Cluttering up life with apps

If I get one more message telling me that in order to do something, I have to download this or that app, I think I will explode. I wish to inform most companies with this blog post that I just don't care about their new apps, at all. I don't care. I don't want them clogging up my phone and cluttering up my life. I don't want to download apps to my phone for each supermarket I shop at (I'm not loyal to any particular supermarket), I don't need an app to pay for street parking, I'll use an automat, thank you very much. I don't want an app that allows me to use charging stations to charge my electric car, or that allows me to convert HEIC photo files to .jpg file format. Why can't I just transfer photos from my new iPhone to my PC with no problems like I could with my iPhone 6? Why can't I use paper coupons (still possible, but for how much longer?) rather than having to download a supermarket app to use coupons? If you want to use electric scooters here in Oslo (I don't want to at all since I think they're the latest piece of garbage to litter city streets), you have to download an app for each company that provides the scooters. I mean really, you can't make this crap up. At least there is only one app for using Oslo City Bikes, and they are well-controlled, have specific parking areas, and don't litter the city streets and sidewalks the way electric scooters do. The latter make it impossible for handicapped and blind people to navigate the sidewalks.

Apps are the future. I know it, but I don't plan on using many apps. I don't need an app from my electric company telling me how much current we used last month and how much we are using this month compared to last month. I don't care. I pay the electric company and that's all the contact I want with them. I don't need an app for every little thing that daily life consists of, since most of what daily life consists of is unimportant and forgettable. All these apps are just new ways of tracking us, our movements, preferences, purchases, likes, dislikes, etc. and making us focus on unimportant things. I hate the idea that everything I do in life is being controlled and measured, all for marketing purposes. But the reality is that we will be forced to download apps in order to use most things in the future. My husband and I were recently on vacation for a few days in a city in south Norway, and when we parked our car in one of the city parking lots, it was nearly impossible to pay when it was time to leave. We asked some people about how to pay, and they told us to download an app that would make payment possible. Why? If we are visitors to a city, why would we need that city's app? Why would we care? We're not planning on returning there anytime soon. The whole app and phone thing is out of control--a mania, an obsession. Anything to keep us glued to our phones. Instead of making life simpler, all of this pressure to conform is making life more complicated. I suppose the next thing is that we will need to download an app to our phones in order to use the toilets at bus and train stations and airports. I mean, why not? Or an app to activate lights, faucets, soap dispensers, coffee machines, and vending machines in public places. What about apps to start our cars (perhaps they exist already)? Remembering which app should be used when will continually occupy our brains, so that we don't have to reflect on what is really going on. Because if we understood that this is about controlling our every move, we'd be much more circumspect about what we downloaded to our phones, and much more careful about the amount of time we spent on our phones.

Cheating on someone and real love

A smart piece of advice and a good perspective for couples of any age to have and live by, but especially those starting out. Wish I had read and incorporated such advice when I was younger; it would have made a world of sense and might have made me look at some people quite differently. In other words, I would have wasted less time and expended less energy on the wrong people. Because if people cheat on you, they're the wrong people for you. They don't deserve your time, your love, or your loyalty.

Monday morning reflections

The feeling that things will never be the same is a feeling that is occurring more frequently with each passing day. The pandemic is the cause, yes, but the sense that the 'known' is becoming the unknown is prevalent within me, and I cannot say that I like the feeling. We are moving toward a new epoch in mankind's history, in the planet's history. I dread reading or hearing the news, I am aware of the anarchy around me, in every country on this earth. Some countries give the appearance of having more control than others, but scratch the surface and you will find unrest and dissatisfaction present. You will find people who only care about themselves, and who will do what they want to do, will not listen to medical and scientific authorities, will not listen to reason, will not abide by the rules. What matters to them is their freedom and their 'rights'. One thing has become very clear to me, and that is that it doesn't matter how rich you are or how much power you have--you are nothing in the face of a virus, a pandemic, an apocalypse. Money doesn't matter. Money won't save you when the institutions that use your money no longer exist. I fear the future at times. It doesn't look like anything I picture as a happy place. I look at major cities around the world, but especially in the USA, and see the discordance, the unrest, the violent behavior--all arising really out of a pandemic that laid bare the inequities and unrest in my country. It breaks my heart because I fear that it will only get worse before it gets better. Defunding the police is a terrible idea; it will only lead to more chaos. The country is led by a nihilist, someone who 'believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles'. He doesn't know he is one, but he is. He believes in nothing and stands for nothing, except for himself and enriching himself. 'Make America Great Again' is just a slogan to him, he has no idea what it means or what he really wants for the country, because he has no idea what it means to truly serve his country. The word 'service' is not in his vocabulary and never has been. You can watch the documentaries about him from the 1980s; he's the same nasty person he always was. Make America Great Again are empty words, uttered by an empty person, who fills his heart with rage and hatred against what, I am not sure. But he plays on the emotions of a particular type of person, and those people will follow him off a cliff if need be. Perhaps he is unhappy about being old, because he is old, and one day he will die, like everyone else. I have no idea about his soul or personal relationship with God, but at present, there is nothing that indicates to me that he is interested in preserving the Christian values on which our country was founded. The USA is an imperfect country, yes, but one that offered hope to so many people who wanted to start a new life and strive for something better. Hope seems to have died, at least from where I stand.

