New Year Buddha

 I'm  going to have coffee this afternoon with my friend Soo.  I like to check in with her every so often to get the Buddhist perspective.  Does a new year mean anything to those who focus on "the big picture?"  Does "t'was ever thus" prevail?

Soo likes to go to retreats.  Silent meditation.  Buddhist teaching.  I like this idea of "quieting the mind."  It is one of those goals that is always beyond my reach.  I think my quest is a lazy one.  I admit I'm probably satisfied with my noisy mind.

Phyllis gave me a little Buddha a few years ago when I had a heart attack.  It is on the shelf above my desk.  Whenever I dust there, I like to hold it for a second or two.

I'm sure Soo would understand.

1968 Forever

 John Carlos, Tommie Smith and Peter Norman 

1968 Olympics

1968.  What comes to mind?  Vietnam? King on the balcony? Kennedy in the kitchen?

For us, the immediate image is Grant Park.  Clean for Gene and Abby Hoffman up against "Shoot to Kill" Daley and the Cops.

1968.  Not just here, but everywhere.  Students protesting in Paris, Germany, in the Soviet countries, and being gunned down in Mexico City.  1968 was a world wide movement. An explosion of determination to change despite the brutal efforts to suppress it.

Anand Giridharadas is a journalist and an astute observer of the current scene.  He says that the only movement here now is around Trump and Trumpism. Ugh.

The last time I felt like playing my Pete Seeger album was when Bernie burst on the scene.  There has to be a better response to Trump than "you have no choice but to vote the other way,"

My hope is that 2024 has some of 1968 still left for us to call upon.

Happy New Year

 

Imagine all the People

Living Life in Peace

Henry and Jimmy

 Thank you Death.  You got it right this time.  Approaching 100, Jimmy Carter is still here reminding us of love and hope.  At the same time, you fought to finally pry life from Henry Kissinger’s cold hands.  Yes, you approached Carter a few years back with cancer, but you ultimately backed away. When it was time for him to live in hospice, he did so quietly and with grace.

And where was Henry Kissinger, who sent millions to you?  At 100, still convinced that he was always right, he was on a trip to China demanding to still be relevant in the world of conquest and power.  

So let’s enjoy what time we have left with Jimmy Carter.  You left a good man among us.

Complicated

 Things are so complicated now, it feels like everything has come to a halt.  Today I was reading an article about the British academic, Jacqueline Rose.  It's from an old issue of the New Yorker, but spoke to today.

Here's the paragraph that grabbed my attention:

Rose describes herself not as an anti-Zionist, but as a critic of Zionism, a reader of Zionism, focusing on the nationalist movement's insistence on its own innocence.  She warns against letting victimhood - best understood as an event - something that befalls a person - become an identity. "We need to be endlessly vigilant in not allowing victimhood to become who we are."

The statement brought swift censure.  She was called "an ashamed Jew."  "I lost friends" she said.

Always More Stories

 My class on the Literature of Baseball is more fun that I hoped it would be.  There are twenty two on our team, three women.  The other two gals are just as steeped in the stats as the guys.  I’m just a bench warmer but feel totally welcome just the same.

We’re discussing now one of the game’s greatest moments:  Babe Ruth pointing to the stands and delivering the ball to that very spot.  You’ve heard about it, I know you have. No surprise, the story has twists and turns.  FDR threw out the first pitch. (Yes! FDR.) Charlie Root, the all-time winningest pitcher for the Cubs, and Ruth’s opponent on the mound, disputes the hand gesture.  “If I had thought he was pointing, I would have plunked him with the next pitch.”

That’s what we talk about back and forth. There’s always more to the story.  And there are always more stories.

Labor Day

A few times my life has touched, however tangentially, that of a hero.  For Labor day, I’ll repeat this little story. Walter Reuther’s first heroic act was when he helped organize the takeover of the Ford Motor Plant and thus fought for the creation of the UAW.

He went on to be a scandal-free leader of the auto workers.  Many look back at this time as the birth of the American middle class.

Years later, and after he had been shot, Walter Reuther moved across the street from us.  I wouldn’t have noticed as I was a teenager doing teenager things.  Except for the guards that patrolled his place around the clock.

Whenever I pulled up in front of my house with a date or a girlfriend lucky enough to drive, a man would wander over.  “Okay, move along.  We can’t have you parked here.”

Looking back, still a hero.