Our Recent Dead

Sorry, this morning I’m with my recent dead.

John Spence and I met in the fall of 1964, college freshmen. Soon we were immersed in fighting racism and trying to end the Viet Nam War (unaware that even those running the war knew it was stupid). And smoking grass. And teaching ourselves to shoot photographs up in Boston. Then Spence went to Viet Nam. A soldier. In the thick of it. A gentle sort of guy you couldn’t picture killing anyone. Guess he learned. Fast.

On a cross-country motorcycle ride ten years later, I reunited with friends, including Spence, now a probation officer in Iowa. Married, with a kid. Trying to help those he could, bending rules toward human kindness when possible. Not the revolutionary we’d thought we were, but trying each day to make the world a little better.

Spence bicycled across the U.S. at 70, and he bicycled across Cuba with his son. Now he’s dead. He died a good death: conscious, aware, accepting.

Gone too are John Lindeman, Dick Tallent, Darrol Shillingburg. Regular guys, good-hearted and thoughtful. Beloved not only by their families, but to concentric circles of people who knew them, laughed with them, listened and learned from them. Felt better because they were in the world.

John Lindeman

When I started playing bridge tournaments again, I met John Lindeman. He could recall bridge hands from decades ago, and recount the play. He’d read all my columns, and knew me better than I did. Sorry he can’t read this one. There were delightful lunches on Nopalito’s patio under the trees: John, Ron from Minnesota, and me, just three old guys discussing the world.

We met Dick through a friend he was advising. He was a deeply loving family man who also cared about community and country. We spent one perfect evening with him and his many friends and family in August, celebrating his recovery from a stroke. The loss of Darrol is a loss for our entire community. He was a plant whisperer, a steward of heirloom seeds, and a reluctant guru to local vegetable gardeners and growers. He was instrumental in growing our community gardens.

I’m also thinking about our loss of Sidney Poitier and Thich Nhat Hanh. I respected Poitier not just for his craft, nor his continuing activism over decades, but also from reading his autobiography. Imagine growing up on an island, in a village where everyone but the storekeeper is Black, and “race” just ain’t even thought of, then having to fight your way to success in a racist nation. (Whenever In the Heat of the Night plays on TV, I still find it gripping.) I’d long admired Thay’s “engaged Buddhism” and read his books. His biography of the Buddha humanized the Buddha for me, as Last Temptation humanized Jesus in my youth.

I’m grateful that I got to ride along with these folks a ways on our journey from birth to death. I’m glad they existed. Let’s recall their gifts as long as we can. And honor them by embracing life, as they did. Savoring each moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “Birth and death are only notions.” That wisdom is hard to remember while feeling pain and grief. We honor our dead by recalling them with a smile as we stride forward, alive, not by letting the notion of death slow our steps. Let their light illuminate the next stretch of road.

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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 20 February, 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[ Whether it’s the pandemic or being well into my 70’s, I feel like I’m hearing “So-and-so died,” almost as often as “Good morning.” When my long-time close friend Jimmy called from Pennsylvania, the moment I saw the area code I wondered who had died. One of the leaders in the Belton Bridge Center recently sent around a list of members we’d lost recently, including John Lindeman. It wasn’t short. Death is always all around us, but we’re sometimes we’re unusually conscious of that. We care, but there’s nothing profound to say. A long time ago, after my mother died, I gave my father, who was a lifelong atheist who made fun of Buddhist vegetarians, the book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. (That is distinct from, and more contemporary than, The Tibetan Book of the Dead.) I thought it a good and perhaps helpful work for someone to read who was grieving for a loved one. Surprisingly, Father thought so too. I also have one other recommendation, specifically for one who’s lost a long-time spouse, but, really, for anyone. Retired Minister Chuck Harper and his wife moved here years ago. I met Chuck in our poetry workshop. I was particularly moved by one he wrote about sitting and reading, and looking over at his beloved wife of many years, recalling stuff. Soon after that poem, she died. At some point, Chuck started what became a series of poems, including dialogues with her both during her lifetime and when hiking (with her) after her death. I won’t give away the last poem, but I think Conversations with Pat is a great read for anyone who feels, but particularly for anyone whose lost someone close. (Although Chuck’s other books are available here, to order Conversations with Pat; her Life and Afterlife with Me, email charles@harperpoetry.com, or call Chuck.)]

