There was a heavy fog this morning. Fog is disconcerting in that it takes a clear view and makes it obscure. What we saw in crystal clarity the day before is now hidden in a cloud of obscure and diminished visual acuity. It is difficult to make plans for a journey in the fog and even to see the road ahead.

Fog has been engulfing our world for a year now. The pandemic has altered our way of life and taken over 2 millions lives worldwide. I was listening to a news program this morning and heard a commentator give one of the clearest explanations of why people leave what we agree is the truth and embrace alternative renditions of ‘truth.’ He traced how our pandemic has devastated small businesses and uprooted the lives and upended the reality of so many people. Millions of our fellow human beings are wondering where they are going to get their next meal from and how they are going to pay their mortgage or their rent…or they have been displaced already… What about the families who have lost 1 or more family members while at the same time they have been laid off due to the closing of their restaurant or bar or service industry? So many had a clear and fog free path before them prior to Covid-19 and now have no idea where to go or what lies ahead or if the reality that they counted on is even a viable path forward! For desperate people looking for an answer…conspiracy theories are…at times comforting…and an answer to a world shrouded in the fog of desperation and doubt.

I have been in many meetings where it was clear that there is a great chasm of understanding between those who have enjoyed a middle class life and those who have had to ‘scrape with the chickens.’ There really is a different reality for the marginalized and the forgotten as compared with those who have connections and friends in high places and safety nets. Many of us have been blessed to be able to work at home…but many have not. I understand hardscrabble people…that is where I come from. I have many friends that the church was the refuge and the succor for them and that no one who had means and resources seemed to know that they existed. People that were searching for someone that gave a damn about them. Alternative reality has some appeal to those who have never felt acceptance in the popular society and have never been the recipient of its blessings and perks.

Imagine with me, if you will, that you have lost your home and are standing in a food line for you and your families dinner…and someone promises you a better society and a more equal distribution of wealth and power and privilege…and a front row seat for you in the new government? This is how democracies fall… How would you feel if you had lost your life’s work and dream and the blood sweat and tears that you had placed in your restaurant for over 20 years? How would you feel if you had used all of your savings to pay your staff during the forced closing of your restaurant…and yet the pandemic continues and your government has not seen fit to help you through the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?

Crisis are real and we are in the midst of the most terrible one that I have seen in my 63 years. We will finally be able to lift the coronavirus blanket that has smothered our livelihoods and our health and our psyche…but the Fog of War will leave millions around our world with lasting damage and who’s ancillary effects will be felt for generations.

The sun is shinning brilliantly in our neck of the woods. The temperature is in the high 40’s and the walkers are out with their children. Before I began taking a lot of photographs I did not realize what an influence that the sun has on colors and shades and hues of the great outdoors. Sunlight can make a good picture a great one. As MJ would say, ‘The days are getting longer!’ Of course when walking around campus lake I see the occasional runner. One passed me today with a forlorn look on her face when she saw me put on my mask. I wonder if she was thinking how difficult it is to run with a face mask on?

I recall my years of working the 3rd shift at SIUC. I went to work in the dark and many times came home without the sun’s influence. Then in order to facilitate sleep in the daytime I would darken my bedroom as much as I could or the sun’s rays would alight upon my closed eyelids and inform my body clock that it was time to arise. Or as my mother-in-law would telephone me, shortly after I had achieved slumber, and when I answered she would proclaim, ‘You are not still in the bed, are you?’

Sunlight brings many benefits that cannot be realized in the dark. We can see where we are going. We can see where we have been. Monsters that are skulking behind trees or bushes are illuminated by the prisms of light. Shadows that seemed so frightening in the night…evaporate in the light of day. It is easier to read and therefore to understand. The smile of friends is readily apparent. The enemies that we were sure that we saw at midnight….are gone in the morning.

Walking after dark is somewhat frightening. There is difficulty in discerning the path. At times you may stumble on a stone or Gnome… Night with its blanket of darkness…sometimes…accidentally covers our head and with that our eyes. It is hard to see…unless you have a good flashlight… We know that there is a creature that lives under our bed…or in our closet…of behind the bedroom door. We may not be able to see the intruders but we believe that they are there by virtue of what the darkness has told us. Morning shows no such creatures…and we feel better…for awhile.

Darkness lives in places in Social Media. We are made afraid. We seek closed doors and dim lights and the sun….seems to be a grinning Halloween Pumpkin. Depression and despair and discouragement are the clothes that we adorn ourself with. We wonder how things got so bad…and where were we while it was happening? Then we open our front door and step outside into the warming rays of our benevolent friend…and we are renewed…

We are surrounded by a kaleidoscope of diversity…while many of us seek a world of monochrome. I am an avid amateur photographer. The emphasis is on amateur. I enjoy posting the photos that I take on Facebook due to my small but dedicated following. Some enjoy the black and white photos while others prefer those […]

Understanding Others — The Jazz Man

Jonathon and I visited our favorite LP Emporium, Plaza Records, in Carbondale and found to our dismay and delight…3 new John Prine records. They were reissues of Mr. Prine’s 1st and 2nd LP and a 1976 reissue of his greatest hits. We lost John Prine to Covid19 in 2020. He is often referred to as the Mark Twain of song writing. His lyrics are like none that I have ever heard. It is a cold day to walk but I persisted in my attempt to walk the lengths that I formally did in my younger years. I simply feel better when I walk…but then again I feel better when I can attend the theatre 2 or 3 times per week…but that is another story.

