Even the moments of queer imagery showed them as belonging, part of the family. All of that (well, not the last one) depict conservative values promoted by American conservatives.

Where Latinos fundamentally break from American conservatism is joy. Joy is not a byproduct of success for Latinos. Unlike cultures that treat professional status or financial achievement as prerequisites for a meaningful life, Latino culture has long defined success more relationally than materially. To our occasional economic detriment, joy is not deferred until we have the house or the fancy car. It has nothing to do with bank balances. Joy is integrated into daily life and shared whether or not circumstances cooperate. That joy is not abstract or intellectual. It is physical. It lives in the body. It shows up in dancing that starts early and never really stops—children learning complex salsa steps, being twirled by grandparents right alongside them. Movement is not performance; it is participation. Joy is learned somatically, taught through rhythm, proximity, and repetition, embedded before it can ever be articulated.

Joy also shows up in touch – “affection is public and unembarrassed” – and in the music.

You did not need to speak Spanish to feel any of that radiating from that stage. The music, the movement, and the intimacy were the message. Joy was not a reward for success, but a way of living: collective, embodied, and freely offered to anyone willing to feel it. Even many MAGA conservatives begrudgingly admitted it spoke to them. Conservatism, by contrast, is dour, punitive, and obsessed with control. It treats pleasure with suspicion, happiness as frivolous, and celebration as weakness.

The joy on the stage was defiant and incompatible with American conservatism. I had written about AG Pam Bondi’s infuriating performance before the House Judiciary Committee that wanted answers about the Department of Justice’s obstructive release of the Epstein files. Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote about a couple bad moments. One of them was Bondi saying:

The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P [500] at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. … That's what we should be talking about.

A record-setting stock market is terrible reason to not investigate pedophiles. Emily Singer of Kos wrote that Bondi’s performance was the “most dreadful” by any Cabinet-level official before Congress. She ranted and hurled personal insults at Democrats rather than answering fair questions. Anyone who tuned in to watch would have thought her antics embarrassing and wondered why she was doing it. Singer said Bondi was performing for an audience of one – the nasty guy. He gets pleasure when his enemies are insulted. Also, the nasty guy has dropped hints that she hasn’t been wielding her power as quickly as he would like, so this performance may have been an effort to save her job. The moment that proves the point was when Bondi demanded the Judiciary Committee apologize to the nasty guy for impeaching him. Jeff Danziger posted a cartoon of showing a cat labeled Bondi having spilled the trash, scattered papers, clawed up the furniture, and was now puling down the curtains. A guy in the doorway says to the nasty guy, “Sir... She’s getting more publicity than you!” He replies, “She must be stopped!” The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases job data monthly to get a quick, though maybe not so accurate, look at what the economy is doing. After the end of the year, they take time to go through more reliable statistics and revise the year’s numbers. Singer reported that on Wednesday the BLS announced their updated numbers for 2025. The estimates made during the year came up with 584,000 added jobs. The revised numbers say only 181,000 jobs were added in the year. That’s close to a 70% drop and a mighty small number. And tiny compared to 2024’s job gains of nearly 1.5 million. Yeah, the BLS is the agency that the nasty guy accused of lowering the numbers to make him look worse than Biden. So were these numbers falsified and the real numbers are worse? Singer also included statistics that show private education and health care added jobs and the entire rest of the economy lost jobs. Republicans are trying to save face by saying 130,000 jobs were added in January. That’s still low compared to the Biden years. And jobs haven’t really grown since April, when the nasty guy announced his tariff Liberation Day. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the House voted on a resolution to end the emergency that the nasty guy declared to justify tariffs against Canada. This was brought by Democrats and enough Republicans voted for it that it passed 219-211. This is a symbolic rebuke of the nasty guy. Of course, speaker Johnson didn’t want it to come to a vote. But enough Republicans were worried about the high prices their constituents are paying. The measure goes to the Senate and the nasty guy will surely veto it. Besides, it’s a resolution, not a bill. In Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Ali Breland of The Atlantic talking about how Jeffry Epstein helped revive the idea of “race-science” or the false idea that there is a genetic reason why non-while people are supposedly inferior. I’ll bypass that discussion for Kev’s comments on the article.

~35% of the world’s population is either Indian or Chinese and I think that official number has been over the 30% mark for at least decades (and probably centuries). When you think about it, “white people” have always been a minority of the world’s population. If “non-whites” wanted to “slaughter” white people, we have the numbers to do so.

Óscar Gutiérrez of El País in English:

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, founded in Germany more than a century ago, has been monitoring aid flows since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In its latest assessment, published Wednesday, the think tank states that “Europe has almost offset the collapse in U.S. support.” Specifically, U.S. contributions plummeted by almost 99% last year; those from European partners increased by 59% in financial and humanitarian assistance, and by 67% in military aid. “As a result, total aid in 2025 remained close to previous years,” the institute notes. [...] With the numbers in hand, it’s clear that Trump has achieved his goal. The Republican leader reiterated in the first months of his presidency that it was Europe’s responsibility to defend Ukraine. He even demanded that Zelenskiy reimburse the money the United States had spent during the first three years of the Russian occupation, a demand he softened with the signing of the minerals trade agreement. […] The distribution... is uneven. The Kiel Institute points out that Scandinavian and Western European countries, with Germany and the United Kingdom leading the way, account for almost 95% of military aid, far ahead of the southern region where Spain is located — the Spanish government pledged €817 million ($970 million) last November, 75% of which was for military equipment — and Ukraine’s eastern neighbors.