John Spence

[I hadn’t seen John Spence for years, though I kept hoping some day we’d drive to the Northeast by way of Iowa and I’d get to see him again. His obituary reminds me of what a great guy he was, and the obit itself is fresh and natural, unlike so many of those. (It also reminded me that he served as a medic in ‘Nam.) Knowing the young Spence, I can visualize the care and concern he must have felt and showed for folks he counseled as a family therapist, and the appreciation nieces and nephews felt for his “laid-back attirude.” Both Dick Tallent and John Lindeman were friends I met very late in life, but we connected. (My Sun-News columns helped, because both men shared a lot of my concerns. Dick’s celebration of recovery from his stroke moved me, and I wrote about it.]

Dick Tallent

[Anyway, I’m not sure this was really a newspaper column, but these folks were on my mind. I could also have written way more about Poitier and Thich, and should have included Desmond Tutu, if only to add a link to a very short piece on Ubuntu, which I learned of yesterday.]

 

New Mexico's Legislative Session - and U.S. Hyper-Partisanship

I welcome several things the Legislature did in its 2022 session; but we’re still in trouble.

We finally capped short-term loan interest at 36%, found a reasonable compromise on taxing social security, set aside money to clean up uranium sites, raised teachers’ salaries, and did other good things.

But there’s a lot we didn’t do. We didn’t do much to confront the danger climate wackiness poses to us and our descendants, and to creatures who can’t vote but may face extinction. I doubt we invested enough in dealing with the current drought, which scientists say is the worst in at least 1200 years. We didn’t go forward with a state bank, because bankers put on a full-court press. We didn’t correct the unfairness that New Mexicans buying goods or services pays 8.3125 percent in gross-receipts tax, while high-fliers who buy tickets to space won’t pay state tax. Damned few folks who can pay $450,000 for the exciting pleasure would forego such a trip just to avoid paying our state $37,406.25. (Does the GRT keep you from attending a movie or buying a television set?)

By and large, our local state legislators are an earnest, caring, competent, hard-working set of folks. I also agree with their policy views more often than not. The old pattern of folks running for office to help their businesses (particularly lawyers, who couldn’t advertise) and grow their egos doesn’t hold today. Most of these folks are retired, or work for non-profits.

But we’re still in trouble. Our state usually lacks funds and depends too much on a source of income that’s cyclical at best and is endangered by the urgency of decreasing the rate at which we poison air, water, and land.

Our country is in such deep trouble that life often feels schizophrenic: New Mexico doing sensible and socially beneficial things while the nation pulls itself apart.

The U.S. is like a movie protagonist, maybe the kid of a poor widow whose coal-miner husband died in the mines, who fights like hell to scratch out a living however s/he can, takes some risks, treats most folks pretty well, and reaches some form of success.

But, like most tragic heroes have fatal flaws, such as disloyalty to friends, abusing employees or spouse, or letting ambition curdle into greed. In the case of the U.S., one tragic flaw was our complete disregard for the rights and interests of folks who didn’t look like us. We enslaved Blacks, exploited Browns, and arguably committed genocide against Reds. And we haven’t treated poor Whites all that well, either.

Owing largely to a naturally rich continent and a safe distance from other powers, but also to our cleverness and organizational skills, we became the most powerful nation in the world, a pleasant but unsustainable experience. Now, we’re paying the piper. Other nations are challenging our preeminence, and our own arrogance is helping them. Nonwhites are about half of us, and get to vote (pending current legislation in swing states). Our hyperpartisanship is endangering our democracy. (I recommend a short video by Adam Kinzinger’s Country1st.com.)

Mr. Trump can’t magically raise U.S. white male Christians to unfair heights, but neither can the San Francisco School Board erase the good done by Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere, and John Muir because they were white and imperfect.

We’re a nation. We’re imperfect. Our differences are both our greatest strength and a grave danger to us.