All of us have been wronged at one time or another…or at many times…as far as we see it. Our feelings are hurt and our hearts are darkened. We know what it feels like to be marginalized and demonized and treated with a wink and a nod of faux acceptance. Then we carry those hurts and slings and arrows as badges of honor of the battles that we have fought and the reasons that we have not succeeded to our expectations. If it had not been for our detractors and our enemies and how our parents mistreated us and our friends deserted us and our colleagues left us in the dust bin of unrealized expectations. Soon we have become a product of our grievances the caustic depression of the wrongs that we have undergone. I have known many people that take some pleasure in their identity of victimhood. The identity of a member of ‘ The Society of the Unusually Wronged’ is a club that many have taken out charter membership.

Forgive and forget is the cry of the righteous for the great unwashed in our society. Forgiveness is attainable…forgetting is nebulous at best. Since I was a child I have been able to forgive. It almost seems to be genetic. My mother was a wonderful woman for who forgiveness came easily. Forgetting is somewhat elusive. Probably my dad leaving mom and I was the first and largest occurrence in my young mind was my mother and father’s divorce when I was 5 years old. I could not conceive how he left mom and I and the ensuing poverty that resulted from his painful decision. I was an adult before I achieved forgiveness for this life changing event. Most forgiveness comes quickly for me. I am upset for a few hours and then the wrong that has been perpetrated agains me…looses its sting. Whenever I forgive I loose the animosity and bitter gaul and sour stomach that hate and hurt brings…

Who is the beneficiary of forgiveness? I would say it is the person who forgives. Our human journey back to Jerusalem is laden with stony ground and deep valleys and hight mountains. The Bully will say that those whom he bullies are sensitive or ‘snowflakes’ when in reality the Bully is probably more sensitive than anyone with whom he perpetrates his hurtful craft. Forgiveness is freeing! Forgiveness is the Balm of Gilead and healing that can not be found in modern medicine.

It is 52 degrees today and a climate for a pleasant walk. The beauty of winter was exhibited on the campus of Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale. I love the appearance of winter trees reaching their spidery arms towards the sky. In our neck of the woods the Covid19 vaccine is not being offered to […]

A Peaceful Mind — The Jazz Man

Our New Year has began with some harsh reality’s that are simply extensions of 2020. Three thousand United States citizens are dying each day of Covid19. The political unrest and unprecedented attack on our Capitol were in planning for sometime. We have empirical evidence that many of our elected leaders not only will lie to us but that they realize they are lying to us. Some of these elected leaders have confessed that they realize that they are lying but fear that if they tell the truth that their life may be in jeopardy.

We will succeed in overcoming our pandemic. As vaccines become more available we finally will be able to put the 2020 pandemic in our rearview mirror in 2021. We can go down the rocky road of continuing to demonize our neighbor who does not politicaly agree with us…or at it has been said…’How is that working out for you?’ The reality of our present distress is that there are people of good will on both sides of the political aisle. We must begin talking with each other. One of the many beauties of higher education, for me, was my exposure to a diversity of views and opinions and people. I discovered that the myopic views and conspiracy theories that I had heard regarding people that were different from me…were lies grown out of ignorance and fear.

Life is stretched out before us with all of the possibilities for our peace and happiness. Our New Year can be wonderful or terrible…and much of the future is up to us. I love news and presidential happenings…and I have been a fan of both since I was a child. I remember when CNN was created and my being overjoyed that there was 24 hour news. I soon realized that the 24 hours of news contained much repetition. I have discovered that it is healthy to step away from the news…from time to time.

Haters are going to hate! When bullies causes their fellow students to bow down to their will, out of fear, they increase the scope of their bizarre demands. I have known more than one authoritarian leader who were little strongmen in their own right. Attempts at placating them resulted in increased dictatorial behavior.

Narcissism does not have strange bedfellows…it has no bedfellows. In the same month that I began my career at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale…the Jonestown Massacre transpired. This was a seminal event for me and an eye opener. Hundreds of people drank poison laden kool-aid and went willingly to their deaths for their cults leader, Jim Jones. Reverend Jones had ruled his congregation with such draconian measures as publicly berating them and physically spanking them during church services. As each increasingly restrictive and abusive order came from Jones…the demands became normalized…until finally the demand of the groups lives, including the lives of their children, illustrating that the unimaginable can become reality.

I rejoiced when I watched a Capitol Police Officer lead a group of the insurrectionist away from the Senate…putting his life at risk! Tears came to my eyes when former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria two years after World War II, spoke about the similarities between the attempted coup at the Capitol and Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass.