In the comments Jimmy Margulies posted a cartoon of two workmen adding to the side of the Kennedy Center a sign that says “ICE Detention Facility.” One workman says, “Trump remains confident he can fill the seats here.” The nasty guy held up money for another tunnel under the Hudson River into New York, then said he would release it if Chuck Schumer would rename Penn Station as Trump Station and Dulles Airport near Washington as Trump Airport. RJ Matson of e pluribus cartoonum created a cartoon of “Chuck Schumer’s The Art of the Counteroffer.” It shows “The Donald J. Trump Memorial Long Term Parking Lot” at Dulles Airport and the “Donald J. Trump Taxi Stand at Penn Station.” A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Jeffrey Koterba shows Bondi with a smile on her face at the doctor’s office as a nurse show her chest x-ray to the doctor. The nurse explains, “She redacted hear heart x-ray... So we don’t actually know if she has one...” Daniel Boris posted a cartoon of Bad Bunny saying, “Release the Epstein files in Spanish. Maybe then MAGA will get upset about them.” In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a pair of tweets about the six Democrats who recorded a video telling military personnel they had a duty to refuse to obey orders that were illegal. A grand jury refused to indict them. Kyle Griffin tweeted:

*None* of the D.C. grand jurors who heard the Trump admin's pitch on why they should indict the Democratic lawmakers who recorded that illegal orders video believed the Justice Department had met the low threshold of probable cause, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC.

Joyce Alene added:

I have never heard of a situation where every single grand juror rejected an indictment. Every single one.

Singer reported that Tom Homan, the “border czar” who was put in charge of ICE in Minnesota, said federal agents are already leaving the state and the rest will leave through next week. Homan said the reason was the operation was a “success.” Others say this was an admission the thuggish methods were hurting the popularity of the nasty guy and Republicans. Many people in this administration are very good at lying. Are they doing that now? Elliott Payne, the president of the Minneapolis City Council, said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Meanwhile the community will keep up their patrols. Perhaps this is a way to get headlines to get people to think the problem is over so they look away. That way ICE can continue to violate people’s rights with less public attention. They did that kind of thing before when Homan took on oversight in Minnesota, giving the impression the brutality was ending, but nothing changed. Bill of Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"This whole culture war [against Bad Bunny] last weekend has demonstrated one thing: for all of MAGA's triumphalism, it's not a movement that seems confident in its position. These people, who control every branch of government, are so triggered by someone singing in Spanish for 20 minutes that they need to create their own 'safe space' alternative halftime show, where 'Trad Bunny' over here is singing songs about how he can't even enjoy sitting in his truck and drinking beer because knows that somewhere out there is a trans person. It's actually f---ing pathetic. The gap between the power you all wield, and the victimhood you all claim, is the real offense. If you didn’t actually have the power to do so much damage in our country, I think we'd all dismiss it as a weak and pathetic pity party." —Jon Stewart, on the fake MAGA tantrum over the Big Bunny halftime show

Randy Essex, retired journalist, wrote an opinion piece for last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press. Alas, the online version is for subscribers only. In it Essex described the vice nasty’s view of manhood is sad and absurd. The vice nasty called on white men to call the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to report incidents where they were passed over for a job that went to a minority person. Yes men face challenges – see the suicide rate. We tell boys highly mixed messages to be both tough and sensitive. Essex (a white guy) wrote that DEI made him better and appreciate a variety of experiences and perspectives, critical to complete news stories and being an empathetic human. He also grew up poor as the vice nasty claims to have done. There were jobs he wanted and didn’t get. He was told to get over it.

Diverse voices simply are needed for organizations to cope effectively with our dynamic society. Diversity of leadership is an even greater need to challenge institutional bias. ... To my fellow white men, I say that not getting a particular opportunity isn’t discrimination. It’s both a part of life and a chance to be better next time. Man up.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon on Kos showing a man looking at another man labeled Corporations sitting in piles of money. The corporation man says, “Congress let your Obamacare subsidies lapse? That’s odd, my subsidies came as scheduled.”

Refusing to hate confuses and disorients the hateful

I didn’t watch the Superbowl. I heard a lot of good things about Bad Bunny’s halftime show. So when I saw a link to it on YouTube I watched it. My general impression: Those other people are going to hate. We’re going to party. Please party with us. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos before the game was a discussion about what the show might contain and what the elements might mean. Afterward, Alix Breeden of Kos explained the symbolism of many of the things in the show. This includes: The sugar cane fields surrounding the house where many Puerto Ricans worked as slaves (this is one thing I recognized). The taco stand. The child sleeping across several chair. The dancers hanging from utility poles representing the huge blackout after Hurricane Maria. The video briefly showed a wedding, which was an actual wedding. A couple who are superfans invited Bad Bunny to their wedding. He turned it around – would they like to get married as part of his Super Bowl show? Kos of Kos discussed a thread by Ross Douthat, conservative and columnist for the New York Times. Douthat listed things the nasty guy and his administration could do over the next eight months that would improve his political position.

It’s actually a great question. Under normal circumstances, it could spark a real debate. With Donald Trump as president, however, there is only one answer: His administration can’t improve its political position. Because the problem isn’t the tactics. It’s the man.

Kos then supplies a rebuttal to each of Douthat’s suggestions, explaining why the nasty guy would never do it. A couple of the suggestions: “Don't issue any more gross pardons.” And, “Pressure allies by all means, but don't threaten to use the U.S. military to seize their territory.” Kos wrote:

Sure, he’s not wrong. But what Douthat is really offering is a fantasy in which Trump stops being Trump long enough for Republicans to survive him. That’s like asking a tiger to pretend it isn’t a predator until dinner is over.