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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 20 February, 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[The Adam Kinzinger video about our situation can be viewed, I think, here. Nothing profound, perhaps; but sadly accurate.]

[Europe’s version of our problem is “The Great Replacement Theory” espoused by rightists, the idea that we white masters (and mistresses, perhaps) are being gradually replaced by “others,” largely Muslims. We European Caucasians gained preeminence partly through arms. Putin is currently reminding us of just how ugly that is. Even he will not treat Ukrainians, fellow Slavs, as badly as we treated Africans, Latin Americans, many Asians, and the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo who lived here before we arrived. As I mentioned recently, we invented “race” and “white supremacy” to justify enslaving other human beings; and now we’re trapped in our own bullshit.

However, there’s also a double-edge to the capitalistic free-enterprise economic system: it can aid material progress, and make some people very wealthy, but by definition it inspires a feeling that others (and the land, air, water, and wildlife) are for us to manipulate for our worldly profit. It’s not very Christian. It requires a heavy dose of caring about other people to work without creating a miserable, angry, sick, and violent underclass that makes life inconvenient for the better off. Or troubles consciences. Or revolts. The U.S. and other nations have tried, over the centuries, to find the right

balance. Maybe Capitalism is like a violent guard dog that needs to be leashed or fenced in.]

[The San Francisco Board of Education created the School Names Advisory Committee in 2018 to “engage the larger San Francisco community in a sustained discussion regarding public school names.” Instead, the panel considered existing school names and issued rulings, apparently with little input from the wider community, including students. And the very least “sin” was enough to disqualify a historical figure from being in a school’s name.

I have reservations about judging historical figures by present-day standards, partly because I suspect that in 50 or 100 years, if we still exist, a new generation will judge you and me very harshly for stuff we had no clue about or just didn’t figure we could do much about. They’ll be suffering from climate weirdness, caused or exacerbated by humans, and not only a factory owner or oil company executive will be in disgrace, but so will folks like us who knowingly kept using gas-powered automobiles more than we absolutely needed to. Or they’ll have come to respect wildlife and our environment enough to banish us from memory for our destruction of our natural world. Or something I can’t even imagine will bar us.

But I’m also aware of some pretty egregious situations, where Black kids have attended schools named for militant racist politicians who kept their states segregated long after that was illegal, or Confederate military leaders who fought to maintain slavery. White male Christian U.S. citizens may lack a full understanding of how it feels to be a Jewish kid growing up where vicious anti-Semites are respected citizens, or a Black kid going to the George Wallace Elementary School, or maybe a Sioux attending a school named for George C. Custer or Andrew Jackson. It matters; but you don’t necessarily know that if you don’t experience it or know folks who do.

To me, how to draw the lines between what statues get destroyed or banished and which don’t, or what school-name is insulting and demeaning to the schoolchildren, is a tough but necessary task. It’s difficult, or should be, to folks capable of thought and empathy.

San Francisco provided a poor example. Even the use of a word now considered “inappropriate,” was enough to get someone banned. Robert Louis Stevenson got it for using “Japanee” instead of “Japanese” to make a rhyme work in A Child’s Garden of Verses. Paul Revere got axed because the idiots read that he participated in the Penobscot Expedition, an anti-British action named after Penobscot Bay in Maine, and thought it meant he’d been part of an action to steal the lands of Penobscot tribe members. Naturalist John Muir was “Racist and responsible for theft of Native lands." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “wrote poems & prose with stereotypes of nonwhite people.” Lincoln’s out because in these folks’ view, “the majority of his policies proved detrimental” to Native peoples. You’d think at least one of his other accomplishments might outweigh that fact. But it doesn’t. Unless . . .

Someone suggested that Malcolm X, a one-time pimp, had participated in subjugating women; but the committee ruled that his later career redeemed him. Frankly, I think both Malcolm and Abraham deserve to have schools named after them, and to be remembered, despite their flaws. So does George Washington, if I’m on the committee.

Anyway, it was sad, though the changes were rescinded. Three school-board members got recalled.]