‘When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, ‘Come make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who bought us up out of Egypt, We don’t know what has happened to him. Aaron answered them, ‘Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.’ So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed to him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ Exodus 32: 1-4

Our nation is in the midst of confusion and strife and violence such as we have not seen since the Civil War. Our Capitol was stormed last week and the expressed purpose of some of the insurrectionist was to capture many of the Senators and members of Congress. Chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’ were heard throughout the throng. A scaffold with a hangman’s noose was placed on the grounds of the Capitol. The president has not had a more loyal supporter than Vice President Pence. Please do not tell me that this is a fight against abortion…Vice President Pence is vehemently against abortion. I am sure we all realize that our Congress has as many Republicans and Democratic lawmakers contained in it.

I communicated with one of my oldest friends early this morning. Jeff is a Marine Veteran. He told me that, ‘his blood boiled’ when he watched the attempted coup of our Capitol and our government. Jeff is much like me…we are independents….but too many have fought and died to approve of the heinous act of physically attacking the seat of our government. Now I understand that there are millions of Americans that do not support a coup of our government by people who are not only proud of their actions but who also documented their nefarious deeds for all to see by taking multiple selfies and significant planning of their purported patriotism on Facebook and all type of social media. When neither political party has any value to a group of people and that same group now trumpet their unhappiness with the president because he did not join their sedition…how do you think that you will fare with the rioter who was wearing horns and sitting in the chair in the Senate that the Vice President occupied just prior to their causing him to flee in fear for his life? If you are a supporter of the President and the Vice President…does it seem logical to seek one’s death and to turn your back on the other…when you disagree with one of their actions. Chaos and mob rule has never been good for the citizenry that is subject to the jurisdiction of the mercurial rulers.

We all believe what we believe. None of us want to be told that we are wrong. But, many of us can engage in a dialogue of understanding and love that that can ameliorate many of the caustic emotions that are on display. We do not know each other…but we hate each other… There is more that unites us than divides us. We all are a bit like giant sponges…and we absorb what we hear and see. We live in silos or the popular term today is bubbles. We listen to our family and friends and faith leaders and media. I have experienced this phenomena and understand how a person can see the world through black conspiratorial glasses. When you are part of this closed society…it does something to your psyche. Elitist faith communities can cause a person to feel that they are in the light of God…while the rest of the world is cloaked in darkness.

It feels especially cold today. As I engaged in a small walk through campus woods I felt the winter winds cut me like a knife. My Christmas ornaments are gone. However the bare winter trees are lovely in their seasonal spidery structure that reaches toward the grey sky. This week has whisked by and has […]

A Lie Is A Deadly Weapon — The Jazz Man

Yesterday was a tragic and sad day for our country. It was devastating for Republicans and Democrats and Independents. I say this as a person who has voted for both political parties. Some things are more important than political affiliations. A political leader is not all right or all wrong simply by being a member of one party or another. As I feel about many elements of our society that we put so much emphasis on…politics is meaningless in the great hereafter. However I do feel that there is a clear line of demarcation between good and evil and right and wrong. The storming of our Capitol which is the People’s House…was wrong! The House that is for all peoples of the United States was desecrated and everyone was put at risk of their life! Four people are dead! This was an act of insurrection and an attempt at a coup…that was fostered by the president of the United States.

Imagine…if you can…that your family was placed in harms way by your president. The demonization of members of both political parties has given license to many human beings to loot and pillage and destroy the very seat of their government that provides the freedom that they enjoy… I relish the freedoms that I have in our wonderful country. I am free to write my opinion in my blogs and fear no retaliation from my government. I have many friends who are supporters of our current president. I not only believe that they have the right to their opinions but appreciate the fact that they have the right to their freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not extend to breaking windows and breaking in to our nation’s Capitol! Freedom of speech does not extend to an attempted coup to stop the peaceful transition of power from the current president to the president elect.

We were the envy of the world. We were the lighthouse that shown a brilliant light to nations who were struggling to form a democracy. Yesterday we were a Banana Republic and a laughing stock to the world… Once we loose our democracy…there will not be additional freedoms. Dictators are not permissive regarding their citizens having guns. An Authoritarian Leader will kill people that storm their capitol! If I have learned anything…I have discovered that there is a large number of us that really do not want to have a democracy! Democracy means that all of the 330 million citizens of the United States have voice in their government. When we lose that voice…neither the right wing or the left should expect that their voice will be the one that is heard…and respected. Democracy is hard and requires the active work of all of our citizens to make it work. For those who think that violence is necessary and a tool to be used to return their government to them….remember that Despots and Dictators and Strongmen…are mercurial…and you could be next for the ‘righteous judgment’ of the leader who as captured power…

I read the other day that some quantum physicists have a new theory that life is merely a simulation and that nothing is real. Now isn’t that a ‘Fine kettle of fish?’ The new hypothesis caused me to think of a movie that I enjoyed a few years ago called ‘Another Earth.’ In the science […]

Another World — The Jazz Man