And if you take hope away from people, you destroy them and a country from within. You contribute to the rise in depression and suicide, to the increase in bad behavior and lawlessness. Because when there is nothing to hope for, there is no point in living or for striving for a better life. And that is nihilism. If that's what people want, that's what people will get. Nihilism will kill more people than a virus ever will. 

The creepy and engrossing stories of H.P. Lovecraft

It’s been well over twenty years since I purchased The Best of H.P. Lovecraft (Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre). At that time, I read perhaps one of the short stories in this collection, The Rats in the Walls, but that is the only one I can recall reading. I recently picked up the book again following the recent release of the movie Color Out of Space, which is based on Lovecraft’s short story The Colour Out of Space. I have not seen the movie, but decided to read the short story instead, and am now reading the entire collection of short stories and enjoying them.

Lovecraft is a master horror writer. Born in 1890, he wrote prodigiously until his death in 1937; he didn’t live a long life, but he left behind a literary legacy that endures to this day. It’s hard to describe what it is that captures and draws you into his stories, but it only takes a page or two and I’m hooked into yet another short story. I don’t know if I would describe his tales as bloodcurdling; I would rather describe them as creeping terror, or as a gradual build-up to what you know are going to be fear- and anxiety-inducing events. Stephen King has stated that “H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale”. High praise coming from a master horror writer himself. King grew up reading Lovecraft’s tales, and Lovecraft himself was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849). We read a fair amount of Poe in school as children/young teenagers, but not Lovecraft.

I know from my reading and searching online that readers either like Lovecraft’s classic prose and phrasings, or they don’t. I happen to be one of the readers who do like his style. He is wordy, but he chooses his words carefully (some would say he is old-fashioned and that’s fine with me), and there aren’t many wasted sentences. He doesn’t write or present details like a journalist, and is excellent at crafting his tales. Each tale deals with a different kind of horror, and the protagonists, educated and logical men, are sceptical at first to what they find themselves dealing with, only to understand (in the nick of time) that what they were sceptical of is in fact real (or surreal) and life-threatening. My favorite stories are not necessarily the ones that his diehard fans would hold up as their favorites. In the collection that I am almost finished reading, I would say my favorite stories are the following:

·        The Picture in the House  (the build-up to the suggestion of a grim end for the protagonist is nerve-wracking)

·        In the Vault  (just plain creepy, something you might find in Tales from the Crypt)

·        The Whisperer in Darkness  (cosmic horror = fear of the unknown, of the cosmos, of all things alien)

·        The Colour Out of Space  (cosmic horror about a meteor that crashes to earth and the after-effects)

·        The Haunter of the Dark  (the unwitting unleashing of a satanic-like monster)

·        The Thing on the Doorstep  (wizardry, mental telepathy, mind transfer—plain creepy)

·        The Shadow Over Innsmouth  (part of the Cthulhu mythos)

The Call of Cthulhu is also part of this collection of short stories. After digging into Lovecraft’s background, I found out that there is an entire cult mythos built up around the monster Cthulhu, and that the book The Necronomicon that is mentioned in several of his stories, while fictional, is thought to be real by some people. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is part of this mythos, and I found it to be much more terrifying than The Call of Cthulhu because of the pursuit of the protagonist by the townspeople (monsters) and how the realization of his strange ancestry slowly dawns on the protagonist. Lovecraft writes in an exceptionally visual way; his descriptions of the fictional town Innsmouth (in Massachusetts) allowed me to imagine it, such that when I saw it depicted in artists’ pictures online, I thought, yes, that’s how I would have seen it too. He is not big on dialog between his characters, but for some reason that is not a problem for me. He explains the motives and thoughts of his characters in great detail, and that suffices. 

Lovecraft has inspired many writers and filmmakers to this day—among them the writer Stephen King and director Guillermo Del Toro. HR Giger’s monster in the Alien movies was inspired by Lovecraft’s writings, likewise John Carpenter’s creation The Thing, according to online searches. I would add that some of the X-Files episodes bear a Lovecraftian influence, especially those episodes that deal with insular townspeople, xenophobia, and strange goings-on. Those are the episodes where Mulder and Scully visit such towns and out-of-the-way places, and all the while you sit and watch and are anxious for them, wanting them to leave as soon as possible. The X-Files remains one of my favorite shows, precisely because the show took the same kinds of bold risks in its storytelling as Lovecraft did with his.

