A Heathen’s Prayer

I am driving into town on Christmas Eve in a foul mood. The reasons range from the mundane to the metaphysical.

I am pissed off because I have to go to the grocery store, and I know I will be joining innumerable other idiots in the same boat. We will be rude to each other, race each other to parking spaces at the risk of life and limb, jostle shopping carts, mutter foul imprecations, and wait very badly in interminable lines. All of this because I am out of garlic, cheese, flour, greens and so on, all of which will be required at Christmas dinner tomorrow. Peace on Earth my ass!

I am also grouchy because the music coming from my radio has reminded me of The Divinity, and I am forever pissed off at Him/Her/It. Here is how it is.

Thirteen years of Catholic education pretty well cured me of any interest in formal mainstream religion. A university education in the natural and social sciences also banished any notion of an old guy with a beard floating on clouds and intervening in life on earth. Empirically there is no good evidence of a conscious Supreme Being or force or of the continuation of consciousness beyond death. An atheist buddy of mine celebrates his own empiricism with a bumper sticker which reads “Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime!”

That said physics, chemistry, and biology evidence patterns of great complexity and profound beauty; if it turned out the patterns are the product of something conscious, I wouldn’t be too shocked. I am an agnostic. I neither believe nor disbelieve. I don’t know, and I have accepted uncertainty as a condition of my life. Even so, I am angry with God on the premise that, if there is somebody in charge, He/She/It has much to answer for.

There is a lot of truly pointless misery here on this big blue ball. Sometimes it’s personal. My mother passed away a couple years ago after a prolonged and horrifying illness. She was a kind and harmless person, and had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. This small death, multiplied by millions, leaves our friend up there on the cloud with a lot of bad karma. There are rape victims in Somalia, people eaten by the great tsunami in Indonesia, earthquakes, political oppression, children and old folks alone and abused everywhere. If you dwell on it, and we all do from time to time, you can cop a serious attitude. Throw in a forced trip to a crowded supermarket and some bad Christmas music and the Big Guy will be bucking for a lump of coal in his stocking.

That’s when I see the kitten; a tiny black puff of fur about the size of my fist right there in the middle of the oncoming lane. He is dancing around terrified by the whizzing cars, and there is a big green SUV coming right for him. My eyes elevate skyward, and I ask, out loud “Is this really necessary?”

Yes, there are enough feral cats in the world. They kill millions of vulnerable wild birds and other creatures every year. They spread disease to other domesticated animals. The world will not miss this kitten, and the end will be quick and merciful. It's just that I’ve seen enough death and misery in my 50-odd years, and I don’t need to see any today, but apparently I will.

The little bugger flattens himself on the asphalt as the vehicle approaches. The driver is on her cell, and doesn’t even see him. I drive past at about what I judge to be the moment of impact, and glance in my rear view mirror in time to see the kitten safely reach the lawn of a roadside house and dive into the house-front shrubbery! He made it. I’ll be damned.

OK, probably just coincidence, but again, I choose to live with uncertainty. To cover my bases, I mutter thanks in the supermarket parking lot to nobody in particular.

Merry Christmas

Why I Live Here

There is a rental property just up the street from my house. The current occupants are frequently seen hanging out on the front porch smoking, and sipping Yuengling Lite, in even the coldest weather, I suppose because the landlord doesn’t allow smoking in the house. From this perch along the main road, they heap profane abuse on passers-by (including a friend of mine who had the temerity to park in the street in front of the place), spit, and complain of Obama.

As it is now the Holiday season, they have erected a display of mechanized puppetry about four feet high and brightly lit that depicts Rudolf helping Santa to clamber up and down a chimney. I believe this display was intended to be erected on a roof, but they do not appear to own a ladder or to be sober often enough to scale one, so Santa and Rudolf perform their little dance on the lawn next to the front porch. The vagaries of the wind and the uneven topography of the yard cause this display to collapse on its side several times a day, where Santa, now horizontal, continues to emerge from the plastic chimney and Rudolf continues to render assistance. Whenever this happens, passing children are exposed to the spectacle of what appears to be Santa and Rudolf engaged in something most unseemly. The occupants do not seem to notice this.

Displayed across the porch banister is a banner that proclaims “Proud Teabaggers”! This is, of course, a reference to the Tea Party, a deeply conservative political movement known for raising hell at public meetings of various kinds with loud and abusive rhetoric and threats. My part of Pennsylvania is so full of these cheerful folks that we have been featured in national media for the vocifery of our homegrown neocon radicals. Now the best part of all this is the proud adoption of the term “Teabaggers” and the teabag itself as a symbol of their movement. Sometime last summer, left-wingers started derisively labeling the members of the Tea Party movement “teabaggers”, which is, of course, a euphemism for a sex act, and can also refer to a technical angling term that describes what happens when a male fisherman wades just a bit too deep in the stream. In either case, the term is not a complement. The irony was wasted on the Tea Party folks who adopted the badge, and wear it proudly.