In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included tweets by Logan Phillips responding to Interactive Polls. First, what Interactive tweeted:

For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that losing the Senate — where Republicans have a 53-47 majority — is a distinct possibility. According to GOP internal polling, even deep-red states like Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio are now in play

Phillip’s response:

Republicans shouldn’t be so surprised. They won the 2024 election by convincing Americans they’d make life more affordable - then used their hard-earned power to cut Medicaid, reduce food stamps, and raise everyone’s prices with tariffs. The worst thing a party can do is break the central promise of its campaign. The GOP has spent the last year pushing policies that made life even less affordable. Voters noticed.

Simon Van Zuylen-Wood of New York Magazine:

QAnon is premised on the idea that a global cabal is engaged in the rampant sex-trafficking of minors, and one takeaway from the never-ending Epstein blowback is that we really are governed by an overclass of degenerate elites.

In the comments The Geogre posted a 19 minute video of Jon Stweart discussing the release of the Epstein files.

Today is Groundhog Day. If Trump sees his shadow we’ll have six more weeks of not knowing who the co-conspirators are.

Jon Stewart is in the files. It’s not because he was a friend of Epstein, but because someone suggested a video could be narrated by someone like him. The sanctuary cities of concern aren’t Minneapolis and places like it. The big one is Washington. Stewart doubts those who appeared in the Epstein files will be held accountable. This video is Stewart is at his outraged comedic best. Roxane Gay tweeted a response to the nasty guy’s racist post about the Obamas.

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

Bill Bramhall posted a cartoon of a news anchor saying, “We can now confirm that 100% of the 1% are in the Epstein files.” In Wednesday’s roundup Dworkin quoted Cliff Schecter of Blue Amp Media:

For years, we’ve been sold a comforting fairy tale: America’s worst predators come in different species. There are those predators; sex traffickers, monsters, villains in Netflix documentaries and then there are these predators; the respectable ones in fleece vests who “optimize” companies, “disrupt” democracy, and somehow always end up with your pension money in their carry-on. ... This week blew the lie straight to hell that those with bloodlust for bankrupting their neighbors and our country are different than those who prey on young girls. The only difference is we’ve allowed the first to become respectable since the Reagan days (remember when they were called “corporate raiders?” Private equity sounds more thoughtful. Kinder.). It turns, out destroying people’s lives and livelihoods with no allegiance to anything but your own wealth and power is always evil. So, it turns out, it’s the same guys. Same billionaires. Same vibes. Same moral black hole—just different crimes on different days.

In the comments The Wolfpack posted a cartoon of Charlie Brown speaking to Linus.

If you believe that teaching about God in public schools will improve people’s morality, you first need to explain why it doesn’t work in churches.

The New Republic posted the text of a sermon by Rev. Michael Delk of St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church in Morgantown, West Virginia. This is a time of those in power mocking, beating, and killing those they don’t like or who get in their way. Are we being desensitized to worse that is to come? Those in power also mocked, beat, and killed Jesus. How do we be faithful to Jesus in such a time?

Those who oppose the truth of love, who rely on lies and cruelty and brutality, strive to induce us to abandon our principles, and they do it slyly by contriving to make us hate instead of love. We all know the temptation. We watch the videos and read the stories. Our outrage rises rightly at the injustice, and before we know it, the consuming fire of hatred surges in our hearts. We despise the people responsible, and maybe even fantasize about vengeance, which is precisely what the hateful in our world want most from us and for us. The hateful want us to hate so that we can be miserable and puny just like them. It’s also the only game they know how to play. Refusing to hate confuses and disorients the hateful. We must stay disciplined in Christ’s unconditional love, disciplined in prayer for those who persecute us and others, disciplined in our desire for the repentance and redemption of the hateful and cruel and brutal, disciplined in our witness that there is a different way, a way of forgiveness and reconciliation given to us by Jesus.

Lauren Hodges of NPR went to the retirement ceremony of several transgender military members who were forced out by Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI efforts. The ceremony wasn’t put on by the Pentagon, but by the Human Rights Campaign. Officiating was General Stanley McChrystal, known for his leadership during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of those forced into retirement one was a Colonel, the highest-ranking trans member of the US armed forces. In the nasty guy’s first term he said that transgender people already serving can keep their job by getting a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. So many did. In his second term that same diagnosis was designated as disqualifying for service. The nasty guy and Hegseth say pushing out trans people is necessary for mission readiness, cost issues and unit cohesion. Army Major Kara Corcoran, one of those who did what she was told and got that diagnosis, disagrees that being transgender harms mission readiness – she served well and in combat for 17 years. As for the cost – transgender surgeries take less recovery time than things like shoulder or knee surgery. They’re back in service faster. It seems unit cohesion suffers more from having to protect service members from being outed than for dealing with an out member. Hodges:

General McChrystal says the separations are a mistake and that they're affecting mission readiness, one of the listed values that Secretary Hegseth claims as a priority for his Department of War amidst several simmering global conflicts.

McChrystal:

God forbid, if we had a major war and we need to start calling everybody up, I would hope that we would not suddenly say we are only going to draft people of a certain type. Because we wouldn't have enough.