I am nearing the end of this collection of short stories/novellas, and I really don’t want them to end. Lovecraft has created a universe that you are very glad you don’t live in, but that fascinates you nonetheless. You can ‘visit’ it safely via his tales. He is an excellent writer; I’m surprised that it took me over twenty years to appreciate him, but thankfully, I can do so now.

Beautiful iris from my garden

My garden makes me aware that there is beauty in everything, from a tiny earthworm wriggling its way through the earth, to a honeybee drinking water from the birdbath, to the lovely flowers that are blooming en masse now. I have become aware of colors--all shades and hues of colors--because they are in abundance in a garden. The different greens in the leaves of different plants and how they reflect the sun's light shining through them, the varying shades of blues and violets, the brown color of the earth and what that tells you about the quality of the soil. The list is long. I could post many photos of the different flowers that are blooming or have bloomed this year, but I've settled on posting one today, because suddenly this year, my iris plants produced many flowers, and they are beautiful. So here is one photo of a lovely iris bloom.....it's just a pity that they don't last very long.

Surreal times and the reset button

Since the pandemic started, a reset button has been pushed for my life. I follow the same routines, get up at the same time, shower, have breakfast, and then start my work day. But it’s not the same as leaving the house to go to my office. Forcing us to stay home forced a retuning of the way I live my daily life. I start my work day at the same time as I did before. But I live my work day much differently than I did before. I’ve grown to like and enjoy the freedom of being my own master, and luckily, I won’t have to return to the old way of doing things, even when we are asked to return to our offices. I’ve made some important decisions that I will share with you over the coming months. Suffice it to say that my life will be very different at this time next year, God willing.

These are surreal times. Who would have thought one year ago that we would be here—talking about a virus that has become front and center in our lives? It’s the main topic in all the news and social media, and in conversation with family and friends. None of us knows what to expect or when it will be safe again to do the things we have taken for granted for most of our lives. Wearing masks will become part of our lives, using disinfectant on our hands likewise. We will think twice before we go to events where a lot of people will be attending. We will think twice about going to concerts, to sporting events, even to church. We will perhaps be more reserved about hugging and touching others. I don’t know how I feel about it all; I alternate between feeling numb and feeling a bit melancholy. And when I don’t feel numb or melancholy, I am actually content. Because there is nothing we can do with the situation that has come upon us except to adjust to it as best we can. I’d love to travel to NY in August, but that won’t happen. Even if I wanted to, SAS cancelled the flight I had booked. And anyway, it’s not safe to travel to the USA right now. The EU has decided against letting Americans travel to Europe at present due to the high number of Covid19 cases in the USA. Regardless of whose fault it is or isn’t, the fact remains that the virus has hit the USA very hard. Questionable leadership has not made the situation any better.

I needed the reset. I needed the abruptness of the sudden stop to make me take a good long look around me, to see what is important and what isn’t. Much of my poetry during the past five years has hinted at the changes to come in my life, but I never considered that an outside player—a virus-- would be calling the shots. I no longer need the work world the way I did before, neither for intellectual stimulation nor for social interaction. There is very little of either nowadays, and it took being at home full-time to realize that. The ever-replenishing fountain of motivation that work used to be for me is gone—dried-up. I still have ideas for projects, but funding and personnel to realize them are non-existent. I have become a paper pusher, and even though much of what I do for my department is actually useful and I’m glad to be of service, I’m a paper pusher nonetheless and it’s not what I signed up for. In the long run it won’t be enough for me. If I had wanted to become an administrator, I would have pursued a business degree and not a doctorate in science. But it’s ok, because I’ve made specific decisions about how to deal with all of it. The pandemic gave me the time to figure it out and to make the decision. There are silver linings to every cloud; there is always something positive to take away from a negative situation. And as long as we have our health, we will continue to cope and to eventually get past this. Being at home is a good time to learn more about ourselves and the people with whom we share our lives. It is possible to be content in the midst of the chaos and unrest, sickness and death that exist around us and globally. It is possible to be realistically optimistic that life will be good again. Global society has had its reset button pushed, and hopefully most people are retuning their lives in order to meet the new world order.