 [Photographs © Peter Goodman]

There's No Such Thing as "Race," but Plenty of Racism

Senator Ted Cruz called President Biden’s promise to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court “an insult to Black women.” Mississippi’s Roger Wicker insisted Biden’s appointee will be a “beneficiary” of affirmative action. “I want a nominee who knows a law book from a J. Crew catalog.” said Judiciary Committee member John Kennedy.

New Mexico recently had an independent, advisory commission on reapportioning legislative and congressional districts after the 2020 census. Many of us observed that, as usual, none of the nine members lived south of Belen. If the governor promised to appoint at least two southern New Mexicans, would that “insult” us?

These jackasses would say, “That’s different. That’s geographical, not ethnic or gender-based. Correct, but just as southern New Mexicans would bring a unique view to that commission, a Black woman brings a fresh and underrepresented perspective to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We’re not racist,” the jackasses protest. But they never objected to Trump’s promise to name a woman to the Court. Unless they dared not say in front of wives and daughters that women were inferior, they are betraying a belief that no Black woman could measure up. How is that not racist? In any case, I’d love to put any of them in a room with Staci Abrams. She’s one of the most intelligent politicians, including all genders and ethnicities.

If these folks really believe what they’re saying, they think Blacks are simply not as intelligent (or as capable of wisdom and good judgment) as whites. This is the legacy of the “race” concept Europeans had to invent to justify enslaving Blacks in the modern world, particularly under Christianity. It has no scientific reality.

If Cruz and Wicker feel unfairly excluded, because this specific seat will not go to a fellow white man, they might consider the Blacks, Hispanics, women, Asians, and others for whom unfair exclusion has been the predominant fact of life in the United States. (I haven’t heard any female Republican U.S. Senator object.)

In fact, what these gentlemen feel is annoyance that anyone other than an extreme conservative may be appointed to the Supreme Court; that their 6-3 majority won’t grow to 7-2 this year; and that they must oppose Joe Biden’s selection on any grounds available. “Race” is always quite handy. They hold that popular views on justice, ethnic and gender equality, and women’s health choices are too dangerous to let Justices hold.

Why should Biden add a Black woman to the Court? Because he can: there are highly-qualified candidates, and there’d be more but for historical racism. Because a Black woman brings a new perspective, and experiences the other justices have not shared, and the ability to inspire a new generation, particularly young Black girls. When I was in law school, the school observed only its 25^th year anniversary of the admission of the first woman; and there were almost no female professors. A Black professor who’d gone there had plenty to say about the school’s earlier disregard for Blacks.

A recent internet meme showed our nation’s history with a long red line marking the centuries of slavery, a yellow line marking the century of segregation that followed, and a short green line marking the period from 1960 to 2020. It was sobering. I commented that the green line should have been a shade between green and yellow, because racism remains.

Cruz’s Wicker’s, and Kennedy’s recent comments are examples.

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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 13 February, 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[It now looks possible that, as my radio colleague Walt Rubel has predicted all along, Biden’s nominee may win a handful of Republican votes. I’ve guessed that while that might happen if confirming her was going to happen anyway (that is, a party-lines 50-50 Senate vote with the vice-president breaking the tie), it wouldn’t if, at the time of the vote, the Democrats are still down a senator because of our junior senator’s stroke. (Biden has narrowed the field to three. None are ideologues, and all are qualified, and one in particular is noted for bringing folks together.) That not being too visibly progressive may win confirmation is nice; but it continues the trend that while Democrats nominate good judges who aren’t extremely progressive, the Republicans, in the Federalist Society’s pocket, nominate extremists mostly. Something seems wrong with that picture.]

On the Present NM Legislative Session

Our Legislature is in session – for an entire month, unpaid.

My first suggestion for legislators is to pass the measure to study lengthening the session and paying legislators and staff. Currently, we avert disaster because many (if not most) legislators are working their tails off all year, in committee hearings and other work that prepares them for the actual one- or two-month session; but that system tends to limit possible candidacies by folks who can’t afford that kind of commitment without payment. We’re all instinctively skeptical about giving money to politicians; but maybe we need to.