In today’s pundit roundup Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of The New Republic. I’ll get to his quote in a moment. The Michigan NPR news said a lot about the nasty guy’s threat to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. This bridge has been in the news for a couple decades. It’s the second one across the river, the other being the Ambassador Bridge (there’s also a tunnel). The Ambassador Bridge is frequently backed up and dumps traffic onto Windsor streets for a couple miles. The new bridge connects freeway to freeway and is to open later this year. One of the nasty guy’s demands is to require more US steel, rather than Canadian steel, be used. That prompted the mayor of Windsor to say, hey, the bridge is built, it doesn’t need any more steel. Also much in the news over the decades I’ve live here, is that the Ambassador Bridge is privately owned. It is not owned and run by the local, state, and national governments on either side. The owner is Maddy Maroun, who has demonstrated he can be a real pain when he wants to. He also owns a lot of property in Detroit – which had included Michigan Central Station in Detroit that was a poster child for ruin porn until Bill Ford bought it and renovated for a beautiful result and wide acclaim. Maddy and his son Matthew opposed the Gordie Howe bridge because they saw it eating into the profits of their own bridge. Thankfully, the Marouns have been quiet during much of the time the bridge was built. But Matthew is the billionaire in Sargent’s quote:

It turns out a billionaire Trump ally who owns another bridge linking those locations—which will face competition from the new project—privately met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week, according to The New York Times. Lutnick spoke with Trump after the meeting and just before Trump’s threat. Maybe, just maybe, Lutnick whispered to Trump that it would totally own Canada and supercilious Prime Minister Mark Carney if Trump blocked that bridge.

Why was the bridge named for Gordie Howe? He was a Canadian who played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings for 25 years. Julie Brown, in her own Substack, discussed AG Pam Bondi’s appearance before a Senate Committee yesterday. Other sources have mentioned her pleasing and flattering demeanor when answering questions posed by Republicans and quite nasty when answering Democrats. When accused of exposing Epstein victims Bondi blustered back that no one has been more helpful to victims than she has. Brown wrote:

Fact Check. Bondi dropped the ball on investigating Epstein and his abuse of children in Florida a long time ago. She was Florida’s attorney general — the state’s top prosecutor — as more and more Epstein victims came forward in the years after Epstein received federal immunity in 2008. She was in office from 2011 to 2019. During that time, there was an ongoing federal lawsuit on the case, brought by Epstein victims. There were also some 22 other civil lawsuits filed, by victims, all of whom were abused as teenagers by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in Palm Beach. There was coverage in the media about how Epstein’s victims were fighting to undo that plea deal, and how Epstein flaunted his freedom by leaving his private jail every day via chauffer to work in an office he set up in West Palm Beach. The irony is as Florida attorney general, Bondi tried to position herself as an advocate for victims of sex trafficking, and created a statewide panel on human trafficking. But she remained silent on the most famous sex trafficking case in Florida’s history.

Bondi’s claim of being the best for victims is like the nasty guy proclaiming he’s the least racist occupant of the Oval Office ever. In the comments the Naked Pastor posted a cartoon about the Parable of the Sower. That parable talks about a farmer who sows seed, some on rocky soil where it doesn’t grow, some on the path where birds eat it, and some on good soil where it produces a bountiful harvest. This cartoon shows Jesus with a satchel of hearts sowing them widely. The Naked Pastor wrote:

I think the original point of the parable of the sower was that the seed was thrown indiscriminately everywhere. It illustrates how love is everywhere for everyone. Like the sun and rain falls on everyone indiscriminately, so does love. Sow love, so love.

A couple memes by Liberal Jane. The first shows a woman with a variety of pride buttons plus a BLM pin. She holds a sign saying, “I’d rather be hated for who I include than loved for who I exclude.” The second shows a man in ratty clothes sitting on a sidewalk. His sign says, “You are always closer to being unhoused than you are to being a billionaire.”

What if society was based on spiritual values, not property?