Cries of despair

Yesterday as I was walking to the garden down the road I usually take, I became aware of two seagulls flying overhead, quite agitated, swooping down and circling and then rising again. Their calls were piercing and intense, and I began to wonder what was going on. As I continued to walk, I noticed something that looked like a small fur ball a short distance in front of me, on the sidewalk. As I got closer, I saw that it was a baby seagull, folded into a ball, dead on the pavement. My heart sank when I saw him; I knew there was nothing I could do for him. I am not sure how he died, but his parents were panicked and in despair over the death of their baby. It did not appear to have been hit by a car or bitten to death by a dog (which I have seen several times in the past few months). The mother especially kept swooping down and ‘talking’ to the baby gull, perhaps in the hope that he would respond. I think she was also letting the world know that she had lost her baby, and she wanted us to pay attention, to give her the attention she so desperately wanted. The incident brought tears to my eyes. I spoke to the mother and told her that I could feel and hear her despair, because it was despair she was feeling. I acknowledged her despair. It occurred to me that we don’t always understand the animal and bird world; they are sentient beings and they understand death, especially the deaths of their young. It’s not often we are witness to such death, but it made me cry to see it.

Since the pandemic lockdown started, there are more birds that have found their way into the city and into the garden, seagulls especially. Perhaps this is due to the fact that there is very little ship and cruise traffic, such that there is not much food for them at sea. Seagulls are scavengers and eat a lot of the refuse and leftovers that ships leave in their wake. The reason for the increase in bird numbers remains unclear, but I know that I am sharing my daily life with more birds, which makes me happy. But I also know that they are at risk of being injured or killed in their interactions with humans, dogs, cats, and cars, and that there will probably be more deaths.

I thought about how I have been unable to really cry since my brother died five years ago. I cried a lot when I first got the news of his untimely and unexpected death. But in the months and years afterward, it’s been hard for me to cry. It’s not that I am not touched by what goes on around me, it’s just that I have not really been able to cry. It as though something in me wants to, but a numbing lid gets put on those feelings. I guess some of it is a protective reaction to being deeply hurt. But this past week, there was a news story about a five year old boy in England named Tony Hudgell, a double amputee (he has prosthetic legs) who was inspired by Captain Tom Moore, the 100-year-old veteran who raised thousands for the NHS by walking around his garden. Tony decided to challenge himself to walk a little each day to raise money for the NHS, and as of yesterday he had raised over £700,000 target. I watched the video of this brave little boy, and my heart went out to him. His pluckiness and persistence in the face of his odds made me cry. It took a little boy who has suffered incredibly, already at his young age, to make me cry. He lost his legs due to abuse suffered at the hands of his birth parents; he has since been adopted by good people. I despair at times at the injustice of life, that allows parents to do this to a child. I wanted to scoop him up into my arms and hug him, he is so cheerful and sweet. You can read more about him here:   https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-53066749

A young woman who used to work for me was diagnosed with lung cancer about five years ago. In the space of those five years, she has undergone surgery to remove the lung tumor, chemotherapy that weakened her permanently, radiotherapy, brain surgery to remove the few metastases that found their way to her brain, immunotherapy, and now radiotherapy again because the brain metastases have returned in large numbers. Following her initial brain surgery, she had to undergo physical therapy to help her learn to walk again. The immunotherapy has made her very sensitive to sound and to light. She does not have many months left on this earth, and this too makes me want to cry out in despair. She has been so brave through everything she has experienced; she has suffered quietly and has always had a positive and encouraging word for others when we have visited her. She and others I know who have terminal cancer, have shown me that it is possible to co-exist with the unfairness of their illnesses, but I still feel like screaming when I think of all that they go through and have gone through. I know there is little I can do for them, and that is perhaps also what bothers me. There has been and will continue to be, loss of loved ones due to illness or old age. I know this, and that is perhaps one of the reasons I have not been able to cry. I am steeling myself for these eventualities. But it is impossible to really do that. There is no way to shut out the feelings. I think I have been afraid of drowning in those feelings if I let them get the upper hand. So I have kept them under lock and key until this past week. They are no longer under lock and key.

Mid-June garden update

We've had wonderfully warm and sunny weather for the past week, which the garden just loves. The daily growth spurts are amazing. From one day to the next, I come to the garden to find that the flower buds on my physocarpus (ninebark) plant have bloomed; the leaves of the plant are a deep red color, whereas the flowers are white and fuzzy--quite pretty. The kaprifol (honeysuckle) plant right next to it is blooming and happy. The zucchini plants have also grown larger in the space of a couple of days, and yesterday they had begun to flower. The pumpkin plants have also begun to spread out. My mini-cucumber plants are producing some really good-tasting cucumbers, ditto for my radish plants. This year will be a banner year for strawberries, raspberries, and black currants, also gooseberries. The red currant bush produced thousands of berries last year, so this year it's taking a well-deserved rest. One of the two blackberry bushes developed cane rot, so I had to cut it down, but it's already coming back and seems to be in good shape. My perennial garden is blooming--oxeye daisies, carnations, and cranesbill (a hardy geranium) so far. My coral bell (Heuchera) plants have spread out and are quite healthy, and my irises this year are just beautiful. The pachysandra plants that I planted under one of the larger trees at the entrance to the garden have grown taller and are beginning to spread out. So things are moving along as they naturally do in the garden. Here are some photos of the garden from this past Saturday--you can see for yourself!