The Voting Rights Act (SB8) is important, and should have an easier path with the “straight-ticket-voting option” removed. Watching various other states attack our democracy, it’d be nice to see New Mexico first in facilitating democracy.

Another study I’d like to see concerns the effects of a small guaranteed annual income for poor folks; so far, evidence seems to indicate such programs help not only the beneficiaries but the surrounding community; but the present draft of HM22 calls for a taskforce of representatives of community organizations working on behalf of low-income communities and agencies and organizations working with those communities. I’d add an economist or two who does NOT work for a nonprofit that helps the poor, and maybe even a businessperson. Folks who think this kind of program sounds like a waste of money won’t be convinced by a study done by folks who already believe in it.

There are dozens of environmentally helpful bills. I favor them; but the words “WE’LL BE POOR WITHIN THREE YEARS!” should be on every wall in the Roundhouse, as big as Chinese wall posters. Oil and gas provides a huge share of our economy; and that industry is not only cyclical in the best of times but ultimately doomed. Further, the federal pandemic-assistance money contributing to our present, temporary solvency ain’t gonna happen every year.

So I’d temper my enthusiasm for all the good ideas and programs and recognize that we face some very tough choices. Water supply, improving education, children, fighting global warming, our court system, and dozens of other important needs remain woefully underfunded. Most of these are “musts,” not “shoulds.” I’m not a legislator, let alone a financial guy, but we need to improve state revenues. The Opportunity Scholarship Act (SB140), providing for free college tuition and fees at any NM public or tribal college or university for residents maintaining a 2.5 GPA while working toward a degree, is a great idea. But is that a promise we can keep in down years?

I doubt the Governor’s Hydrogen Hub Development Act will truly benefit us or our environment. It will more surely help supporters Exxon, NMOGA, and Gallup’s Chamber of Commerce, none of them famous as committed environmentalists.

We must cap interest rates at a usurious 36%, freeing poor folks from the absurd, stratospheric rates that destroy their lives; we should have pursued a state bank, and taxing rich folks who (if any ever do) fly from the Spaceport into space at $200K per ticket; and in during a drought that climate-change is making worse, we need to give our State Engineer a long-term budget reasonably calculated to deal with a host of severe problems, including water studies, infrastructure, and, lest we forget, the Texas v New Mexico lawsuit in the Supreme Court.

Paid or not, I’m glad I’m not a state legislator.

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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 6 February, 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[By the way, also in this morning’s Sun-News, Algernon D'Ammassa's column makes a good point too many folks forget: that the First Amendment protects against government action violating the right it sets forth, not against editorial writing standards or criticism by private entities.]

[Not of sufficient public interest for a column, but instructive for us, was several days of isolation.  One of us had spent some time indoors, masked and vaccinated but within six feet, with someone who received positive COVID-19 test results a little later that day.  So we canceled  what we would have done for several days.  Five days after the exposure, we got tested, and two days after that we learned that the test results were negative.]  We were fortunate, or perhaps helped by masks, vaccination, and reasonable distance from the infected friend.  But what interested me was our mood during that time: we recognized that we might be infected, but felt good and had reasonable hopes of doing relatively well if we were; we were not particularly frightened or depressed.  I also found that despite the seriousness of the situation, suddenly not doing all the things I'd planned to do, or was committed to do, or love to do (e.g., outdoor pickleball most days) was a pleasant break in routine.  But it also made me appreciate  how things are for folks who can't afford to take time off from work, have pre-existing conditions that render them particularly vulnerable, and/or have been unable or unwilling to get vaccinated.  Or refuse to wear masks.  Although I understand people's concerns about masks and vaccination, the facts seem pretty clear, particularly the fact that the death rates, which are low in any case, are cut nearly to nothing if you've been vaccinated, and particularly if you've also had the booster shot.]

[I'd also urge anyone who does test positive to advise folks with whom s/he's had conduct IMMEDIATELY.  If I have coffee with you on Monday, and test positive on Tuesday, waiting 'til Wednesday or Thursday to tell you about that is discourteous and potentially harmful to the people you see Wednesday or Thursday but would have canceled your appointment with had you known of your own heightened vulnerability.]