What if society was based on spiritual values, not property? I finished two books today. When I get to the second one I’ll explain how that happened. They also fit well together. The first book is The Peacekeeper by B. L. Blanchard. What attracted me to this book is the setting – North America (actually the whole world) not colonized by Europe. The time is 2020 (thought the first chapter begins with the date in many calendar systems). Many of our modern conveniences exist in this world with smartphones being the most obvious. There are also high speed trains (cars aren’t mentioned), living skyscrapers, and modern forensic science. The skyscrapers are designed with space for trees on balconies (yes, this is a real thing, see here for an example). The story follows Chibenashi, resident of the small tourist town of Baawitigong (near what we know of as Sault Ste. Marie). When he was seventeen his mother was murdered and his father way too quickly confessed to the crime and asked to be sent to prison. That left him to care for his sister Ashwiyaa, twelve at the time. She didn’t handle the loss of her parents and goes frantic or almost catatonic whenever anyone but Chibenashi cares for her. The one exception is Meoquanee, their mother’s best friend whose own husband and son deserted her. Twenty years later Meoquanee is murdered. Chibenashi is now a peacekeeper, the equivalent of a policeman, though their small community doesn’t need much policing. He is assigned to the case, which brings up ties to the previous murder. To help solve the case Chibenashi must go to the big city, Shikaakwa, on the southwest shore of Ininwewi-gichigami (Lake Michigan). That makes me wonder if the huge city at that location in our world derived its name from a native name. This is the place with the living skyscrapers. It has much more sophisticated police force and forensic tools. It is also where his father is in prison. So, yeah, this is a murder mystery. The author is very good at introducing new information that upends what Chibenashi (and the reader) understood up to that time. Alas, Chibenashi is too emotionally involved in the case. It’s a good mystery. It is also a good way to describe what North America might have been like if natives had kept control. I’ve mentioned the living skyscrapers. There are city layouts that incorporate a great deal more nature. There is a description of an alternate justice system, based on restoring (as much as possible) the victim rather than punishing the perpetrator. Instead of lawyers and judges there are advocates and mediators. One of the characters is an economics professor and he is given a chance to expound on how their economic system differs from capitalism and communism. Their system is based more on community and on the idea that a person or community gives of their surplus with the hope their needs are met by other people or communities giving of their surplus. I very much enjoyed this story and towards the end didn’t want to put it down. I usually don’t like mysteries (the story is about a death), but the description of the society the author created was well worth the read. The mystery, plot, and characters were pretty good too. I recommend it. On to the second book. It is Native Wisdom for White Minds, Daily Reflections Inspired by the Native Peoples of the World by Anne Wilson Shaef. In the past I’ve used Christian daily devotion guides that have a page for each day of the year. Each page has a Bible verse, a writer’s commentary on it, and a prayer. This is similar. Each page has a sentence or more of wisdom from a native community, Shaef’s reflection on it, and her prayer. The wisdom comes from American natives, Hawaiian Kupuna, Australian aborigines, the Maori of New Zealand, South American natives, even the Irish. Yeah, I’m writing about it at the end of January, rather than the beginning, because there were many days I forgot to open it. Even with doubling up towards the end of the year I still didn’t finish it until now. I found the book 18 moths ago in the Indigenous shop in Stratford, Ontario. The title intrigued me, so I bought it (and a couple other books on native themes I’ve since read). During the year I wrote down on an index card the dates and topics of thoughts that intrigued me. By the end of the book I had filled the card. I can’t share all of them, but I will share many. For some I quoted the native speaker, for others I quote Shaef’s reflection, and in a few I wrote a summary. You don’t need to ask me permission to quote something I have written or said. We are both doing the work of the Creator. Our responsibility is to get the information out there. Use whatever you like. – Don Coyhis, Mohican American native. Shaef added: Possession is an illusion. Western society (especially American evangelicals) focus on the family of a man, a woman, and children. Native wisdom says that is too narrow. Children benefit from having a community of aunties, uncles, and siblings. Why is it that right now Western governments are increasingly pushing the isolated nuclear family [rather than the extended family and community] as society’s building blocks? – Shaef Also on the nuclear family: Some of us are even beginning to wonder why our societal structures keep pushing for a model that produces damaged individuals. – Shaef “We” overrides “me.” – Hawaiian proverb. Shaef added that many of the laws in Western culture actually work against community. Everything in the universe is perfect. People and anything else only become less than perfect when compared to someone or something else. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori Too many times we use the word “illiterate” to describe people who are not formally educated in Western science and culture but understand the world and its wisdom much better than Western culture does. Sometimes it’s difficult for “civilized” people of the world to believe that “primitive” people can look at our way of life with all its advantages and not want it. It’s even more difficult to believe that they find our way of life not only undesirable but primitive. – Shaef Earth, water, and sea belong to the gods and people are here to enhance them, not deplete them. – Hawaiian Kupuna When we realize that we are, indeed, one with others, we become less willing to destroy them, because we understand that we are, in essence, destroying ourselves. – Shaef. We work volunteer – you could never get people to work this hard if you paid them for it. – Bruce Stewart, Maori Hawaii works for personal excellence, the West works for money. – Patrick Ka’ano’i, Hawaii One must have a good heart and a good mind and use both. Much of Western culture is built on exclusion. Native culture is built on inclusion. Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly civilized. – Herb Kawainui Kane, Kupuna Only a system that believes it has the right, yea, even the mandate, to dominate and control (and often destroy) would have the arrogance to see a people who live every moment of their lives in deep spirituality as “wicked and unsaved.” – Shaef No one needs help to get into trouble. – Maori proverb. Status is gained by mobilizing and redistributing wealth, not by hoarding capital. – Patricia Kinloch, Health Services researcher in Samoa Many Westerners are too busy trying to impose our culture to let ourselves be happy. How can people say one skin is colored when each has its own coloration? What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is of good design and serves its purpose well? – Elizabeth Q. White, Hopi, American native Only when we have a religion that is a closed system that cannot tolerate the existence of other systems do we have to legislate controls. Closed systems are by nature controlling and are threatened by open systems. Open systems are not threatened by closed systems because all are allowed existence. – Shaef. It seems [white people] have something in their life called gravy. They know truth but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. – Australian aboriginal On missionaries: We cannot read their book – they tell us different stories about what it contains, and we believe they make the book talk to suit themselves. If we had no money, no land and no country to be cheated out of, these black coats would not trouble themselves about our good hereafter. The Great Spirit will not punish us for what we do not know. – Red Jacket, Seneca, American native A good thing sells itself. A bad thing is advertized. – Swahili proverb In the Western world we have capitalism, communism, and socialism, and all are based upon economics. What would a society look like that is based upon spiritual values instead of property? – Schaef In Western culture, we seem to have set up a dualism: I do what is good for the community/I have to deny myself. Native people do not operate out of that dualism. Their worldview moves them from the individual to the community to the whole. – Shaef Each person is known to have a certain gift and certain ability, and is therefore able to make a contribution to the whole. There will be the expert in bone carving; the expert in weaving, but there is in the extended family a place for all. – Hiwi Tauroa, Maori One important belief is that the Creator has given a unique heritage to each and every culture across the world. No culture is more or less important than another – to suggest that there is, is to criticize the Creator. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori

Policy: drive liberals to anger, then mock them

My Sunday movie was Episode 1 of American Revolution by Ken Burns. I haven’t watched episodes 2-4 and probably won’t get to 5 and 6 unless I can find a way to stream them over the next several weeks. I’ll have to check whether PBS allows non-members to stream their shows. This episode covers 1754 to 1775. The story starts with the Seven Year War (French and Indian War) in 1754. It was actually a global war. These were George Washington’s first battles. He was part of the British military and those battles convinced him the British could be defeated. This was at a time the people still thought of themselves as British. The mainland (rather than the Caribbean) colonies were quite diverse. People came from various European countries in addition to England. There were also African slaves and indigenous people. How could such diversity be united into one country? The greater the percent of slaves in a colony, the more prosperous it was. Caribbean colonies were quite prosperous. New England colonies were not. England paid more attention to the Caribbean. Those who came to the American colonies were people who wanted their own plot of land. They did not want to work for the local aristocracy. There was a continuing demand for more land but the only available land was controlled by the natives. That meant violence. To reduce that violence Britain said no spreading beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists said nope. Britain sent troops to enforce their edict. But the British government, having fought four wars (or maybe that was wars on four continents?), was deeply in debt. They decided the colonies should pay for the troops – the troops that prevented them from spreading west. Thus the Stamp Act. And that created the idea of no taxation without representation. Most of the episode is about the government in London enacting more ways to bring its colonies under control and the colonists rejecting them and becoming more united in their rejection. Then came Lexington and Concord, the first deaths, and the British retreat. Before then each colony had its own relationship with London, some rejecting the meddling and calling for defiance and others enjoying profitable relations they wanted to continue. But Lexington and Concord prompted a more unified view that the political links to England needed to be severed. I am impressed with the large range of artwork the series used to illustrate the scenes. Of course most of it I hadn’t seen before. I was amused at the painting of the young George Washington. I appreciate the show talked about the contradiction between colonists described themselves as slaves to England while having African slaves in their homes. I’ll have more to say about that when I finish the book I’m reading and about a third of the way through. When the nasty guy reclaimed the Oval Office Niece told me she wanted to get out of the country, though she doesn’t feel she is ready to support herself through such a drastic changes. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported:

A recent Gallup poll found that 40% of U.S. women aged 15 to 44 said that they would move to another country permanently if given the opportunity—a jump of 10% since 2014. This increase seems to be exclusive to the United States, with other countries reporting fairly consistent numbers between 20% and 30%.

The nasty guy in the Oval Office is not the only reason, though a big one. There is a general sense the US is becoming increasingly unfriendly to women, and has been since about 2016. In the last year both in Britain and Canada there has been an increase in the Americans applying for citizenship. Americans living outside considering renouncing citizenship has jumped from 30% to 49%. Reasons for the desire to leave are restrictions on abortion and reproductive rights, the cost of giving birth is going up (as health insurance is getting much more expensive), and masculinity is getting more toxic. Dan Gearino, in an article for Inside Climate News posted on Kos, reported there are some things people on the left and right agree on. One is a “skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people.” And that includes increasing distrust for data centers.

Much of the discussion is about data centers, which are often large developments used to support cloud computing or artificial intelligence. But the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama. “It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.”

Gearino included poll results showing that for most things more people (and in some areas many more people) believe AI makes things worse and not better. The problem could be lessened if those wanting to build data centers talk about local benefits. The locals already hear about the high use of water and the likelihood of electrical bills going up. Companies are not working to alleviate those concerns. As for the benefits, some experts ask are there any? As part of the series on Explaining the Right Oliver Willis of Kos discusses how Republicans became shameless hypocrites. An example of them being hypocrites goes back to the 1990s when Speaker Newt Gingrich was portraying Republicans as the party of “family values” during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal while Gingrich was cheating on his wife as she fought cancer and eventually married his mistress. Of course, there are a lot of more recent examples.

For years, conservatives have made the concept of “owning the libs” central to their political ideology. The idea is to engage in behavior and use rhetoric that supposedly makes liberals angry, driving them to exhibit this anger, which conservatives then mock. Even if their behavior doesn’t provoke a tantrum, conservatives have elevated this brand of mockery above nearly everything else, including policy and ideology. This has resulted in the right, including right-wing media like Fox News, becoming fixated on “culture war” issues.

Since Gingrich was “owning the libs” his own infidelity got a pass.

This creates a permission structure on the right where Republicans are allowed to be contradictory, as long as a liberal somewhere is purportedly mad about it. But this kind of posture has a limit.

The limit is that it works great with other Republicans or MAGAs. It doesn’t work for anyone else and voters who aren’t Republicans are quite willing to throw them out of office. Emily Singer of Kos lists reasons why Democrats won the shutdown. I’ll let you read her explanations. Democrats brought health care to the forefront. Polls showed voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats. The nasty guy’s approval fell dramatically, going from -12 to -16. The shutdown gave Democrats a ton of campaign material for next year’s midterms, such as the nasty guy’s Great Gatsby party, which widely polled as inappropriate spending. On Sunday’s All Things Considered on NPR host Sacha Pfeiffer and St. Louis Public Radio reporter Hiba Ahmad discussed the tornado that hit St. Louis last May and toured some of the damage that is still quite evident six months later. Then they turned it into a discussion of the nasty guy’s desire to turn FEMA over to the states. They talked to Mayor Cara Spencer, who summarized the reason to keep FEMA national:

My argument would be that, as a nation, we would be better off, more efficient and certainly more effective if we centralize and share the resources and expertise across the nation for very unusual events, rather than saddling every single municipal government to being able to respond to what may or may not happen in the lifetime of each of those cities.