oxeye daisies

ninebark flowers

zucchini plant starting to flower

left side of the flower garden (mostly perennials)

right side of the flower garden--check out the crane's bill plant with blue flowers

the coral bells perennial garden--they are just gorgeous plants 

my rose bushes that cover the arch entrance to the garden have started to bloom 

my irises are blooming this year--so many of them 

Fake news, moral relativity, false people

I decided this past week to cancel my digital subscription to a major US newspaper. It doesn’t matter which newspaper for the sake of this post. I cancelled it because I disagreed with their editorial decision on a particular issue. It bothered me that the newspaper caved to public pressure on that issue. And their expectations were that their readers should understand that, but my opinion is that the editorial page should be able to present multiple sides of any issue. However, in 2020 that doesn’t seem to be possible. You have to take one or the other side whether you want to or not or are ready to do so or not. I can’t do it just because someone tells me I have to. I was raised bipartisan and will remain bipartisan. I need to be able to look at all sides of an issue. And frankly, there are often multiple sides to an issue. So being multi-partisan might be the way to go. This doesn’t mean that I don’t take a stand; often I do, but only after reflection and self-questioning (what do I believe or feel or think about this or that issue). I don’t want to be ‘told’ what stand to take, I want to figure things out for myself. That is the result of my parents and my Catholic upbringing. Unfortunately, the current president has done nothing to encourage reflection and bipartisanship.

My point is that it was nearly impossible to cancel my subscription. I got an email from customer service asking me to reconsider, and telling me that they would reduce my subscription cost by 75%. It’s interesting by itself that they automatically assumed that I cancelled because the subscription was too expensive. They also thanked me for being a subscriber and stated that it was due to the support of subscribers like me that allowed them to continue to pursue the truth. They added that the truth was more important now than ever. I agree with the last sentence, and hope that the newspaper really is interested in pursuing the truth. We’re constantly being told that there is a lot of fake news out there. I’m sure that’s the case. None of the media (newspapers, television, or social media) can claim to be the only ones who pursue or know the truth. None of them can claim to ‘own’ the truth. Those who say things like that are those I write off immediately—I’m simply not interested. Up to this point, I thought certain newspapers stood head and shoulders above the rest. Now, I’m not so sure.

The older I get, the more sensitive my bullshit detector gets. My advice to most people—don’t try to put one over on me, pull the wool over my eyes, or coax me over to your side (which is of course ‘the right side’). You’ll regret it. I’ll write you off faster than you can say ‘morally relative’. I have zero patience left for partisan political agendas, fifteen-minute-of-fame agendas, or people who want me to support agendas I don’t believe in—the list is long. I’m not hopping on your bandwagon to promote the newest management philosophy in the workplace, I’m not interested in listening to the same psychobabble week after week, month after month, about this new vision or that new innovation. I don’t care. The old expression ‘put your money where your mouth is’, is the only thing I’m interested in. When management has been told time and again that more employees are needed to solve a particular problem, and management continues to push the ‘relevant’ flavour of the month management philosophy (New Public Management, LEAN, etc.) that we all need to work more effectively with less resources and less people, then management has a big problem. Most of these philosophies are ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ (the emperor is naked, but we’re told to praise his clothes) philosophies. I won’t cede to them. I won’t think positive when the situation in front of me is clearly negative and needs to be acknowledged as such in order for it to be solved. I won’t pretend everything is ok when it’s not. But we’re asked to pretend every day, and it makes me weary. Most of it is fake, and most of it is pure bullshit. But we’re told that it’s not and we’re told to believe that it’s not. We’re told that it’s ok to be direct and honest in the workplace; but it’s not. We’re told to think big and to be innovative; but when we do that, it’s wrong. We’re told to communicate effectively, but when we try to, we find that we cannot write the whole truth; it takes hours to formulate a politically-correct email that won’t offend anyone or step on anyone’s toes (status, position, or territory). My God, it’s boring. Effective communication? No.

