Mark W. Tiedemann's Blog, page 2

Just To Be Clear…

Just to be clear…

I will be voting for Kamala Harris in November. Nothing radical or shocking in that, I intended to vote for anyone who had a chance of winning who is not Donald J. Trump. It helps this time that the candidate I’m voting for has some policy positions I can support unreservedly. 

We like to dismiss political ignorance in this country by attempting a blasé pose that “really, there’s not much difference between the two parties.” There may actually have been a time when that was largely true, but we have been watching a divergence of positions of tectonic proportions for the last 40 years.…

Anniversaries

Permit me to take a moment out from the current world mess to indulge a bit of personal nostalgia. Thirty Six years ago I was at Clarion, working hard and hoping I could become a writer, in company with some of the finest people I ever met, a number of whom are to this day among my best friends. It was the first time I had given myself over to such a program, had gone out of state to attend school (sort of) and had found the humility to know I couldn’t achieve my goal all on my own.

Did I achieve it?…

Single Cat Ladies

Single cat ladies…

Cats, it seems, have been politically representative for a long time. I suppose one could argue that from when the Egyptians deified cats, they have played a part in defining certain cultural affiliations. The association between cats and women who drew the disapproval of surrounding communities can be dated to when witchcraft dominated the fears of European populations.

Absurd, of course, but not the first absurdity to come with dire consequences for marginalized people.

Of course, this is part and parcel of the Right’s urgent attempt to return women to what might be termed the Domestic Sphere. Globally, there are a number of governments currently quite concerned about population growth.…

Harris

It has now been a couple of weeks. We were on vacation and pointedly ignored newscasts, so when we returned on that Sunday it was to the announcement (just made; I suppose they were waiting for us) that President Biden is stepping aside and passing the torch.

Politics as usual was never much of a thing, only to those who pay too little attention to what actually goes on and respond only to the surface, but this is one for the history books. Biden won all his primaries, so everyone assumed it was a done deal (forgetting of course that primaries and caucuses are not part of the Constitution, were in fact Party devices that were not formally adopted at a national level until after the 1968 election season, and then only as an attempt to avoid the kind of messy floor fights that were hallmarks at the national conventions.…

Louisville

Many years ago, Donna went to Louisville, Kentucky, on a business trip. The company she worked for sponsored a workshop and put them all up in the Brown and she raved about it ever since. We finally got to go together last weekend, in company with friends, and my first reaction is—we need another week.

The Brown Hotel is one of those landmarks that has been kept up to snuff and is redolent with the charm of a past that clings here and there and is easy to miss unless you’re looking. We stayed three nights. We will do this again.…

Root Division

In all the debate and analysis and angst over what those behind Project 2025 are doing and why, it is easy to get lost in the bog of details and motivations. A better question is why do so many people who would suffer under these proposals support them. When you look at the list of things they want to end, it boggles the mind that anyone who has to work for a living, who is dependent on a weekly paycheck, many whose expenses outstrip their income, and those who otherwise would wish to give their children an edge for the future would want any of this.…

Take A Breath

The Debate. Capital D. Everyone is undergoing meltdowns about it. Too many people are reacting as if this is the death knell of, well, Everything.

Chill. Firstly, read the transcripts. Right here. Then, for one interpretation, here’s an analysis from The Hill.  And just to round out some of this, here’s some Fact Checking from AP.

(Back in the 1960 presidential campaign—some of you may remember this—Nixon and Kennedy had a debate. At that time, a large segment of the population got most of their information from the radio, but this was the dawn of television, so the debate was both broadcast and televised.…

Eclipsing

Symbolic, perhaps. So much obscurantism. But, rather than dive into any of that, a photograph.

 

 

And, yes, it is available. Just go to the link and hit BUY and follow the instructions.…

Freedom and Its Contingencies, Part Two: Liberty

Abraham Lincoln pointed out in a speech that we have never had a good definition of Liberty. That most people used the word to mean different things. At base, we can perhaps agree that two meanings offering potential conflict are (1) Liberty from and (2) Liberty to. The war of independence was a major demonstration of the driving force of the first—separation from England—while once established the subsequent political struggle from then till now has been of the latter. Because we use the terms alternately—Freedom and Liberty—here perhaps more intently, it behooves us to come to grips with what they mean.…

One More Before Getting Back To Words

This one is another from back in the film days. Chinatown, San Fransisco, 2002. One of my favorites.

And, yes, it is available to purchase here.…