The article mentions Enright Ave of St. Louis as one that was hit hard by the tornado. There were other places hit harder, but the article doesn’t explain their location. I went looking at Enright Ave. through Google Street View and found something fascinating. Start on the avenue just east of Union Blvd. Google Maps say they rolled down the street in May 2025. The houses look to be in great shape. Then take a step east and the images are of July 2025. A lot of homes are damaged – windows gone or boarded up, walls and roofs missing and some covered in blue tarps, stacks of salvaged bricks, and piles of trash. This allows a person to compare a few houses before and after and to see the destruction on down the street. I then wondered, did the Google Street View people do this intentionally? If so, thank you. Yeah, this is the view of the street in July, six to eight weeks after the tornado. The NPR article says the street isn’t much different six months later. And that’s because the nasty guy and his desire to oppress those not in his billionaire class.

Multicultural music

I’m sure the first time I heard Messiah by G. F. Handel was when I was in middle school and my older brother was in the choir. They didn’t perform the whole thing, but certainly a great deal of it, more than I wanted to tolerate sitting on gymnasium bleacher seats. That gymnasium was at the college where my parents met. It was also the college that my high school choral director graduated from. The high school choir traveled for three hours to join the college’s choir and several other choirs, the orchestra (from the college?), and soloists. A year or two later I was in the high school and in the choir. I sang bass and my brother sang tenor. And we did Messiah. I learned the bass part of many of the choruses. We went back to the same little college gymnasium. The rest of the family stayed at the family farm about 25 miles away (which is why my dad attended that college). They came to the performance on Sunday afternoon. In college the choir (which I was in) Christmas Concert was usually one of Lessons and Carols. One year we sang Messiah in which each solo was sung by a different vocal student. A few years after college, when I was settled in the Detroit area, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra did a Messiah sing-along. I took my score (of course by then I had my own) and joined in. There was one director for the orchestra and one for the audience. I think I got most of the florid 16th notes and was amused by some of the high school men around me who managed only the broad outline of the convoluted passages. So, of course, I had a recording (on LP!) of Messiah, though not of me in the choir. I played it each December. Then my musical tastes changed and I found music of Handel’s era (early 1700s) mostly boring. I much prefer classical music of the last 150 years. So I had enough Messiah in what came across the radio in December, which was rarely the whole thing. One of the advantages of living near Detroit is being able to hear CBC Radio, the national radio service of Canada. I usually listen to the classical hour of the early afternoon program Shift hosted by Tom Allen. The second part of the program is popular music and I turn back to the Detroit station. A couple weeks ago Allen talked about and played an excerpt of Messiah/Complex produced by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Against the Grain Theatre. This sounded intriguing, so last evening I watched and listened to it. The video is less than 80 minutes, so they didn’t do the whole piece (which can take two hours), though they did the most famous parts. What they did is really cool and excellently done. The cool part is they included soloists from across Canada’s diversity – white, black, and indigenous, gay and Arab. Each soloist sang in their native language and in their native setting. While the music was Handel’s in many cases the words were not. The orchestra played the overture from their home stage in Toronto, masked and distanced and with wind instruments enclosed in plexiglass. I’m sure the soloists recorded their parts in a recording studio somewhere. The choirs, also masked (or outside) and distanced, sang from or were recorded in their home church or space. The first part after the overture is the tenor solos “Comfort Ye” and “Every Valley.” During the first he was shown singing beside the inlet on the north side of Vancouver and during the second he was in the gay neighborhood (obvious from the rainbow street crossings). The bass solo that includes the words “For he is like a refiner’s fire” we see images of a refinery and of a man building a bonfire. The solo “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain” was sung by an indigenous woman in her native language with a backdrop of the Yukon Rockies. Her words were retranslated into English for subtitles. We didn’t get the old English words still sometimes used by the Church, instead we got a fresher text: “Share the news from the highest mountain.” The creator is here. I didn’t always keep track of which solo or chorus was sung in which location. The locations included a provincial park in Manitoba with lots of tall trees, more mountains visible from a hilltop in Nunavut, and Lake Louise near Banff, Alberta. A Muslim (I think) woman in Montreal sang in French. She changed words a bit to “a woman of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” The images showed an older woman at a prayer rug. On the coast of Labrador a woman sang in her native language. I was getting a bit tired of the images of slow motion feet walking over the scrub, then I realized the words were “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace.” A black woman sang “Why do the nations so furiously rage together” from Graffiti Alley in Toronto. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus on the streets of Toronto outside the orchestra’s home concert hall. An indigenous woman in Yellowknife, Alberta sang in her native language and the retranslated words were “I know my creator lives.” She had a campfire and tent and performed some of her people’s rituals. To the music of “The trumpet shall sound” and we will be raised incorruptible the bass soloist and his father visit the hockey rink of his youth, a time that is shown through family videos. A woman singing in Arabic with an introduction not by Handel visits the ruins of a church in which the walls are intact, though the roof is gone. The final chorus is is sung by a choir in Halifax. This was the only time that I was annoyed with the otherwise excellent camera work. In this case I felt the cameras moved around the singers a bit too much and too quickly. Overall this is an excellent performance of parts of Messiah. The scenery is spectacular, as is the photography. It is well worth the time to watch. One can watch for free (or donate to the theater) though I found navigating the website confusing, as in I download a ticket, then wondered what do I do with it. The program will be online through January 7.