This is not life the way I want to live it. I want to live honestly and to not pretend. I want to live according to my ethical and moral principles, not according to someone else’s political agenda at work or in society at large. I don’t want to give up my principles in order to align myself with someone else’s ‘side’. I don’t want to be loyal to people who I know are false. There are many false people who want to drag you into their sphere, those who tempt you with status, money, power, or prestige. Those people who shift their beliefs and thoughts according to the popular flavour of the month philosophy (moral relativity). Those people who lie to your face. Those people whose sole interests in life are fame and fortune, whose greed dominates (and dooms) most relationships.

Perhaps the corona virus pandemic has given me the time to see how society and the workplace really are. I’ve had a chance to do a reality check. What I know is that society needs a re-haul, bigtime. Press the restart button. I’m not sure what we should move toward, but perhaps moving away from fame and fortune, from greed, and more toward a spiritually-oriented life, would be a start and a welcome change.  

Civility and respect for others

I cancelled yet another newspaper subscription this morning. My husband and I have discussed cancelling our different newspaper subscriptions for the past two years, mostly because we find that they have gone from being newspapers that used to try to present the news in a neutral fashion, to being purveyors of whatever agenda they wish to push at present. To some of you, this might seem rather short-sighted; after all, you can argue that we need to get our news from someplace. We need to follow what is happening in the world. And to a certain extent, you're right. But also wrong. Because what I didn't see happening was this--we're happier without them. We no longer start the day with misery; we no longer have to discuss all that's wrong with the world at the breakfast table. I no longer ruin the start of my day by letting all the world's ills overwhelm me the minute I get up. They seep in anyway during the day, and if we watch the tv news as we do sporadically, we certainly get our dose of misery. So we don't escape it, we just control how it happens and how much we let in.

Newspapers in all countries need to be careful about over-pushing their agendas, be they conservative or liberal. Most of us grew up in a bipartisan atmosphere (at least the families I grew up with in our neck of the woods), able to see both sides, even if we leaned toward one or the other a bit more. I know there was political unrest, hatred, bitterness and spite back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s when we were growing up; you just need to google Vietnam, racial unrest, Watergate and Nixon. But it is so totally extreme and out of control now. Nowadays, judging by what I see happening in the USA, we are so bitterly divided, with the gap widening a bit more each day, such that I fear for the future of our country. We are still a young country compared to most European countries that have centuries of wars and unrest behind them. It feels like a civil war is already taking place in America, fought in the media trenches and in social media and online generally. If you have the 'wrong' opinion and express it, you can expect to be hung out, brutally criticized, suppressed, fired from your job, or other such outcomes depending on the audience that gets a hold of what you said. You will get your fifteen minutes of fame and then some, but not in the manner you would have chosen for yourself. Good people who might want to say something become afraid to do so, whereas the people who don't care at all what other people think of them, have free reign.

I don't want a civil war, nor do I want a world where we are not able to express our opinions. But there is a way of expressing opinions that needs to change. We need to relearn civility. Civility is defined as 'formal politeness and courtesy in behaviour or speech'. We need to relearn how to respect others. It is possible to have a different opinion from others without expressing hatred for those who do not share your views. It is possible to discuss both sides of a situation without being labelled a pariah for doing so. Isn't this approach what judges and lawyers engage in everyday? They work on court cases that need examination of both sides of the issue. Imagine a world where judges ruled a person guilty before the trial. That would not be a democracy, and would not be a country I'd want to live in. And yet, we are behaving in this way on social media and in the media generally, judging and sentencing people before they and we have had a chance to discuss the issues.

Some younger people I know have now limited or cancelled their social media accounts because of the hatred they see online. It's tempting to follow them. I haven't up to now because social media remains an important connection to my family and friends in the USA. But I have reduced my interaction with social media in order to stay peaceful. You might ask why peace is so important to me; after all, the world has many problems that need to be tackled. That's true. But I know from experience that anger and volatility don't solve problems. They fuel the fire of hatred and revenge. Assertiveness, peaceful protests, standing up for yourself, being able to reach out to the other side in order to discuss the issues--these are what solve problems. Diplomacy, compromise, an empathetic approach--these solve problems. Anger gets spent, and after it burns out, the real work begins. The question at present is who will be willing to work for real change in politics at home and globally. The type of change needed must be fronted by civil and respectful leaders.

An excellent article by George Will: if you read one article today, read this one

I am posting the link to a recent article in The Washington Post written by George Will, that I think is excellent: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-want-four-more-years-of-this-taste-of-ashes/2020/06/01/1a80ecf4-a425-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html .

The strange thing is that the George Will I remember from many years ago was politically conservative, a Reagan supporter, and not given to suffering fools in either political party. I haven't followed his doings much since the 1980s, but apparently he's become a bit less conservative as he's gotten older. Or perhaps it took a Trump to shake him up. In any case, this is a man who has previously had Republican leanings, and who recently wrote this article that I am posting today. It is an anti-Trump article, but also an anti-Republican Congress article. It skewers Trump and his Republican Congressional supporters. I would never have thought this type of article would come from Will, but it has, and I applaud it. The title of the article is 'Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers'.

