So now the Bad Neighbor has officially signed over the acres he'd bought to two neighbors who belong here, but retained the use of the land. They are thinking, bless their hearts, of sharing and forgiving and bringing back the old atmosphere the neighborhood had when we were all family and all Christians. He is thinking of poisoning them, outliving them, and getting it all. What they're getting meanwhile is a lot of bullets wasted on a fox with enough sense to stay out of traps, and a lot of poison sprayed in the woods where the wild orchids and ginseng grow. And now Serena's down to one kitten. It was crying, whether from loneliness or from pain or on general principles, but charcoal seemed to help. I'm afraid it's male.
History
Former President Obama reposted this on X and urged everyone to watch/listen. Well, he's the featured guest speaker; of course he wants people to watch/listen. I'm delighted to oblige. I think many of us at this web site are likely to find some points of historical debate, especially if we've read James Macpherson's detailed study of the social history of the Civil War years. Does not mean we should ignore Obama's perspective on being a triracial American. Many White Americans do prefer to tune out from this topic, because it feels like a guilt trip. This web site hereby challenges you to lean into the guilt trip and think, clearheadedly, without buying into Socialist bad ideas, about whether you might be able to do more to show and promote good will. Do you believe that not only States but counties, cities, neighborhoods, and households ought to do pretty much what they want? There's much to be said for that idea but is, e.g.,your city actively working toward proportionate representation in whatever government it has, from sanitation workers to the city council? Is tokenism, in which "DEI hires" are retained on jobs they're not doing well, a detestable thing and an insult to any group subjected to being "tokenized"? It is, but are people starting early to look for qualities that help people to be more than tokens--say, if the city needs more Black police detectives, keen and careful observation--in children and encourage those children to qualify for jobs?
A few months ago a toddler followed me around his parents' yard, trying to chatter. I listened to the tot's questions and answered them as best I could, and said things like, "Where are your parents? If you want to talk to other grown-ups, it's good to have your Mommy or Daddy with you." That's the kind of society we have become. When people my age were young most of us were told, "If something goes wrong and we, your parents, are at work, you can always go to Mrs. Vanzetti's house." That was the real name of one of the families in one of the neighborhoods where I was told that Mrs. Vanzetti was not a close friend of the family; she did not particularly like us, even her daughter who was in my class at school never claimed me as a friend, but she worked from home and would let any child wait on her porch if they were locked out of their house, use her phone to call for help if a parent was ill, that sort of thing. I am the kind of adult Mrs. Vanzetti was. I'm not infatuated with all children as such, have never looked at my home and thought "What it needs is a lot of rug rats climbing on the shelves and seeing what happens when they throw stereo speakers into the bathtub," but I would have charged into the house if what the tot had been trying to tell me had been something like "Mommy's lying on the floor and can't get up." Fortunately he was just trying to get somebody to throw a ball back to him.
Small children have such a craving for adult attention--and are so vulnerable when the wrong kind of adults exploit it. One way to help children resist traffickers and other abusers is to give them plenty of attention from adults of good will, and yet today the mere idea of tossing a ball back into somebody's yard, twice, makes adults of good will feel like Mr. Stranger Danger if everything's not been cleared with the child's parents.
Later in the day the same tot was in the same yard as someone drove past to drop me off after the day's work.
"What kind of kid is that?"
"An adorable one.," I said.
"Adorable now, but wait'll he grows up with everybody giving him a hard time about being a mixed breed."
Gentle Readers, what are you doing to help adorable children feel that most people, decent people, aren't going to give them a hard time if they are mixed breeds?
At some "conservative" sites I see people post things like "I have biracial or triracial grandchildren" and "Of course color prejudice is idiotic." They post supportive comments and links to things people of all types are doing right--everything from quotes from "serious, academic" books to pictures of models and dancers. Then when a certain kind of news story comes up it's "No points for guessing what the criminal looks like," and "You can tell that (person who just embarrassed self) was a DEI hire!" These people are not racists but they don't want to understand how minority-type readers have been trained to read those comments and think they are racists. They say things about some very specific types of behavior observed in various minority-type groups, the way I snark about the very specific (and not necessarily always White) kind of person known as a White Man From Town. Especially when they snark about the bad decisions of the "O Bummer" administration or the pathetic shortcomings of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. I'm not trying to defend anything about the Harris campaign when I say that these people's grandchildren will have an easier time growing up if they've seen these people campaigning for Tim Scott or Winsome Earle-Sears or some other pollie who looks more like the grandchildren's other grandparents. If they've heard us say, "Of course, Maya Angelou never outgrew socialism," but they've also heard us quote from her collected works, which live in our front room bookshelves.
The books reviewed here are meant to start thoughts or conversations:
I can imagine grandchildren not even wanting to discuss stories in these books because "No worries, Grandpa, I know you're cool." The trouble is that Grandpa's students, co-workers, deliverymen, etc., do not know this.
Music
John Mellencamp.
John Philip Sousa.
ZZ Top.
Fulton Adventist University College Choir. Don't they sound as American as apple pie? They are Fijian beneficiaries of the Adventist church's tradition of excellence in teaching English--partly through prayers, Bible texts, and religious songs.
Gap Band.
Bob Seger.
Frank Sinatra.
Santo & Johnny.
Sia. One of those videos that show how girls should not sound, look, or act unless they're "celebrities."
John Coltrane.
Ludovico Einaudi.
Ringo Starr.
Traffic.
Tom Petty.