Two different ways of knowing

One of the books I bought in Australia and finished (maybe three weeks ago) is Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, edited by Anita Heiss. Fifty people, teenage to elderly, wrote essays of two to eight pages describing their lives while young. A few are what one might expect from a modern youth – I went to this school and got my dream job or joined a professional sports team.

Most, however, speak of of discrimination. The worst were the older ones who were part of the Stolen Generations. For a while Australia had a policy of trying to Westernize Aboriginal youth. They were taken from their homes and put in boarding schools. They were forbidden to speak their tribal language. Some lighter skinned children, those thought might be able to pass as white, were forbidden from seeing darker skinned siblings. This was a policy similar to those in the United States and in Canada.

Many of the writers had one white parent and one Aboriginal. They talk of one family in the city and one in the bush. There was a frequent list of questions and comments: How much Aboriginal are you? When did you realize you were Aboriginal? You don’t look like an Aborigine. You’ve really done well for an Aboriginal. Do you get the benefits? And some are told they’re too dark to be white and too light to be Aboriginal. One was wisely told by an elder you are not part Aboriginal. You are Aboriginal. You are also Irish.

Don Bemrose is an opera singer. He wrote a letter to his country. Excerpts:

I’m sorry I identify as Gungarri and Aboriginal. I know you would prefer I added ‘part’, ‘quarter’ or some other quantifier to to signify that I’m less than full; to reinforce my lesser status, and as a reminder that my people are to be bred out.

I’m sorry I am neither white, nor black enough for you to easily label or identify me as ‘other.’ I understand how hard it can be for you to be openly funny or casually racist when people like me are around.

I’m sorry I’m not a ‘real Aboriginal’ living in a remote part of Australia, surviving off the land.

Please forgive me for identifying as gay, because I know you hate double and triple minorities, which are such a threat to your monocultural, patriarchal, 1950s utopia.

Please forgive me for not being lazy: I know how you prefer your natives to want nothing but a free handout, but somehow I have become a ‘want-for-nothing’ Aboriginal who lives the best life I can.

Todd Phillips talks of two different ways of knowing. From his Aboriginal family he hears stories of ancestors as he sits to fish with his uncles. Phillips and others talk of fishing at the same spot along the river as their ancestors have done for thousands of years. Quite a connection to the land! He also went to public schools and university. In his mob (Australian word for tribe) the elders were intentional in passing along the ways and knowledge of their people to the youth. These elders told them to think outside the box – beyond professional sports – to consider being doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals. We need our own to be in these professions. Phillips added that his public school teachers had only talked of a life of manual labor. They had never talked of professions and of being role models for the community. Phillips got a PhD in education.

Potter, not Lennon

I've added a new class to my schedule this year and a few of my students are freshmen of the traditional age. That prompted me to check out this year's Beloit College Mindset List. This is a list of cultural things that have been true since this year's freshmen were born, which was about 1996. A few of the items from this year's list:

* Two-term presidents are routine, but none of them ever won in a landslide.

* When they see wire-rimmed glasses, they think Harry Potter, not John Lennon.

* Joe Camel has never introduced one of them to smoking.

* Hell has always been associated less with torment and more with nothingness.

* Whether to embrace fat or spurn it has been a front page debate all their lives.

* Bill Gates has always been the richest man in the U.S.

Getting off the ground (correction)

I posted an entry last Friday about black gays and lesbians, referring the interested reader to a list celebrating many such luminaries. Alas, I forgot to include the link. Here it is now. Thanks to my dad for pointing it out.

Getting off the ground

Though I am a bit late for honoring Black History Month, this link will take you to a list of black people who were also gay, lesbian, or transgender. There is also a quote with each name. Folklorist Zora Neale Hurston wrote, “Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”

Various commenters contribute more names to the list.

Defining standard of living

Father and son David and Benjamin Crumm spent August circling (litarally!) the country talking to people they met about what they think of America. I've been reading their reports, though am only about halfway through. In Berkeley, Calif. they met Rafael Jesus Gonzales, a poet who writes in both English and Spanish. Gonzales disputes the claim that America has the highest standard of living in the world. He thinks we are basing that claim on all the wrong things and we actually have the lowest. His reasoning:

Our culture measures worth in dollars and consumption. That also means our culture is based on anxiety. One reason for that is the absence of universal health care which means a comfortably middle-class family is one catastrophic illness away from poverty.

When a culture is based on consumption it is also based on competition. We're not a kind culture and the culture itself is abusive to many. A culture of consumption is not a culture of wellbeing. We don't have national celebrations that have so much meaning people are dancing in the streets. We don't even sing in the streets. Everybody has their private music. We don't teach love.

We've screwed up paradise. The way back is to cherish the arts, stress the importance of love, and celebrate our joy together.

Art in Detroit, a gem of a museum

Even Newsweek had a big article about the reopening of the Detroit Institute of Arts! In addition to expanded gallery space the whole purpose and presentation of the museum has been reworked, making it all much more friendly to the novice. I wandered through the DIA for 5 hours last Friday during their free-admission Open House. I'm quite impressed with what I saw. Though I gave many galleries only a cursory glance and looked at just the highlights in several others I went through the American Art section slowly, savoring many of the paintings. The American landscape paintings were especially captivating, and were talking only the eastern part of the country. Well worth a visit.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/72014