Here is the article in its entirety:

Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers. 

June 1, 2020 at 9:18 p.m. GMT+2 by George Will

This unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron.

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed.

Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement.

What Daniel Patrick Moynihan termed “defining deviancy down” now defines American politics. In 2016, voters were presented an unprecedentedly unpalatable choice: Never had both major parties offered nominees with higher disapproval than approval numbers. Voters chose what they wagered would be the lesser blight. Now, however, they have watched him govern for 40 months and more than 40 percent — slightly less than the percentage that voted for him — approve of his sordid conduct.

Presidents seeking re-election bask in chants of “Four more years!” This year, however, most Americans — perhaps because they are, as the president predicted, weary from all the winning — might flinch: Four more years of this? The taste of ashes, metaphorical and now literal, dampens enthusiasm.

The nation’s downward spiral into acrimony and sporadic anarchy has had many causes much larger than the small man who is the great exacerbator of them. Most of the causes predate his presidency, and most will survive its January terminus. The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear “magically,” as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting.

In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it ever was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for . . . what? Praying people should pray, and all others should hope: May I never crave anything as much as these people crave membership in the world’s most risible deliberative body.

A political party’s primary function is to bestow its imprimatur on candidates, thereby proclaiming: This is who we are. In 2016, the Republican Party gave its principal nomination to a vulgarian and then toiled to elect him. And to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving abjectness has enabled his institutional vandalism, who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies, and whom T.S. Eliot anticipated:

We are the hollow men . . .

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats’ feet over broken glass . . .

Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come. Which implicates national security: Abroad, anti-Americanism sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all, and it is wide-awake as decent people judge our nation’s health by the character of those to whom power is entrusted. Watching, too, are indecent people in Beijing and Moscow.

Why Can't We Live Together by Timmy Thomas

Why Can't We Live Together

Timmy Thomas

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why
Why can't we live together
Tell me why, tell me why
Why can't we live together

Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together

No more war, no more war, no more war
Just a little peace
No more war, no more war
All we want is some peace in this world

Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together

No matter, no matter what color
You are still my brother
I said no matter, no matter what color
You are still my brother

Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together

Everybody wants to live
Everybody's got to be together

Everybody wants to live
Everybody's going to be…

Pauses, trial runs, and life lessons

Nearly three months working from home, and I’ve learned more about myself. The learning never really ends. One of the biggest surprises was that I don’t miss going to an actual place of work. I’ve gone into work about four times since lockdown started, to update files and directories on the hospital network that I don’t have access to from home, and to water the plants. I thought I would miss whatever little social interactions there are, but I don’t. They are so few these days anyway that they no longer really matter—a short conversation in the hallway, but mostly just greeting co-workers when I run into them in the hallways. No long conversations, no lunches, no after-work get-togethers. These are things of the past, my distant past. Like most other things relegated to the past, you can miss them or not. It won’t make too much difference. The river of life carries us ever onward, toward new and unexplored destinations to which I look forward.

I view this time as a trial run for retirement. I’ve discovered that I’ll be fine. I enjoy having control over my time, my plans, and my daily schedule. I won’t miss meetings (virtual or otherwise), and I won’t miss deadlines, filing reports, waiting for answers to emails (that rarely come), or the perpetual babble about new visions and new ways to solve problems that no one really wants to solve, or that no one has the budgets to solve. Because in the final analysis, what would solve so many problems is to have the manpower to really effect change. But we cannot have that. So we go on pretending that problems that require manpower, are solvable without it. It’s a catch-22 and I’m tired of playing the game. I won’t anymore. I’ve also discovered that I’m practically-oriented; if I see a solution to a problem, I want to implement it. That’s not always allowed, for some of the reasons mentioned above.

I’ve also discovered that I’m not a particularly loyal person anymore in a work context. I was, once upon a time, but circumstances change and you come to realize that loyalty is often viewed by management as blind obedience. I can’t do that—be blindly obedient. I wasn’t raised that way; additionally, Catholic education encouraged us to think for ourselves, look at both sides, and make reasoned decisions accordingly. Facts were important, and truth was something to be aimed at. I cannot pretend that ‘the emperor is wearing new clothes’ when he or she is in fact naked. I am not loyal in that way, and never will be. It’s one of the reasons that I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican; I grew up in a bipartisan family and plan on remaining bipartisan. There are good reasons for that, which I’ll write about in another post. Suffice it to say that trying to see both sides is something that more leaders should add to their skills toolbox. Being honest about specific situations is another one.

