When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize an…
When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize and act. Then dig a little more. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we should do it slowly. There is an urgency in the air now, and it provides, no, demands energy. Let's roll up our collective sleeves, energize our minds and hearts, and get it done. I've got three score and ten-plus behind me, and of course there are and will be times when I mutter, "Damn. I thought we did that already," to myself.
I want to do that too and I try very hard not to feel helpless, but in a state where it will fall on deaf ears and where my friends and family think I am crazy and a radical leftist, it is hard.
Crazy and a radical leftist? Wear it like a badge of honor!
Much sympathy to you Lynnda, and Nance too. Even here in bluest MA, we often encounter something similar, especially with the crises in racial justice and policing. Even moderates imagine that real law enforcement reform will leave them exposed to nameless, faceless danger. (Though the faces cannot be discerned, they are almost always dark ones.) Most who will not stay silent, and who celebrate last year's protests, see friendships strained or lost. Yet progressives and moderates reach out and find each other, achieve new understandings, make wonderful new friendships, and build community. Cf. Letters from an American.
I try to be proud of what I believe and sure in the knowledge that I've taken the high road and done my homework. But it's really difficult when your brother tells you that many of our "mutual friends and family" have deleted my posts on FB because they make them so mad. I want to say - then why don't they try to discern what's really going on. But I don't.
Oh, Lynnda, I am so, so sorry. Right now I'm a lefty in a pretty red little town, but I've got good friends, and this forum . . . although I suspect my sister will never speak to me again. My thoughts are with you.
I blame Trump and Fox"news" for the extreme divide we are in. I cannot get my brother to see that we are no longer discussing Left vs Right issues, but we are discussing Democracy vs Authoritarian/corruption/craziness/and on and on.
So nice of you to write, TPJ. I love The Clancy Brothers (Tommy Makem, too), and I'd never heard this song with the "three score and ten." I was referring to my age, which is three score (60) and (10, plus. . . ) so, 74, and fast closing on 75. It's taken me such a long time to heal from doing work I thought was good, then returning to it years later, only to find it erased. I helped knock down the unnecessary Caesarean section rates where I lived in the 70s, only to find them soaring 20 years later. Sigh. I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and managed the digging of wells for people who had little access to water. She visited nine years later and could barely find the sand-filled holes. Well, you know what I mean. When we make change, we work hard, and we want it to stick. I'm getting better at facing what I see is probably a reality, but right now, I'd give a lot just to see things move . . .
So I was wrong, and the connection is serendipitous. Oops!
My parents' early Makem/Clancy record is among my first musical memories. I had the great privilege of finally seeing Tommy about 20 years ago. He and Liam C made several fine records together. You are in for a treat.
The world is littered with aid and development projects that look like failure, but in fact, success is real, though finite. I had some success with a project fighting cattle disease in Zambia in the 1990s Such efforts often do achieve something for a while, including yours.
When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize and act. Then dig a little more. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we should do it slowly. There is an urgency in the air now, and it provides, no, demands energy. Let's roll up our collective sleeves, energize our minds and hearts, and get it done. I've got three score and ten-plus behind me, and of course there are and will be times when I mutter, "Damn. I thought we did that already," to myself.
I want to do that too and I try very hard not to feel helpless, but in a state where it will fall on deaf ears and where my friends and family think I am crazy and a radical leftist, it is hard.
Crazy and a radical leftist? Wear it like a badge of honor!
Much sympathy to you Lynnda, and Nance too. Even here in bluest MA, we often encounter something similar, especially with the crises in racial justice and policing. Even moderates imagine that real law enforcement reform will leave them exposed to nameless, faceless danger. (Though the faces cannot be discerned, they are almost always dark ones.) Most who will not stay silent, and who celebrate last year's protests, see friendships strained or lost. Yet progressives and moderates reach out and find each other, achieve new understandings, make wonderful new friendships, and build community. Cf. Letters from an American.
I try to be proud of what I believe and sure in the knowledge that I've taken the high road and done my homework. But it's really difficult when your brother tells you that many of our "mutual friends and family" have deleted my posts on FB because they make them so mad. I want to say - then why don't they try to discern what's really going on. But I don't.
Oh, Lynnda, I am so, so sorry. Right now I'm a lefty in a pretty red little town, but I've got good friends, and this forum . . . although I suspect my sister will never speak to me again. My thoughts are with you.
I blame Trump and Fox"news" for the extreme divide we are in. I cannot get my brother to see that we are no longer discussing Left vs Right issues, but we are discussing Democracy vs Authoritarian/corruption/craziness/and on and on.
Nancy 100%. The best part of digging for knowledge is that we never get dirty, at least not much.
PS, we saw what you did in using "three score and ten." Please confirm. (Or not; I may be wrong. Never rule out that possibility.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEjW9Pxildo
So nice of you to write, TPJ. I love The Clancy Brothers (Tommy Makem, too), and I'd never heard this song with the "three score and ten." I was referring to my age, which is three score (60) and (10, plus. . . ) so, 74, and fast closing on 75. It's taken me such a long time to heal from doing work I thought was good, then returning to it years later, only to find it erased. I helped knock down the unnecessary Caesarean section rates where I lived in the 70s, only to find them soaring 20 years later. Sigh. I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and managed the digging of wells for people who had little access to water. She visited nine years later and could barely find the sand-filled holes. Well, you know what I mean. When we make change, we work hard, and we want it to stick. I'm getting better at facing what I see is probably a reality, but right now, I'd give a lot just to see things move . . .
So I was wrong, and the connection is serendipitous. Oops!
My parents' early Makem/Clancy record is among my first musical memories. I had the great privilege of finally seeing Tommy about 20 years ago. He and Liam C made several fine records together. You are in for a treat.
The world is littered with aid and development projects that look like failure, but in fact, success is real, though finite. I had some success with a project fighting cattle disease in Zambia in the 1990s Such efforts often do achieve something for a while, including yours.
That's what I keep telling myself :) It's good to have confirmation. Thanks!