Good for them!

My point is; this is a pretty conservative part of the world. Remember James Carville’s characterization of Pennsylvania as “Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Alabama in the middle”? I am a hippy, what Garrison Keillor has called “a museum-grade liberal”. Several months ago, at a gathering of several hundred people taking in a Hoots and Hellmouth show in support of sustainable agriculture, it dawned on me that I knew or recognized almost everyone at the event. That’s because there are so few pinkos here, that it is possible to actually know every hippy in the county. So you might wonder what in God’s name I’m doing here? Why don’t I live in Missoula, or Boulder, or Santa Fe, or Eugene, or Berkley, or any of the other People’s Republics? Two reasons…

First, I’m good for these people and they’re good for me. I have a half dozen dear old friends who are regular listeners to Glenn Beck, Rush, and other creeps, and would vote for a rattlesnake if it won the GOP nomination. I mostly don’t talk politics with them. In fact, I made a pact with one of these guys years ago that we wouldn’t talk politics anymore. After a decade of bickering we discovered that taking either of our admittedly extreme political philosophies out to a logical end point brought us to a place of convergence. Unfortunately that place was a grim and pitiless internment camp; he was in mine and I was in his. Bring your own waterboard!

Point in fact, it’s good for the country and for all of us that we’re friends. While I find conservative politics mean, exclusionary and dumb, I don’t find my conservative friends that way at all. They’re generally kind, witty, and eminently decent people. They just think differently than I do. I assume they see me in the same light. I’ll think, speak and vote as I choose, but these folks aren’t my enemies and I’m not theirs. In my view we share the same planet, country, state, county and so on, and we have to find a way to co-exist. Gettysburg is not far from my house. There you can wander the long white rows of grave stones and consider well the consequences of irreconcilable politics.

The other reason I live here debarked in the port of Philadelphia sometime in the mid 18th century. My Dad’s people, Ulster Irish Presbyterians and Welsh, arrived here straight from the hostile confines of Northern Ireland and Wales, and made for the hills. They were as tough as hell, and had names like Baker, Williams, and McClure and they were accomplished miners, loggers, and farmers. They built “Kierks” like the First Presbyterian in Carlisle, and there thanked God for his providence. They made whiskey and played fiddles. They fought with the Indians and with each other. They labored at iron furnaces and farms, hewed log cabins, and followed the long green ridges deep into the Appalachian hinterlands. You see their names hereabouts on mailboxes, campaign posters, storefronts. I have roots here that extend to bedrock, and when I climb up on White Rocks or Center Point Knob or the Pole Steeple, or drink from the Whiskey Spring, or fish in Yellow Breeches Creek I am connected to something that by now is part of my DNA. Like the stream bank sycamores and the timber rattlers and the limestone bank barns, I belong here. I will not give up on this place because I am in the political minority, and I have enough ancestral hillbilly flintiness in me to refuse to be driven away.

There is an expanse of farmland just south of the village I live in. Those fields, now in corn stubble and dormant wheat and alfalfa, afford an expansive view west and south. This place has the most magnificent Winter sunsets imaginable, the light often breaking into shafts of orange and deep red tearing great holes in the clouds. It’s best if there’s some snow. I walk the dog there often this time of year and savor those sunsets like good wine. In such a place, and in the presence of such great beauty, I don’t ever doubt that I am right where I ought to be.

Happy Solstice!

Molé

Note: I changed my color combination at the request of people who I apparantly afflicted with headaches as a result of publishing in white over black. How the hell did I know?

Molé

Chiles and chocolate!? In Central Pennsylvania! Jesus H. Christ!

A habit I’ve fallen into over the last decade or so is a Mexican contribution to the usual North American holiday gluttony: preparing molé. My own recipe evolved from several cookbooks and from my own tastes. I’m not so hardcore that I make it in a stone mortar, but a friend from New Mexico says it’s pretty good.

Molé is said to be a throwback to Aztec Mexico. The almost blasphemous combination of sweet and bitter chocolate and fiery chiles is reputed to be restorative and a balm for impotence and other maladies of the loins.

It’s funny how often pungent food is said to affect the below-the-belt regions. Years ago, during a lunch break at work, I found myself at a local farmers market. As you might have guessed by now, I enjoy cooking. I was standing at a green grocer’s stand before a display of large purple bulbs of garlic and fresh Hawaiian ginger of the best quality. I had a generous fistful of each in my hands, already imagining the evening’s fabulous stir fry. Suddenly the great square head of one of my co-worker friends appeared over my shoulder.