I’ve also discovered that for all the different ways we have to communicate, we don’t really communicate effectively in a work context. We’ve lost the ability to listen well; I am not saying people don’t listen to each other, but they come to most encounters with their own agenda (myself included), and it’s very hard to catch oneself while behaving that way. It mostly amounts to learning to shut up. One can start there and move forward. I think our current political leaders could learn to do the same. Because once you learn to shut up, empathy starts to rear its head. There is no empathy without real listening. ‘Listen unto others as you would have them listen unto you’. Learning to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes is a question of training, and it’s hard work. I have two friends with debilitating neurological illnesses, and what they complain about the most is the lack of empathy they deal with every day. They do not feel ‘seen’ or listened to, and that is a complaint that many elderly in our society also have. My mother used to say that she felt invisible the older she got. She was not an aggressive person; had she been so, outcomes might have been different. My mother and those in her generation grew up differently. Society at present is harsh, dog-eat-dog, intent on measuring how young, successful, beautiful, handsome, or wealthy you are, at all costs. If you don’t measure up, you’re not worth much. Old age is viewed as your own fault, about which you should do something. It’s viewed as an illness or a problem, not as a natural evolution. And yet, all living persons will get old and die one day. That’s just life. No amount of wishful thinking or plastic surgery will prevent that.

I’ve also realized that I’m ‘so over’ much that strikes me as stupid or inane. I have no patience for listening to bullshit, and no patience for people who do not use their intelligence. I have no patience for unkind people; if you want to be in my circle, kindness is one of the keys for entrance. I won’t be unkind toward unkind people; I just simply walk away from them. I won’t give them the opportunity to unleash their rage or frustration on me or others. I am not interested in what they have to say. I have given such people more leeway in my life previously, but no more. If you are unhappy with your life, stay away from me, unless you want me to list up all of the things in your life for which you should be grateful. Go out and take a walk in nature, do volunteer work, or stop watching the inanity on television and social media. Change your life. It can be done.

Two weeks makes such a difference in a garden

My last garden update was on May 11th. Since that time, the weather has gotten warmer (almost summer-like), and the garden has just taken off. It's like someone turned the switch to 'on'. I have bought a number of new plants for my flower garden--a Japanese maple that will be the new centerpiece of the garden, surrounded by hosta, cornflowers, asters, carnations, and more lavender. I also planted wild ivy along the iron fence behind the greenhouse, in the hope that it will take off and cover the entire fence so that we will get some privacy. That whole area, from the fence to the greenhouse, has been planted with flowers, pachysandra, and hosta, among others. The magnolia tree has bloomed, and still has six buds getting ready to bloom. The wisteria tree is also doing well. My garden neighbour gave me a dogwood tree last autumn that is also doing very well. I have sowed out grass seed, and the grass is starting to spring up, but it takes time before there will be a lawn to speak of. I planted sunflowers behind the compost enclosure, and they are coming up. Behind the greenhouse itself, I have planted sweet pea flowers, which are lovely. Sweet pea plants are climbers, and produce lovely red and bluish-purple fragrant flowers.

My vegetable garden is also doing well. The radishes are finished, so I am harvesting them and using them in salads, and they are very good. My potato plants (Folva type) are also doing very well; I have about thirty plants, each of which will produce about three good-sized potatoes, plus some small ones. The small ones will be used for next year's plantings; I store them in the crisper during the wintertime and they develop eyes and sprouts--perfect for planting. This year I bought three sweet potato plants to see how they do. Otherwise, I've planted two types of pumpkins that are now starting to take off, and four summer squash (zucchini) plants, which usually do very well. I've decided to plant all of my tomato plants outdoors this year; the greenhouse gets so warm that even though they do well inside, they are constantly in need of water.

The Japanese maple, like hydrangeas, needs low pH soil, so I bought hydrangea soil and planted the maple tree with it. So far so good. I am curious to see how the hydrangeas will like this soil as well. I have had major problems with them coming back each year. The panicled hydrangeas that I bought last year have come back without any problems whatsoever, so I don't know why regular hydrangeas are so problematic.

Here's how the garden looked two days ago; compare the pics to those from May 11th. Again, the miracle of gardens--they grow and do what they do without making a big deal about it. They're amazing, majestic, awe-inspiring. I could live in my garden the entire summer. Love my garden...….

Blackbird in the birdbath

I've been wondering why the birdbath is nearly emptied of water when I come to the garden many days. I think I know why now. I caught this little fellow enjoying his bath, and he wasn't afraid of me at all. So I captured him on video. In addition to him, there are the sparrows that alight on the edge of the birdbath to drink water, and sometimes to bathe. I'm just super-pleased that they are using it--makes me so happy to see them!