This fellow lives in a gymnasium and his body is a temple. He can bench press more than 400 pounds, but he cannot successfully boil water. Staring suspiciously at the goodies in my hands he blurted out “What the hell’s that good for?” I glared back at this ignorant rube and replied “This will put lead in your pencil!” I got a blank stare in response. His old lady of some years had recently flown the coop. Presently he replied “I don’t have anybody to write to!” I suggested he could perhaps start keeping a diary. We burst into loud howling like schoolboys and the green grocer made us leave because we were disturbing the other shoppers.

Mole can be used to roast chicken or turkey, and the resulting delicacy is usually served with corn tortillas, cheese and green chili. Beans and rice are good too. You will need beer and maybe ice cream to extinguish the flames. Feliz navidad!

Molé
Makes about a quart of thick sauce
Two dried Ancho chiles
One dried Chipotle
A half cup of boiling water
Four large cloves of garlic
One medium onion
One corn tortilla
One fresh or frozen jalapeno
One teaspoon ground cumin
One teaspoon ground cinnamon
One quarter cup of raisins
One quarter cup of pine nuts
One teaspoon of sea salt
One half teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
One and a half cups of chicken stock
Two heaping tablespoons (or more to taste) of good local unpasteurized honey
One disk (about three and a half ounces) of sweetened Mexican Chocolate (I use Ibarra)


Reconstitute the dried chiles in half a cup of boiling hot water (it will take about 15 minutes) then remove the core and seeds. The chiles and a few tablespoons of the water go into a food processor (or a stone mortar if you’re really hard core). Next add the garlic, onion, tortilla (torn into pieces), jalapeno, cinnamon, cumin, raisins, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Blend these ingredients into a thick paste. In a medium sauce pan, warm up the chicken stock and the remaining water from reconstituting the chiles, and add the paste from the food processor. Heat this to a slow simmer/boil on low heat, stirring often. Add the honey, stirring it in well. Break the chocolate into pieces and gradually add them to the saucepan, stirring until they melt and blend in. Continue simmering and stirring for about 15-20 minutes, the sauce will thicken but remain thin enough to pour. FYI, it freezes well if you don’t want to use it right away.

An Introduction and a Short Essay

"What the hell is this?", you might ask. Fair enough...

I am interested in all kinds of things as the title of this blog suggests, and I intend to write about them.

It may prove to be the case that I have nothing of any great import to contribute to the ether, in which case this is simply another dose of electronic narcissism. The web is full of such stuff.

Or this may pass as entertainment,grist for various mills, education, advocacy, and other high and low minded doings.

I'll try to post here weekly and I guess we'll see what it is.

DBear

La Pietá

I saw her on my way out of the building after work; a prim and pretty young woman in a sweater and a modest skirt. She sat on a concrete bench out by the sidewalk and next to her was a potted plant and a stack of boxes, the measure of a career begun and cut short by the wave of Government layoffs here in Pennsylvania. She held a cell phone to her ear and was silent as I walked past. There was a blue well of sorrow in her eyes, but no tears. She sat upright, calm and composed, dignified.

Twain said “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not the absence of fear.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about this young woman as I drove home. It is a month before Christmas. I imagine there may be a mortgage, no health insurance, a car payment, kids, and a spouse whose own job security is threadbare. These are circumstances that can leave families on the street, even in the richest country on earth. Her calm and her strength and her sorrow seemed bigger than the whole world. They contrasted mightily with those who put her on that bench.

It is not necessarily the fault of political and agency leadership that the economy took a tumble or that layoffs occurred. The same thing has happened in the private sector. There are other things, things more egregious, which can be laid at their feet. There is the spinelessness that keeps legislators and executives from telling the voters that you get what you pay for. There is the cynicism that allows them to blame the world’s troubles on “big government” or “faceless bureaucrats” as a smokescreen for ruining some people and rewarding their friends. There is the cold calculation that causes them to heap the worst of the cutbacks on environmental, community planning and cultural programs, and other program areas with small voting constituencies and limited capacities for political contributions. There is the ruthlessness that allows them to withhold the likely effects of the cutbacks from the affected employees until a day or two before they are sitting on a concrete bench next to a potted plant and a stack of boxes. There is the hubris that allows them to bicker their way through legally mandated deadlines and play chicken with other people’s futures.

When our legislative and executive leadership is held up to the light of that young woman’s courage, they all wither into small and pathetic things. While they all pull down substantial salaries and are all immune to the reign of terror they have unleashed, they will leave this world like the rest of us will. When that last moment comes their status and money and power won’t matter. What will matter is strength, integrity and dignity. They will come up short.

I will likely never see that young woman again, but I hope she is OK. If she really does have children, I hope her kids inherit her composure and bravery. I hope they grow into the kinds of people who make a better world with better leaders. I think their mother deserves no less.